Waka

Today Room 6 drove to Clive river to go for a waka ride. We had parents to drive us there. They were Maia s dad ,Georges mum and some other parents. I went with Maia’s dad. His car is a Honda Odyssey. I went with Maia’s dad and  Maia,Julius,Brooklyn and Mary.

We left school. It took us about 20 minutes to drive to Clive. We had to turn off at Fremden road. Then spot the rowing club sign. Turn down the stone drive. Then over the bank, turned right and on to some grass. Then we parked. Then we got out off the cars. We waited for Mr Moriarty to come. He finally arrived with Julius’s nan.

Then we all stood around waiting till we could go on the waka. Some people were excited and some were nervous. I was one of the nervous people. Then we all ran over to get a life jacket each and put them on. Then we walked over to an adult to see if the life jackets were tight enough. Then some of room 6 discovered that there was a whistle on them and they started to blow them. Mr Moriarty got sick of it so he blew his whistle. Then he told us to come over to him. Room 6 did.

Then Jim Edwards the waka leader was telling us bit of a story. Then Jim showed us some weapons. They were sharp. One of them had a head carved into it. The one that had a head on it the people that they were fighting against thought they going to throw it because it was sharp but they didn't. Instead they would use the other end to whack the other people. This other one had a triangle on a stick.

These were the commands Jim gave us were Kia riti which means get ready. Tokihi which means work together and maintaining the rhythm. The third one hoe which means paddle. The fourth one whakamutu which means stop. Ta papa lean forward. Tipuna means ancestors. The ancestors were carved on the side of the waka. Tumatauenga which means god of the war.

Then all room 6 got a piece of carpet. Then we climbed aboard the waka in the Clive River. The water was murky. Sometimes we would stop paddling and hold up our hoe straight into the air pointing to the sky. Then do a pukana. We paddled under and past Clive bridge. We paddled past lots of houses along the way. Then we had to turn around and come back. We had some help from Jim. Then all of room 6 and the parents started to paddled in reverse for a few minutes. As we were paddling forward again there were patches of weed in the water and sticking above. We paddled under and past the bridge once more. Then we had to turn again. But this time we had to do it by ourselves without the help of Jim. The people on the left side of the waka had to paddle with the backside of the paddle out so it was facing to the bank. The people on the right side had to put the green and white side, pointing to the other bank on the other side, pushing out like the people on the left.

Then we arrived back at where room 6 started. We hopped off the waka. Walked over the little bridge. Room 6 took off their life jackets and put them back into the boxes where we found them. We hopped back into the cars that we came in and drove back to school. It took about 20 minutes again. He waka eke noa, which means we are all in the waka together.

The hardest part was paddling backwards. The fun part was paddling. Something I learnt was the waka weighs 6 tons on its own.