Year 5 Camp Quarantine Island - Kaumau Taurua

Last week on Thursday the Year 5 children headed out to the wharf at Portobello. We were excited to climb aboard the Albatross Express. Many children looked like they had packed for a month long camping trip! They struggled aboard with their huge bags!

With the wind in our hair and excitement levels high we headed over the narrow strait to Quarantine Island - Kaumau Taurua.

We hiked up the hill on arrival and hauled all of our gear and food up. We settled into our bunkrooms and headed out for an explore around the island. We were amazed at how beautiful and rugged the island is and how far away from it all we felt!

We walked around the island and learnt about the history of the Island.

The island served as the Quarantine station for Otago from 1863 until 1924. It was one of four in New Zealand. When ships arrived in Otago harbour with infectious diseases, passengers were quarantined for that disease, usually one to two weeks, but sometimes longer. The few passengers that were actually sick were treated in the hospital on top of the island. In total 41 ships were quarantined at the island. Of about 9,000 people quarantined about 70 died. There is a small cemetery on the island, the University of Otago are scanning the cemetery to identify some of the unmarked graves. Walking outside and exploring on the Island was heaps of fun.

We had yummy burgers and potato wedges for dinner with a side of coleslaw. After dinner we made the most of the beautiful weather and the children enjoyed being outside for a torchlight dance party!

We had milo, had a story and stuffed full of delicious baking and headed off to bed for a sleepless night! ... a 4:30am get up by some of the boys resulted in a "talk", and those boys enjoyed doing all of the breakfast dishes and cleaning while the other children played outside.

A morning of packing and exploring the rocky shore was next. We found so many marine animals including rockfish, sea stars, heaps of huge crabs! Back on the boat we waved goodbye to the island. We were very lucky to be treated to the wonderful sight of two Hector's Dolphins playing in the water in Portobello Bay. This was a very exciting with many squeals of delight from us all!

After that excitement we went to the Portobello Marine Science Centre to learn more about our harbour through a programme. called "Food webs". It was awesome to find out about predators, sea weeds, plankton etc in our neighbourhood.

We were lucky to head to Paula and Brendan Cross' farm in Portobello. We were treated to Ted and Toad the working dogs round up some sheep. Brendan used lots of different whistles. It was amazing. He then sheared a sheep and we watched them being weighed and drafted. We then went and walked across the farm to check out an area of landslide and erosion.

We then visited Constable Aaron Smith and the Volunteer Fire Brigade in Portobello. We enjoyed learning about how they help to keep our community safe, got to see Aaron put out some road spikes, see his safety gear, he showed us his taser too! We enjoyed using the fire hose and sitting in the truck too!

Year 5 Camp was fantastic! Thanks so much to Mr D for all of your hard work organising camp for us!