On November 29th, three St Peter’s Students, Ava Wiegersma, Isaac Breen, and Luke Gemmill, as well as Otago Boys' student, Ashton Hansen, along with Mr Ryan and Mrs Thompson, set off on a 4-day tramp to the Greenstone Caples for our Duke of Edinburgh Gold practice and Ashton’s qualifying journey. As a part of the award, we needed to set a journey aim for our trip; our aim for this trip was the biodiversity of our surroundings. Biodiversity is looking at the different kinds of life you find in an area. On the first day of our tramp, we saw two gaggles of Canadian geese, as well as some regular New Zealand garden birds. We also spotted some fantails later on in the tramp, and we also heard many other birds. In 2023, 18 takahe were returned to the Greenstone Caples areas; sadly we did not see any, but it was pretty cool knowing that we could be within a few metres of the nationally vulnerable bird. Throughout the trip we saw many different types of plants, various types of moss all on the same rock, and Mr Ryan taught us about the different types of beech trees, and how we can identify them by the size of their leaves. Luke was busy filming and taking photos of the biodiversity to create a short documentary of our trip. We stayed in huts each night and met people from all over the world, hearing stories from some of their experiences from other countries. In total we walked 61km in four days. We enjoyed the scenic views and the time outdoors, but we were happy to finish and have the treat of getting Ferg Burger on the way home. I would like to thank Mr Ryan and Mrs Thompson for taking time away from their families to come on our tramp and teach us about the biodiversity of the Greenstone Caples.
· Ava Wiegersma
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