Last week DOC accompanied us to the local wetlands area where we spent some time exploring -  discovering what creatures and plants live in the wetlands and what types of birds you may find.

The visit also turned into a physics lesson as the kids learnt just how much force is required to extract a gumboot from the suction of the swamp without taking your foot out or losing your balance. Sadly, Miriam missed this physics lesson and ended up flat on her back in the mud.

Last year Lake Rotoiti School adopted a Doc hut - Beebys. Adopting a hut means we signed up to look after and maintain it. Last week was our first trip up to do some R&M so we piled into 4 wheel drives in the morning and made the trek up. It was a fairly steep drive but after a fair amount of jostling and bouncing we popped through the clouds.

After some morning tea and a run around it was time to clean. With the adults supervising the kids split into groups of three, each with different tasks. There was rubbish to pick up, firewood to stack, windows to clean, walls and surfaces to wipe down and of course...the dreaded toilet clean. The kids got stuck in with some gusto and though some adult help was required to clean the chimney and design and install a new toilet roll holder the kids managed the rest by themselves.

A sausage sizzle for lunch and then it was time to explore the area looking at plant and bird life and completing a bird count. Our mission on the way down was to spot, identify and remove (if possible) pest species (gorse, broom and pine) for Doc to destroy.

Although there was cleaning work involved the kids all had a great time and look forward to going up again later in the year.

Our trip up to Beebys made the newspaper. Read about it here.