We'd already had a taste of climbing and abseiling during Orientation... so now it was time to step it up a notch and get amongst the beautiful rock climbing that can be found around Christchurch before we headed north to the golden beaches of Takaka to climb the Paynes Ford area.

Rapaki Rock on the Port Hills was our first port of call, and we spent the day there overlooking Christchurch learning how to climb and belay, how to tie knots and set up anchors, how to look after gear and coil ropes and so much more!  The next day, after a well deserved BBQ and movie the night before, crag number two was Cattlestop - also on the Port Hills and a chance to build on what we'd learnt the day before.  The following weekend, we hit up Albert Terrace and back to Cattlestop and with everyone showing huge progression, Takaka was calling our names.  We arrived at Pohara Beach Holiday Park in the rain and with a formidable forecast, but the weather gods were good to us and blessed us with 3 beautiful days of climbing Paynes Ford and the Seacliff walls.   Two of the highlights were definatley the "Bell Tower" and "The Acid Test".... not to mention swimming and jumping off cliffs at the river.

We'll continue our climbing throughout the year with trips to Castle Hill and when the weather isn't great up the mountain, we'll likely head to the Port Hills again...

After our amazing kick off with Orientation, we didn’t waste any time switching our tramping boots and packs for paddles and kayaks as we dove head first into our kayaking module. As always with OPC everyone has thrown themselves headlong into the activity and gone hard throughout the module!

We started with early morning pool session at the Geraldine High School Pool. We used these sessions to establish the basics of kayaking – how to exit our boats and how to rescue ourselves and our fellow kayakers. From there, we headed out to a place called “the ditch” for some flat water practice and to get the hang of trying to make our boats go in a straight line. It’s not as easy as it sounds!

Then it was time to step it up a notch and take our skills we have learnt onto moving water. We started off with the Orari and Rangitata, , cranked up our river skills paddling on both lower volume technical water and fast flowing large volume rivers with some awesome wave trains! We had an awesome weekend as we camped out in a sheep paddock in the amazingly beautiful Peel Forest region, one of Canterbury plains last remaining patches of Podocarp forest.

The following weekend, a surf trip to Sumner Beach was thwarted when the Tsunami warning hit the East Coast of NZ, so we kicked into Plan B – load up 12 kayaks, add in a raft and head to the Rangitata for some fun on the water!

We ended our kayaking module last week with an epic four day trip into the Hurunui River Valley in North Canterbury. We spent 4 nights camped out under the stars and the rain (it’s probably about time we were dished out some rain on activity!), secluded from the world without the constant distraction of cell phones and TV, enjoying each other’s company, the environment and it goes without saying, charging huge days as hard as we could on heaps of different river sections with some even finding the time to climb up to the top of the mountain by the campsite and watch the sun go down! Everyone pushed themselves throughout the module from the first day to the last Sunday morning on the Hurunui River, where some pushed themselves to paddle Grade 3 rapids down Maori Gully, while others continued to strive for Eskimo Rolls or perfect ferry glides..... Awesome trip!!