Fun times at arataki

Crunch, crunch! That was mostly what we heard as we walked around the bush searching for the perfect place where lots of bugs would be hiding. Jez, I just tripped over the uneven ground.  

It was wednesday 27th of  une, a bright and sunny day. Room 8, Room 7 and Room 6 had made the long journey out of the classrooms,  ll the way to Arataki in the Waitakere Ranges, on a big windy bus.

First we went on a bug hunt. In my group there was Eli, Nuridan, Savina, Saana, my Mum and I.  Eli and I were buddied up, Nuridan and Muhmood, and Svina and Saana were the last pair of buddies.  Together Eli and I found and captured a massive black spider, a mosquito that had large oval wings on closer inspection.  

To catch both of them Stacy the Ranger had shown us how to use a poota (bug collectors), a small container with two pipes sticking out through the lid, one was short and the other one was long.  s team of two people, one was a bug sucker and the other one was a bug finder.  The bug finder would find a nice collection of decomposing vegetation and put a big pile of the vegetation into a big tray.  hen they shifted it around with their hands. The bug sucker’s job was to look carefully as the bug finder shifted the soil. As soon as the bug sucker sees the bug he puts the small tube in their mouth and the long tube slightly over the bug and suck fast. That collects the bug into pooter for closer inspection.

After our hunt we had a workshop inside the impressive visitors centre. We went to the workshop and learnt about the life cycle of a leaf. Chew, chew, poo, poo. Ranger Stacy said that as she explained how invertebrates were nature's recyclers. We learnt that after a leaf has finished its job of photosynthesis, changing carbon dioxide and water into oxygen and sugar, it falls off the plant to become food for the invertebrates. They chew the leaf and what comes out the other end turns into soil, strong in nutrients. This is then absorbed by the roots of the tree and is used to grow new leaves. Then the cycle begins again.  

Lastly we went for a hike. As we headed over to the upper loop track , I told my grup that we were going the wrong way and guess what, we got lost! So we had to go back, go through the tunnel and up towards the upper loop track. There was ton of tracks blocked off because of the kauri dieback disease. Finally it was time to go. We headed back towards the information centre. Once we got back we jumped on the bus that was gonna take us back to school.

I think that my trip to arataki was fun and i think more people should go there. enjoy :p