William Pike Challenge Award

Our (expected to be the final) Outdoor Challenge was epic , and I am looking forward to making this an annual event. We drove south out of Auckland, leaving the motorway at Mercer and driving for 50 minutes through the stunning Waikato region to a gorgeous spot 3 kilometres from the coast. We were going  caving ! The Nikau Cave is situated on a farm belonging to our hosts, Philip and Anne. The idea of walking through an underground river for one kilometre was a little daunting, not that the Pikelets wanted to admit it! The dark yawning gape of a cave mouth that greeted us was gentled by the song of native birds and the trickling of a gentle stream as it played its music across the rocks. The stream flowed out of the cave, and that's where we were going! Our time underground was amazing. The first third of the cave was the most difficult, kind of like exploring rock pools at the beach - in the dark! The soft knocking sounds as heads bumped on the ceiling made us grate...

I headed out on a pre-visit to the location of our Mystery Challenge this week.  I had a fantastic time with our hosts, and am excited to take the Pikelets out next week. I got wet, scratched and cold - and had a wonderful time!  I expect this to be one of the more challenging challenges, and hopefully a grand finale to our year together. That said, over the next few weeks we still have a celebration evening to plan, videos to create, and thank you's to send. The students are also thundering through their community service and passion project hours with completion statistics reaching up to 600%. Applications for 2020 will be opening after end of year assessments are completed. We have some eager students keen to get involved next year which is great! Counting down the sleeps till Tuesday....