My Waka Experience

At the Noho Marae we went to the Waka Experience. First we had to walk from Tunohopu Marae to the lake-front. It was about a 15-20 minutes walk. When the Discovery academy got to the lake-front we had to learn some paddling skills.

Once we learnt how to paddle, our instructor told the rules about the Waka. There were only two waka. They could fit 24 children in each waka. So some kids had to wait their turn. We had 40 minutes on the Waka. When we were on the Waka we had to learn a chant which was Kokri he!

When the waka was far out, this plane was coming into land on the lake. So everyone on the Waka started to get worried. Once the plane flew over us everyone went still calm again.

Then we started to make our way back to shore, suddenly the other waka came rushing up behind us. So then we started to go faster, then it became a race back to shore and we won.

I think that was really awesome when we had our race against the other team.


By Zoe Squires