In the week before the Senior Prizegiving our International Students too a road trip to the Taranaki. Coming along for the ride were our three GAP students, Breanna (Canada) and Sebastian and Lino (Germany). First stop was Stratford at the Pioneer village where the students were able to see first hand the types of buildings common in the period from 1890 to 1910. Seeing all wooden buildings was something different from what the students were used to seeing in their home countries. The Police Station, Classroom and the Jailhouse received a lot of attention and some interesting photos were taken by the students. It was a very worthwhile stop and we couldn’t do it justice in the hour we spent there.
Next stop was the beachfront in New Plymouth where the students were given an hour to have lunch, explore some of the main shopping area or to wander along the boardwalk. Puke Ariki, the fabulous local museum was next on the itinerary and the students found the modern displays of early Taranaki history easy to understand. Ji Su Song (Korea) found that the display on the Taranaki War a great help for her Y13 New Zealand History revision.
All day long the students had seen Mt Taranaki from differing perspectives as we worked our way around the mountain on our journey and a group of students wanted to get as close as possible so we changed our plans and diverted at Egmont Village towards the Department of Conservation Centre. While the mountain looked impressive during the day it was even more magnificent up close. A lot was packed into a very enjoyable day for all concerned.
