2021 Whakaipo Bay (Purple Contingent)

Written by Ciara - Bosun of the Purple Contingent

Contingent purple started off the camp with mountain biking. We started by collecting bikes and riding over to the tracks. As the day went by everyone completeld tracks to their different levels. We found tracks that we all enjoyed but by far my favorite track was scaggs and scaggs return or as like to call it bumpy bumps and seesaw. Mountain biking tested everyone skills. Overall everyone ended up finishing the day with a smile.

Everyone together in front of the MTB Hire

Quinn & Matt preparing to set off

The second day of activites we had camp day. This day was also my birthday. We started the day off with a small sail. This lasted around 15 minutes. We had a little sail round the bay. We found an old biscuit in the storage shed and decided to try it out. Knowing our luck it broke the first time we tried it. With a little help from some rope and duck tape we got it to work. We spent most of the day using that. Me and Alex decided that we were going to swim out to the 200m bouey. This was a struggles cause of the waves but we made it in the end. The rest of the night was all based around my birthday. A little party, some cake, and a night swim. Overall this day had alot of laughter and smiles.

Preparing to go sailing

Ciara excited by her birthday present of
pinapple lumps and chocolate fish

We then had the kayaking day. We spent the day kayaking down the river. Well most of us did. Some of us decided that it was to hot to kayak so we decided to swim down it. Liam, Magnus and I tied our kayaks on to Grant and he was kind enough to pull them down the river. Thanks Grant. As we kayaked and swam down the river we stopped off in a few places. Starting with the swings into the water. The people who made the swings were there and were kind enough to give us a hand. There were a few reservations but we got basically everyone to have a turn (We even convinced Vanessa to do the high one.) There was also the hot pools along the way we stopped there as well. They were very relaxing. The kayaking was definitely very chill and relaxed. Overall this was a main highlight.

A few people lining up to swing (including Vanessa)

Ruan taking it easy

Taking it easy in the Hot Pools

The final activity was meant to be sailing to the Maori carvings but it was to windy. So instead we went and played football minygolf. It was extremely hot and after the first 9 holes we all kind of got a bit sore tracked and started giving up. I think the heat was getting to us. After we all almost died from the heat we went to spa park and had lunch at the playground and of course we had to stop for an ice block. We had a pretty good day overall. Sad we didn't get to see the Maori carvings or sail.

2021 Whakaipo Bay (Green Contingent)

Written by Hamish - Bosun of the Green Contingent

As our first activity my contingent (the green one) went for a big sail from Acacia Bay to our campsite at Whakaipō Bay stopping at the Māori carvings. The day started with some impressive trailer reversing from Kym, Derrick and Dougal and some speedy rigging from the scouts. After a bit of difficulty with radios we were off and sailing to the carvings just after morning tea. We had some great wind so it was very smooth sailing for a few hours to the carvings with some scouts having turns driving the patrol boat on the way (some better drivers than others). We shared our M~aori carvings viewing experience with a tourist boat that one of our cutters had a very near miss with. Once we were done looking at the carvings we started sailing to our home bay and got all the boats anchored up there at around 6 ending an overall great day of sailing.

Xavier helming away from the carvings

Ethan, Bronson, Amelia and two others

Our second activity was a nice relaxing kayak down the Waikato River. With some borderline illegal kayak transport we arrived at our starting point and were greeted with a group of people blowing up inflatable unicorns and pandas to float down the river on. We launched the kayaks with the people with the inflatables following suit. We had lots of stops along the river with some people hopping off their kayaks to go for little swims. We waited a few minutes at the bungy jumping (GO CHLOE) and saw someone get completely dunked. And had a nice visit to the hot pools as well. On the way down the river some people chose to get comfortable lying down and drifting, however Gabi took relaxing a bit far by falling asleep and almost rolling into the water. Eventually we all made it back intact including Kym who did the whole journey without a paddle. I personally loved kayaking as it was a very relaxing day.

L-R Back: James, Xavier, Freddy
L-R Front: Sean, Bronson, Calvin

L-R: Toby, Nathaniel (facing away), Sean, Ethan

Toby & Calvin enjoying the hotpools

Our third activity was the camp day. We started off by immediately rigging the boats with some people sailing and some staying on shore biscuiting. I started off on the water and after some technical difficulties with our boat we were off. It was a very windy day. The cutters were all leaning over and going very fast until one leaned over a bit too far…. Bronson now has 5 cutter capsizes under his belt. After the capsize it was deemed a bit too windy to sail and my crew sailed in as the other boat (now a bathtub) was towed back into shore. We all spent the rest of the day relaxing and biscuiting. I liked the camp day, especially the windy sailing.

Nathaniel, Toby, Cath, Bronson, Xavier and James after their turns

Freddy (front), Amelia (middle) & Zoe awaiting their turn on the biscuit

Last but certainly not least my contingent did mountain biking. I am a very avid mountain biker so this was definitely my favourite day. We collected our bikes and I started leading a group on a little adventure. We started off on scraggs and had a few early crashes with James doing a frontflip off a drop. Me and 7 others ended up on the other side of the park on some epic trails but we had to head back for a break as the sweltering heat was exhausting to say the least. After our break we went on an even bigger climb to some more trails with most people walking at the end, although after riding down the trails everyone agreed it was worth it. I loved this day as I got to see tons of people getting ‘sendy sendy’ and enjoying my favourite sport.

Ethan and Sean on one of the drops

Hamish navigating the see-saw

2020 - Term 4 - News and Roundup

Hi, So the summer term began, with regattas and sailing and kayaking and swimming and even cycling.  Certainly this term we packed a lot in.  Our sailors and rowers were a credit this term, taking home some good wins, including a first time junior crew who took honours in seamanship at the Onepoto Regatta. This was also our first full term of our new "Youth Lead" approach, giving the older scouts the opportunity to lead programme evenings and activities.  They even lead some parts of regattas, assigning crews and organising the boat unloading, loading, rigging and derigging.

Term 4 roundup

Rowing and Sailing We had several evenings of dedicated rowing and sailing instruction this term.  The majority of the training came from the youth leaders at scouts.  Clearly it was quite successful as is demonstrated but the amount of success we had at regattas through the term. Ethan, Hamish and Magnus are worthy of mention when it came to these evenings, leading them all exceptionally well.

Visit to Whitby Scouts Whitby Scouts invited us to attend one of their programme evenings on a Tuesday.   Our scouts opted to have two scout evenings that week and had a blast at both.   Whitby entertained us with "Panto-horse races" which were a novelty to us.  There are lots of pictures here:   https://photos.app.goo.gl/ypcw771QrUNe8BJW7

Onepoto Regatta This years Onepoto regatta had a few weeks lead in which meant we got everyone a little practice before getting them on the water.   Saturday was fantastic sailing weather with light breezes and calm waters.  Sailing was brilliant and the rowing even better. Sunday was drizzly and misty but still warmish.  Iron Scout, Kayaking and Seamanship all recorded good results for us, with firsts in Iron Scout and Seamanship and several second places in all of them. More is on the blog:   http://ngatitoaseascouts.blogspot.com/2020/10/onepoto-regatta-2020.html The picture below is our junior seamanship crew doing a dry run of the seamanship exercise before the real thing.  These are the guys who won!

Levin & Kapiti Regattas Levin was not a regatta in the traditional sense, more like a visit to Paraparaumu to sail with our sister troop, Kotuku.  The days started reasonably well, but the weather got the better or us.  More news and pictures here:  https://ngatitoaseascouts.blogspot.com/2020/11/2020-levin-regatta.html Kapiti Regatta was far more successful and we even had some good results out of it.  More on this here: https://ngatitoaseascouts.blogspot.com/2020/12/2020-kapiti-regatta.html

Bike ride, Swamp tests, Campfire & Beach fun The rest of the term was a mass of fun organised by the youth leaders in the troop including all of the above.  Some fo them (Bike Ride & Swamp Tests) have write ups of their own but the Campfire and Beach Fun evenings were special for their own reasons. The campfire organised at the home of one of the Youth Leaders, provided a an informal evening to cook sausages and marshmallows and run around in farm paddocks for an evening playing wide games.  It was not a traditional camp fire but that did not detract from the fun that was had. The last night of term, we kayaked some scouts over to Plimmerton Beach while the rest walked and we all had a picnic on the beach, playing games and swimming in the sea.  A great evening, again, organised by the youth leaders as an end of year send off.

Individual achievements

Invested Several of our new scouts were invested during the term this year and are now fully fledged members of the troop.  The investiture was held outside in the dark, to allow parents to watch during the Alert Level 2 when we were contact tracing.  This was something different and quite fun.  They are: Rose Ruan Welcome to the troop and we wish you loads of scouting fun. Sandford "Young Leaders" course This course is a full on two days of learning and doing on how to lead (and how to follow a leader). 3 of our scouts completed this course successfully in October. Max Sean Charlie Well done, all of you.

Looking ahead

2021 Whakaipo Bay Camp When: Sunday 20 January til 26 January Where: Whakaipo Bay, Taupo Harbour Race When: Sunday 14 February @ 9:00 am Where: Greta Point, Evans Bay Kapiti Coast Zone Raft Race When: Sunday 21 February @ 9:00 am Where: Pauahatanui Inlet Worser Bay Regatta When: Sunday 28 February @ 9:00 am Where: Worser Bay Yacht Club Hickson Regatta When: Sunday 14 March @ 9:00 am Where: Greta Point, Evans Bay Cutty Sark Regatta When: Sunday 2 April - 4 April Where: Napier Swimming Sports When: Sunday 22 May @ 3:00 pm Where: Canons Creek Pool LNI Prize Giving When: Thursday 17 June @ 7:30 pm Where: TBA

2020 Kapiti Regatta

The weather could not have been more friendly, even it it did only last for half a day, it was the right half of the day! Sunshine and mild winds in the morning picked up to overcast and moderate winds for the long race which most of us finished pretty quickly. Certainly I was back in just over an hour and a half and I was near the back of the field.

As results go we did reasonably well on Sunday, getting some good positions and seeing some very good sailing from the scouts. We had no venturers so some of our older scouts took on the role and sailed in their classes.

Well done to Sean, Matt, Xavier and Hamish for helming successful boats. Will and his crew got a win in their cutter in the Tokomapuna (Airplane island) race and Xavier got a second in the open class with me as crew. Sean and Matt had two placings.

GROUP POINTS

Group	Scout Points	Venturer Points	Open Points
Britannia	5	4
Eastern Bays
St James	10	12	18
Ngati Toa	8	4	10
Paraparaumu Beach	3	4
Kotuku	1		4
Westshore

INSHORE RACE

SUNBURST	1st	2nd	3rd
Scout	St James	Britannia	Ngāti Toa
Senior
Open	Ngāti Toa

CUTTER	1st	2nd	3rd
Scout
Venturer	St James	Paraparaumu Beach	Ngāti Toa
Open	St James	Kotuku

OFFSHORE RACE (AIRPLANE ISLAND)

SUNBURST	1st	2nd	3rd
Scout
Venturer	St James	Britannia	Ngāti Toa
Open	St James	Ngāti Toa

CUTTER	1st	2nd	3rd
Scout	Ngāti Toa	St James	Paraparaumu Beach
Venturer
Open	St James

Cycling trip to Hongoeka Bay

by Alfie

We met at the Den and the weather was perfect for our bike ride. The high winds and rain had died away and the sun was out. Before we set off we did a short presentation about bicycle maintenance and road safety. We then went outside to check everyone's bikes. Lucky everyone's bikes were in perfect order. We then set off in our patrols across the domain.

We set off down the Ara Harakeke pathway towards Plimmerton. During this trip, everyone stayed together in their patrols. We followed this pathway until we reached Plimmerton. When we reached Plimmerton we moved from the walkway to riding on the side of the road. We continued along the side of the road until we reached the pathway alongside the ocean at which point cars were coming regularly along the road. At this point, we switched back to the walkway all the way to the Marae. 

Hannah near the Plimmerton Firestation

Liam, Ruby and Ciara bringing up the rear

When we reached the marae we waited for everyone to catch up. Since we were ahead of schedule, we decided to go further than planned and went to the headland further along the path. We stopped here for a bit. Hamish and Will went out onto the rocks and sang songs while Zoe and her friends caught crabs. While we were having a break, a group of scouts climbed a large rock, despite being told not to. Jesse fell off the rock and had to be sent to the hospital as he had sliced his knee open on a rock.

Hanging around at the point

Jesses knee (He had 11 stitches later!)

After Jesse had been driven to the hospital, we set off back to the den. There was no incident on the way back. When we got back to the den, we had a game of infection tag, then a game of poison ivy. We then had flag down and left for the night.

A few more pictures are available here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/xke93nmSjcfMU11a7