Maui Hunt's story of his experience at Outward Bound: Anakiwa
It started with an early rise at 6.30 am on the 5th July 2021. I travelled by myself to the Wellington airport to jump onto another plane to Picton. A van ride to Picton ferry, and a calm ferry ride across. I landed in Anakiwa at 10.30 that night.
It was a great experience. The trip was designed to gain life skills, meet people and work with different people from around NZ, and experience the outdoors. Most of what we had to do was quite easy, but to some, it might have been challenging. With my experience jumping off the McLarens falls bridge I didn’t fear the 22m of a cliff into the water. I recognised some needed some help and I encouraged them to jump. It was COLD!
Sailing was a highlight seeing dolphins and whales, a first time ever experiencing seeing these creatures.
I have learnt that “if you set your mind to a goal, go for it”. For me, I have learnt to help out my brothers and sisters more and to care for others as well since being there. By paying attention to the teachers there and listening to the instructors, I gained knowledge about the outdoors, and how to help people out and encourage them to pass the standard that was required to reach in the activities.
One funny moment was when we got told to build a raft to travel 10km. It had to fit a person who was 6 foot 5 inches. The raft went okay and made it from Outward Bound centre to Momorangi Bay. We were given a tarpaulin and some rope. Our mission was to stay the night on the sandy bay. We built the bivvy from a tarpaulin which was too low. As we were lying down, trying to go to sleep, the tarpaulin kept touching our faces. When it was wet from the dew, our faces got saturated, and we would turn our faces. I looked at one of my mates' faces, we were complaining of having a wet face when we found out that we all did. It was a crack up.
Our last day came and we had tears of joy from leaving a good experience at Anakiwa Outward bound.
From Maui Hunt