My Birthday By Kyla

*1.MY BIRTHDAY PARTY
**2.MY BIRTHDAY


*1. 6 OF JUNE MY PARTY

I had a really cool Birthday party I went ice-skating :) and I went with
BEBE LILY GABI AMBER and me after the ice-skating we went to the park and then went to a pizza place it was so fun





**2. MY BIRTHDAY

My birthday was orienteering and parakai hot springs then a curry at curry leaf with my friend called Grace we were in the paper about orienteering for the weekend paper.
by kyla

JAFA orienteering weekend

Queen's birthday this weekend this year was very unusual for us; a weekend of orienteering in Auckland kept us home instead of the traditional weekend away. Four races over the 3 days and being members of the organizing club kept us busy, but we also managed a birthday dinner for Julia on Sunday evening. A quick review of the races:

Dad (M40A): Sat am. Couldn't find the first control; finished an hour behind the winner in last place. Sun am. Miles better, a great run to come 5th. What's more, as the 4 in front were foreigners, was awarded 1st place in the Auckland champs! Sun pm. Mostly walked due to injury from the morning. Mon am. Dreadful! Couldn't find control 7 after three tries in the low visibility forest. gave up and went back to the finish for a bacon sandwich.

Mum (W40B): Sat am. Not meant to run due to knee injury - 2nd place. Sun am. 2nd again. Sun pm. 1st place! Are you sure you're not running on that knee? Well done birthday girl. Mon am. Slipped to 5th. At the final JAFA presentation Julia was awarded 2nd over the whole weekend.

Ryan (Junior boys): Sat am. Suffering from a bad cold, not able to run, placed well down the field. Sun. Cold worse & unable to speak, should be at home in bed, instead spent the day hanging about in the forest with orienteering mates. Mon am. Feeling better, walked a couple of controls, jogged a couple & ran the rest. Finished in the middle of the field in a class with boys up 5 years his senior.

Kyla (W10A): Sat am. A good run for 3rd place. Sun am. A great run 2nd place. Sun pm. Another greate run and another 2nd. Mon am. Back to 3rd place. No firsts but the great consistency gave Kyla 1st overall for the weekend!

So for a change to Ryan on the podium, we have pictures of the other 3 of us with certificates.

by Alan

the Whangamata adventure race

The big race 

By Kyla Moore.....

The horn blared mum and I set off, the race had started.  "Good luck me" I said to myself. The race started on foot and then on bike at the start of the race we went up the hill heading towards the beach the waves were huge. In the bike section we biked on the beach and then we got off  our bikes and waded  to a little island there was treasure, the   treasure was a delicious  ice block. At the end of the race we had popcorn and it was good the popcorn was covered in salt and sugar...

Easter Holidays - part 2

A few photos of the other activities at Easter when not orienteering or looking for chocolate eggs.

Easter pancakes on the deck at Port Waikato with Warwick, Margaret and Eleanor

Exploring the Nikau Caves. These caves are on a private farm so it's only possible to visit on a guided trip. But the caves are unmodified so require wading and crawling to get though. Fantastic stalagmites and stalactites through the length of the caves and the highlight was traversing one section with torches off lit only by glow-worms. 

 

Climbing Mt Karioi near Raglan. Ropes, ladders and several geocaches on the way up. Cold and drizzly on the way down.

Easter holiday

BY KYLA

We had an orienteering Easter because the nationals was on.

The Nationals is an orienteering event. We stayed at a rented house in Port Waikato with my friend Eleanor.

Easter DAY...

In the morning Eleanor and I got up quietly WE HAD A PLAN...

We snuck out the door with our plan - map in our hands and looked in the places we thought the Easter eggs were.

We looked one way around the house then the other way round -we couldn't find any.

Next we went inside.

Later on my brother-Ryan had an orienteering Easter hunt when we finished we had found lots of Easter eggs not like when we did the quick check we didn't find any.

We got to eat them in our room...

CureKids 2015

Julia and Alan raced the CureKids Great Adventure Race with team Theta for the fourth year. The build-up this year was far from ideal with Julia's knee injury and Alan's broken finger. So our race plan was to take it easy and enjoy the day. Navigating down the wrong stream in the first part of the race put us well in the mid-pack, but a solid MTB and final trek bought us over the line happily in 12th place - good enough to win the IT cup once more. The most important result of course was exceeding all previous year's fundraising totals with $16,000 raised for CureKids to take our total over $55,000 since 2012.
Race report by team member Adrian is here on the Theta website.

By Alan

AKSS Sprint Series

By Ryan

Day 4: AKSS Sprint 4 - Avondale College, Monday 16 March


We were in the car and driving to Avondale College, the location of the last Auckland Secondary Schools Sprint Series (AKSSSS) and I was so far in fourth position, my average from the previous four events. I needed to get 3rd or higher on average to be in the finals. I’d be fine as long as I got on the podium for this event. I slipped my compass and SI chip on. I got into my grade lane and soon had the map in my hands. GO! I reached out, ‘punched’ the start box with my SI, flipped my map and launched off. I slowed to find the start on my map. I found it and ran - around the wrong building. When I reached the control, I was already starting to think this would not be a good run. Then I made similar mistakes on two more controls, spending a whole minute trying to find one when I saw my rival sprint past me. When I got to the last few legs I was almost walking, knowing that this was the worst run I had done in the whole series. I jogged into the finish and punched it. Afterwards, I hang around for a bit until someone announced that the results were being printed. They taped them up to a wall and I barged into the semicircular crowd of people… and ran out laughing! Yes! Yes! I had still come third! I was into the finals!

Day 5: AKSS Sprint Final 1 - Aorangi School, Saturday 28 March
Day 5: AKSS Sprint Final 2 - Carrington Unitec Saturday 28 March

The winner of the sprint final is chosen by their total time of two events taken place on the same day. Sprint final 1 had taken place in the morning. I had ended up with first place on a clean run - but first only by 6 seconds with my rival - Cameron. That almost meant that whoever won the next race won the finals. We arrived early. It was raining and wet. My friend Ryan came over and slapped me over the back. “Come on ,Ryan,” he said, “you’ll win it, for sure! These other people aren't used to this terrain! This is technical stuff.” I smiled. “I hope you win too, Ryan.” Soon afterwards the weather cleared up, so we walked to the start chutes. I wanted to start behind Cameron but he was nowhere in sight, so I started soon afterwards. I flipped the map but it took me about 20 seconds to find the start and where I was supposed to be heading. I was running okay after that but then I made a 30 second mistake. Finally I was running down the finish chute but then a feeling of dread washed over me as I stared at the map one last time - there was a control I didn't think I had punched. It was too late now, I had punched the finish. I covered my face when I downloaded my stick. When I finally opened my eyes, I looked at the splits. Yes! Yes! No dash = No mispunch! Although I still didn't think I was going to win. I had made up to 1 minute of mistakes. Next I had to wait for Cameron to come in. The suspense was unbearable. The sun came out and everyone - including us, used the umbrellas that we had originally brung for rain as shade. Finally, Cameron came in. I asked him how he went. “Not very well,” was the reply. The odds were with me. I walked with him to the download. He received his times and groaned. We compared splits. Yes! Yes! I was faster by two minutes! I … had… WON! I whooped with joy. 15 minutes later, they taped up the results, and yes, my winning was official. Ryan congratulated me. Later I was standing on the top of the podium (but Cameron and the other kid were still both taller than me) and I received my medal. Then we packed up and drove home. With a brand new gold medal.