PBS Picnic at Eastern Beach

“Keep it down,’  I laughed, as I reminded the students that were surrounding me with their voices on the bus. I can't wait till we get to the beach.
“Yes!” I whispered to myself with relief.
We finally arrived at Eastern Beach! Above us it looked like the sun was trying to fight its way through the clouds. Mr Johnston made it clear what the rules were and what was going to happen while we were at the beach. Group A followed Ms Kirkpatrick to where the life jackets sat waiting.  The leader of Group A was Lavinia. I was the leader for group D, the last group to paddle out from shore.

While group A was with Ms Kirkpatrick the Juniors went in for a swim. The Seniors just had grass time till it was their turn to have a swim. Meanwhile I tiptoed on top of the sand because while I was standing on the sand it felt like I was crushing little bones that had washed ashore after the sea had finished chewing.

“Keshhhhhh” was the sound of my stick running through the sand. I was trying to be creative by drawing pictures and writing onto the sand. I wrote Mrs Anderson’s name and drew a big heart with Room 9 inside it.  My art was awesome until I  looked up and saw Trinity messing up my creativity.
” What a sad guy!” I moaned at him with disappointment.
“Yayyyy!” shouted Rooms 5 and 7. They were all so excited was because it was their time to swim. It was Group B’s turn to kayak and Tienira was the leader for group B. They made their way into their kayaks and paddled all the way to Ms Kirkpatrick out on the water.

Meanwhile Room 6 and Room 9 were making the most of their grass time by climbing trees and playing sports. The tree that some of the kids were playing on is the tree that we always play on when we go to Eastern Beach for a school trip. Luckily Ms Kirkpatrick grabbed that spot for us because it meant the other kids had to wait too get a turn. We had so much fun and all the photos that Rachel took show everyone was definitely enjoying themselves.

“Splash! Splash!” was the only sound you could hear once we made into the sea. There were so many heads, it looked like they had no bodies and were just heads floating around in that nice refreshing water.
“Hey?” I wondered to myself.  “Who is that swimming?”. I looked closely into the water and saw..... Miss Huggins neck high in the waves, it looked like she was having more fun than the kids. I think she was!
“Are you alright?” I asked Mrs Anderson. I was feeling sorry for her because she just had grass time.

Its lunch time! “Munch! Munch!” I was chewing so loudly that was all I could hear. Yum!
“Mine! Mine! Mine!” shouted all the people that were playing volleyball. I thought the game was getting serious, so I  strolled over to the sand.
“Hey Mrs Anderson” I said to her enthusiastically.
“Guess what?” she laughed.
“What?” I replied with confusion.
“I get to move to the sand!” she said still laughing.
“Group C!” Group C’s leader, Trinity shouted.
It was time for Group C to go kayaking. You could see they were listening  carefully to Ms Kirkpatrick’s instructions.

“What are they doing?” I wondered to myself as I looked out towards the kayakers. I could see someone on one of the kayaks standing up. This made me curious until I realised that if some of them were standing up and changing places they must be learning how to balance. When I looked closer I could see the people that were still in the kayaks were holding them tightly so the their friends could try and balance on top and walk over to the another kayak.

Candice and I made our way to the water and sat down on the sand, it still felt like little bones. We were trying to skim the rocks that were near us across the water but most of them sunk. We were having a competition to see who could skim their rock the furthest. I won but Candice wouldn’t believe me. When that got boring we moved back to the tree where our things were.  

Finally Group D was up. I called out the list I was given and quickly gathered my team together so we could begin the lesson. We had to put on the life jackets first. They were really soggy and really cold and wet because all the groups had used them before us. Ms Kirkpatrick taught us how to hold the paddle and which way to paddle. Then we all hopped into our kayaks. While I was making my way to the kayak it appeared to smile at me mischievously.

We paddled towards the floating pink and white bottle. On my way out I was searching for Candice and noticed she had gone the wrong way. She had somehow paddled her kayak towards the rocks.
“Stop!” yelled Ms Kirkpatrick. That made me focus on what I was doing. She told us to grip onto the kayak beside us and to hold onto it. Soon after Candice caught up we formed a line.
“Leila swap places with Faitele” said Ms Kirkpatrick.
My heart was racing because I had to stand up on the kayak while we were floating on the water and swap with Faitele. I had to get behind people and Faitele had to go in front of the kayaks. My legs were wobbling with each step and I felt scared. When I got too Faitele’s kayak I didn’t feel scared anymore I felt relieved and I was really proud of myself.
We then played games and sailed off to shore.

“Pack up your things!” I heard Mrs Anderson saying. It was nearly time to go. We quickly changed and packed our things. After thanking the parents and teachers we hopped onto the bus. Everyone was so tired. Some students fell asleep on the ride home, it was so funny. I had a great day at Eastern Beach!