Hardwicke Bay community work and Snorkelling

On Monday the 9th of February we went on a our first 5.5km run. This run was basically from Wambana to the Jetty and back. This was tough because we didn’t know what pace we should keep up. Although I was very tired I didn’t stop running and made it in 30 minutes and 30 seconds. After this we had to do 80 push-ups and 80 sit-ups. Once the time reached 7:45am we were allowed to leave even if we hadn’t finished the exercises. We then headed off to eat our breakfast. The normal breakfast that I had were 4-6 Weet-bix and 2 pieces of toast. Once we had cleaned up all the mess made by eating breakfast we headed off to the classroom.

At the classroom we learnt that we were heading off to Hardwicke Bay to do community work and snorkelling. I wasn’t really that happy that we were going snorkelling because I had been snorkelling before and I didn’t do very well. Fortunately my group was going second for snorkelling which was later in the day. My group was the first to go to the Hardwicke Bay community centre. We were going to pull out the introduced plants from the dunes and water all the native ones. The introduced plants were taking over and were choking up the natives. It took a while for us to some of them out as some were very big. We did this for around 2 hours and we then headed back to the community centre. The people there had provided us lunch which was very kind. We had some small pizzas made of puff pastry, ham and cheese. There were also sandwiches which included egg sandwiches. For dessert we had fruit salad and ice cream.

The two groups then swapped so it was our turn to go snorkelling. Once we had put on our wet suits, found our snorkels and flippers we headed down to the beach. The water was very cold and I only lasted around 20 minutes until my lips turned blue. I was then allowed to return to the shore. In about 5-10 minutes around 6 others joined me due to the cold. We waited on the rocks until the others came out and headed back. It felt fantastic to put warm clothes back on. We then met up with the other group who were doing the community work. We thanked the people for the nice lunch and for teaching us about the native plants and introduced plants. After this we said our goodbyes and headed back to Wambana.

The highs of the day were knowing that I was helping the environment, seeing some fish while snorkelling and the beautiful lunch that they provided us with.
The lows of the day were getting cold in snorkelling, pulling out weeds was a bit boring and not breaking the 30 minute mark in the 5.5km run.