Kids' schoolcamp flood adventure

The flooding turned St Canice's school trip into an adventure for Year 6. Pictured, SH7 was closed by flooding at Stillwater. Photo / APN

Yesterday's flooding on the West Coast turned a three-hour trip to a Wakefield adventure camp into a 9-1/2 hour journey for a group of Westport school pupils.

St Canice's Year 6 teacher Leah Flynn said the 22 pupils and parent helpers tried to get to camp via Greymouth about 10am, after hearing a slip in the Buller Gorge was unlikely to be cleared.

However, just before Blackball, after crossing some "mean flooding'', they were turned back and had to drive the bus through flooded roads, said Ms Flynn.

They were already four hours into the trip by the time they returned to the Westport crossroads, she said.

By then the slip in the Buller Gorge had been cleared, but the road was washed out at Inangahua and they had to go through Reefton, over the Rahu Saddle and down the Shenadoah Valley to Murchison, then on to Brightwater.

They arrived at the Wakefield camp at 7.20pm - a 9-1/2 hour trip.

"The kids coped surprisingly well, with quizzes and games so it actually passed quite quickly and it wasn't until the last half an hour they asked how long until we got there,'' said Ms Flynn.

The upside was that the children were able to apply their recent natural disaster studies to real life events.

It was good for them to see how fast the rivers were moving and how far they came up.

"They were really excited and shocked every time we saw a new river and a new rise, and the cameras were out.

"We have to say the kids were absolutely amazing, keeping themselves busy and each other's spirits up, they never stopped laughing.''