Address: Violet Bonnington Reserve, Rotorua Rotorua 3015, New Zealand
Attraction Location
Mt Ngongotaha Jubilee Track Videos
Mt Ngongotaha Hill Climb
In car footage of my last run of the day, from round two of the Rotorua Car Club series.
Rotorua Hike with my mates
Cactus and Nic - The Longest Day
CACTUS is jointly run by Rotorua Police and Western Heights High School.
It was developed to extend a young persons mind and physical capabilities with a focus on teamwork, goal setting, leadership and discipline. It involved three one hour sessions of intensive physical training, commencing at 5.30 am before school, over a period of 7 weeks.
The longest day was about transposing the skills the students had learned during their training into an 8 hour intensive physical test.
This involved a run up to the summit of Mt Ngongotaha from the school, down the jubilee track to a waiting bus and then into the city where they did 25 press-ups outside Wilsons Barber shop.
Then it was on to the National NZ Fire Training Centre for two challenging exercises. (1) Crawling and climbing through a maze of obstacles in a darkened two storey building, which had a constant temperature of 60°c, whilst carrying an oxygen tank on their back. (2) Carrying a stretcher with an adult weighted mannequin on it over, under, or through obstacles without letting it touch the ground.
An exercise in the Whaka Forest followed, including walking with strainer posts and a medical exercise.
On Tarawera Road they picked up logs which they carried into town.
Their final activity was pulling a fire truck along Fenton Street from Valentines to the Village Green.
During the course of the day they covered a distance of about 24 kms on foot.
21 March 2015 - Alan Buckley - Nics host dad
WHHS CACTUS 2016 - The Longest Day - Timo Strohm
C.A.C.T.U.S is an acronym for Combined Adolescent Challenge Training Unit and Support. It is jointly run by Rotorua Police and Western Heights High School.
It was developed to extend a young persons mind and physical capabilities with a focus on teamwork, goal setting, leadership and discipline. It involved three one hour sessions of intensive physical training, commencing at 5.30 am before school, over a period of 8 weeks.
The longest day was about transposing the skills the students had learned during their training into an 8 hour intensive physical test.
This involved a run up to the summit of Mt Ngongotaha from the school, down the jubilee track to a waiting bus and then into the city where they did 25 press-ups outside Wilsons Barber shop.
Then it was on to the National NZ Fire Training Centre for two challenging exercises. (1) Crawling and climbing through a maze of obstacles in a darkened two storey building, which had a constant temperature of 60°c, whilst carrying an oxygen tank on their back. (2) Carrying a stretcher with an adult weighted mannequin on it over, under, or through obstacles without letting it touch the ground.
An exercise in the Whaka Forest followed, including walking with strainer posts and a medical exercise.
On Tarawera Road they picked up logs and then carried them into town.
Their final activity was pulling a fire truck along Fenton Street from the old Valentines to the Village Green.
During the course of the day they covered a distance of about 24 kms on foot.
Timo Strohm, an exchange student from Switzerland, was among 25 other WHHS students to complete this challenge.
July 9th, 2016 - Alan Buckley - Timo's NZ host dad