Story: Camping

Treading carefully on the rope bridge at Port Waikato School Camp in the 1960s, these young people are enjoying a site first used for camping in 1928. In that year Edward Spargo, a local farmer and Port Waikato's harbourmaster, donated 51 acres (20.6 hectares, and later extended to 49 hectares) as a health camp for sick and underprivileged children. They marched to the tune of the camp call: 'Alligator mincemeat, crocodile stew, I-S-E-E-Y-O-U. Who's the best? Us, I guess. Port Waikato, yes, yes, yes!' In 1958, with the general health of the country's children improving, the site became an outdoor education centre.