Thousands use outdoor centre every year
The particular trip we are talking about the OPC have been running for 36 years. There have been tens of thousands of young people who have cheerfully gone through that gorge and had a terrific experience which is what it is all about, New Zealand Outdoor Instructors Association chief executive Matthew Cant told Radio New Zealand.
The OPC at Tongariro was founded in 1973 and offers a five-day adventure challenge programme which is its most popular school programme.
Each school group was made up of 10 students to one instructor.
According to the centres website the main objectives of the course are increasing personal confidence and awareness through achievement, group work and fun, while learning skills used in the outdoors.
The centre said a typical summer programme for the week would introduce school groups to a variety of outdoor recreational skills used in the outdoor environments of lakes, wildwater rivers, bush, caves and mountains.
These would include a selection of activities from the ropes course, climbing wall, flying fox, caving, bush skills, gorge walking, navigation and initiatives, kayaking on the local lakes and streams, tubing on a local river, canoeing or gorging and caving on the Pukehinau stream.
The centres largest client group are New Zealand secondary schools and around 4000 students from about 130 secondary schools use the centre every year.
The centres website said safety and contemporary standards of care were critical issues.
Our staff are highly trained and qualified to national standards. With this in mind it is hard to think a more professional outdoor provider anywhere in New Zealand.
Established in 1973 to provide outdoor pursuits training for young New Zealanders, OPC has two venues for outdoor activities: Tongariro and Great Barrier.
Sir Edmund Hillary became the patron of OPC in 1973.
- NZPA
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Wednesday, April 16th, 2008 at 7:51 pm under