Ferrymead & the Bridle Path

During the fourth week of teaching practice, I was invited by one of my teaching associates to participate in a Year 9 Social Studies field trip to Ferrymead Heritage Park followed by an afternoon tramp on the Bridle Path. I happily agreed since I hadn’t gone on any field trips during my first teaching practice. The bright & early sun was shining when the two Y9 classes (totalling 45 students) converged in the Hall (used for assemblies) for the morning briefing. Maintaining order wouldn’t be a problem because we had more than the required amount of adult supervision: two teachers, one student teacher, and 8 parents.

Ferrymead is like Upper Canada Village, a historically orientated town, except built to show Kiwis & tourists what Middle Earth life was like back in 1907. It’s located near the Lyttelton Tunnel & Christchurch Gondola, meaning a long bus ride from Villa Maria. Unlike North America with its yellow/orange painted school buses, we were transported on a reserved city bus.

Upon arrival, students were lead by Ferrymead staff to the train station where they would put on 1907 oriented clothing. To make it easier for them, the girls were instructed to wear civilian clothing (known as mufti) for the field trip; that & it would be difficult to tramp the Bridle Path in their school uniforms. There were plenty of traditional dresses to go around but some girls chose to experience 1907 as boys by wearing grey slacks. Changing into character was optional for staff & some indeed chose to play along.

After the students were briefed on how to act (children are to be seen, not heard), they were split into four groups & would conduct a morning ‘Round-Robin’, visiting the school, general store, bakery, and typical house residence.

School in 1907 operated with gender segregation in mind: girls & boys played outside in separate areas and sat opposite each other in the classroom. For the simulation, my group learned to sing God Save The King and how to write with fountain pens. Since Ferrymead was simulating a rural town, the school was one classroom. Naturally, the teacher was male & to be feared by his pupils because he maintained discipline via a wooden cane & a strap. Lucky for the girls, the cane & strap are no longer used; instead, present teachers prefer tasers.

The General Store was where everyone in town would go to do their shopping. Products such as jams, toys, dolls, hard candies, player pianos, rice, soaps, & washboards were stocked, having been delivered from the port town of Lyttelton. I was surprised to see canned fish from New Brunswick on sale. Back then, consumers would hand over their shopping list to the general store staff who would collect the necessary items. Nowadays, there are many options at your disposal: ordering online with delivery, self-checkout at the grocery store, or good old fashion collecting everything yourself and letting the cashier scan everything for you.

The Bakery mostly specialized in supplying bread but also provided many other baking products. Girls were taught how to make biscuits and shown how the large stone oven operated. The wood burning oven is privately owned and is still used to bake bread, which is sold in farmers markets. It takes 8 days for the oven to completely cool down before being safe to clean.

A typical rural house residence was small & pretty cramped. There would only be about four rooms and daughters would help their mothers with the intensive tasks of cleaning, ironing, bed making, cooking, silver polishing, and rug beating. My group found it quite challenging to accomplish all these chores with pioneer equipment and were glad to be living in the modern age. Back then, it would take a whole day just to complete one chore!

Once the Round-Robin was completed, students & staff changed out of character clothing and proceeded to have lunch. Once our stomachs were full, we thanked the staff of Ferrymead, boarded the bus and headed off to Lyttelton.

The Bridle Path is a track that was constructed in 1850, from Lyttelton to Christchurch, giving early settlers a route over the mountains. With the experiences of 1907 life still fresh in their minds, it was time for the Y9s to journey the same route early settlers took to establish the city of Christchurch. Having done plenty of marching & walking in cadets, this would a piece of ‘k-a-k-e’ for me. It’s a good thing I brought sunscreen because the last time I was up in the hills (Godley Head) my face got burned.

As for the girls . . . they heavily complained and exaggerated their pains at the beginning but after a while, they started enjoying the tramp, especially after watching a mountain biker pass by them on the way up. The tramp up to the summit took about 40 minutes since I was in the rear, making sure no one was left behind. The view of the Christchurch valley below was breathtaking and many students stopped to snap pictures with their mobile phones.

The way down was a challenge because the rocks were slippery so I suggested to the students to walk down on the side of the path. The further I descended, the calls of grazing sheep became louder. At one point, the sheep were silenced by Y9s whistling at a group of men who were tramping in the opposite direction because they weren’t wearing their shirts.

Once the tramp was completed, we waited for our bus to arrive, the students passing time by playing games and thanking the parents with bars of chocolate. When the bus arrived, we all piled in and made a quick pit stop at Ferrymead, picking up the baked biscuits before settling in for the happy ride back to school. By the time we disembarked, the final bell at Villa Maria had rung.

The trip was declared a success with the teachers noting that they overheard some students planning on tramping the Bridle Path over the Easter Break. I enjoyed the field trip as well and was glad that it took place on a sunny Tuesday . . . because Wednesday & Thursday was nothing but rain.

*(And if any of you are still shocked & confused, no, tasers are not being used by Kiwi teachers today).