Brunner Mine Site | Emil

Brunner Mine

On Monday the 25th of March 2019 my class and I went to the Brunner Mine Site. The Brunner Mine disaster was one of the worst tragedy's that have happened in New Zealand with 65 men and boys dead. There were two lady's named Mrs Mears and Miss Barber who knew a lot about the site and planned a whole day at the Brunner site for us. The day started with meeting at school and driving out to the site. Mrs Mears talked about the site before we went down to it. We got split into two groups and did two different activities and then we would swap over. I got put into the group which got a tour around the site with Mrs Mears. We went down to the coke ovens and we got to go inside them before we talked about what they were used for. We then went up to the memorial where you can see all the men who died. We also saw one of the entrances to the mine. Eventually we got back around to the information shelter and had a snack. We then changed around and we did the other activity. The group I was in got split again and one of the groups had to answer questions about the mine like how coal is made and what technique the miners used to get the coal which is what I did first. Then we swapped around and we got to dress up and take an olden days photo and I got to be a doctor. We then had lunch.

When we finished lunch we did this mime thing where we got put into groups and had to act out a scene from the book without talking and the audience had to try and guess what we were doing. We were the miners trying to get the horses into the mine. We then packed up and went to Stillwater Cemetery where the mass grave is. We did an activity in the cemetery where we had to go around and answer questions such as who is the youngest person buried in the cemetery. When we finished at the cemetery we packed up and came back to school. I really liked the trip and can't wait to continue with this subject.