While their classmates have been outside during their school breaks, a group of Whangarei school students have been inside rowing and it's all for charity.
Whangarei Intermediate students and staff will be rowing on machines for 24 hours this month to raise money for the Starship Foundation. The school's sports and environmental co-ordinator, Tom Peyton, said the charity was selected by the students but there is also a staff member who has had to rely on Starship a great deal.
"I'd done it before in a school in England I'd worked at, but with older kids. When we got the rowing machines we put the charts up ... the students started looking at challenges and somebody saw the 24-hour challenge and asked to do that."
Cailee Bowmar, 13, said students had been training twice, or more, per week for an hour since the beginning of term 3. She said not many students had done rowing before.
"I did a camp that we did it at. But not many people had that much experience. It uses so many different muscles, completely different to running. It's very tiring," Cailee said.