3 WEEKS TO GO

 

AT SCHOOL

One week in 5, the pool man goes out of community for a break.  This is when we take the kids outside to play some water games.  Here we are playing limbo with the water stream.

The slip and slide is one of their favorites.  The days have been over 40 a lot, so the kids are happy to get wet before they leave for home.

Just before the Football grand final, Warrick was doing some spelling words with the letters and he made 'Go Tigers" so I made Go Cats.  Most of the people in Balgo follow the Eagles or the Dockers with a small spattering of the other teams.  There is even a couple of Geelong supporters in town.

I took my class out on Country to see the dreaming of the two rocks.  This is a dreaming story of 2 boys and their mother who walked around the Kimberley.  When they got tired the boys turned into the two rocks.

This is a picture of the two rocks..... and lots of desert!

Cleaning up Country is very important and on this day we cleaned up around the church.  We got so many bags of rubbish.  It was really hot and only 9.00am.

One of the Big Books we read was called 'The Gingerbread Man', so what else to do but make Gingerbread Men!!!  The kids had fun decorating them and then using the 'Chatterpix' program  to make them talk!!!  Lucky I have a 20 something year old Teacher Assistant in my room to sort out the computer programs!!

We headed off to the Art Centre for our Culture afternoon.  Every Tuesday afternoon is dedicated to Culture activities.  The children were being helped to paint a picture that told a story.  The story was set down in the pound.

The day was over 40 degrees, so we were waiting on the Art Centre steps for a troopy to come and pick us up.  We usually would walk, but the red dirt is even too hot for the kids today.

The pool in readiness for our swimming carnival.  I was the organiser of the carnival and it was about now that I was having second thoughts about what I had planned.  I am pleased to say however, that the day went well and the kids had a ball......phewwwww

The sports day included the two neighbouring communities of Mulan and Billiluna.  The kids in the picture are our Balgo kids waiting patiently for their races.

We ran races in the big pool and the little ones had novelty events in the little pool.

In the mornings between 8-9, the kids have a clubs program where the teachers run an activity.  This is to encourage the children to come to school.  My activity this term is craft.  In this picture the children painted some bark that had come of the trees in the school yard.  They did a great job.

Why should the kids have all the fun? I painted this one which was inspired by the style of  art in our community (dots).

AROUND COMMUNITY

This is the truck that comes into the community every two weeks with food for the shop.

It also brings in school supplies and everything else the community needs including tyres, freezers, fridges, televisions, beds and anything else that community members have ordered.

One of the community cars that has really good air conditioning!!!

There are no rules about cars needing to be in road worthy condition, or any needs for licences, if the cars stay within community. 

This mini bus has seen better days.  It is off to the car tip.

Jeff and I love to go to the pool on the weekend.  The kids love to see us in the pool and I also love playing with them.

It was my turn in the tube!

During the hot months these willi willi's are a common sight.  The locals believe they are bad luck and move out of the way quickly if one is coming their way.  They are often really strong, even picking up chairs and rubbish bins.

AROUND HOME

This black headed python came to a grizzly end! The community love to eat these, but this one was killed close to our house.  Of  course they are not dangerous but I must admit they scare me when I see them.

Out on our verandah we have a small sock hanger.  A little honeyeater who could fit through the cage has made a nest amongst the pegs.  Jeff aptly name the bird Peggy.  She laid 2 eggs, but unfortunately has not returned to the nest in the last few days.  It was a really safe place to make a nest because the whole verandah is in a cage.

Yep, it does get hot!!!

A TRIP TO KUNUNURRA

We had our staff Christmas party last weekend in Kununurra.  We spent 3 nights away which was a lovely break.  In this picture and the next we are playing games after breakfast in the park.  We were all sitting in a circle and of course putting this many teachers together what do you think would happen??  We started with Duck Duck Goose of course!!  Then all the circle games came out!

This was a new game I hadn't played before.  It was a lot of fun.

This little guy was sitting on a rock outside our hotel room to say good morning on our first night away.🦎

Here we are on the 'Party Boat'.  We spent a fun 3 hours cruising down the Ord River.  It was such a lovely thing to do for a bunch of teachers and helpers who rarely see water (accept of course in the pool).

The boat stopped a couple of times so we could have a swim.  The river does have fresh water crocodiles in it, but thankfully I didn't see any or you would see me walking/running on water!!!

I am in the middle of the photo with the white top on. The water was so warm which is not what you expect when you jump in.

A lovely sunset to top off a lovely afternoon out on the water.

On the way back into community we were amazed at the puddle on the road.  Yes, we get excited to see puddles!!!

It is Wet Season of course and little did we know, but we were driving straight into the storm ahead and then we got to see lots of puddles!!

The road got quite wet so the Tanami Track ended up being closed the next day.  I was not complaining as we got back ok and then had the next day off because 10 staff were stuck in Halls Creek. It doesn't take much rain for them to close the Tanami.

WOLFE CREEK CRATOR

The lizards are very cute up here.  This little guy was happy to sit there while we took a picture

The sun is setting.  This was our camp site for the night.  I know everyone gets the chills when we tell them that we willingly camped at Wolfe Creek.... but it is lovely and we didn't come across any random serial killers (for those who don't understand this, I am referring to the Wolfe Creek movie).

This is the crater taken from the rim.  It is huge and it was 3.4 km around the rim.  It took us just over an hour to walk around it.  We started walking at 5.30am because it was sooooooo hot.

Another cheeky setting sun picture.

This was the group we camped with. A great bunch

Looking into the middle of the crater from half way around.  It is easy to see the rim from this picture.

It was so windy on our walk and at one point the wind caught my hair!

There is a long story connected to this photo and I will try to tell you the shortened version.

One of our party on the way to Wolfe Creek came across a car on the Tanami that had punctured 2 tyres at the same time. Rohan offered assistance but they were unable to get the key  to get the spare tyres from the backs of the two cars.  Rohan then gave the car both of his spare tyres which left him with no spares.  This is a very dangerous position to be in on the Tanami!!!

However, the next day we called into Billiluna on our way home and found the car and replaced the tyres.  They had worked out how to get the tyres off the back of their cars fortunately.  So in the 40 something degree heat we had to take 2 tyres from the car and put 2 new tyres on.  Major catastrophe averted!

Well here is our new community and our next adventure. The community is called Kowanyama and it is slightly bigger than Balgo.  We leave Balgo on the 12th of December and have a 5 day drive to Cairns.  Then in  mid January we have the 600 km drive into Kowanyama, with  as yet an undetermined amount of dirt road to travel!

We are looking forward to being near water and near Daniel, my eldest son who lives in Cairns.

We will miss the people of Balgo and also miss the beautiful Kimberley.