The Start of School in Australia

I've been back at school for a week now.  Three days of staff meetings and planning last week, then a long weekend of wild weather and working on school things.  Tuesday, the kids showed up. We've had a busy few days together - I forgot how needy grade one students are at the beginning of the year!  I am gradually finding my way around the school and the grounds.  It has 500+ students from prep (kindergarten) to grade 7 and it is in many different buildings.  The washrooms and the music room are a short walk across the grounds and it is about a 5 minute walk (for grade ones) through the playgrounds, and under the other buildings to the hall for their gym class and for Monday parade (assembly).  I have only been in a few buildings so far, but I will explore more when I have time.

 

Staffroom and office building.

 

 Several of the classrooms are raised up and have playing and eating areas underneath.

 

 One of the many bubblers (water fountains) around the grounds.

 Students eat their lunch in the shade under the buildings.

 This is the shaded play area in front of my class.  (my room is on the left)  Most of the area around the school buildings is under cover like this - for protection from the sun and the rain as the kids and teachers move between rooms.

 My room - with welcoming maple leaves on the door which latches open during the day to let the breezes in.

 We eat our snack here outside my room.

 The walkway outside my class - the yellow lines are where the kids line up so they are not in the way of the passing students.

 My room.  All the windows open (no screens!) and the walls are all louvered and open too.  I don't open the back wall because there is a garden outside that may be harbouring large spiders and snakes!

My class is separated from the next grade one class by a folding door.  Makes it easy to share planning, supplies, and later, groups.  Note the four ceiling fans.  They are very necessary but make it difficult for the kids to cut and paste as little pieces of paper go flying about the room!

 The red door on the left leads to an airconditioned room that houses the computer hub for the school.  Margaret (the other grade one teacher) and I have sole use of the workroom there that has a little kitchen area, desks and work space and a large empty room that we take both classes into after recesses for a story and time to cool down.  It is a nice perk!

 Alice the moose and I ready for our first day.  The kids are very excited to take her home each weekend and show her life in Australia.

Queensland floods

Well, I'm sure many of you have heard about the horrendous bush fires that devoured large parts of Tasmania, Victoria and New South Wales.  While there have been bush fires in Queensland they were not as severe as elsewhere and, from what we understand, they typically aren't.

However, as many of you are seeing on the telly this past weekend,  Cyclone Oswald and an associated monsoon trough passed over parts of Queensland and recently moved on to New South Wales.

Over a number of days, there was widespread damage from the impact of severe storms, high seas, flooding, heavy rainfall and tornadoes.  Even in this dry continent, the Queensland Premier ordered the preemptive release of water from Wivenhoe and North Pine Dams to increase the dams' flood capacity.  At the time of writing, here are some facts:

• Rainfall peaked in Tully where approximately 39 inches of rain fell, with 24.9 inches falling over 48 hours.
• The town of Ingham was completely cut off due to high waters. Residents in the town were advised to stock up on emergency supplies as the Herbert River rose rapidly after 7.9 inches of rain fell in the town in just three hours
• A brief tornado or waterspout with winds of 87 mph touched down near Hay Point.
• Three separate tornados tore through the Bundaberg Region.The first tornado struck the town of Bargara, which brought down power lines, tore off roofs and smashed windows.  The town of Burnett Heads was battered by a second tornado, and soon after a third tornado struck Coonarr.  The tornadoes injured at least 17 people and damaged 150 properties.  The Burnett River reached a new recorded height of 31.3 feet.  130 patients were evacuated from the Bundaberg Hospital to hospitals in Brisbane.
• The floods have claimed the lives of four people, including a three-year-old boy who died after being crushed by a falling tree.
• At Gympie, flood waters from the Mary River swamped around 100 business and 25 residents.
• In Maryborough, about 50 businesses and 150 homes were inundated as waters from the Mary River rose.
• Unlike the flooding which occurred in January 2011 at Ipswich and Brisbane, the flooding there was caused by the natural flooding of the creek system rather than deliberate dam releases.
• Waters in the Lockyer Valley reached an all time high with the main street in the town inundated.
• In Logan City, the Logan River reached a peak with flood waters slow to recede along the river.
• Brisbane's main water treatment plant was shut down because of high levels of sediment and silt in the Brisbane River, which resulted in residents being asked to conserve water -"to only use it for "drinking, cooking and bathing".  Water supplies in some suburbs of Brisbane are expected to run out soon.  I'm sure things will change over the next few days.

What about us you ask? Not to worry mate, all is fine here. Yes, we received a lot of rain and strong winds but our community is fairly well sheltered by islands on the east coast from the destruction you see elsewhere. We only were housebound for one day.  Cleveland isn't near any major creeks, rivers or tributaries where most of the flooding occurred. Our yard has no gum trees to drop branches or fall over (they are actually fairly dangerous trees - they like to drop bits and pieces anywhere, any time).  We spent the wet weekend working on school stuff,  getting the classroom organized and watching the weather on the news - there was nothing else on!  We even went out and drove around town a bit to see the damage and went for a beach walk at Wellington Point. 

As the storm moved off, the wind surfers and kite surfers came out in full force at Wellington Point.

So did the shell seekers looking for neat things washed up by the storm.

Oswald has now moved offshore, the rain has eased and the sun is out!

 

Our last day in Tasmania

After awakening and slowly getting ready for the day we gradually made our way to Launceston where we had to drop off our campervan and fly out at 4:45pm..  By the end of the day we will have driven, some of it with white knuckled fear, for 2071 kilometers.

Because we had a few hours to spare we decided to drive along the Tamar River and visit the Platypus House. We just caught the beginning of a guided tour and spent a short time looking at this fascinating and unique animal.

 We weren't allowed to use flash photography - which we agree with - so getting a good picture with our little point and shoot camera was impossible.Just squint and imagine little otters with duck bills!

 In addition to platypuses (?) there were a number of cute echidna running around in their own room.

After a little picnic we drove to Launceston on the other side of the Tamar River via Batman Bridge.We never did see Robins Bridge.

 Goodbye Tasmania!!  

On the Road Again

We had a very kind and generous mechanic in Burnie repair our campervan.We still didn't have a second spare tire but we were once again mobile. In a roundabout way we gingerly made our way toward Launceston.
We drove through Sheffeild, the town of murals,where many of the buildings in the CDB depiced scenes of Australian rural life and

Railton, the town of topiaries.

Finally we arrived in Deloraine and got direction to the Trowunna Wildlife Park that specialized in breeding Tasmanian Devils. It was a very fascinating visit and quite informative to learn the background of the breeding programs.

 

 

 

Wombats

 

 

 Tasnanian Devils, some with bad table manners

 

 

 

 Quolls

 'Roos

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Echidnas

 Koalas