Day Six - Friday 18th September 2009

Last Day...

Woke up early with a scream from Parko because we had to pack our bags for the long trip home. Most of our dorms were heaps dirty and needed to be swept out and have the quilts, pillow cases and sheets taken off. Then everyone had to migrate to hells kitchen and amazingly had a good breakfast FOR ONCE!

After having a cup of watered down apple juice, we were good to go.

After waiting for the oh so talkative teachers to finish their brekky, we finally made it back to Bunkhouse C and finished sweeping out all the rooms and filling up the bins outside. All was well in Bunkhouse C, so we made it over to our Macquarie coach to spend our last day with our no limit bus driver Rod.

We had finally arrived at our first stop, the AIS (Australian Institute of Sport) and met our tour guide Shane, who showed us all of the "Sport" Facilities.

After hearing him go on and on about the 17 million dollar swimming pool, that had a built in tunnel on the sides of the pool so that the trainers could view where the athletes go wrong, we had a bite to eat and made our way to the Australian National Museum.

We finally arrived at our destination and ran on inside, not knowing which direction to go in. Everyone followed Valmir and Edin into the Staff Only area and got told that we were not allowed there, so everyone re- tracked back to the path that had a big sign saying Exhibition on it.

With Peg- Leg Barrett leading us all the way to the start, James, Stevo and Christian got held up by Mr Barrett and told to clean up the "supposed" mess from a vanilla slice that was left on the bus. The 3 stooges arrived at the sight of the bus, only to find themselves and Rod puzzled about where the mess was, so they decided to sweep out the whole bus.

After spending 2 hours browsing the museum, with the most exciting thing the first everFJ Holden and Phar Laps Heart, that was bigger then a human head, we ate lunch and made our way to Cockington Green, aka Midget Town. The view of so many mini scale houses was trippy, but we all managed.

We jumped on the bus, half asleep, and made our way to the shops to buy our long desired Krispy Kremes. At the sight of the Krispy Kremes sign, we droolled over there looking as if we were zombies. Parko handed the doughnuts out to all of us where we stood staring at them not eating them because they were too delicious.

We then had 25 minutes to shop for last minute resources for the long journey home.

We made our way to the bus at the designated time and headed to the airport for the trip home.

Everyone crashed near a boarding gate and it was all too much for some, using any kind of support to rest and sleep.

Perth here we come!!!!

Day Five - Thursday 17th September

We tiredly awoke to our 5am wake up call and, yet again, the late bloomers took their time to get to the diner for yet another watered down, flavourless breakfast of hash browns and spaghetti.

We then jumped on our bus to cross the border, back into NSW, for the long trek to the snow. We had a minor comfort stop for the ladies, before our designated stop at Cooma to collect our gear.

Our day was filled with many events by pretty much everyone varying from Mrs. Parkinson refusing to ski after only putting on one ski and failing to keep her balance, to Samantha and Lihying falling over on the ‘magic carpet’ and Rebecca Papa failing to keep up with her group due to her many stacks. We thought she’d take out the award for the worlds most amount of stacks in ten minutes.

We can’t leave out Amy Stephens stack at 100km/hour, she definitely had to take out the ‘stack of the day’, with her brother, Daniel, not far behind her, as he failed to come to a stop resulting in injuries and a broken ski rod.

Mr Barrett thoroughly enjoyed Alec Kickett’s skiing spectacular show. He struggled to describe the event as he was laughing so much. It was poetry in motion – the length of the entire slope. 10/10 for flexibility.

But then, of course, Edin and Valmir showed everyone up with their pro skiing skills. They were enjoying themselves so much they forgot to have lunch, whereas others chucked in the towel early to sit in the café for at least ONE good lunch.

Departing the snow fields, with tomato faces, most people were cold and wet, just wanting to get in the warmth of Rod’s bus, leaving the boys to pack up the gear.

After a long journey back, most of us tired after a long days work, there were many sleeping beauties, whilst others couldn’t get to sleep due to injuries from their wonderful day on the snow field. Even Mr Barrett managed to do his knee.

Arriving back at the dorms to yet another delicious dinner..not joking at all, Cody I got his birthday sparkler surprise from the kitchen crew, consisting of probably the only thing they’ve served that’s half decent, chocolate cake.

And to end the night, Mr Barrett had a good old laugh at Mrs Downing and her misleading scarf.

We are all about to head off to our last meeting before we start frantically packing for our last day of the Canberra 09 tour.

P.S. Mr Sykes, mystery man……….reveal yourself..

Day Four - Wednesday 16th Se;tember 2009

After another knock on the door by Mr Barrett at 6:30am, all of us troopers got ready for another hard day. Our morning breakfast was french toast with tinned spaghetti and the usual watered down apple juice!

After breakfast we headed off on our “Mystery Day” which turned out to be no mystery. Mr Barrett made it our mystery day because we were constantly asking what was next on the agenda.

Mr Barrett gave us some wonderful news on the way to the Governor Generals house. It was the most exciting news all trip. After four days of nagging we finally got the chance to order Krispy Kremes… we think we brought the whole shop out!

While at the “striking” Governor Generals house, Ms Parkinson was more interested in the menu, whilst Mr Barrett was more interested in the Rolls Royce than anything else on the entire trip. Mr Barrett was also EXTREMELY interested in the sports medal that, APPARENTLY, only 40 people have got - he tells us he is one of them. All were given by Mr John Howard himself. Barrett was babbling on about it all day.

Next on our list of activities was the Indonesian Embassy, or as Becca P thought… the Indian Embassy…We got to see an amazing puppet show performed by our very own Locko students. After that some other students played twinkle, twinkle little star with traditional Indonesian instruments.

Subway!!! We had our first good lunch of the trip!!! All of us thoroughly enjoyed it and savoured the moment.

At the end of the day we went to have our first taste of voting. We learned why voting is important and how to vote. We did a mock election, voting for our preferred extreme sport. White water rafting turned out to be the winner.

WE’RE ALL LOOKING FORWARD TO THE SKIING TOMORROW!!!!

Day 3 - Tuesday 15th September 2009

Everyone seemed to get up fairly early, around 6.30am.

Arriving at breakfast we were welcomed by sausages and baked beans, as well as the usual toast and cereal.

We were on the road by 8.30am but got caught in a traffic jam “Canberra style” still managing to arrive at Questacon on time.

Questacon is much like Scitech with a variety of fun activities, such as the rollercoaster simulator, the free fall and the house undergoing an earthquake.

After her experience in the rollercoaster simulator, Mrs Parkinson was pretty shaken up and was still obviously delirious as she decided to walk into the males restroom and told Cody Power (year 10) to go to the females restroom.

Our next adventure was the walk along Anzac Parade, the main stretch in Canberra. Brad Williams (year 11) slipped into the water surrounding the Vietnam monument, having to carry his wet shoe for the rest of the walk. Daniel Stephens (year 10) tried to continue the trend, followed by other year 10 boys, but didn’t carry it off!

Lunch in the park was exciting, getting up close and personal to nature with a couple of lizards.

Following lunch was the War Memorial. It was a very educational and emotional experience.

At 5pm we witnessed the closing ceremony with the lone bugler playing "The Last Post".

Leaving central Canberra, we headed back to camp, to get ready for dinner. We enjoyed roast beef and veggies, followed by chocolate cake and custard.

After dinner we rugged up for our trek up Black Mountain Tower.

On the coach the backseat 11"s entertained the other students and teachers with a karaoke session.

After a packed full elevator ride we were greeted with an absolutely amazing view. Canberra was all lit up for us delightful students to see.

Finishing off with hot chocolate, ice creams and milkshakes, we headed back to camp.

Day Two - Monday 14th September 2009

Today we woke up at around 7:00am, some slept in 'till about 7:25am, and then decided to have a shower when breakfast was at 7:30am - don't know why "empty headed" I guess.
We left the campsite around 8:30am and went off to Mount Ainslie to check out the view of Canberra. It was really good, there was about a 270 degree view of Canberra. Definitely recommend it to anyone who goes to Canberra to check it out.
After a few photos we went back to the bus and drove down to Old Parliament House, had a tour around the place, we did a role play of a bill being introduced into parliament. Some got to wear funny costumes including Mr Barrett.
We left after an hour or so, then went for a drive around the Embassies then went back to the Old Parliament House Women's Garden for lunch, ham & salad wraps.
We then went to New Parliament House for a tour and even had a chat to Stephen Smith who was a really nice bloke.
We then went to the Parliamentry Education Office and did another role play, which was really fun. As usual Valmir was acting the clown as the Serjeant-at-Arms wielding the mace in a very slap-happy manner.
It was then on to the Senate before going to Question Time in the House of Representatives.
We saw Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd which got some people very excited which is most unusual. Our final destination of the day was the High Court which was just around the corner, like everything else. This tour was short and sweet and gave Edin another chance to pretend to be intelligent and failing dismally with questions like, "Is it called the High Court because the roof is really high?"

After technical difficulties, we are finally able to write our blog for Sunday 13th September....lets begin with our journey to Sydney. We all arrived at Perth Domestic Airport at 10pm, we had to wait for a few stragglers, but apart from that all were excited and ready to go. We checked in our luggage and then went upstairs. by this time everyone was truly hyper. With an hour left to wait Mrs. Parkinson, and Mrs. Downing had already downed a few lemon, lime, and bitters between them.

Finally we were on the plane. After a short wait the friendly flight attendants bought us our dinner.....or a midnight meal:) We eventually landed in Sydney, all dreary eyed. The only thoughts on everyones minds were the Krispy Kremes......or lack of.

We jumped onto our 5 star coach and met our driver FABIO...otherwise known as Rod. He was ever so informative on our tour around Sydney and on the way to our first stop, the iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge. We walked along the bridge and were embarrased by the incredibly high fitness level of the morning runners, Mrs. Parkinson was spotted being overtaken by a 70 year old on her zimmer frame.

Our free time was spent refueling and re-energizing .This, however, was far too much for some as Mrs Parkinson was flaked out with Mrs Downing, enjoying coffee and biscuits.

Our Captain Cook cruise was next. We were decvieved by the image on the tickets and were led to believe we would be travelling on the Sydney 2000, when in actual fact our cruise ship was a much smaller, more minamilistic liner.

Whilst some took in the scenery and enjoyed the tour guide others fell asleep...MRS PARKINSON!

Next on the agenda was the Sydney Tower. We enjoyed the virtual tour of Australia and a revolving cinema.

This was the end of our day as we finally took the 5 star coach home to our Eagle Hawk accomodation.

Friday night

One last sleep before the Locko students hit Sydney. Wonder how much sleep the troops are getting?? Appeared to be a number of excited kids at school ... This appears to working ok ..our first entry via the wireless modem Ray Barrett