Last night after dinner, we played a big game of ‘Werewolf’ with the whole Group.
We then had a good and refreshing sleep, and woke up at 7:15 in the morning to put on our newly painted Warruwi tops which were dry from yesterday’s painting. The kids came to school between 8:00 and 9:00 to have Weet-bix and milo for breakfast with us. The kids often come to school early as the school supplies a healthy breakfast and lunch for all the students. When the bell rang signalling the start of school, the group split up to help in the different classrooms. We were all helping with either the Geckos, Dolphins, Sharks, Eagles, Crocs or Barramundis. We had heaps of fun helping the children with their reading!
After morning tea, we grabbed out hats, water bottles and cameras, and walked to the Warrruwi Market Gardens where they had started to grow there own supply of fresh fruit. They had pineapples, mangoes, sweet potatoes, bananas, Kakadu plums and a green type of fruit that is used as bush medicine for colds. It was very interesting to see how the fruits grew and we even got to taste the fruit used for bush medicine!
We then walked to the Warruwi Art Gallery and looked at some of the paintings, jewellery, shells and didgeridoos that the Indigenous Community had created. They all looked fantastic and some of us bought some paintings to bring home. While some of continued to explore the art gallery, other students in the group went to the general store to stock up snacks. It was great to explore the general store as the whole community goes to the store to purchase their groceries. The community gets a shipments of fruits, vegetables, cheese and so on delivered to the island every Wednesday.
After our visit, we came back to the school for lunch. Following on from lunch, a couple of students went back to a class to help some of the students to paint their remaining shirts, the rest of us had a talk with Jenny, one of the Indigenous teachers at the school. Jenny taught us heaps about the culture of the Warruwi Island and the history of hunting and cooking turtles. Jenny also promised to teach us how to weave baskets with leaves from local trees.
Jenny and Rodney (another local villager) then accompanied us to Bottle Rock in the afternoon for a swim at the beautiful South Goulburn beach. It was a great way to cool off and we all had a lot of fun playing and swimming in the water. Jenny also told us a Dream Time story about how the North and South Goulburn Islands were split by the crow cutting down the Paperbark tree because he was angry at the sea eagle for not sharing his fish. Mark took the van back to town to get dinner from the store and brought it back for us to eat at Bottle Rock. We sat at Bottle Rock and watched the sun go down while eating dinner.
Overall this trip has been great so far and we cannot wait for our next adventure!
By Eloise and Wendy on behalf of the Australia group. 🇦🇺🐢
Note from Linda Su: Dear Parents, we are currently experiencing a few internet connection difficulties which means photos cannot be posted alongside the written blog. Photos from today will be uploaded tomorrow. Thank you for your patience and understanding.