URBAN DOMAIN 2024

Australia- Day 6: Jumping Around Jabiru

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The day started off everybody having a good night’s rest… and a big surprise for Nathan! We all signed a boomerang that was Nathan’s birthday gift, crowded outside his cabin at 8AM and surprised him by singing ‘Happy Birthday’, and having a chocolate mud cake (which later eaten after dinner).

 

At 9AM, after breakfast, we met our Kakadu Cultural Tour guide Ryan and all got on the bus to visit the Kakadu National Park – Bowali Visitor Centre. We looked at the different displays, signs and statues in each room. We were all told to find the names of the four birds which are endemic to Kakadu, and turned out to be more challenging than we thought! We then went into the little mini-theatre to watch a documentary about the park and it was quite interesting. We learned that there was an introduced species of plant known as the Mimosa which is threatening the livelihood of the park. We were shown a video of rangers on a power boat speeding through the park’s wetter areas looking for introduced plants and weeding them away. The rangers in the video said that the mimosa plant doubles in growth. So in a year, there could be 100 mimosa plants growing, but the year after there could be up to at least 300 plants growing. The video and visit to the park was very interesting!

 

After lunch at the Border Store, we all went on a cruise along the East Alligator River to see the crocodiles live in action! It was cool to see crocodiles up close in their natural habitat. Unfortunately, it suddenly began to rain heavily when we were halfway along the river cruise so the boat had to turn back. After the rain had stopped, we got on the bus to the walk along the Ubirr walking track and learned that we would see the sunset up on the Ubirr Rocks. Our tour guide Ryan accompanied us again and began to show us the fascinating Aboriginal rock painting found in Kakadu. We were told all about what the different pictures could mean, and learned that not all of the paintings were necessarily meant to be art. We worked our way along the short track, stopping at every display to marvel at the paintings, before arriving at the lookout. We were all shocked at how fantastic the view was, and after taking a few photos, we all realised that photos simply could not capture just how amazing the view was.

 

However, we were all in awe when got to sit on the rocks to watch the beautiful sunset. Everybody was quiet after a few minutes of talking about the view and then sat down to admire it sunset some more. When we arrived back on the bus, we were dropped off at the Border Store again for a fantastic dinner.

 

Our first official day in Jabiru trip has been absolutely incredible.

 

Love,

Max and Sunny on behalf of the Australia Group 🇦🇺🌅

 

 

Thanks,

Linda

Australia – Day 5: Warruwi School la St Leonard’s College

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The day started off with the realisation that we were saying goodbye to all of the beautiful people at Warruwi, and while some of us were a bit sad to leave the community as we have created so many wonderful memories and connections, we were all very excited with the next part of our adventure!

We all woke up bright and early ready for a jam packed morning of packing away beds, bags, tables, eating and painting. Breakfast started the usual way, with the Aboriginal children slowly dripping in for their morning bowl of Weet-Bix and Milo. After breakfast, we all went to our seperate classes to spend some time with the students and help them with their learning. It was so much fun, and while it was the last time for our Big Experience trip of 2017, we know we will eventually come back some time in the future!  We then left the classrooms at 10:30am to go to the Recreation Hall.

The ‘Rec Hall’ was where all the kid and the St Leonard’s group played basketball together the other night. We thought that it would be a good idea to show our gratitude for the Island’s amazing hospitality and giving us all an experience that would stick with us our whole life. As the Australia Group of 2017, we painted a mural on the rec hall wall. We painted ‘Warruwi School la [with] St Leonard’s’ and painted our handprints around the words to signify the strong and ever-lasting relationship that St Leonard’s and Warruwi School will share and have together. When we finished the painting, we went back to the school and did our Final Ceremony with the kids. We all stood in a circle and went around saying goodbye to everyone.

We all went to Warruwi Airport at different times and boarded our planes off the island and to the mainland. On the plane, we got some sneak previews to the beautiful country we were just entering, with lush forests to our right and ancient cliff faces to the left. Once we arrived at Jabiru we all had some time off swimming and chilling. We then caught our big bus to the Border Shop, the restaurant on the border of Kakadu and Jabiru, and ate a delicious meal.

We’re all having so so SO much fun.

Love,

Oscar and Mushtaba on behalf of the Australia Group

China Day 6 – Three Gorges Dam

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We visited the Three Gorges Dam in the morning. This project was begun in 1993.
The dam itself was a controversial issue because of the pros and cons, and the vote indicated that only 70% of people were in favour of it, compared to the usual 90% in other Chinese votes.

Advantages of the dam:
Produces a lot of clean electricity (5% of the national power needs)
Prevents flooding
Allows shipping channels to be extended and managed

Disadvantages:
1.4 million people had to be moved
No project like this one has ever been done before, so we don’t know whether environmental effects are yet to be known.
It’s really big!
Cost a lot of money to construct (although the money was apparently paid back within 3 years)
If it breaks, the flood will be really damaging
Increased landslides may cause rocks to make the dam reservoir shallower and shallower, or the rocks may affect the dam’s foundations

I thought the tour guide’s story was really moving. He told us that many people had to be relocated for the construction of the dam, and Alex’s parents were some of the 1.4 million who were evicted from their homes. This happened at around the time that Alex was at college studying mechanical engineering, so one day at school he got a letter from home saying that the family had been kicked out from their home and couldn’t afford a new house because the government compensation wasn’t enough. Alex moved back to his hometown and got a job at the tourist agency as a guide to help support his family. He says he really enjoys the job because he can go home and have dinner with his family afterwards, which is something that is really important to him. But he also hopes to go back to college and finish his studies someday so that he could become an engineer.

At the start of every day, we receive a question which allows to take in more of what we’re seeing and process it more. Today’s question was, “do the Chinese government and people care about their pollution?” This dam project gave us a pretty accurate answer to this question. The Chinese government sacrificed people’s homes and ways of living for an important cause to justify their massive decision. The dam produces no pollution and produces five percent of China’s total energy needs which is substantial. These new energy solutions work towards a common goal in which to solve China’s pollution crisis.

After the dam excursion, we cruised to Yichang, then flew to Guiyang. A big day of travelling overall.

Lilly and Kristian

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Vietnam Yellow – Day 6

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House build day 3

By Jamie and Makenzie

After two days of helping the local villagers build a traditional Vietnamese house, we were excited to finally hand it over to the deserving family. We set off on our usual hour long walk to the building site for the last time. After we finished off the final touches of the house, which included nailing in the walls and building the stairs, we all gathered inside the newly constructed house for an emotional, heartfelt handover. It was great to see that nearly all 60 families living within the village came together as a community to witness the event. It was surreal to think that we had built this house from scratch with some help from the local builders. At first, it was hard to see if the family actually appreciated the work we had done because of the language barrier, but after a few words from both our tour leader and the patriarch of the family, it was evident that they were very grateful, appreciative and emotional about it. In fact, before the speeches were finished, most of the family had started to tear up and cry from happiness. Their eldest daughter came to visit from her own family to support her parents as they received the gift of a lifetime. When she heard her father describing how the gift we had given them would change their future, she burst into tears and ran out. We were all very teary too! We then hung up the sign at the front of the door which had been slightly altered overnight by some excited children. After we had said our thanks and they had expressed their gratitude, we gave the children and parents of the village the gifts we had bought. Sharing our knowledge of footy with the locals was a great bonding experience for all and it was great to see the kids filled with joy as they played with everything we had given them. It was surprising to see how fast they had mastered the skills of AFL! We collected the cow that we had bargained for with the neighbours – that ended up costing us 8 million Vietnamese dong – and walked her to the new house. After our 3 days of intense work, we said goodbye to the village and to the family for the final time, and went back to our home stay for the afternoon. 

After a short break, we headed out again to see a cave that was used as a hide out for the locals during the Vietnam War. Within the cave, there was a three storey building, which was used as a hospital, a shelter and a meeting point for the community leaders. Unfortunately the main part of the cave was locked, but that did not stop us from realising just how big the cave really was. The cave trip was something spontaneous and not on our itinerary as our guide decided to show us something interesting that was very close to the village. We were then able to explore the local town for a little bit, to get some extra pairs of much needed genie pants – and matching tops!

Following dinner, we were treated to a traditional Vietnamese dance performance. The dances they performed explained the history of the different ethnicities within Vietnam. Each dance represented a different ethnic group. These ethnic groups were the Mong, Muong, Dao and the White Thai people. Towards the end of the performance, we were invited to join in their bamboo dance, which we were not the best at, but overall it was fun to see everyone let loose and enjoy themselves after a long day of hard work and walking.

China Days 4&5 – Yangtze River

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Hello everyone! This is Elise Baker and Taine Manojlovic reporting in from China. We’re going to be covering our two days on the boat cruise.

On the first day of the boat cruise, we had some time to stretch out and relax before getting into the main activity. The main activity was visiting a pagoda in the middle of the Yangtze River called Shi Bao, on a small island. The pagoda was mainly focused on Buddhism and Taoism, as they are the main religions practised in China. The staircase to the top of the pagoda was really long and tiring to climb but we made it! The entire pagoda was built carefully into the face of the cliff! The architecture was very appealing and we even saw a Chinese giant salamander in a well.

After we explored the pagoda, we had an opportunity to go shopping at the local markets. We were told that the locals would attempt to overcharge us tourists, so we were taught to bargain and barter for cheaper prices. It was good practice to haggle in a small crowd getting used to it before Shanghai and Beijing. A lot of the souvenirs and items there were similar from store to store. The biggest bargain made was probably by Cameron, who brought the price of an ancient Chinese coin from 480 Yuan all the way down to 50 Yuan. A lot of the stuff there was China and panda-themed so be excited for that when we get back home in 2 weeks!

In general, life on the boat is fun, but it occasionally got a bit boring. We had to figure out ways to kill the time such as playing card games, admiring the view from the boat or just plain old having conversations with others. We also watched Harry Potter and the goblet of fire. I personally also enjoyed playing my trumpet mouth piece but I think everyone else disagrees (Elise).

The first day of the cruise was also Jackson’s birthday. He was given a nice cake at dinner by the crew and everyone on the boat sang Happy Birthday to Jackson! He also received some gifts from his family that he had packed in his bag, like a fidget spinner from his brother! He has been spinning it all day. I can’t stand it anymore. Please help!!

After dinner, we had an after party arranged especially for us. There was some nice music but the real highlight was the round of musical chairs. A lot of people missed this so it may be a surprise to some of them too. Taine, Jackson and Ewan all participated in musical chairs with one other random person. Of course, us being as incompetent as we are led to the random person winning. Ah well! (Happy birthday Jackson!)

The next day we spent most of the day on the boat. We spent many hours playing cards, eating food, watching Harry Potter and getting to know each other a lot better.

In the afternoon we took a smaller boat out to another stream off the Yangtze River. On that boat we saw a hanging coffin in the side of a cliff and a rock that looked like an elephant face. You really had to really use your imagination to see the elephant face. The smaller boat took us to a new stream and we got off and proceeded to get onto even smaller pea-pod boats. These boats were rowed by 3 men at the front and 4 men at the back. A travel guide told us about the history of the lake and the town surrounding it. The travel guide also sang us some songs from her home village. At certain sections in the stream, some of the boatmen went onto shore and pulled us by a bamboo rope. Two of the men jumped out and dragged us along in the water from the shore.

That’s all for now!

Elise and Taine