We had a fun time time in Sydney. We were staying in a 3-bedroom apartment on the 65^th floor in the city. We went to the beach, Opera House, Harbour Bridge, Zoo, Art Museum and Powerhouse Museum, China Town, Bondi Shopping Centre and Dale’s House.

We used many transport like the monorail (it was high off the ground and it was fast), train, bus, ferry, taxi, elevator, escalator and aeroplane. It was the first time for many of us to travel on these things. We could see the ocean, trees, mountains and farming areas from the plane.

The lights from the hotel at night freaked us out and we said ‘wow’.

Staying together meant we had a washing machine, shower, and could eat toegther.

When we got to Sydney by plane, we caught the taxi to the hotel. It cost $75, which we thought was too much. After we got to the hotel we went out for dinner at China Town. The food wasn’t very good. After that we went to the hotel, got our swimming clothes and we went to the pool and spa bath.

On Wednesday Raegina and Dale cooked bacon and eggs for breakfast, but there wasn’t enough bacon. Raegina and the kids bought the ingredients, but we didn’t buy enough. We packed our bags with water, sandwich, fruit box, muesli bar and apple.

On the way to the bus, we saw a man dancing on the street for money. He was a busker. Dale and Raegina stopped and got some lollies and the kids watched the dancing man.

We caught the bus to Circular Quay and saw the Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge. There was a lot of water. Chantelle asked if the water was fresh and deep and if people would swim in it. There was a music dude playing aboriginal music, didgeridoo on the Quay and he gave us some CDs.

We caught the ferry to the zoo after the art museum with Emily our guide. We were pretty tired and bored at the zoo, but the elephants doing the tricks, giraffes eating the carrots and the gorillas were cool. We went home exhausted, and had a sleep.

Chris (Belinda’s friend) and Susan (volunteer from Yulara) came 2 hours from Wollongong to see us for dinner. We had ham and pineapple pizza, garlic bread and coke. It was better than the dinner at China Town.

On Thursday morning we had bacon and eggs again. We left late and went to the powerhouse museum on the monorail loop two times. Freena hung onto the rail hard. Chantelle liked the chocolate machine and Linda liked the trains and planes. We saw lots of different inventions.

We went for lunch in the food plaza in the city, Raegina gave us money and bought our own lunch from MacDonald’s and KFC. We had a short nap at the hotel, then went shopping at a big plaza. It was a big plaza with 5 levels and 2 buildings.

Then we went to the beach. Chantelle sat in the sand and Linda, Ashley, Janice, Freena and Raegina went swimming. It was really cold. Freena almost drowned. We had to be careful about diving in the ocean. This was the best part of the trip. When we went back after dinner, we saw that the water had risen, but were not sure why, or what stops it from going over the town.

We met Dale’s housemate, Delores who was a bit rama. They had heaps of toys and messy rooms. It was good to see someone’s house and play games for a while.

We are now sitting at Alice Springs airport, bored and tired. We hope to go to Melbourne next year to see the AFL mobs we know about and the footy oval they play on.

In 2010 we welcome several new members to Nyangatjatjara College

Jenny Ryder – Deputy Principal

Jack Savenye – Teacher Imanpa Campus

Rachael Muller – Teacher Imanpa Campus

Julia Joseph – Teacher Mutitjulu Campus

Daniel Gerich – Teacher Kaltukatjara Campus

Nathan Franks – Community Liaison Officer

David Hannan – Business and HR Manager

Voyages Resort Ayers Rock and NT Convention Bureau have donated an interactive whiteboard to the College. Voyagers’ Group General Manager, Mr Bernie Boller, presented the College with the whiteboard following a AFL match at the Yulara oval. The whiteboard is the first one for the College, and as Mr Boller commented “They are certainly the way of the future”. For the students of the College, the whiteboard will be a wonderful learning tool to support the literacy and numeracy learning in ways that are exciting for our students. Once installed, there will be professional development for the teachers on how to use the interactive board. The potential of these tools will be harnessed to enable greater access to learning a range of skills and knowledge among the College students. It is hoped that over time each campus will have its own board and they will become an integral part of the teaching approaches being used across the College.

On October 12 Voyages Resort & NT Convention Bureau sponsored an AFL football clinic and game at the Yulara Resort oval. Over 30 students travelled to Yulara to participate in an program of football for the fellas and music for the girls. NT AFL worked with 19 fellas from Mutitjulu, Docker River and Imanpa. A team of American corporate tour operators joined in with the fellas to experience AFL. The girls came over to lend support and cheer the teams on. There was plenty of action as the locals and guests enjoyed the rough and tumble of AFL. There is certainly lots of natural talent among the Nyangatjatjara fellas with lots of spectacular marks and amazing goals being kicked. The visitors were more than impressed with the skills of the Nyangatjatjara students.

Voyages hosted the event and provided the fellas with a great barbeque before the game. Drinks and ice creams were greatly appreciated by the players at the end of the match.

The College was awarded $850K on September 5 to build a new library at the Yulara campus. The funding was provided by the BER scheme and will require the facility to be completed by the end of 2010. This is a great boost for the Yulara campus and will be a great asset to the wider community.

The library will be located at the front of the current site so that it will be a landmark entry point. The design will be contiguous with current classroom buildings and will incorporate a range of sustainable building. The library incorporates the features of learning centres which incorporate considerable use of digital resources, learning pods and learning areas.

“This is a great opportunity to incorporate sustainable building features into a design that complements the current buildings on the campus” said Brad Martin who is the project manager for construction at the College. Brad has been working with the College and local communities for a number of years and is well placed to design and oversee the construction of the new facility. Brad created the concept design for the submission.

The facility, under the conditions of the funding body, will be available as resource for wider community use.

In the near future, consultations will commence with communities as to features to include in the new building. The College will be seeking to incorporate a cultural area where students will create books and resources related to Anangu culture, stories and histories.

On Aug 21, the College organised a music festival to celebrate the week’s work with Shane Howard and Peter Hudson. The festival was held at the College campus at Yulara and was well supported by community and agencies as well as the Mutitjulu Primary students attending. The celebrations started with a performance by local Mutitjulu singer Anita Randall supported by Jeanette Wormald (guitar and backing vocals), Shane Howard (guitar) and Peter Hudson (drums). Shane and Peter then performed as a duo performaing many of the songs penned by Shane. The crowd particularly enjoyed Shane singing “Solid Rock”. The Mutitjulu Band performed a number of songs at the end of the performances. They provided great music for the crowd.

The Festival was well supported by a range of agencies including the General Business Manager, the Mutitjulu Police, Anangu Jobs, The Health Clinic, AnanguWaai Tours, Voyages Resort, Mutitjulu Primary School, McDonnell Shire and Parks. A number of the Directors attended as well. The Staff at the College manned the very popular sausage sizzle with over 200 sausages being served!

Shane Howard and Peter Hudson spent a week at the College working with students from across the campuses. Funded from the Thorpe Fountain For Youth and One Day Hill Publishing, the visit was to create a book based on the iconic song “Solid Rock” which Shane wrote as an epiphany when he spent time at Uluru in the 80s. The song went on to gain considerable success. The visit to the College is one of three ventures sponsored by the two organizations for artists to work with Aboriginal students.

Shane and Peter worked with students from the Mutitjulu Campus to produce artwork that would be used in the book. The students from Imanpa visited the College and worked with Shane and Peter to provide further art work. Students from Docker sent art work to be included in the project. The publishers are confident that the collaboration between the artists and students will result in a great book being produced in time for Christmas 2009.

The students enjoyed the art sessions as they provided scope for students to represent their country. This could be in the way of landforms, events, food, and stories. The students created a wide range of pictures to show how they saw their country. Students also shared in many musical activities during the week as they worked alongside Shane and Peter. Jeanette Wormald from Songroom also worked alongside the team and students. Collectively, this provided a very rich experience for the students.