An After-School Adventure

So I hope I’m not overloading you all with pictures right now, but I’m really enjoying the camera. This post in particular will have a lot of pics, I went to the public library to use their internet to upload them as I have 2GB left until the 16th of May!

Yesterday after school I pumped up the tyres of my bike at the local petrol station (a very nearly embarrassing experience) and headed off for the hills. I took the bike out in the direction I usually walk, Northwest of my house. I got to the dog fence a lot quicker than usual, although I did have to push the bike a lot of the way due to the extremely rough terrain. I got to the usual ending point of my walk and looked around for a while. I love the country out here.

I followed the fence around, exploring new territory. Eventually I came across a road that led to the town dam. I hadn’t been along this way before and I decided that I would follow. The road was graded and much better than the rough tracks I had been following, but it presented it’s own problems. The sand was powdery and it was easy to get bogged in it, and as I went along there were more and more rocks to avoid.  Exhausted after a steep climb, I found a place to rest a while.

The road ahead.

I almost gave up and went back, the sun was setting and I didn’t want it to be dark when I was going home. Something was pushing me, though, and I couldn’t get past wondering what was over the crest ahead, and so I set off. Then it was the crest after that, until I was in a valley between steep hills with the setting sun lighting up the surface of the rocks.

Gorge at sunset

Here I stopped for a while, knowing that I should get home before it got too dark. I didn’t know how far away the dam was, but I didn’t want to risk pushing forward if I’d be trudging home at night. I looked at the hills opposite and saw kangaroos disappearing over the crest. (Well, really they could have been wallabies. I couldn’t tell.) Near the top of the steep incline I could see some caves. ‘Hm’ my brain went, ‘I wonder what’s up there.’

A cliff, of sorts. Not as cliffy as they come. Can you see the caves up near the top, along the ridge?

Next thing I knew my ‘stupid mode’ had kicked in and I was looking back down a pretty steep slope, coming to the realisation that I hadn’t told anyone where I was going. I was around 6km out of town, half way up a (glorified) cliff and there was no school the next day, so if something happened to me, nobody would really know I was gone till the day after. And I wasn’t wearing a helmet. Still, I was fairly confident in my ability to tackle that particular slope.

The view down, but not from the top. About half way up I think.

I reached the caves and was rewarded for my efforts with a somewhat gruesome scene. It was a wallaby graveyard of sorts. Nothing had died recently, but there must have been the skeletons of at least four of the things in there. I think they were Yellow-Footed Rock Wallabies, an endangered species found around my area.

The cave of dead wallabies.

There wasn’t much further to go to get to the top. I couldn’t just go back down….

A steep climb. Avoiding the spinifex was a priority.

I love climbing. It is the best feeling in the world. It’s like a puzzle, you’ve got to get it right, judge whether the rock is stable, avoid the prickly plants, make sure you keep your centre of gravity in close. I generally pick easy slopes, and this one wasn’t too hard as you can see.

When I got to the top it was a double win. I had climbed the cliff, and on the other side I could see the reservoir stretching out through the hills. I had made it to the dam! I was pretty happy, let me tell you.

View from the top- the reservoir

The distant cliffs

I found the light made it hard for me to get a decent photo, I’m still not great on my camera settings.

The view down the other way. Can you see my bike?

I took some more photos from the top looking in other directions. It was an amazing experience.

Cliffs at sunset

Well I saw that the road snaked around the hill I was standing on, and that it would a silly idea to go back down the way I came up. I decided I would walk along the ridge until I got to the road. But… then I climbed down anyway.

The way down.

There isn’t much more to it. I did stay out too late, the sunset glow quickly submerged into twilight. It was beautiful, but pushing the bike back up the hills was exhausting work. There were about three big ones- I’d push my way up, then coast down the other side, avoiding half-seen rocks.  Once I got through the hills it was a steady, only mildly terrifying ride through the semi-darkness. By the time I got home it was almost completely dark. I plan to invest on a light for my bike sometime soon, riding on an unfamiliar road in the dark is not one of my favourite things to do. I got home safe and sound, elated at the success of my expedition and feeling like I was on top of the world. I hope you enjoy my pictures!

Post #49- Back for the start of Term 2

I arrived back in L.C. today, ready to get ready for School. Only a couple of days now before it’s back to work. My holidays have been just about as tiring as the school term was. I am afraid that I am not so inspired to write, even though I have plenty to say. I’d say that I’ve pestered enough people with my new camera for most people to know that I have a nice new Olympus Pen E-P3. I’ve uploaded some pics I took today, hope you enjoy.

Pretty cool eh?

This mountainous looking place was on the road up. It is my favourite lot of hills- I’ll have to climb them one day. This is about an hour away from my place, maybe a bit more. Once I arrived home I went for a walk, and was happy to be able to look over the views…

A nice view- a little blurry I'm afraid.

Unfortunately I had to contend with these:

This bush was really prickly.

But it was all worth while- the sunset was, as usual, spectacular.

Trying to get a good sunset photo.

The Truth is…

I can’t wait for the holidays. It’s not that I dislike school or anything, don’t get me wrong, but I am exhausted right now. People keep telling me that I look tired. I have considered putting make-up on to try and hide this fact, but my eyes seem to be pretty sensitive to anything up here (allergies?) and I therefore I don’t want to.

I don’t think this blog will be as inspired as, say, my last one or some others, simply because of my state of mind. I have been struggling a little at school because of the essays. If you ever thought that it was hard to write essays, try getting other people to write them. I am sure this is common to high schools all around, but some problems I have been encountering (mainly at the junior high school level) are as follows: an inability to keep to the same tense; an inability to spell or use grammar; an unwillingness to use constructive criticism; and a deep confusion about the difference between an essay and a recount. This was getting me down a little, but I was encouraged by something that happened today. Three boys who have been struggling a lot with the above issues were working in the public library (attached to the school) after school had finished. I was walking through and they asked for help. I ended up working for a while with those students on these essays they have been struggling with. Because of their willingness to put in extra work and ask for help I know that they have improved their grades. I am fairly happy about that.

I am reading Crime and Punishment at the moment, but it is slow going. I am very much behind where I should be, I am part of a reading group you see. It is a little frustrating at the moment with all of the Russian names (not that they can help that but it confuses me quite a bit) and the main character… well… let’s just say that I have the urge to slap him, sit him down, feed him, and tell him to smarten up. I had a good conversation with the librarian about this, and we also got stuck into James Joyce a little, but I won’t reproduce this in polite company.

Only two more days of school and I will be driving south! Easter and friends and family (although not as much family as I would like, considering it will just be me and Sis this Easter). Big Bro Abroad has a blog. You should all read it.  Anyway I think it is definitely time for me to go home (I’m at school using the public internet) and so I’ll say goodbye to you all, and I hope to see you in the holidays!

The great outdoors is just out my door

I have been living in my current location for a while now (8 weeks?) and I am ashamed to say that I have not really explored my own ‘back yard’. It didn’t hit me until just recently that when you live in the middle of no-where, it doesn’t take long to find yourself exactly there. In my case it is a two minute walk down the street, through a gate, and then out into a vast and hilly expanse of saltbush and stones. Needless to say I love this, and since they had no need for basketball subs tonight, I went for a walk.

I walked for some time out to the golf club and then I struck out up a hill by the pistol club, climbed to the top and stopped for a while to drink it all in. It was stunning in all directions and as I paused I saw two kangaroos across the way, hopping up the hill next to mine. They stopped and looked at me, wary.

Spot the Kangaroo, harder than Where's Wally?

The best part was the sunset. Previously I had tried to see the sunset from the limits of my south-facing back yard. I could get some sense of the glory, but for the first time I saw it properly. I stood on top of a hill staring in something like awe, words like ‘crepuscular’ and ‘iridescent’ worming their way into my mind. As a descriptor, ‘molten gold’ seemed clichéd and sadly unable to match the scene. What words are there for a sunset? I wished that I had a better camera. As I stood there I kept turning around to see the other facets of the landscape looking at the light fading to pastel hues in the east. It was then I became aware that the train was coming down from the north, I looked in amazement at the length of the thing. The fading light made a picture difficult, but you may be able to see it here.

It goes all the way across

The sound of the train is something else. I can’t think of how to say it, it’s like a massive waterfall decided to go wandering past about a kilometre away. The thundering, the gibbering and squeaking of the tortured metal, the sheer presence of the sound is really surprising. When you think about the length, the weight and the kinetic energy required to shift that amount of metal and coal across hundreds of kilometres… the mind boggles. Torn between sunset and spectacle, I stood for some time largely untroubled by the flies and the wind.

But I am sure you all want to know about other things that have been happening apart from my walks. Interesting stuff perhaps, like the floods. I did write a blog about them but it disappeared. Stupid. Needless to say I couldn’t get down to Adelaide for training when the road looked like this:

The other day I was hanging up my washing when I saw something that my brain didn’t process for a moment, and freaked me out slightly. It was, as follows:

Processionary Caterpillars

Processionary caterpillars. Pretty gross huh? I didn’t touch them or even poke them with a stick (though I was tempted) contenting myself with taking pictures.

As for school, it has been going ok. I need to do more work, but as for the general overall look I am enjoying myself. This is a surprise, because I had expected to live on a level stress ranging from ‘mildly stressed’ to ‘intensely stressed’ and enjoyment didn’t really come into the picture. The stress isn’t killing me, but that could be a bad thing because my automatic reaction to the removal of stress is laziness, thus the need to do more work.

Things that I miss include studying and more than that I miss my friends. I encourage you all to consider road trips.

Until next time,

P

First Week Down… Many More to Go

Well, more weeks than I can count on my fingers, and, as everyone knows, English teachers can’t do Mathematics (other than generally being able to spell the word).

In some ways I dislike the expectations that are associated with being an English teacher. I mean, I can’t make spelling mistakes any more for fear of appearing professionally inept, and I have to know more things about grammar than I actually do… My right to make innocent errors is now extinct. On the plus side, I won’t be asked any more difficult technical questions about science, or be expected to help anyone with Maths that I don’t remember. Anyway, enough of this musing, the reason I am writing this is to tell you all that I survived the first week with both my sanity and dignity intact! I am no longer teaching stage 2 English as there were too few students. Instead I will be supporting those students through open access, and doing other literacy support tasks in the school. This is a real God-send as I was very worried about teaching stage 2, inexperienced as I am.

Now for a little information about the school and the community: It’s a really nice place up here (as long as you stay indoors with the aircon on during the day) and the school kids are polite and generally well behaved. I have a large and spacious three bedroom house, a big back yard, and as much space to myself as I could possibly want. This is all for a ridiculously small sum of rent, plus the water is free, and I get tax breaks and pretty good bonuses for living remote. I feel like I’m pretty well set up here, but just a little bit lonely. The school is fairly small, the student population is, I think, around 150. There are thirteen teachers as well as a deputy and a principal, and with the SSO’s and other staff included there are twenty three staff in total. There are great facilities up here, including an Olympic size swimming pool, in which I recently discovered that I am not as good at swimming laps as I would like to think. I think I’ll play tennis on Friday nights, and I have a girl who wants to learn Piano from me (private lessons), so I think that I’ll have plenty on my plate.

Just to reinforce the news- I am feeling much better about school, more confident in my ability to plan/program and pretty sure that I will be fine this year, if a little tired. I am well supported up here both by some other staff and some teaching friends I have elsewhere. If you want to know more, please call me, I love to chat!

Times and Travels

The times, they are a changin. Yes there is the Arab spring and all that, however I’m talking about a personal change. I am in the last few days of my ‘old life’ if you can call it that, and I am facing a move.I find myself looking to the future, not just the next two years, but beyond that.

I don’t think that I want to be a teacher forever. Having had some experience of it now, and about to be enmeshed in that mindset, I don’t want to settle in the mould, at least not permanently. I’m wondering if I should apply for some prestigious university, Cambridge or Princeton or something like that, just to give it a go. Not that I think they’ll necessarily accept me. I’ll get some good recommendations, but my  Academic Transcript doesn’t necessarily reflect a great study ethic all the way through Uni, and I might not have the grades that many of those places would accept. Soon, I think, I’ll be too busy to organise an application, and I hope I don’t lose the vision of learning or adventuring. I mean, I don’t even have to apply to one of these places, but I look at, say, the M.Phil in English Studies (Medieval Period) at Oxford and I think, ‘gee, wouldn’t that be nice…’

Moving on, I have been very slack with this blog lately. I apologise to those of you who are actually interested in reading it. I have been doing many and varied things, too many to write of in one post. This holidays I have travelled more widely in Australia than I ever have before. To start with, Pip and I went to Fregon, an Aboriginal community in the APY lands. There we went hiking in the Everard Ranges, a highlight of the trip.

I really like this picture, it gives you a little of the sense of the country. It was incredible.

After being in Fregon, we came home and I packed up a lot of my things. I am mostly packed, I hope, though I get the feeling that when ‘crunch time’ comes I will be pretty stressed out. Christmas was lovely, with the very welcome but unexpected visit of Brother no. 2. Very nice time. My next trip was to Lincoln over new years, where I saw some good friends and did some fishing. We didn’t catch anything, but it was still great.

This particular photo was taken at Gunyah beach. A very beautiful place- it was a really hot day but the sea breeze was more than compensation.

Finally, I went on a rather crazy road trip up to Surfer’s Paradise with Pip and some good friends. We drove for 26 hours without sleep, which was why it was crazy. It was pretty incredible really, we stayed at my friends relatives apartment without charge, they were very generous. There were so many people spending so much money to be there, and it felt a little strange to be so cheap. Here is a picture of the view from the apartment, onto the ‘concrete jungle’.

Contrasting this ultra-urban place with a place like Fregon is difficult and and thought provoking. There is so much wealth, and it is a high functioning society contrasted with the poverty and disfunction of the APY lands. Thought provoking indeed.

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A Real Job (Again)

Hello Readers! As pretty much all of you already know, I have a job next year. This being the internets, I will not be posting any locational details. Suffice to say it is lovely and remote, and the closest people I know live a 3h drive away. I will be teaching English from grade 7-12 and personal learning plan (PLP) year 10-11. I am looking forward to it, except for the whole ‘teaching year 12 English’ part. Still, it’s better than year 12 Bio- I’d be completely doomed. This (area) school has around 150 students, good facilities and it sounds pretty nice all round. I didn’t actually apply for the job, DECD decided to place me there and called me at 8:40 in the morning to inform me of this fact. I was surprised that they called before 9, I mean, when do they start work? My emotions on having a real job again are mixed. I am both happy and sad, as I quite enjoy studying, and this year has been very rewarding. On the other hand this new change is a bit like an adventure and I think that I will like it up north. Hopefully I will figure out how to be a good teacher somewhere along the way.

As for my studies, the dying days of my degree are gliding into the gloaming, this crepuscular zone makes me feel distinctly like I am in liminal space, walking along the beach of life, divided between two periods. Perhaps one of the worse habits picked up in my study, as you can see, is a tendency to ‘wax lyrical’, often without making much sense. I just like long words… Maybe it’s good I am finishing while I still make some sense in general conversation. Anyway, I digress. I was going to talk about the fact that I only have an Exam left, and this is on Monday. Yay! Last exam ever! Probably.  After this is done I will try and find things to occupy me- no doubt there will be plenty of things to do: packing up, looking for furniture, planning units of work, hiking and crochetting and whatever else takes my fancy. I’ll be visiting my new school soon and that will be a 6h drive… lots of fun.

Anyway, I will leave you with a cute You Tube clip: