Australian Farm/Pinnacles

Tuesday & Wednesday

School was good today and yesterday. We didn’t have any major problems, except some frustrations with our autistic boy. He is still getting back to proper behavior after basically having two weeks off. Mr. Bovill was a nice man, but he was not firm with our autistic boy and just let him get on computer games whenever he wanted. The only other problem we are having is with students turning in their work on time. Students are consistently lazy and behind in their assignments. We gave them the afternoon on Tuesday to get everything completed… and it still didn’t happen for some students.
Tuesday night, I didn’t do much but exercise and relax. Wednesday night, Len, Heather, Katy and I went to Cottesloe Beach. There are nearly 60 sculptures on the beach or in the water as a part of their annual festival. The sculptures are made by a number of different people and are all quite remarkable. My favorite was a huge storage container that would be used on a ship, which was strategically placed at an angle that looked like it was half buried in the sand. After we went to the sculptures, Len and Heather took us down to Freo for dinner. We ate at Gino’s; one of the restaurants that is local to Fremantle.

Thursday

Today, I had an expensive evening. I haven’t mentioned it, but my throat has been sore since before I left for Bali. It is getting worse, and it really hurts to swallow. The glands in my neck are all swollen as well. With all of that in consideration, I ended up going to the doctor to have it checked out. Nearly $85 later, I was diagnosed with tonsillitis. I was given a prescription, which should take care of the infection. That little adventure took up most of the evening, so I ended up staying home and getting some papers written.

Friday

I was silly today. Len told me that it was going to be 37 Celcius today, well it turned out to be only about 27 Celsius. I was cold all day long, mainly contributed by the fact that I wore shorts and a t-shirt. I had to referee basketball again—I like basketball, but I don’t like playing it with 5—7th graders. We stayed after work today for a couple of beers, but I just had a Diet Coke. I’ve decided to stay in tonight and watch the footy on TV. Collingwood and Gelong are playing and it’s a really good game. I like this type of football, it’s much faster than ours and is played without padding. Tomorrow is the big day with my principal and the Pinnacles.

Saturday

I woke up early this morning, went for a run and got myself ready. Len and I went to pick up Katy at 7:30AM, so that we could be back home by 8:30 for Gavin, my principal, to pick us up. He and his wife, Christine, were there a little late, but ready to go. We jumped in the car and took off going north. After about an hour of driving, we stopped in a town called New Norcia. It’s a monastery. The monastery used to be a thriving place with two schools where students would board and be taught by the Nuns and Monks. It appeared to be absolutely abandoned. The schools are no longer being used, and it’s all set up to be a tourist trap. However, there are still quite a few monks there who bake bread, which is sold locally. We got a drink at the petrol station there, and Christine had made brownies, so we had those for brekky.
After about an hour and a half more of driving, we arrived at their friends farm. This farm was exactly like the movies pictured it. We just kept driving and driving, and driving to get to their house. Once we were on their driveway, we had to drive for about ten minutes just to get to the house. The house was incredible. It was like an oasis in the middle of dry boring land. They have an irrigation system, so there was green grass and lots of flowers around their house. They also have a pool. The really neat part of the house though was the inside. Wes and ML, had done a lot of work to make the place nice. It had lovely stained-glass windows, and hand carved wooden designs in the walkways and doors. For being in the middle of a huge farm, it was incredibly nice. They have two little kids, who will have to go to boarding school starting in grade 8, simply because there are no high schools close enough for them to stay at home. I think it would be extremely hard to let your kids go at that young of an age. We had a lovely lunch, with homemade breads, fruits, etc.
After a leisurely lunch, we drove across their farm to the house that they are going to be moving into. The new house is actually the house that Wes grew up in, and his parents just moved out of. It’s nice because it’s about 15 min closer to town and saves that much time off of the kid’s commute everyday to school. The machinery is also all at the new place. Wes and ML crop about 5,200 acres of wheat per year. They also have sheep, but not all that many. They actually own about 6,000 acres, but some of that land isn’t good for farming. When we were driving to the new house, ML rode with us, and showed us their farm. It basically was as far as one could see for about 15 minutes of driving. The real downfall of their life is that they have no neighbors. The closest people would be about a 20-minute drive away. The town was really small, with a primary school, shop, hardware, and a few small businesses. The school from year K to year 7 only had about 50 students in it, which is actually quite a large school for being a farm country.
Wes had a huge harvester, a CASE International, and a huge John Deer tractor with a seeder. All he farms is wheat, so that’s pretty much all he needs. I’m not sure how wide the seeder was, but the header for the harvester was 45 feet wide. It was massive.
After we left the farm, we headed towards the coast to the town of Cervantes. Our hotel was here, so we checked in quickly and headed back out again. We went to the Pinnacles. These are the most incredible natural landform I’ve ever seen. They are large rocks pointing straight up out of the ground, which have been around for 30, 000 years. They were remarkable. And it wasn’t like there were only ten of them, there were thousands! They stretched at least a good 9 square km area. We were there at dusk, which was nice because they started getting really long shadows.
We ended up back at the hotel for dinner, probably the only place in the area that even served dinner. It was very nice. We had some sparkling red wine and some brownies for dessert.

Sunday

Katy and I woke up today around 8AM. Gavin and Christine went for a walk, and we got ourselves ready. After breakfast in the room, which was melted cheese on toast and grapes, we headed back towards Perth. We traveled straight back and arrived home around 2PM. I went to the beach for a couple hours. It was especially nice today, because it was over 100 degrees F and there was music playing from the lifeguard’s building. I came back around 5PM and was so hot from the walk that I jumped in the pool and then took a shower. I just had to watch The Magic School Bus and create questions about it, because my students are going to watch it tomorrow in health.
I think tonight is just going to be some paper writing and prep work time. I have to have all of my papers done by Thursday, because my coordinator has to turn in my grades. If all goes well, I”LL GRADUATE ON FRIDAY!!!! WHOO HOOO!!