Rottnest Island--March 19th-23rd

Thursday

The adventure to school today was quite interesting. Heather took me to school in the ’87 Camry, but we had to stop at the petrol station to figure out what type of gas to put into the car. We ended up figuring it out, and I even managed to make it to school on time. The kids are starting to push my limits as to what behaviors I’ll allow. It’s becoming frustrating. We did a latitude/longitude final assessment today, which was an utter failure. I think only about three children passed with an acceptable grade. I’m at a loss, because the students just aren’t putting much effort into their work.
After school, I came home and rested for a little bit. I then went to Len and Heather’s Thursday night wine tasting at the Thai restaurant in Subiaco. It was delicious. Len added it up, and we had at least $600 of wine on the table and the food was only about $150 for eight people. We went for coffee afterwards, and I had an AMAZING piece of carrot cake.
Tomorrow is Rotto! We’ll leave right after school so that we can be sure to catch the ferry.

Friday, Feb 20

I woke up this morning and made sure that I was all packed up for Rotto. When I got to school, the whirlwind began. The morning flew by and then chaos began. Our autistic boy was playing a game at lunch with some other boys (involving dirt). He came into the room covered in black dirt, so I sent him back out to shake off. The next thing I know, I look out the windows and see kids in a circle yelling, “Get off him!” Brett and I ran outside to find another boy in our class about to pound the crap out of the autistic boy. Brett diffused the situation, but it was still a shock. In the end, the story was that the autistic boy threw dirt down the back of the other boy’s shirt. The other boy has major anger issues and just retaliated by whacking him back. It was the talk of the class for the rest of the day.
Brett and I raced out of class at the end of the day, so that I could get to Rottnest and he could get to his footy game. As soon as I got home, I packed a picnic dinner and snacks to take over to the island. We were to Katy’s house by 4:45PM, so that we could get the bikes on the car. We mounted the bike rack and bikes and headed off for Fremantle. Of course, right when we got to the jetty, it poured down rain. We eventually got on the boat, but were fairly soaked by this time. At the island, we had to check in and bike to our hostel—in the rain. Rottnest Island was originally established as an Aboriginal prison. During the wars, it became a place for the Australian Army to keep a base. We stayed in the old Army Barracks. They were nothing fancy, but it was nice enough. After biking to the hostel, Katy and I decided that we should have dinner and go into the pub. As we were having dinner, a quokka (a cross between a rat and a kangaroo) got into the lounge, so we had to shoo him out. The quokkas are only found on Rottnest Island. At the pub, there was a great little band playing live music, so we stayed for a while and watched them. We ended up staying out fairly late and having a glass of wine on the beach. We ended up biking back to our hostel and calling it a night.

Saturday

Summary of the day: my butt hurts… a lot. We got up this morning and rode into the little town (and by town I mean a bakery, about 3 shops, a grocery, a café, a pub and a museum) to stop for breakfast. We had brought some food with us, so we just sat at a picnic table and chowed down. Our first trek for the day was to the lighthouse in the middle of the island. Oh, by the way, there are no cars on the island, so we had to bike everywhere we went. The lighthouse was about a five km ride (about 20 min). It was amazing, because we could see the whole island and all of the coves from that point. It was an extremely hilly ride, and I wouldn’t want to take someone on it who had many health conditions. We then hopped back on our bikes and headed for the opposite end of the island. We stopped at a few bays along the way, but we did make it to the westernmost point. It was about an hours’ ride. We then had to turn around and ride back, but we came back a slightly different way. In the end, we biked about 3.5 hours this morning. We stopped for lunch at Red Rooster (one of the shops), which is like a McDonalds with only chicken.
After lunch, we were back on our bikes. We biked for about another hour this afternoon, stopping along the way at the different coves and beaches. They were fantastic with very pretty sand and beautiful cliffs. We stopped at Little Parakeet Bay and Fays Bay for quite a while. We eventually made it back into town and bought a few groceries at the general store—one being a frozen pizza, which we cooked for dinner. It was aweful! Before dinner though, Katy and I walked out to the beach that was nearest our hostel. We ended up running into some guys that were really great. We stayed at the beach and kicked a rugby ball around and talked with them for about half an hour. After dinner, we rode back into town for a beer at the pub and to listen to the band again.
We met some girls from Ireland who had traveled through most of Australia and New Zealand, so they gave Katy some pointers on what to do during her travels. The coolest part of the evening was on the trip into the pub. Katy and I stopped halfway into town and laid down on the ground. The sky was clear and there were thousands of stars in the sky. We actually saw the Milky Way! It was just like all of the pictures with the smoky, wispy sky. It was like a strip right down the middle of the sky. It was one of those moments that I’ll never forget.

Sunday

Katy and I woke up at 7AM this morning so that we could see the sunrise. We got up and out to the beach by 7:15, which was perfect because the sunrise happened at about 7:20AM. It was great, because the sun came up over the skyline of Perth. We were really cold, but we put on bathers and headed into town regardless. (Biking really wasn’t too much fun today—it was way too painful.) We had brekky at the bakery and explored much of the historical part of the island. Some of the original We went around the south side of the island where we were told about the excellent snorkeling. We first stopped at Henrietta Rocks where there was a sunken ship that crashed in the 1800s. We tried to snorkel out to it, but the waves were just too choppy. We did get to see some of the ship though.
After that, we headed to Little Salmon Bay. When we got there, we discovered a snorkel trail. We snorkeled here, which was neat. They had underwater plaques that we could read along the way to point out some interesting facts about the life under water. The current was very strong though towards the end, so we really had to swim hard in order not to be pulled out into the ocean. After that spot, we went up the road to Salmon Bay—a large bay that has good coral.
We snorkeled here and it was definitely the best spot that we ended up going to for snorkeling. After snorkeling and just laying on the beach, we had part of our lunch and kept moving. We made it back to town in time to see the museum and have another little snack. After the museum, we hopped back on our bikes to go to the beaches again. We went to Parakeet Bay and tried to snorkel, but it was mainly just seaweed. Then, we ended up at the Basin (another beach) where we spend the last of our time laying on the beach. We came back into town once more to get a quick dinner at Red Rooster and then we were off to the jetty to catch the ferry. As usual, Katy and I had to also have an ice cream for desert.
Heather picked us up from the ferry in Fremantle, and then we took Katy home. The weekend worked out perfectly. The rain on Friday wasn’t so good, but the rest of the weekend was absolutely perfect.

Monday

It was back to reality once again for me. The kids are designing Easter baskets as a math project for Frank, which is really neat to watch on Monday mornings. Most of the kids worked great, but there are still the same ones who are really starting to push my buttons. The whole class is being rude and inconsiderate during lessons.
We started the digestive system today in health, which I though went well, until I graded their work. The students had to stay in for about 10 minutes of lunch and work because they had been so rude during the lesson. They scored very poorly, which I’m not sure if they did because they were just trying to finish it, or if they really didn’t understand it. We also caught bugs, drew them, and then researched them on the Internet for science. The kids had fun, but they were off-task and walking headaches all day long.
After school, I went to the Whitford's shoppoing center. I had to get a new voucher for my phone and see how much it would be to mail a box of stuff home.. Tonight, I went for a long walk along the beach and through a park that I just happened upon. We had a wonderful dinner at the house, and I just am now sitting around relaxing and catching up on some writing.