Category Archives: Scotia’s Blog

28/5/15

Who: My family and I

Where: Tunnel Creek

Why: For schooling

How: By driving

The drive took a long time, and when we got there, (after walking a bit as well), mum & dad put on these strange shoes rather like socks, except they were made of the same material as they use for wetties. Mum told me they were made for walking on rocky surfaces. After 15 minutes of squeezing feet into these interesting sock/shoes, we climbed into a cave. Gus and I were wearing crocs, but I still did my best to stay out of the water. Soon I went as far as I could without getting wet, and then I was stuck. The water in front of me looked deep, the rocks beside me were like walls, and Fergus was behind me. Dad promised me the water in front was ankle-length, but it looked up to my waist, and I wasn’t wearing any swimsuit. Suddenly, dad went straight in the place I didn’t wish to go. I then plucked up just enough courage to go in. I stepped. It somehow didn’t seem that deep anymore. It seemed shallow. I waded in. Dark. Caves are dark, right? This creek is in a cave, which explains its name. At least we had torches. There were oodles of small brown frogs, small insects, and stalagmites like giant chandeliers,  we saw a yabby, and there are supposed to be bats as well.

Thumbs up!

Trip to info centre

Well, I thought this would be boring, and in some ways – it was. You see, all I could do was mooch around while mum and dad chattered on about something to the lady at the desk. I looked at the advertising pamphlets. Most of them were about jewellery shops and cruises and tours. Well, I wasn’t interested in all that stuff. Then I saw something that caught my eye…

Artopia

Example of artwork from Artopia

Example of artwork from Artopia

Artopia. That’s what it read. I looked inside the pamphlet. It was a bit like Heidi, the art gallery that mum took me to once at the beginning of the year. It was very interesting, but that’s beside the point. I showed the pamphlet to mum. She held onto it for a bit, then told me to put it back. She didn’t understand. “But mum, it’s like Heidi!” I told her. She asked the lady where Artopia was. Mum was then told instructions. I didn’t listen. Soon they were chattering away again. When we finally got back into the car, mum told me we were going there just for me. Artopia wasn’t far away, and when we stepped inside, everyone was greeted by a friendly dog. The art itself wasn’t that bad, and I had a good time.

Lookout

We got back into the car. And we drove. Well, dad was the one with the steering wheel, but you know what I mean. I honestly thought we were going back to our campsite, into our caravan so that we could cook dinner. That’s one of the annoying things about travelling.  You can’t really say that we’re going back ‘home’, because, well, home’s miles and miles away. Anyway, I thought we were were going back to the caravan, but we stopped on the the side of the road after 10 minutes. I wondered where on earth  we were going, but soon enough I knew that we were going to a lookout. It was actually not a long walk, and suddenly we were up enormously high. There were a lot of photos taken, and dad was hogging the camera on his phone because he somehow couldn’t take a panorama of the scenery.

I think this is the very much desired panorama.

Fogg Dam. Yeah, Fogg Dam. I MEAN IT, FOGG DAM!

Here is Fogg Dam.

And here is Birdlife.

Except, there aren’t any parrots at Fogg Dam. There are egrets and storks and jacanas at the place I’m talking about. So, where should I start?

You can’t see from this photograph, but this bird happens to be a incredible BigFoot, which allows it to walk on lilypads. They also build nests on lilypads too, to steer their home away from any kind of danger………

Ok, it took us about 1hr to get there. We were going to go to a place called Bird Billabong, but we decided to go to Fogg Dam for a little while. We had my Field Guide to the Birds of Australia with us, and we were hoping to be able to use it. So we stopped on the side of the road, and sat down on a platform. There were many different birds. Then Dad saw a a little one on a lily pad. We later identified it as a Comb-Crested Jacana. Here’s a pic;

Cool, eh? That was our first Bird. We got back in the car and drove some more. We found a higher platform and stopped again. The view looked lovely, but we didn’t see anything much. We drove on. We were going to go on a walk, but it was closed due to crocs. We found another path and started on that one instead. We saw some snakes (wow), and some big spiderwebs (double wow), but the track took forever, so we never finished it (awwwwww). We drove back, and saw the two other Birds. A majestic Black-Necked Stork, and the Intermediate Egret.

We still were supposed to go to Bird Billabong, but we had spent so long at Fogg Dam that we decided to go another time.

I am busy. Look what I’ve been doing!See? My family and I went to a free kid’s festival called Freeps, and it was near a pool. There was a circus workshop and face painting and jumping castles and ping pong and lots of entertainers and all of it was free free free and FREE! I had not a bad day.

Actually, a had a very good day.

An absolutely fantastic day.

Now I’m bored again.  No, hang on, there’s a frog in the toilet! Take a look!

Wow! Now, isn’t that cute?! Awwwwww, so sweet……………

Still, it’s a bit weird that it lives in a toilet. Of all the places it could go, do you think it might be a bit noisy when you try to drift off to sleep……………………….

“PHSSSSSHHHHH!!!! What was that? Oh, I think someone has been for a visit. WILL YOU PLEASE BE A BIT MORE QUIET???!!! They don’t take any notice. People never do. Sometimes I wonder about moving. I’m not sure.” (Froggy speaking).

Froggy, if I were you, I’d move. You’re living somewhere that was made for us, and we can’t help it if we need to to pay inconvenient surprise visits.

Now that’s strange. Well, I guess it’s nice and damp, cosy, but…..

PHSSSSSHHHHH! See what I mean?

This is our nice, damp, cosy place:

We go there literally every day of the week.  So, what’s news?

Have you got any news?

(Yawn)…. Nothing much, eh? Woah, well, things up here aren’t that boring….

Up here, I mean Northern Territory (Darwin)

Cool!

Bored-ee-bored-ee

Hey, look! Devil’s Marbles! What a great place to show you my super human powers!

I have got super human powers. Truly. WHAT? What’s that you say? You don’t believe me? Not again! I’m going to have to prove it. Oh well. Never mind. I like using my super human powers.

I will show you, first of all, my best move I have developed.

Karate chop! Yeah!

Cool. Now, I can move this rock as well. Look at this:

Yay! I can improve though.

I was not aware of the rock above me. Luckily, Gus pulled me away JUST IN TIME.

I still need a small amount of help with really large things….. (Gus has superpowers too)

Victory!

Hooray!

Organ Pipes

This is Organ Pipes.

Look in the backround……

No it isn’t, it’s ROCKS. Rocks that look like Organ Pipes. So they’re called Organ Pipes. This is what the organ pipes that actually make sounds look like.

Can you spot any similarities?

Organ Pipes formed like this because thousands and thousands of years ago, there were volcanoes, and volcano eruptions occur with the volcanoes, right? The lava flowed into a stream and the dirt on the side of it hardened and cracked. Into pipe shapes, pipes that aren’t hollow. There!

Rosette Rock

This is Rosette Rock.

Can you see why? It’s formed like Organ Pipes, but in a different pattern. Gus, my brother, insisted on staying out of the photo this time.

Planes

Around Keilor North, there are a lot of planes coming and going. Look!

I took this photo.

There was about about 10 minutes inbetween every time a plane came past us.