Breaking News: Another Trip (one with a difference)

We have got another trip planned, but cannot divulge details yet.
Unfortunately, it means that we will not be able to update for a week or so.
Blessings on your journeys.
Rock Air Homeschoolers

Latest from Flat Pedro

I'm still enjoying Argentina and it is a lot like Australia but more relaxed.
I'll have more news, with photos, soon.
Adios
Flat Pedro

Trip to New South Wales, Day 3-Kiama

Day 3 was spent on the South Coast, exploring the Kiama blowhole and the Pilot's Cottage Museum and Heritage Centre.

On the day we got to Kiama, on the New South Wales South Coast, we walked to the Post office which is pink and got a stamp on our Travel Booklets!. We went up the hill, following a sign showing the way to the lighthouse, the blowhole and cafes. We continued up the hill and got to a parking lot with an area that had railings and over-looked the blowhole.

We looked for a bit, then went down to the blowhole. It was great! We went to a concrete area that was really close to the blowhole. There were also wooden pathways that led around the blowhole. It spurted some really high spouts. One of them was about 30-40 metres high!

Some of the spouts weren’t so big. I could tell when the water was about to spout because the water would rush in. We took some pictures of the blowhole, but it was difficult because you had to time it just right to get the blowhole at its highest point. We also took some videos.

We walked up to the main area and went to a cafe, where we enjoyed a big bush brekkie and a blackberry forest cake with coffee.

We went down to the Pilots Cottage Museum and saw it was shut. We looked around to see if there was anyone inside, then a man came over and unlocked the doors. He went in to disable the security alarm and let us inside.

He showed us the records and model of a ship that George Bass sailed. There was a lot of information in there about George Bass, including pictures of a re-enactment. There was also a map of all the shipwrecks in the area, with numbers to locate them, and information about the different shipwrecks.

The tour guide unlocked a glass case and showed us wooden things that were shaped roughly like needles, except with a shorter point. There were three of them and two of them were broken. They were about 25cm long and about 5cm wide at the widest point, and 1cm wide at the narrowest. We had a couple of guesses as to what they were, then the man said they were used to undo knots on ships. He put them back in the glass case, and got out a bottle of sauce from a company that advertised that they put a secret ingredient into their sauce. He said that a man came in and said that he worked as a forensic policeman. The man had said that if he could get a sample of the sauce, then he could work out what the secret ingredient was. The man gave the sauce to us to feel, then locked it back in the glass case and went to unlock the other rooms in the museum.

In the first room there was some convict information, a picture of the post office, some pictures of a fire that burned down some of Kiama and the chair of the mayor of the Kiama area.There was also a book that was the ultimate guide to injuries. Back then, if you got injured, you were on your own, so the book was consulted to treat everything from a snake bite to a cold. The man also told us that there were world record tiger shark and black marlin caught off the coast of Kiama.

The next room had a story about William Kelly, a boy who could swim and was trying to tell people how good and healthy it was, but most people were from cold countries, and couldn’t swim. He had shows in which he would be tied in a sack and thrown into the water. He would then get himself out and swim to the surface to show people how easy it was. One day a ship was sinking and no one knew why. William swam down and saw that a port hole had been left open and was letting the water in. He closed it and swam back up to the surface. He got a pocket watch for saving the ship, and the pocket watch was on display in that room. There was also a leaf hat in that room. The hat was woven from leaves, but had a hole in the top. The man said that the hat wasn’t a proper one, because a proper one wouldn’t have a hole.

The next room had a lot of different things, like some tools that had been donated by different people. There were axes, picks, and different tools that were used to do things with wood. All of them had labels of what they were and a picture of them in action.
Before we left, our tour guide lifted up some floor boards and showed us a secret store area underneath the floor. He turned on the lights, which were turned on by pulling a cord that hung down from the ceiling. We could see right down and there was lots of room down there. The man said that he’d been down there, and when he was standing on the bottom of the cavern, the floor was equal with his chest. The man said that there were entrances to the storeroom in the other rooms, and a concrete slab over another entrance outside. The man replaced the boards and turned off the lights, then we went outside.

The man let us out the back door and onto the porch. We went down the stairs and saw some breathing holes for the store room at the bottom of the walls outside. We also saw the concrete slab covering the outside entrance to the storeroom. There was a gravestone outside and the man said that it was found under the Bowls Club. We went back inside and the guide showed us a picture of the Allan Penny, which is very rare and one was found in Victoria a while ago and was worth $14,000. The man said that today one would be worth $100,000. He also said that someone had said that a box of 10 Allan Pennies was dropped beside a highway near Kiama.

The tour was really worthwhile and good value for money. We also paid a quick visit to the Kiama Information Centre, to buy some souvenirs of our trip.

We had to race to the train station because the train was due to leave, and there wouldn’t be another for a couple of hours.

Sydney Trip Day 2- The Rocks Tour

The beautiful Sydney Opera House, visible from near Sydney's Rocks area.

We started The Rocks Tour at the Argyle Centre, going out along an old cobbled street and arrived in a courtyard.

Our guide stopped and told us about the courtyard and that the bricks used to make most of the houses in the Rocks area were mined there.

We walked to a bench in front of Cadman’s Cottage and sat down.

The guide talked with us again, then took us inside.

Cadman’s Cottage was made of limestone and there was a green streak of lime scale to where something had been.

We walked around to First Impressions, a carving of the first people to leave impressions on the land, hence the name. On the first side, there was an imprint of a freeman and his family. It was as if someone had pushed a man into wood. There was a piece on the freeman on a plastic stand.

The second side was a convict with chains around his legs. The guide said that they would only get chains around their legs if they escaped in Australia.

The third and last side was a soldier.

A bit along an old road from First Impressions was the end of George St, where a battle had played out. The Government wanted to knock down the old convict buildings, but the residents wanted to keep the buildings, since it was part of their heritage. There was a big fight between the police and the residents, and the guide had a picture of it.

In the end the buildings didn’t get knocked down, but the residents had to move and live in the Sirius, an apartment block on a hill over looking the Rocks, instead of their old houses.

We arrived back at the tour centre, but instead of going in, we went through a hallway a door down from the tour centre. At the end of the hallway, there were stairs leading up to the old houses that used to be there.

We went up the stairs and found the rooms of the houses that used to be there. The stone walls were still partly there so you could see where the rooms were, and the archaeologists that studied it and made it suitably for walking through put chairs and tables in some of the rooms so you could see how crowded things were back then.

During the turn of the century, rats as well as overcrowding were a problem. Rewards were given on rat tails, but stopped once it was found that some recipients were breeding rats for profit!

Baths during this time were taken in the order of father, mother, and then in descending order of age, leading to the expression ‘throwing the baby out with the bath water’.

The Rocks Tour was a very good introduction to the history of Sydney and the beginnings of Australia, revealing old secrets of this modern city.

Sydney Trip Day 2 - Powerhouse Museum

We made a trip to Sydney in April this year. Here is a 360' view from the Rocks, which includes the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge (affectionately known as The Coathanger).

During our visit to Sydney, we visited the Powerhouse Museum. www.powerhousemuseum.com

The first thing we saw there was a big steam train. There was a platform that you could walk up onto and it ran alongside the train so you could see into the train.

At the end of the train there was a table with miniature models of machines designed by James Watt in 1785 to increase steam powered electricity, just beside the full-size model.

Elsewhere in the Museum, we saw a glass case were two round porcelain bowl shapes approximately 12cm long, 6cm wide and 4cm high, and one of them had a spout. A TV was showing two women in old clothes who were talking about the porcelain bowl. One woman was saying it was the perfect shape for a gravy boat, and would look great sitting on a table, full of gravy. The other woman said it would be a good gravy boat, if it wasn’t a chamber pot. Unswayed, the first woman said that she would have to wash it first!

The Strasburg clock was on a podium and a voice talked about its features. In one compartment was Jesus at the last supper. The Disciples came one at a time and bowed to Jesus, then left at the other side of the box. The 6th disciple was Peter, who turned his back on Jesus and left. As he did, Satan appeared at the window. Satan also appeared at the window when Judas, the last disciple, entered, carrying a bag of gold. Judas also turned his back on Jesus. Underneath there was a big map of the Solar System, with the Sun at the centre and all the planets rotating around it. There was also a normal clock, a stair case and several other things.

We walked around to a room with lots of old transport, like a Penny Farthing that you could sit on, a fire truck that you could go on, and aeroplanes that hung from the ceiling.

We walked around to a space area. There was stairs up to parts of a space shuttle and you could go through a zero-gravity room where the floor moved around to the ceiling in a circle around a platform that you walked onto.

The Powerhouse Museum also has a Chemical Lab area where there were different experiments, most of them with magnets.

Trip to New South Wales, Day 1

In April this year, our family flew down to Sydney and spent a hectic few days in this historic city. We also travelled down to and stayed on the beautiful South Coast, the Illawarra.

In the coming weeks, we hope to blog some of the details and images of this trip, taken before Flat Charlie or Flat Pedro were born!

It was exciting returning to Sydney, particularly in being able to share this city with my family. It’s hard to fathom the size of the city, until you have negotiated much of the length of George Street, which we did on Tuesday. Our plan for Day 1, Monday, was to get an overview of the city, but we still managed to see a little of Chinatown.

We first visited the monorail on the Monday we arrived. It took quite a while to find as it seemed that everyone we asked had either different directions or simply didn’t know where it was at all. Despite all that, we got there, and it was good.

It didn’t quite live up to our expectations, but it went to several major parts of Sydney, and it was fun to ride on. The only other problem was the Monorail was so popular there wasn’t much space.

Flat Pedro's Update

Flat Pedro has contacted us to say that his return has been delayed as he has realised that a Tour of South America would not be complete without visiting at least three countries!

In addition to Peru and Bolivia, he will delight the people of Argentina with a personal visit. He was very impressed with the beauty of Peru, the friendliness of its people and its amazing history. In contrast, Bolivia is the poorest country in South America, but its people are very nice.

Unfortunately he cannot find an internet place with a USB or CD-drive, so we must wait for photos!
Adios

Introducing Flat Pedro!

Before his anticipated return from South America, we are able to introduce you to the Super-Cool Flat Pedro!!!

Here he is before his recent departure, posing with his travel maps, books and travel-companion. Stay tuned for news of his travels!!!

BREAKING NEWS: Flat Charlie attends Toowoomba's Flower Festival

These are some of the beautiful gardens and flower displays that Flat Charlie found during his trip to Toowoomba.

Flat Charlie's Out & About Fotos and Journal!

Flat Charlie enjoying his trips to Charleville and Toowoomba!

We arrived at Charleville and had a yummy lunch before going to the Historic House Museum. We saw old fashioned cash registers and someone playing an old American folk music instrument.


Then we started on the long walk to the Cosmos Centre. It took a long time and I got very hot, but it was worth it. I liked everything about it except the video of a mountain-sized meteorite and it's effects.That was really scary.

Go Flat Charlie!!

FlatCharlie's Train Trip Home

Flat Charlie just loves to watch the passing scenery. Here is the front of the Westlander.



On the journey east, we saw some amazing hillside and mountain views. I also got very excited, as we went through a few tunnels!



On the way back, we were transferred to a bus at Rosewood, for the remainder of the trip to Brisbane. This gave us the opportunity to see some more of the countryside. We were also higher up. I also liked travelling on the bus (or coach) as it had curtains, reclining positions, radio, lights and more. The radio and lights were not working, but that may be because it was just an hour long trip.

Charlie's Train Trip

See Charlie enjoy his trip to Charleville!



I enjoyed one 'train night' on the way to Charleville (23 Sep)and another on the way to Toowoomba (24 Sep). 'Train night' is what N* calls waking and sleeping while you sit on the train seat!

My host family told me that they prefer the Spirit of the Outback to the Westlander, as the Spirit has its own dining car. The seats at the Club Car on the Westlander are also not very good for movie-viewing.

This is Flat Charlie, supported by a friend, with the Caboolture River in the background.

Near Chinchilla, we saw a very brightly-lit building. One of the other passengers said that it was a power station, or something similar.

Flat Fotos!!!!

Meet Charlie!

Flat Friends News

Flat Charlie's Tales
Flat Charlie has returned from his train trip to Charleville and his short stay at Toowoomba, where he camped for a few days, to enjoy the Carnival of Flowers at The Garden City. Photos and details to be posted very soon.
Cheers!

Flat Pedro's Tales
Flat Pedro is still enjoying his month-long trip to South America. He is currently finishing his trip to Peru, before a shorter visit to Bolivia. Photos will follow on his return.
Adios!