Central Tour

In the September school holidays we ran our first Central Australia Tour since the COVID pandemic. 39 students and 7 staff members set off at 6am on Tuesday morning (first week of the holidays) flying from Melbourne Airport straight to Ayers Rock Airport (Connellan Airport), we all boarded a coach that would be our ‘home away from home’ for the next 11 days.  

Travelling from Uluru through Kings Canyon, Alice Springs, McDonnell Ranges, Banka Banka Station (middle of, literally, nowhere), Katherine, Jabiru and Kakadu, on up to Darwin as our final stop.  

We stopped along the way in places like Curtin Springs, Mt Conner lookout, Simpson’s Gap and Ormiston waterhole, Tropic of Capricorn, Tennant Creek, Elliot, Daly Waters, Mataranka Homestead, Ubirr, Mary River Roadhouse, Warradjan Cultural Centre, Nourlangie Rock (rock art sites), and Litchfield National Park.  

Along the way we met people who shared their knowledge and experience of various things with us such as Rex who introduced us to the reptiles of the Northern Territory (including an Olive Python who was very, very long!), the team from Karrke Aboriginal Cultural experiences and tours who showed us what food is able to be sourced from the native environment in the Kings Canyon area and how the traditional people of this land survived on it as well as some of the medical knowledge that his ancestors have passed down for generations. Peter, our guide, is an Arande man from the Central Australia region.  

We also toured Alice Springs and saw how the School of the air operates in the NT and across Australia, we learned about the ancient rock art around Katherine Gorge and the ways in which the first inhabitants of the area used the land and waters, some of us walked up to Ubirr and saw further rock art paintings and also witnessed the amazing sunset over Arnhem land and the Nadab floodplains.  

We went on a Yellow waters tour of Kakadu where we saw crocodiles and sea eagles and baby jacanas. We saw magnetic termite mounds (aligned north to south as a survival strategy to help them escape the heat), and learned about the Royal Flying Doctors Service and the bombing of Darwin Harbour.  

We visited Stokes Hill Wharf where we ate fish and chips and ice cream and some of us took a spin on a ferris wheel and Mindil Market where we ate lots of yummy food, shopped for unique gifts and watched an amazing sunset whilst hunting hermit crabs on the beach.  

We also swam in amazing waterholes and swimming pools which was much appreciated given how hot the weather was (it was above 40 degrees for a good part of the tour). We also slept out in the open one night after our tents were all flooded after a tropical downpour in Katherine.  

Looking back on it, it is amazing how much we crammed into just 11 days! The whole experience is one though that we will all remember for many years to come and I would like to thank all of the students and staff who made the experience such a positive and memorable one. Thank you too to all of the parents who supported their children to come and to the support team back here at school who got everything organized and running so that we could have such a positive experience.  

Kerryn Sandford

College Principal

Central Tour Video