standing on sacred ground

Sally Goss

Junior School Leader

After travelling for many hours on the bus, passing through Adelaide and Woomera and listening to Graeme’s bad jokes,all the way, we arrived for our first tour at the opal town of Coober Pedy.

Here we learned about opal mining and visited an underground church and house. We also stayed in a below ground hostel, which like most buildings in this town was built underground to be insulated from the scorching daytime temperatures.

Our next destination was Uluru-Kata Tjuta National park where we were able to walk around and explore Uluru. This was amazing - a massive sandstone rock formation in the middle of the desert - what a magical spectacle! We visited sacred indigenous sites and viewed artwork that was many, many years old.

In the Dot Painting Workshop, Bessie taught us about traditional painting methods and how important they are to the indigenous history and culture. Mr Andrew executed an outstanding dot painting and got rave reviews from the locals!

The Lilla community experience helped develop our understanding of the Indigenous people and their relationship and reliance on the land. Keith and Reg cooked up kangaroo tail for us to eat, it was rich, fatty and very tasty. They also gave us some damper to take back to camp.

Click HERE to find out more about Lilla.

In Alice Springs we visited the School of the Air and the Royal Flying Doctors Service. We learned about the importance of both these services in bringing about improvements in health and wellbeing in the remote and isolated communities of Australia. A short walk to visit Standley Chasm finished off our amazing camp experience.  The cultural element of this trip was an invaluable experience for all the students and staff who were lucky enough to attend.

Students should be commended on their behaviour throughout the trip. Graeme, the bus driver, made a special call to Ms Harris to tell her it was a pleasure to have the students on board saying that they were respectful at all the presentations and had lovely manners throughout the trip.

Thanks everyone for a great trip!

Eve Johnson

Year 9

As soon as I heard about the Central Australia trip, I was in!  The weeks flew by and before I knew it my luggage was packed and I was sitting on the bus ready to head of the Central Australia!

We did spend a lot of time on the bus, but we passed our time by playing games, and listening to our bus driver, Graeme, tell terrible jokes!

Over the course of the camp, we slept in cabins for one night,  underground for another night and the rest of the time we slept in two-man tents. One night was wet, and unfortunately we got flooded!  

It was a great trip.  Some of the highlights included watching sunset over Uluru, a dot painting workshop, a guided tour of Uluru, eating kangaroo tail at Lilla, climbing Kings Canyon and visiting the Old Telegraph Station and the Royal Flying Doctor Service in Alice Springs.  importantly, we also gained insight into indigenous cultral practices.

Overall,  I really enjoyed the trip and given the option, I would definitely visit the NT again! 

Northern Territory Tourism

We take this opportunity to thank Northern Territory Tourism for their generous and valued support of the BSC Central Australia Tour 2019. 

The staff and students who participated in the tour all agree that visiting the territory is an absolute MUST!

Zenry Matsuoka

Year 10

Unlike other camps, this camp took us across the country  - letting us see things not many have the chance to see. 

This camp was also one of the times I can say that many new friendships across year levels were created.

Not only were the sights amazing, but we also got to experience them with close friends, which is a rare opportunity. Out of all the camps I have been on, this is definitely the most memorable.