Reconciliation Action Plan News 

Year 9/10 Reconciliation Camp to Flinders Island

On the afternoon of Sunday December 4, a dozen students and staff from St Virgil’s College headed to Launceston on the first leg of our amazing tayaritja/Furneaux Islands adventure. We stayed our first night at the Pod Inn, a very new experience for all of us as we checked in to large individual plastic sleeping capsules stacked inside a big room, feeling like we were on a sci fi movie set! In the morning we caught the first flight across the strait to Flinders Island on a tiny plane, so small that there was only room for two other passengers beside ourselves. 

We were honoured to have palawa Elder Aunty Verna Nichols greet us at the airport, and after a good catch up we headed north to Killiecrankie for a great day of bushwalking, beachcombing, swimming and fishing. We camped at Allports Beach Camping Ground for the next two nights and explored the north end of the island, snorkeling and diving at Palana, watched over by sea eagles and dolphins and we caught several fish at North East River. In the evening we went out to a mutton bird rookery and watched the birds fly in returning from their feeding way out at sea. 

We were incredibly blessed to have Aunty Verna join us for a morning at Wybalenna, a place where Aboriginal people were exiled during the Black Wars. Many of them died here and were buried in the graveyard and so we spent some deep reflective time, reading their names and honouring their lives. From Aunty Verna we heard first-hand the true history of lutruwita/Tasmania, as well listening to her advice, encouragement, and stories of what it was like to grow up in a time of great advocacy, courage and resistance. 

Later in the week we explored Patriarch Sanctuary on the east coast and Lady Barron in the south, where we will finish the camp with a counter meal, an early morning flight across to Launceston and the long drive to St Virgil’s making it back just in time for the end of year assembly!

We would like to thank palawa staff members Mr Jamie Graham-Blair and Mr Trent Prouse for their special skills, shared wisdom and Aboriginal cultural perspectives, and Mr Jake Terhel and Ms Carisa Briggs for all their planning, cooking, driving and awesome company.