Tash: No roo(M) for mistakes

A crazy-busy weekend finished off a crazy-busy week. On Saturday Rita, Gunners and Georgi abandoned Morgan, Jason & I to ‘do some shopping in Katherine’ (we suspect they just wanted to get out of cleaning). While we scrubbed and swept to make the school sparkle again, Gunners learnt that there is no use crying over spilt milk, even when it’s all over the back of a troopie.

The whole gang was reunited for a Sunday excursion to a local swimming hole, Bella Glen, along with the Riley family young and old, and a few kids we picked up on the way. A bumpy hour later we arrived only to realise we had left all the fishing reels behind! While Robin and the boys drove back to pick them up, the girls had the extremely difficult job of swimming in the beautifully refreshing river and playing with the young ones in the waterfalls.

 

Soon after the boys arrived back with the fishing gear they were off again, this time to shoot a kangaroo. While they were away shooting and missing, Mickayla and Rita showed me how to knead damper, and we tried, in vain, to make little baby Theo like us. Hours and hours (and hours and hours) passed and still nothing from the boys. A little stressed we packed up and headed back to Minyerri in worsening road conditions. With the help of Hamish, Maylene and Mickayla, Rita and I made our way back through the giant mud puddle that was meant to be the road to rescue the boys, leaving Georgi to hold down the fort at school. We found them safe and sound but very disappointed at their lack of roo! Apparently the ‘terrible gun’ was the cause but 50 bullets, dozens of roo sightings and many hours later, we just think the boys were having too much fun!

Special thanks for the day go to Jason who slaved away digging and preparing a bush oven that was never used, and to Rita and Georgi who managed a (completely non-existent) crisis exceedingly well!

Back to activities today certainly not well rested, but enthusiastic as always. Highlights of our last Minyerri Monday were Gunners and Morgan’s See Saw Race (another successful numeracy activity!) and Jason and Georgi’s trip to the billabong for bug collection. In the afternoon the kids used the high powered microscope to look at their samples, which allowed them to see tadpoles’ individual red blood cells moving through capillaries, something they had never seen before!