Once we got back from our holiday to Italy, Rosie decided that it was time to clear away all the blue gums on the property since they made too big a mess to clean up all the time. She also didn’t like it that one fell down a few years ago with no warning.
We got Hadleys in with their huge D9 and they just dug around the bottom of each tree before pushing them over. They then picked them up and stacked them in big heaps for us to burn. Each tree was over 20m tall and they just moved them around easily. A few chainsaw cuts and we had lovely big heaps to burn. Bruce asked when we should burn them and they said “two weeks”. We waited a month and then lit them up. They completely disappeared. 13 trees altogether.
Liam has continued with his football only now he plays in the town team against other towns in the South West.
We are pleased he has kept up his football since it helps him to socialise with a broad section of our community and he really enjoys the training and comradeship.
His game continues to improve and he only needs to improve his kicking to become a very good player.
In October, while we were looking after Mr Willis, the two dogs chased a big kangaroo in the paddock. Vegas hit the fence so hard that he rolled over it and continued to chase the kangaroo (very sad since he won’t jump the fence). Willis went through the fence and continued the chase. Bruce tracked them down at the small dam on the adjacent property, with the kangaroo sitting in the middle waiting to drown any dog that came out to it, this is a very common tactic for kangaroos. Fortunately, Vegas was so big that he could also walk out into the dam, making it hard to push him under the water. Willis swam out and hung off the kangaroo, but was ignored while the roo focused on Vegas, the bigger threat.
We tried everything to get them to stop, but Vegas kept going in until he finally got clawed so much that he decided to retreat. Willis then found himself alone, hanging onto the side of the kangaroo, who continued to watch Vegas limp away. Willis beat a quick retreat and swam to shore.
Vegas ended up with several stitches on both sides of his body and a huge vet bill, Willis faked a limp to try to garner sympathy.
Liam had a few events to end his school year, he went of a canoe camp for his outdoor education class as well as the cadet camp to different attractions in the area.
To end the year, we went on the school trip. Liam has finally reached the age where his year group would get the opportunity to go on the trip, this meant his friends could go with him. Bruce decided that the snow had been so bad in Australia over the last few trips that he would like to do something completely different and planned the trip to Japan. We also went during school time since he claimed the trip was a cultural experience just as valuable as the Canberra trip students went on in school time. This didn’t go down too well with many staff, but in the end he won the argument.
Since this was going to be a very popular trip, Bruce put selection criteria in place based on academic performance, behaviour and attendance. This meant that all of the top two mathematics classes in Liam’s year qualified, but not any of the potential problem kids. Unfortunately it meant Liam’s best friend didn’t qualify, which was sad, but Bruce had to be fair to all those who didn’t qualify.
We had a late cancellation of one of the students, so Jamie managed to get on the trip much to everyones delight. It was a much more stressful start to a trip than usual, making sure everyone had remembered their passports and that everyone turned up on time. We broke the students up into small groups and allocated all the adults a group that they were responsible for. Even Rosie and Robyn had a group of girls to keep track of.
On the first day we visited Yoyogi Park and the Meiji Shrine. The students were very excited and really enjoyed experiencing this culture. They were also very respectful, which was very impressive. We were lucky to also witness a traditional Japanese wedding that was taking place while we were visiting.
Naturally, the girls loved the bride’s outfit. Our guide also took the students through the water cleansing ritual before entering the shrine along with the setting the incense and the wall of wishes.
We visited the Electric district, fish markets and other Tokyo attractions. The bus took us to most of these places.
After a couple of days in Tokyo, we set off to Hakuba for the ski week. The drive there was beautiful and even the stop at the Service Centre was an experience, trying to order lunch when everything was in Japanese.
After a wonderful drive, we arrive at our accommodation and it was magical. The students couldn’t believe how good it was, and to be surrounded by snow was an absolute bonus.
We stayed at Hotel De L’aile, which again surprised the students. It was a nice hotel, near one of the chairlifts (which unfortunately wasn’t open this early in the season). All our meals were traditional Japanese, so we had BBQ, sashimi, dried fish and lots of other interesting meals. Most of the students loved it, but the occasional student went back to their room and cooked some 2 minute noodles.
On one of the nights we were taken to a school hall, where a group put on a traditional drumming demonstration. Afterwards they had the students up to try out the drums and several, including Merv, got right into bashing them. There was also a samurai sword demonstration.
After 5 days of skiing we went back to Tokyo via a couple of small towns. We were supposed to visit the Snow Monkeys, but there was so much snow that the walk into the spa pools was impassable. This also meant stopping at a small town for lunch. We all spread out throughout the town looking for the best lunch spot. Most of us were very conservative, but a small group went to a restaurant and were then taken upstairs to a small room where they were fed an excellent meal. We were very envious of them.
Once back in Tokyo we took the students to the sky tower. We took the train to get there, which was pretty adventurous with a group of students. We gave them very good instructions about where to get on and off and how to get home if they got lost.
These instructions were fully tested when one student bent down to do up his shoelace in the train station only to stand up and see the train doors closing on him with the rest of our group on the train. One of the teachers panicked a bit, but Merv and Bruce just assumed he would get on the next train and hop off where we had told him. The whole group stood on the train station waiting for the next train and then clapped and cheered as he got off, looking very relieved that he had found the group again.
On the last day of our trip we went to Tokyo Disneyland. This means that we have been to all the Disneylands in the world, at this time. The group really enjoyed it, even though it was cold, wet and freezing. After a short while, Merv, Robyn, Rosie and Bruce decided that the Kontiki Bird show was a great place to be. It was warm and relaxing, we watched it about three time, though we did sleep through two of the performances.
When we met up with the rest of the group they were all wet and cold, but exhilarated.
This was easily our most exciting ski trip and as it turned out, Bruce’s last trip. He upset everyone the following year back at school and was stopped from going again. The next trip was a bit of a disaster without Bruce and Merv and there hasn’t been a ski trip since.
