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Geraldton Memorial
This memorial stands to honour the 645 Australian sailors aboard the HMAS Sydney who were lost off the Western Australian coast during a World War II battle in November 1941. The final resting place of this ship was only located in March 2008.
memorial features a silver dome of 645 seagulls to represent each of the lost Sydney sailors. The wall of remembrance shows photographs of the ship and the names of the Sydney crew. To the north, a bronze statue of a woman gazes desperately out to sea as she awaits news of the ill-fated Sydney. Sunday 17th May, 2009
Today we are off on our caravan trip heading north and eventually going through the centre of Australia to the south coast, returning via Esperance before returning sometime in September. We have organized some work on the way to help defray the expenses and to meet some of the locals.
We didn't get away from home until 10am, our first stop a petrol station to put more air in the caravan tyres. Unfortunately, the turn was a bit tight as we drove into the first one and we couldn't see a way to get close enough to the air hose. Rags hasn’t got used to the length of the caravan and car yet so we left for the next station. However Rags felt the van was behaving strangely so we pulled over and sure enough the tyre on the caravan had been spiked on the wall and was completely flat! Oh no!
Rags had started getting the jack and spare tyre out when the owner of the home we were parked in front of came out and offered us the use of his hydraulic jack which we of course accepted. It was great and
Geraldton Farmer's Market
This is held each Saturday morning In Maitland Park. made the job of changing the tyre much easier and quicker.
We were quickly on our way again and after a brief stop at Richelle's to drop off our keys we continued north.
After an uneventful trip that was marred only by passing a recently overturned car and caravan on the Great Northern Highway, we arrived at the Belair Caravan Park at 5pm. It didn't take us long to set up and Phil Pound dropped in to have a chat about how the 2 weeks work at John Willcock had been organised.
The week’s work was quite full on with Judy seeing a steady stream of teachers, some appreciating her assistance, some showing how little they knew, some thinking they knew it all and not interested in improving. Judy was quite surprised at the varying levels of achievement of some students and staff, considering this was at a school specially funded for extensive ICT with laptops provided for each student.
Rags had a tough week, nearly every class being a battle to get the students motivated and to complete the tasks set. This was possibly due to the normal situation of students giving relief teachers a
hard time or due to the demographics of the school population. Geraldton has a unique system where rather than having 2 senior high schools they have this Year 8 & 9 college for the whole city with the pupils going on to the other high school for Years 10-12. The more affluent and many of the brighter pupils go to one of the 3 private secondary schools in the town.
The weekend was relaxed, we went to the new local Growers Market held on Saturdays in the park, walked along the new waterfront area, and generally took it easy.
We have met up with some of the campers coming from places such as Adelaide, Nannup, locals, and anybody else that is interested, and at 4.30 gather together for our “sundowner”. We have met up with some very nice people, even having one, another Judy, colouring Judy’s hair and cutting Rags’.
Monday was not a good day for Rags, and by 2pm he had enough. One can only take so much willful disobedience and abuse. Rather than do or say something considered inappropriate he walked out of his class, advised the deputy principal and left the school. First
Geraldton Farmer's Market
The Design and Technology teacher from John Willcock College owns an olive grove and bottles and processes the olives himself before selling them at the various markets around town. We bought some garlic and chilli ones to try. time in 38 years of teaching!
Judy continued her training of the teachers for the rest of the week, Rags dropping her off and then returning to the caravan park to do the chores and preparing for our continuing trip.
We spent several evenings in the company of our fellow caravanners and our final evening in Geraldton was spent in the enjoyable company of Phil and his lovely wife, Carol who cooked us a superb meal at their new home.
Our next stop will be somewhere on the road to Shark's Bay!
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Judy
non-member comment
Still laughing
I had to chuckle when I read about Rags walking out of class. Probably some of my old year 7s! My kids went through that system and I'm pleased to say that they emerged unscathed, with good TEE scores and enough resilience to last a life time.