Welcome to My Wambana Blog!

Hello and welcome Fam & Friends. This is my wambana blog and as you know this is me (above..duh) and my wardli/house-mates. They are (from top left to bottom right) Ricke, Nick, Chester, Jack and Jacko.

This is our wardli

Instructional Entry

Poetry

Poem

Personofied as mother, lover, deity:

you hold no meaning; just water.

The moon pulls you: thats why you rage,

the wind chafes you and so you roil.

Meaning comes from the beholder not your depths.

I wrote this poem as a response to all the d*****bags who talk about the ocean as a great mystical being full of knowledge and wisdom which for me is a load of bolocks. T

Cycle Tour

DAY 1
25th of AUGUST;
We began extended stay with a cycle tour. We'd all been told by our fellow year 9's how terrible it was and so i wasn't sure if i was going to enjoy it. Our riding instructor/teacher people Rickie, Paul and Pete, took us for a scenic ride at about 9 o'clock on tuesday morning. Starting at the shed we rode from Point Turton to West Cowie and then back for lunch which is about a 21km round trip. along the way we passed through Point Turton and some of the countryside surounding it. Riding around we were treated to some of the choisiest weather: rain and buffeting wind. I didn't think the weather was that bad but some of us complained rather loudly: distinctive nasal cries: "it's ryening" "it's windy". Even in the wind and rain the scenery was still really nice, i mean really nice, there were trees and everything. i'm not really one for scenery as you can tell but there were some very interesting old derrolict houses around, we even went in one! In an adjacent shed we found a vintage car covered in dust. Even plastered in grime the chrome of the grill still shone dully.

After a decent sized lunch we headed off into the blustery winds to ride to Warooka and then back to Point Turton. In distance it was 25km but in reality it was much longer the ferrocious headwinds made it so that you always had to pedal, even down hill! The ride up there to Warooka wasn't too bad but the final road back to home seemed endless and we all now call it the endless road. In the wind it was hard to think about anything but the fact taht it was so hard to ride but for the few moments when i stopped thinking about my aching legs and running nose and looked at the scenery i saw beautiful lush feilds with the roiling, raging sky as a backdrop. It was fair good.

DAY 2
26th of AUGUST;

Today was much better than yesterday the wind was better even though for the first half of the day i had to pedal going down the hills. We road the Stenhouse Bay to Pondalowie Return which is about 33km. The road up to the lighthouse was very hilly so it was pretty hard to stay up the front with the really fit guys like Jack Viney and Arata etc but after each hill i thought oh that wasn't so bad and just kept going. Really the ride wasnt too dificult before lunch it was just the neverending hilly bit right at the end of the road going up to the lighthouse which really got me. a

After lunch we road down to the sea where the waves hard worn away the rock so that waves crashed onto a submerged rock shelf where waves come from two opposing directions. After that little detour Paul -one of the instructors- gave us all a challenge: to ride all the way back to the bus in the gears 2 and 8. I and 9 others decided to try the challenge and we began riding along as fast as we could: so fast that we left the rest of the group behind and Paul had to ride after us and tell us to stop- just after we'd rode up a huge hill and were very tired. In hindsight i don't think i could have done the 2 8 challenge if there hadn't been three extremely fit guys riding about 500 metres away; i was always striving to keep up with them and at the huge hill it really helped to think that i had kept up with them and left the rest of our class behind.

DAY 3
27th of AUGUST:

The final day of the cycle tour went really fast! We rode from Brentwood to Edithburg, a 50km ride. The scenery along the way was really special. We rode down a track which ran inbetween roling fields of tall canola plants sporting bright yellow flowers and a dark blue lake. The contrast was quite spectacular! I didn't find it a hard ride at all but it was certainly nice to stop for lunch especially given the suroundings: green fields and shade giving trees.

I did find the road a bit tough as it was really corrigated and really rocky so my derrier was jarred quite a bit, appart from that the last day of riding was ideal!

Living in a Wardli

Highs:
- cooking
- living with people
- learning about people
- hanging out with new people
- warm beds
- sleeping
- clean clothes
- showers
- WARM showers
- comfort

Challenges:
- being patient
- not killing people
- managing anger and frustration
- cooking well
- being with people ALL the time
- having to clean EVERYDAY
- having to live with people you don't nessesarily like
- having to put up with other people's anoying habits
- putting up with other people's (lack of) hygene
- not being able to get away from annoying people

Living together is hard but i think my main strengths are that i clean alot and most often i pick up after myself AND other people. Also i'm fairly organised: i think about what i need to do and do it. I must admit that i do get frustrated with other people in my wardli and often find myself yelling at them and being bossy but i think that if i didn't yell and tell some people what to do they would do nothing and just be idle.

This would deffinately be one of the main problems in my wardli: some people have no initiative. I don't really know how to solce this problem but i think it would certainly help to talk to this person/these people about what the problem is and how we can fix it. Another problem is that some people -myself included- are very negative and i really think that this is only due to stress and/or frustration. So what we need to do to fix this problem would just be to calm down and have a little more patience or even just taking a little time out. The most annoying problem in my wardli is people not cleaning up after themselves ie the cup or bowl left in the sink which noone will own up to and so me or Jack or Jacko etc will have to do it. This would be resolved really easily by people cleaning up after themselves.

So far this experience has really impacted on my thoughts about my home and how it is cleaned and maintained. At home i don't do alot but i never knew how much work it was to actually keep a house clean. When i get home i'm going to make more of an effort in cleaning and keeping my mess to myself.

Fitness Program

The Extended stay program involves daily exercise every morning at 7 o'clock. we do a variety of training: running, power training and various vfgames. The length of runs varies from 3.4km at the least and 11km at the longest. Power training involves short sharp running for agility training etc. When we're not running or doing power training we play games like football or soccer.

Times, Distances & Comments (Running)

Friday, 3.4km: 21mins 30secs
First day of running was really hard. I'm really unfit so i was panting and wheezing all the way. Plus it was ridiculously cold so i decided to run with a fleecy- terrible idea. I got to about halfway and decided i was on fire and in hell, despite my foggy breath. Finishing the run was a big relief but then we had to do push-ups :(

Saturday, 3.4km: 18mins 15secs
The second day of running was a great improvement from the first day. Three minutes of improvement to be exact! I began running with Dale and he really pushed me to the limit. Just running next to a few guys who were of a slightly better fitness level really helped me to run faster for longer and learn to try and ignore the pain. After the run i found myself quite unable to to many sit-ups due to my abs being ridiculously sore from the day before (i did quite a few sets of 20).

Sunday, 5.5km: 30mins
Today the run felt so much longer than before; there were more hills and they were higher (the hill from the jetty back to the main road was a killer). I ran with Nidehgsdghdsck Krantz for most of the run and he helped me to keep going just by running beside me and competing with me for every metre. Before we left Dale said to us that any time under 32minutes was a fairly alright running time so the fact that i beat that was quite pleasing. Jack threw up right as he was finishing the run. I was priveliged to witness Jack trying to stop the vomit with his hands and failing: misserably. It was rather giggly.

Monday, Game
We played a variation of soccer today, well actually it was more like gailic football towards the end. Basically the rules were like soccer except that when you score your entire team has to be over the the halfwayline or you loose points and vice versa. The game was kinda bad cus i didn't touch the ball much and i didn't do very much. Yerrr.

Tuesday, Power Training
I hate sand. Power training was located on the beach which we had to run to and then indian run back (person at back runs to front of group & next person at back runs to front of group ad infinitum). There was heaps of seaweed and it smelt like vomit in vagina. To begin with we had to run up to a line and touch it and then run back and touch the line over and over -all this we're sprinting mind you in really soft sand- and then we did the same thing except you had to do pushups and then finally we had to do races in the seaweed which my partner failed in - Nick Krantz fell and screwed up his ankle- but all in all it was rather amusing but only because of the seaweed run.

Wednesday, 8km Run

Statistics & Climate Change

Snorkelling

History Tour 1

Hardwicke Bay Community Project

Today (31st Aug) wardlis 2 and 4 went to Hardwicke bay to help in the community by planting and landscaping natural flora and its environment. We learnt about how weeds or introduced plants are killing and clearing native flora and thus killing native fauna.

Questions Answered:
Weeds like Whorehound, Cottontail and Iceplant are terrible for the environment because they change the chemical structure of the soil thus making it much harder for native plants to grow. Weeds are spread in a number of ways and for a number of reasons. Animals spread seeds in their fur and feces. Humans spread weeds either for a purpose or by accident: for instance wheat was introduced into Australia to produce food whereas _____ was introduced accidentally for no purpose by way of balast water (its seeds float). Weeds in Australia differ, some are rampant and beyond control while others are being contained. Also, some weeds are useless (bamboo) while others provide food for animals (some pine trees with their pinecones). Climate change may reduce this problem as native Australian plants are specifically adapted to warm to hot temperatures whereas most weeds are european in nature and require cold and wet climes. People volunteer to help

Scientific Research - Reef Watch

Community Service - Leisure Options

Leisure options was a very very interesting experience. Wardlis 4 and 5 jumped into the 22 seater and drove to the Minlaton Hall. When we got out of the bus we were all a bit tepid and didn't really know what to expect. I was a bit aprehensive about the people we were all about to meet and standing around awkwardly and saying our names didn't exactly help but when we sat down and got to making our little pot puri triangles i found that everyone was infact really nice. I spent most of my time making conversation with Melisa who was really quiet and softly spoken but sooo nice!

By the end of the day i found real calm in helping Rodney -a 50-something balding man who's very soft spoken


volunteer mean to you?
Being a volunteer means being able to provide fun and service to people with disabilities, helping them to realise selfworth and goals...?
What did you learn about people living with a disability?
What did you enjoy most about this experience?
What did you least enjoy about this experience?

Scientific Research - Hooded Plover

Synopsis
A small bird of about 10cm in height and 20cm in length, Thinoris Rubricollis or the Hooded Plover lives and breeds on sandy beaches on the coast or on the shore of inland salt lakes. It is very light, only about a 100g and lives along the coast from Western Australia to Victoria, it even lives in Tasmania. Male and Female birds appear the same and their young –which are bred from August to March- except smaller and more grey. Unfortunately the Hooded plover is under threat and is in fact classified as vulnerable by the South Australian National Parks and Wildlife Act. The Hooded Plover is under threat from five main contributors: humans, dogs, vehicles, introduced predators and habitat modification. Hooded plover breed and nest between the fore dune and the high tide line and so when 4WD drive along the beach –especially at high tide- they disturb habitat and even destroy nests and crush eggs. The solution that’s likely to have the greatest positive impact on Hooded Plover population is banning vehicles from the beach.

Aim
The reason for this kind of research is to create a database to monitor Hooded Plover distribution, breeding and threats at sites along the Yorke Peninsula in the Innes National Park. These results are intended to be used for managing efforts to increase breeding and nesting success.

Method
We went with Bairdy to Pondalowie Beach to observe the Hooded Plover in its habitat on the 5th of September. We began at 10:50AM and we finished at 12:10. Our group went looking for Hooded Plovers, their nests and threats towards them. We saw a huge group of plovers but only one Hooded Plover. We recorded the sighting of the Hooded Plover in your Student Book. We also took notes of the two sets of 4WDM tracks and the large amounts of rubbish. The method was a bit flawed by way of the GPSA device being different to the ones we practised with at school but they worked much the same so it was a non-issue.

Results
Based on my above observations, I think that that the Hooded Plover is being killed by humans and our vehicles as well as other birds and dogs. The weather probably had no effect on the amount of Plovers sighted as it was only 3/10 cloud cover and there was little wind and not frigid temperatures (I am however assuming that the Hooded Plover likes clear blue skies and warmth). We saw a fisherman in the water and his 4WD and trailer near the waters which could have affected the amount of Plover sighted if they are skittish around people. So there could have been more Plovers about if the fisherman wasn’t there. Along the beach we found no nests and no evidence of nests and this could be due to the presence of too many 4WD but more likely the Plovers are not breeding in this area. This would occur mainly because of unawareness or lack of concern.

Discussion
The survival of the Hooded Plover relies upon removing human influences and reducing the impact of introduced predators. 4WDs driving along the beach destroys nests especially during high-tide as Hooded Plovers nest between the high-tide line and the fore-dune. Introduced predators like foxes and dogs attack Hooded Plovers and destroy nests. All of these problems have had a rapid onset and you can see the evidence: 4WD tracks, litter and dog faeces. They are quite serious and give the Plover an even lower chance of completing the cycle of adult to adult: its only 18/1000 chance at this point.

Conclusion
To save the Hooded Plover vehicles will have to be banned from at least some beaches- where Plovers are most common. Removing vehicles from beaches will cut down nest damage and also remove some of the human damage like litter as access will be more difficult. Putting up fences around Hooded Plover habitat and increasing signage will help deter people from destroying Plover nests and nesting ground. Although poison is already being laid on beaches to kill dogs and foxes increasing the amount and density of this would help destroy ferrel dog and fox population.

All of these solutions will need to be implemented by the council or at least with their permission –i.e. local residents will help. Also any solution would need to be followed up and monitored by some kind of official organisation- in this case the South Australian National Park Association. However they will not succeed without the support of the local community and so a campaign to raise awareness would help to get people concerned about the plight of the Hooded Plover and other vulnerable birds, thus helping to increase their chances of survival.

Community Service - Aleppo Pine Removal

History Tour 2

Sea Kayaking

Parent Weekend

Surfing

Photography

Affirmations