Last night I stayed at the Villas at the Country Club with my friend Vincent and
his family while everyone else went home to Hobart. After they left I played
basketball with Vincent, and we also went to the pool. We went to The Gorge and
rode the chairlift before dinner.
The next day we went to the pool for a quick swim and then we went to Scotch
Oakburn for a chess tournament. All the games I played were tricky. I won 5 out
of 9 games and New Town Primary won the state championships, which means the
team gets to go to Melbourne. The team got a big trophy which got put in our
school office.
After we drove home to Hobart. We stopped for MacDonald's for dinner. And it was
nice to be home.
This morning Olivia and I found a claw machine in the rec room of the caravan
park. With money we had saved up from selling bracelets we put in a two dollar
coin into the claw machine and got two tries. I went first and Olivia helped me
to get in the right position and then we lower the hook over a toy, picked it
up, carried it over to the opening, then dropped it...into the container. It was
a baby Enderman, which we named Telleportano.
Afterwards we went to the Woodhouse Adventure Park for the day. The first place
we went was to the Tube Slides. Where we had to drag some tubes up the hill.
Then we would ride down them on a slide, while being sprayed by sprinklers.
There were two course. One was straight (vuuuahboingboing) the other was curvy
(wahoewee).
Next we went to the Challenge Hill. One of the challenges was where you had to
grab one rope then swing and grab the next rope, then swing and grab the next
rope to go across the water. I got to the second rope then fell into the water.
I went under the water like Crocodylus
placing food under a log.
Then we went to the Labyrinth, where you had to solve some riddles at dead ends.
I didn't think they were very good but I didn't understand some of them. This
labyrinth had lots dead ends but a labyrinth is not meant to have dead ends
because that's how a labyrinth works in Greek mythology. It was also missing a
Minotaur.
After that we went and did Frisbee Golf. It was really fun. There were 9 holes.
You had to land the disc in this container thingy-ma-bob because that was the
hole you had to get it in. But it wasn't really a hole it was a container. The
frisbees were heavier then normal frisbees and they always veered off to the
left. In the end Dad came first, Mum came second, Olivia came third and I came
last with Crocodylus (because he didn't play).
We did a sea lion tour where we got to swim with sea lions and dolphins. It was
really fun. First we went to the sea lions, they were really funny and cute. If
you swam in the opposite direction of them they might follow you. One of them
played with a shell. But if you stood up above of the water (because it was
pretty shallow) they would go away. There was a male sea lion that could attack
you if you stood up. At the end Dad found an blue ringed octopus - we think it
was dead, which is good because it has enough venom to kill a human. There is no
antivenom for blue ring octopus.
Afterwards we went to the dolphin part. They didn't pop up until we were about
to go back. They eventually popped up so we got in the water. But once we got in
the water he went away again. But he came back with some friends. So we got to
swim with the dolphins. I could hear the dolphins talking to each other using
their echo location when it swam under me. The dolphins can get pretty big, 2-3
meters.
Then we got back in the boat and headed back to land. We got to have a hot
shower then we had lunch. The kids lunch was chicken nuggets and the adults had
fish. Afterwards the adults had pavlova and the kids had ice cream. Olivia and I
also had a bit of pavlova.
After lunch Dad and I went down to the beach because there was lots and lots of
crabs. Some of them had arms longer than their bodies.
We did surfing today. It was fun. We all stood up in the end. We did it for two
hours. Me and Olivia worked together to grab two boards and bring them down to
the beach. I grabbed the front of them and Olivia the back because I had shorter
arms and she had longer arms. We had to walk about one kilometer to get to the
beach (ed: it was actually 400m). It felt very far.
The waves were medium sized and there was five steps for standing up on a surf
board. The first one was to paddle four times when the wave was coming at you.
Then lie down and get up on your knees. Then put one foot out in front and stand
up. It was easier to do on land than on the water. I would like to do surfing
again it was lots of fun 😄.
Today we went to Soccer Golf where we did 18 holes. They all had a obstacle. I
thought that they got harder as you went.
There was one hole that was really tricky that you had to kick it over walls and
between poles. The logs went from one side of the pole to the other so you
couldn't kick it around it you had to go over it. Then you had to go through
poles that didn't have logs and then shoot through an octagon hoop in the air
like a Quidditch goal.
There was another hole where you had to kick it straight through two rocks to
get it to the hole. Dad said that if we got a hole-in-one than we would be able
to get a stuffed toy. So far we only have gotten one stuff toy each on the trip
and that was the limit. But if we had gotten a hole-in-one we would have gotten
two stuff toys.
Today we went to the Aquarium of Western Australia (AQWA). When we got to the
car park, Olivia did not feel well so she went home. At the Aquarium me and Mum
went on a conveyor belt, which was a moving platform that took us under a big
aquarium tank. We did two laps of the conveyor belt through the tank. We saw
lots of sharks, fish, and rays. There was also a turtle. When we got out we saw
a massive crab. Later we went to a room that had the most deadly sea animals -
it was cool. Then we went to the touch tank were I touched a Port Jackson shark
and a bamboo shark. After we went to the gift shop were Mum let me buy a
hammerhead shark stuffed toy, which I named Pickle.
When we were waiting for Dad to pick us up we did one more lap of the conveyor
belt. When Dad got there, Olivia was there too, but she was feeling better so we
went back into the aquarium and did it all again but this time with Dad and
Olivia.
Today we took a train to go to Nostalgia Box but there was a birthday party
going on. So we had to wait until around 1pm until the birthday party was done.
So we got back on the train to Optus Stadium where mini golf was. At mini golf
we played 18 holes. It was fun. In the end Mum came 1! Dad came 2! Olivia came
3! and I came 4 🙁.
Then we took the train back to Nostalgia Box. Where we played a bunch of video
games from the past including duck hunt, pong, wii sports, and others. Most of
the games there were the well known older games. I beat dad in wii bowling then
mum beat me in wii bowling by one point.
Then we took the train to Perth, then took another train to Warwick Station
where our caravan park is. We the took the car to Scarborough Night Market,
where we got dinner. We ate dinner. Then we went to the skate park where we
tried to climb up the sides of it. Me and Olivia couldn't do it because it was
really steep and slippery and we were wearing Crocs, but I could do it with
Dad's help.
Then when we got back to the caravan park we played for "5 more minutes" on the
bouncy pillow - which was more like 30 minutes before bed.
Was it fun swimming with turtles, seeing parrot fish and other animals?
Yes I loved it!
What was it like seeing whales and dolphins?
It was really cool seeing the dolphins come so close to the boat. And seeing the whales splash.
What has been your favourite part of the trip so far?
Making the hermit crab farm and snorkeling with manta rays.
Which was your favourite place so far? And least favourite?
My favourites were Pender Bay because we made some friends and a hermit crab farm and Ningaloo Reef (Cape Range and Coral Bay) because it had good snorkeling spots. My least favourite spot was the camp site outside the Bungle Bungles because it had really smelly toilets.
Are you excited to come back to school?
Yes but I have a chess tournament on the day I get back.
Do you miss your friends? Have you made many new friends on your travels?
Yes I do miss my friends and yes I have made quite a few friends.
How many days until you're back?
My first day back at school is in 44 days.
Have you tried any yummy or interesting food on your trip?
We tried wild bush yams which tasted yummy they also tasted like lettuce. And I tried a long john donut.
Theo's classmates also wanted to make sure he could answer some other questions
(because he has been away from school so long)
Me, Mum, and Olivia saw the blood moon it was really cool. A blood moon is when
the earth blocks the sun from the moon. This is called an eclipse. To see the
blood moon we went to bed after dinner and woke up around 1.30am. Then we stayed
up for an hour and a half to watch the earth block the sun light. We also saw a
few shooting stars.
Later after the sun came we went to the Ocean Park Aquarium where we saw lots of
fish. There was lion fish, clown fish, stone fish, lemon sharks 🦈, sand bar
sharks 🦈, and a really big fish called the estuary cod. And that is just a few
of them. When at the aquarium they feed the sharks 🦈 by using a rod to hang a
fish head over the water. The sharks 🦈 viciously pulled the fish head off the
rod to eat it.
Fun fact - stone fished can move very fast. If you step on them they will hurt
you a lot. It is very painful but will not kill you unless you have a heart
attack.
Then we went to Eagle Bluff. At Eagle Bluff lookout we saw a few rays and a
shark 🦈 in the water from up high on the cliff.
Last we went to Shell Beach. It had lots and lots of tiny shells instead of
sand. Where I made a shell castle.
Today we did a manta ray tour where we first had to get wetsuits before we left.
After that we took a bus to the boat. Then we took the boat to our snorkelling test
area. We had to do a snorkelling test before we could swim with manta rays to make
sure our gear worked, we were able to swim, and to pull ourself back onto the
boat while it was moving.
After that we got back in the boat and left to go find the manta rays. When we
found one we had to learn how to respectfully get into the water to see the
manta ray. We had to get into groups of ten because then the mantra ray would
not feel overwhelmed by too many people. When in the water we had to stay 3
metres from the tail and 2 metres from the sides of the matra ray. But since the
manta ray stayed at the bottom we could get a little closer. When we got in the
water we saw the manta ray - it was BIG (4m wide)! We got in a few times to see
the same manta ray because there were different snorkelling groups.
Later while waiting for lunch to be ready we saw a logger head turtle! Much
later we went snorkelling again. We saw two turtles - one was a green sea turtle
they other I do not know. We saw a white tip reef shark under some coral that
had one of the turtles higher up on the coral. When we got back to our campsite
we had hot chips.
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