Navigator and Endeavour Excursion

The excursion on Tuesday was a great success! We had 100% attendance and were so glad that no broken bones or colds kept anyone away. I must say a huge thank you to the lovely parent volunteers that gave up their day to come along with us. It means so much to have great parent and school partnerships where we are all looking out for our children. This was especially evident with the excursion where we walked your feet off and still had you smiling at the end of the day!

The bendy bus was so long and warm with all our bodies in there that we almost mistook it for a travelling sauna. Thank goodness for open windows while driving which helped to cool us down. The trip there was so exciting, especially when the bendy bus went around a corner. 

We arrived a few minutes early and managed another toilet break before being met by Joe and the other teacher guides. Everyone, including the parent volunteers and teachers had to wear two stickers which would let us come and go from the museum. One was bright pink and the other bright green. Joe then talked to us about staying safe while we were at the Maritime Museum. We were a great audience and keen to know what we could do. There was quite a long list of museum rules we learnt about, like, 'no eating or drinking in the museum or on the ships', 'no running' and 'no touching unless you're told you can'. We did like the rule, 'you can take photos of everything!'

Bags, hats, drawing pads and pencils were squeezed into the bag containers outside the entrance of the museum. We got to use the large white bag containers that were numbered, 2, 3, 4 and 5 in large black numbers. The rest of the containers were being used by another school group who arrived just before we did.

After splitting into class groups and then again into groups of 10, we headed off to the Endeavour. What a beautiful ship. There was a slight breeze which made the ship lightly rock against the wharf. This was enough for some of our more sensitive tummies to feel a bit queasy. Mrs Taylor got to spend a bit of time walking those students back up on deck and then finally onto the wharf while we waited for everyone to finish. Lucikly a drink and something to eat seemed to settle everyone down.

We then had some time looking at the 'Navigators' section of the museum on dry land before heading off for a lunch break. This was time to catch up with friends for a chat, eat lunch and draw fabulous pictures of the ship, city and more.

The afternoon was spent looking at the Aurora Aboriginal artefact section where Joe guided us through some of the bark paintings and then onto the HMAS Vampire (an old navy ship) for a quick tour.

It was suddenly 2:30 in the afternoon and time to head back to school. We met back at the entrance to the museum to grab our bags and have our names marked off the roll before walking to the bus stop where we were being picked up. We were rather subdued on the trip back and I'm sure would have all slept well that night. We made great timing arriving back at school 2 minutes after the bell. What a wondeful day! 

Endeavour Excursion Part 1 on PhotoPeach
Endeavour Excursion Part 2 on PhotoPeach
Endeavour Excursion Part 3 on PhotoPeach