Travelling home

We arrived safely at Brisbane airport and got our bags and boarded the bus. Now on the way to Dalby. Estimated time of arrival is between 12:30 and 1am.

Mount Ainslie lookout

Our last stop for the day before driving back to Sydney was Mt Ainslie lookout. The view was amazing and it was a great opportunity to get our last pictures of Canberra.

National Capital Exhibition

We got a guided tour around the exhibition and learnt all about Canberra and how it came to be.

CSIRO

Our last day today and we went off to the CSIRO. It was lots of fun and we were able to do lots of hands on activities. It had some animals and insects that were really cool. Many of us tried the rope challenge but were defeated by the rope.

Wednesday night

On our last night in Canberra we conducted an award ceremony. It was refreshing to hear all the adults speak so highly of the children. Each group was awarded a camper of the week and it was so difficult for all the adults to nominate only one person. Mr Kelly said how he has been spoken to by outside parties on how well our children are behaved and how impressed they are with them.

Government House

Unfortunately we missed the Governor-General today as he left last night for a trip but we still found it interesting to look around Government House. We walked up the long driveway surrounded by beautiful gardens and immaculate lawns to the enormous house. We found out lots of information about our current Governor-General, Sir Peter Cosgrove. We couldn't believe the dinner plates have rings of 24 carat gold on them.

The National Gallery

After enjoying a yummy sausage sizzle for lunch we walked over to the National Art Gallery for a tour. We all headed off with different tour guides and saw different parts of the gallery. The students were exposed to art by some famous Australian artists.

Questacon

Day four saw us wake up, have breakfast and then go to QUESTACON. We were so excited to go there. We all started in the Excite Room where we tried the free fall slide. Those of us that weren't keen on free falling found many other things to do. Then we all went off in our groups to explore the other rooms. At 11am we watched a show on motion. It was entertaining, informative and engaging. Quite a few of us were selected from the audience to participate in the show.

Cockington Green

We were all a bit curious as to what we were going to see at Cockington Green. It is a model village and had heaps of really cool stuff. The most expensive model house was the Ukraine at $180,000 to build. We all thought this was a great attraction to see.

Telstra Tower

Old Parliament House

There was a bit of commotion when we arrived at Old Parliament House with a few television crews around due to the passing of former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. We then split up into two groups and did some interactive democracy activities. We all moved into the old Senate room and did a mock meeting. It was amazing to see the old style room with the big leather chairs.

National Museum of Australia

Today after lunch we headed to the museum to check out the awesome stuff, like Pharlap's Heart and a piglet with two bodies and one head. Each group made their own way around the museum so everyone saw slightly different exhibits. We got to hop in a big dozer bucket and take a pic.

The War Memorial

This morning we headed to the War Memorial. Firstly we looked at all the statues up Anzac Parade which represented the soldiers and nurses in the different wars. We all took a guided tour around the War Memorial and then got to have a go in the discovery centre. Some of us bought poppies to leave in the wall. Some of us were able to find relatives on the honour roll.

The Mint

This afternoon we visited the Mint and had a tour to see how coins are made. Some students chose to make their own 2014 commemorative dollar coin. Unfortunately the Titan robot had retired for the day so we didn't see him in action tipping the barrels of coins onto the conveyor belt.

Australian Institute of Sport

After our visit to parliament we headed off to the AIS and had some lunch on the lawn. Then it was off for a tour around the AIS facilities including the pool, the gym, the volleyball courts and the gymnastics hall. Next we headed upstairs to the interactive sports room and we got to try our lots of virtual sports. We had lots of fun!!!!

Parliament House

This morning we headed off to Parliament House. As soon as we got there we split into two groups and participated in a role play of the House of Representatives. We were then lucky enough to see parliament sitting but unfortunately there weren't many of the representatives there. We then got to speak to two members of parliament, Senator John Williams who is a friend of Phil and Paddy Kelly and Bruce Scott, the member for Maranoa.