Mon 25 Jul 2011 Alice Springs

A favourite past time at this caravan park.

0900 (5448 km) MK had Skype session with his class 5/6G. He was told the class were going to work doing an inquiry unit on running businesses and they will be working with "Poppy Dollars" this term.

0915 (5448 km) Mum, Dad, SL and Ron left.

1130 (5448 km) Lunch of Roly Poly.

1245 (5457 km) Visited Alice Springs School of the Air (ASSOA). The classroom covers 1.3 million sq km, huge. In the past they used radio. Now, they use the Internet with satellite to connect to the outlying places. They are using a custom application where the kids and teachers can interact, written by some people in Darwin. Looks amazing - they showed a recording of a class and it showed how the teacher can change from a camera showing how to work through maths problem on a piece of paper and then changing to his face to talk to the kids. When the students enrol, they are given thousands of dollars of equipment to set up - computer, satellite dish, etc. Workbooks and library books are still sent via mail every fortnight. The children come together a few times a year to have face-to-face catch ups.

1400 (5457 km) Left School of the Air.

1430 (5465 km) Caravan park. Played pool again and cooked dinner and prepared for an evening outing.

1720 (5465 km) Left for Simpson's Gap.

1745 (5492 km) Simpson's Gap. Had dinner of fried rice while sitting at the gap looking at the rocks. As we finished dinner, the black footed rock wallabies started scampering down the rocks. As it got darker, they were right at the water's edge with us. They were just metres away. One even had a small cute joey peering out of her pouch! That was a fantastic night out. It was really good to see the wallabies up close.

1900 (5492 km) Left Simpson's Gap.

1920 (5517 km) Caravan park.