On Friday, June 10, we along with students from Blackville, Quirindi, Spring Ridge, Walhallow, Werris Creek and Willow Tree, met at Quirindi High School for the Liverpool Plains AECG Cultural Excursion.

Our first stop was Willow Tree Information Centre to see the axe grinding rocks that had been moved from the Werris Creek Mine site.

From Simon Taylor we learnt that Kamilaroi land starts from the Ranges at Murrurundi and goes all the way up to just over the Queensland border.

The rocks they used to grind their axes from is sandstone and there will always be two marks because they needed to sharpen each side.

Next we travelled out to Pine Ridge and Tommy Taylor told us some Dreamtime stories.

We then travelled to Wallabadah First Fleet Memorial Gardens and met Mrs Tania Hartigan and Mrs Nikki Robertson who spoke to us about the First Fleet's arrival in Australia.

We travelled back out to Pine Ridge for a barbecue lunch, smoking ceremony and dancing by the Gomeroi Dance Group.

Thank you to the Liverpool Plains AECG for organising this excursion.

A special thank you goes to Corey and Sasha Mackay for helping our students get to and from the high school on the Wallabadah bus.

It was a wonderful day and the kids really enjoyed themselves. I liked listening to the stories of the old days and the kids really enjoyed searching for the axe grinding stones.

- Natasha Payne, Member of the Liverpool Plains AECG

I liked the First Fleet Memorial Garden. I thought it was interesting that they whipped a man 1000 times for stealing bread. - Quaydan Effer

My favourite part was the Aboriginal dance. I liked how they used the movement of animals to become a dance. I also liked how they used the boomerangs as an instrument. - Zack Sweeney

Small Schools Touch Football Knockout Competition

by Zack Sweeney and Aiden Webster

On Tuesday June 14 the touch footy team went out to Dungowan to play touch football in the Small Schools Knockout. The score was 3-2 our way.

We won.

Zack got two tries, Ashton got one try. The team did a great job at driving and passing. We defended really well.

The Dungowan kids invited us to have recess and showed us a new game called Hit the Wicket which was really fun.

Thank you Dungowan for the awesome time.

Thank you to Mr Tim Barnett for driving the bus and supporting the team.