On the 15th December 2015, 40 staff, students and parents travelled to Ngurra Bu at Wollombai to participate in a day of cultural activities and experiences.
When we visited Ngurra Bu, Aboriginal Cultural Camp, we all learnt a lot from Adam who was our guide. We first went to a cultural site where we learnt about Tiddalick the Frog. We also learnt about mother nature, and how we are meant to respect our land and our culture. We should not be ashamed of our culture and should be proud of who we are. After that we went for a walk to see Tiddalick the frog, the story says that Tiddalick drank up all the water from the billabong, which the other animals were not happy about so they had to make Tiddalick laugh to get the water back into the billabong. The moral of the story was to share with one another and to share with your friends and don’t be greedy.
After Tiddalick, we drove to Mt Yengo where Adam talked about how grateful we should be of our ancestors and how they hunted their food and what tools were used such as boomerangs, spears and many more. Adam took us to some map sites carved into stone which (as a sign of respect) required you to take your shoes off before walking on them. Adam talked about recognising from the carvings who was a ‘bad’ person and who wasn’t. The people who were ‘bad’ had lines across their forehead rather than long lines of connectedness whereas the others didn’t. Those people that were ‘bad’ were not allowed to have their name on the stone. We returned to school after this full of knowledge to share with our peers.
Some comments from the primary school students –
Leo: I really liked the camp. My favourite part was on Mount Yango and the sandstone engravings. I want to go back.
Mitch: I liked it. My favourite part was climbing up to Tiddalick.
Kyra: I really liked the camp because of the Tiddalick rock and learning about the spirits and what the engravings mean.
