Echuca! 3/4 camp

I just got back from “camping” with the 3rd and 4th graders and I had an blast! We left on Wednesday to head towards Echuca, but ending up stopping at a science museum on the way. This museum was great as every exhibit was hands on. It also had a planetarium. I absolutely love the stars here, and for the first time ever I got to see the Southern Cross (I actually hadn’t realized it but these are also the stars on the Australian flag). We learned about the constellations (and how they all seem to appear upsides down because they were all named in the Northern hemisphere). Continuing our journey we stopped for lunch and ran into a group of the Australian Army. They were all super nice and even posed for a picture (unfortuanly I didn’t have my camera at that point) Then we stopped at a dairy farm (as if I hadn’t seen enough of those in Wisconsin J ) But I still had fun and enjoyed my strawberry milk! Yum! Once in Echuca we settled in for the night, had some dinner, went on a night walk in the forest, and then eventually settled into bed. It was a long day!

The next morning we headed into Echuca early to visit the historical town. The town is located on the border of Victoria and New South Wales, divided my the Murry River. This river is known for its paddlesteamers, so of course we had a ride on one! Then we had a little break for morning tea and headed into a puppet shop to watch some dancing emus. It was the funniest show I have ever seen. I mean have you seriously ever seen an emu that could shimmy and moonwalk? I did some shopping around town and then we had some pizza for lunch…and yey they have Hawaiian pizza here! After that we headed to “Oz Maze” which is an outdoor maze in the shape of Australia. Some of the kids had a hard time finding their way out, but eventually we got them all! We headed back to camp for some dinner and then a night of fun by the music teacher. Right after that we all headed to sleep.

Friday we headed out early on our way home but stopped at Kyagra at a Fauna Park. Finally I got to see koalas up close! I also came within 10 feet of kangaroos…and they weren’t even behind fences! I think I took at least 50 pictures here…with koalas, dingos, kangaroos, wombats, owls, flying foxes, and of course more koalas! Then we drove the rest of the way home.

Tomorrow it looks like I’m in for more animals at a nearby sanctuary, so hopefully there will be more pictures! Yey! Until then…