Tag: Ngalapita

After a week teaching in Ngalapita, and no rain on Thursday and Friday, I felt confident enough in the roads to attempt a drive back to Fitzroy Crossing for the weekend to visit Emma. The road out was fine, with only a little bit of Low Range 4WDing necessary. Christmas Creek was the only hairy bit – it was flowing at 98cm, and crossing it in the school troopie saw the water coming up and over the bonnet to about two inches above the base of the windscreen.

But, safely home, I got to spend the weekend with my wife! An extra perk was being able to watch the Australia-South Africa game on TV as well on the Saturday night. Unfortunately, just as I left Ngalapita, torrential rain hit the area, and this resulted in me being unable to drive back. I left the car in Fitzroy Crossing, and was forced to catch the plane back in again – hopefully we can get the car back in next weekend. I took plenty of photos from my mobile phone of the flood plains – as you can see, the Fitzroy River is not in flood at the moment, but is certainly very full!

Almost one week down in my temporary posting at Ngalapita Remote Community School! After an illness to the Principal here, and a few teachers covering the classroom over the past few weeks, I’ve come in to finish off the term (two and a half weeks) with the kids.

Unfortunately, there has been a bit of rain during the week, which has made it very difficult to get out and about and explore too much. I did manage to get down to the local billabong, but alas, with no charged batteries, was unable to capture any pictures! I caught a couple of bream, but no barra.

The staff here are great, and working under some very trying conditions – it is a three teacher school, but with the school still one teacher down, there has been zero DOTT in the school at all this term. The community is very small, with about twelve to fifteen attending the school each day, aging from kindergarten to Year 11. My class is a Year 3 to Year 11 class.

There are two ways of getting to the main highway – one through Nookambar, the other through Djugaridi – alas, when it rains, it is near impossible to cross the Fitzroy River near Nookambar, and it is imposssible to get past Christmas Creek on the Djugaridi road. For that reason, we’re stuck here at the moment, with a plane flying in suppiles to the local shop. I am hoping that Christmas Creek will drop enough by tomorrow evening to drive back to Fitzroy for the weekend! I’ll try to take more pictures to post… hopefully with an authentic Ngalapita barramundi within the frame!