Chapter 4 - My history (the later years)

School

When I left preschool, I had already been to a series of orientations at North Ryde Public School and liked everything I saw. Well, everything except the weeds at the edge of the school grounds. During a barbeque held at the school Rebecca and I ran around along the fence, thoroughly enjoying ourselves. When we were walking home, however, Mum and Dad realised that Rebecca's and my clothes were covered in travellers weed bristles! At the time, I had no idea what it was and was very puzzled. However, it was very clear where we had got it: at the edge of North Ryde Public's grounds!

The actual orientations however were very interesting and I was really looking forward to the first day when I would become an actual student at North Ryde!

That wouldn't take long to happen. In a couple of months I was getting ready for my very first day of school, explaining to my old well-worn teddy that once belonged to my mum that I was going to "Big School" now, getting into my school's old Brown and Gold uniform and packing my new school bag.

First day of school

North Ryde was great! My Kindergarten teacher was called Miss Longhitano and the principal was, for the first part of the year, Mrs Goodsell. I didn't get to know much about Mrs Goodsell because early on in the year she left to be replaced by Mrs Southam.

First athletics carnival

In year two at North Ryde I was put in a class with students I barely knew. However before long I had a great new circle of friends, Elliot Albany, James Cutrone, Jarrod Selwood and John Michael Rubbo. In year two we used to play games like handball and a game we called packman. It was like tag restricted to the lines on a basketball court. Also that same year at church, I made friends with some boys, Tim and Ben Gellert and Jesse Dykes. In year three a boy called Kavenis Sivabalan began playing with us, as well as a boy called Raymond Yu. John Michael and James began to play with different people and we were put into separate classes. Elliot was in my class though.

Year four was my last year at North Ryde. I was still in the same class as Elliot and even before I knew I was going to Ryde, I knew that Tim, Ben, Raymond, Kavenis, Elliot and I would soon be separated. Elliot was signed up for Knox Grammar the following year, Tim and Ben were moving to Bowral at the end of the year and Raymond and Kav were both also moving school. That left me and Jarrod. Then, as you know I passed the OC test and signed up to Ryde Public.

On the last day of school, out of my inner circle of friends only Kav and I were at school. Elliot and Raymond had left and Jarrod was home, sick. It was very sad leaving North Ryde and all my friends.

Last day at North Ryde Public School

Some of my best memories at North Ryde Public School were performing at the Talent Quest in year three and year four.

My year three Talent Quest act was a comedy sketch I did with my friend Elliot. We performed the wonky donkey song to the whole school. I was the donkey and Elliot sang the song into a microphone. When we tried out I was sure we wouldn't get in, but to my surprise we passed! On the night before the performance my nanna and my mum pieced together a great donkey costume for me. Everyone loved our peformance and as my costume had no mask even people I had never met were congratulating me on my perfomance.

My year four Talent Quest act was a C. J. Dennis poem I performed with my sisters. Each of us did a different poem and brought some great costumes to school. We did quite well and had a lot of fun!

Soccer

In year two, I started playing soccer. I played for Ryde Panthers as I have already told you. The next year, Elliot joined my team. Also Kav was already in it. That was a great year; not only was I with my friends but we won the finals. That day we were playing against a team that had beaten us 12-1 at the start of  the year!

The final game continued nil all until the 50 minutes had passed, and our time was up.

To decide the winners the ref let the game continue until someone scored a goal. I was very relieved as I was worried it might end up being penalty shootout (and I was the goalie!). After less then 5 minutes Kav scored and we won.

Parties

One of my best parties was my 8th birthday party. It was a Science party and my Uncle was going to pretend to be a mad scientist. Unfortunately on the same day another person in my class also had a Science Party and that kid's parents had hired a person whose job was to do science at people's parties. I was worried whether the two parties would clash but thankfully my party was in the afternoon, while the other party was in the morning. And anyway, I reckon Uncle Jon was by far the better party scientist!

Uncle Jon and my friends doing an experiment

We made coke geysers, slime and many other great things!

Coke geysers!

Another great party I had was my 9th birthday party when I invited some of my friends to Taronga Zoo. It was great! We went on a behind the scenes tour of the nightlife exhibits. We got to go into the enclosures and feed the animals. I got to feed a bilby by hand and stroke it.

My friends and me at the zoo!

Also we went on a massive circuit around the zoo, seeing all kinds of animals.

Holidays

On a couple of occasions I went on holidays to Little Beach at Port Stevens. We went on a dolphin watch, fed wild snapper and other medium- to small-sized fish and saw a penguin chase a shoal of tiny fish. Of course we also visited the beach there.

Also at Little Beach, we climbed Mount Tomoree, on two different occasions. On my first trip there we were halfway up, when Mum stopped us. Crossing the path was a big, red-bellied black snake! I had thought it was a stick until mum pointed it out. I remember on the rest of the bushwalk being terrified and worried it would catch us.

On the second occasion we reached the top where there is a great view and saw a humpback whale in the ocean at the bottom of the mountain. That was an amazing experience.

Grandad and I watching whales

A place that I visit a lot is Forster-Tuncurry, two towns on either side of a large bay. The towns are connected by a long bridge, with walkways on either side. It is very fun to walk along the bridge, looking into the water seeing all kinds of fish. My Grandad has seen sharks, rays, and dolphins over the side of the bridge and my Nanna, who grew up there, says that when she was a teenager she would walk across the bridge and see dozens of grey nurse sharks swimming around under the bridge. Although I haven't seen any sharks there, you can't go on a holiday to Forster without seeing at least one dolphin!

In Forster, I love going fishing and it was there that I caught my first fish. Here are some of my fishing experiences there.

My first fish

When I was seven I visited Tuncurry and drove over to the wharf in Forster. We saw gar in the water and my grandad spotted an octopus! Also there was a shoal of strange fish in the water. It wasn't long before one of them took an interest in my bait. When it was out of the water no one could identify it. It was green with a blue bands and a horny beak. It wasn't until later that I realised it was a juvenille blue barred parrotfish! In a shop that would be really expensive.

First fish!

The following day, after having my fish for breakfast we fished again in the afternoon. You know how we saw an octopus the day before? Well while we fished the next day, it grabbed hold of mum's bait and got well and truly snagged. Grandad had to cut the poor thing loose!

My fourth fish 

I caught my fourth fish last year, during the easter holidays at Tuncurry at a sligtly different spot. It was a type of angelfish, too small to eat so I threw it back. Not long after my dad caught another angelfish, about the same size as my one. Dad  threw it back. In two days most of us had caught an angelfish, each one the same size of the one before. Either there are a lot of angelfish out there or we have met the world's dumbest animal. 

Fourth fish!

During those two days, Elsie and Becca caught their first fish: some venomous, rockfish-like creature for Elsie and Mr Stupid the Angelfish for Becca.

During the summer holidays, just before I started year 2, my family flew over to New Zealand. We spent most of the two weeks in its South Island but I also spent a day in Wellington and visited its museum. Here  are some things we did there. After a week spent in Christchurch, we hit the road and drove around the incredible island. One day, we visited a New Zealand Fur seal colony, at a place in the South Island where the North Island was just visible across the sea. We got very close (not too close) to the seals, which were lounging about on the rocks, lazily watching us with big round eyes. There was a rule not to get too close to the seals. We saw the reason why though, when some naughty tourists crept into the midst of a massive group of seals and began photographing the tiny pups. I remember seeing a massive fur seal bull charging at them surprisingly fast before we got into the car and drove off. 

Watching the fur seals

Some more great places in New Zealand were up in its mountains, the territory of a bird I was particularly hoping to see, the Kea. Keas are rare, cute and highly intelligient parrots, endemic to the mountains of New Zealand. They are very curious about humans and our inventions and occasionally vandalise and damage vehicles! They are also the world's only carnivorous parrots. The mountains were incredible, we walked along cold, empty plains, the ground was covered in gravel and dotted with boulders, towards Franz Josef glacier. Glaciers are like rivers of ice, worming their way down mountain slopes in cold areas, creeping ever so slowly over massive amounts of time, to the sea. We saw three of these in New Zealand, Franz Josef glacier, Fox glacier and another one at Mt Cook. Sir Edmund Hillary, famous for climbing Mt Everest,  also climbed Mt Cook.  As we left the moutains, I got my wish: a Kea flew alongside our car with a look of glee on his face. You could almost believe it was racing us!

Walking back from the glacier

Also in New Zealand, we visited a massive volcanic crater. We were able to swim in it and look out for a rare species of dolphin found there. You see, the volcano of Akaroa's erupting days are over. It's an extinct volcano that has flooded and is open to the sea. However, although it is not quite a fiery lake, traces of its volcanic history can be found if you have a keen eye. There are many lumps of pumice, a type of dried lava found around the crater.

Down in the South of New Zealand, we visited a place called mirror lake where the water was still as glass and reflected everything like a mirror. I got some great photos of it. 

Mirror Lake

Another place we stayed at was a large lake with a viewing platform under the water where you could see trout swimming around the lake, for free! You could also pay to send some fish food out into the water to feed them. We caught an old steam boat across the water to a farm with red deer. We got to feed the deers there! In the lake, we also saw a great crested grebe.

One day when we at the top of the South Island we caught a ferry to Wellington on the North Island, to visit our cousins. We spent a day in Wellington and the main thing we did there was visit the great national museum. One of the things it had that I remember best was the world's only specimen of a colossal squid. Also, I remember it  had a sand pit with fake white dinosaur bones at the bottom you had to dig up and a place about the Maori, the first known human inhabitants of New Zealand. Also, it had a life size model of a blue whale's heart you could crawl inside. It was great!

Whale heart replica!

We did some other things around Christchurch while we were there. We visited a great wildlife place that was like a tiny indoor zoo or aquarium with large tanks of fish, some tuatara (a type of lizard-like reptile endemic to New Zealand) and the star attraction, the kiwi enclosure. To get to the kiwis, you would go through a door to a separate part of the zoo where there were no lights at all. You could faintly see the kiwis' silhouettes as they scratched around in the undergrowth and fed out of their feeding bowl. Also we climbed to the top of this cathedral tower nearby. We had a great holiday!

Church

Our church, Macquarie Baptist is great! I have lots of friends there and learn a lot at Sunday School. It is a Baptist Church, which means that we believe that people should be baptised only when they decide for themselves to become a Christian. (Other types of church baptise people when they are babies). To be baptised is a way of showing that you are Christian, like a wedding ring shows you are married. When I was in year one I decided to  be baptised. That was a pretty young age to get baptised but I was very keen to do it, so my parents let me and the minister said it was OK. Being baptised is when you go into a special pool inside your church and get dunked under the water for a couple of seconds. I prepared a speech about why I wanted to be a Christian and talked to our church minister, Tim Blencowe about it. Before long the day arrived. My friends and relations were invited and I packed spare clothes to change into after being baptised. The water was freezing cold!

Baptism

Reading

In year one, we read Harry Potter and the philosopher's stone at school. I hadn't even heard of Harry Potter before and when mum told me it was about a boy at a school where he learns magic, I wasn't very interested. I thought back then that really exciting books involved a long journey or lots of moving around. However as you know if you have read my earlier chapters, I ended up loving Harry Potter and by Year 2, had finished the whole series!

A  couple of times in year three and year two I attempted to read The Lord of the Rings. However it was too hard for me until year four of school, when I finally tackled it! I really like the Lord Of The Rings.

Lydia

I remember one evening in year two when our family was sitting out on the verandah, eating dessert. When we had finished our dessert mum and dad told the three of us that they had an anouncement to make. Mum was having a baby! Everyone was so excited! Soon we were all thinking of names for the baby and wondering whether it was a boy or a girl.

Six months later we were at nanna and grandad's house and mum and dad were at hospital. I remember we were at the park when nanna received a phone call from mum. She had given birth to a baby girl, Lydia Grace Starling! Until that time we didn't know what the baby was going to be called. 

Meeting Lydia

On the same day in the Blue moutains, another girl was born. My cousin Hannah Schmidt! Isn't that incredible?

Lydia has really changed my life. Because of her our house had an extension built on it and became a two storey house. Now my bedroom is upstairs. It is great having a baby sister in the family, especially when it is Lydia!