Wilcannia 2019
The Year 12 VCAL students met at 6:30am on Tuesday 30 July and left on our way to Wilcannia NSW for the annual Year 12 VCAL social justice trip.
The drive was almost seven hours to Mildura where we all stayed in the caravan park for one night before finishing the drive to Wilcannia, another five and a half hours including stopping off in Broken Hill for lunch.
On arrival at Wilcannia, we all got settled in our rooms and went off to sleep to be ready for an early start.
The town of Wilcannia was very small and didn’t consist of many shops, only a service station, general store and a pub. The town seemed empty as most residents lived on the outskirts.
We were lucky enough to have Tom and Jeremy volunteer and come along for the trip to cook lunches and dinners for us. The meals prepared were great.
The next six days consisted of waking up in the morning and going straight to the local community school to do a couple of hours of work before having lunch and then a couple more hours of work.
The work mainly consisted of landscaping jobs such as garden beds, brick paths, mulching and other random jobs.
Rory, the St Therese Community School Principal, showed us what needed to be done around the school.
While at the school the VCAL students got involved with the local kids — playing soccer with them at lunch break and conducting a PE class.
We spent an afternoon at the local park with all of the kids, we had lunch, played tee-ball and cricket, and taught them how to kick and handball an AFL ball.
This trip was a good opportunity to see outback Australia.
We went to a national park for a BBQ which was good. We got to see new places and environments.
We packed up, left Wilcannia on Wednesday 7 August, and headed back to Mildura, staying on the Murray for one night, and then finishing the drive back to De La Salle on Thursday.
Will McDonell, Year 12 VCAL