From one acronym to another this morning... MONA to GASP! The second one stands for the Glenorchy Arts and Sculpture Precinct and is just across the bay from MONA. Principal of Windermere Primary, Duncan dodged off work to join me for the paddle. When we hopped out we were welcomed by GASP! boss Jonathan and soon after by Derwent Estuary Program’s Ursula and Sam, Royal Life Saving Tasmania’s Paula and team, Taswater’s Kate (who we met in week 1), my wife Nic, Bookend’s own Dr Alastair and Glenorchy’s Mayor Kristie. Why the crowd? Because we had 150 students from Windermere Primary being bundled onto buses by Kara and their teachers and coming out to do River Derwent workshops. A TV news crew came out and our media partners at the Mercury newspaper made a merry and mad scene as the students yipped and yahooed off the buses and into the red glass enclosure. Wow, it was crazy.
Cirque 2 Sea Day 26 : 26-08-2016
GASP! We are nearly home
The Mayor welcomed everyone and we got straight down to business with the workshops. Royal Life Saving did a mini first aid course including CPR, Derwent Estuary Program walked the shoreline discussing river science, Taswater donned the lab coats for water quality testing, Nic did an art from natural debris project (check out the crab for one wonderful creation), Kara did a coastal cleanup (and found 10 bags of rubbish + 3 tyres = 20 kgs of plastic, glass and metal), and I made up stories about Dave the Ruby Currant and the Hope and Grace. It was mad, the students had a ball, the teachers looked a bit drained and by 2pm the site was handed back over to the dog walkers. Thanks all involved for an excellent stopover as the journey draws to a close... nearly.
I hopped back in the kayak and sailed mostly, paddled a bit down to Taroona to edge closer to the end of the Derwent Estuary. I’ll stay here tomorrow and on Sunday will make the final leg down to near where I live at Flowerpot. It is down the inside of Bruny Island and counts as being well beyond the edge of the estuary.
Tell us what you really thought about Cirque to Sea via our online surveys:
T-shirt winner: Rosiegirl1
Royal Life Saving Society winner: Dorito Lord62
Cirque 2 Sea is a partnership project between the Bookend Trust, the Derwent Estuary Program and our supporters.
Let's make an expedition booklet!
Lots of students and classes have been doing some fantastic artwork, science investigations and research during the expedition and I think we need to gather some of it for a Cirque 2 Sea booklet (check out Windermere Primary's great river environmental art in todays photos). Get involved in two ways: As a class or as individuals (if you weren't doing this in your class)
1. Email your name (firstname surname) and/or class name/teacher (Year 3-4 Mr Hughes- Expedition Primary, Tasmania) and we'll publish you as expedition members in the back of the booklet.
2. Email me up to 5 photos of selected work (art/experiment/class activity) for possible publication in the booklet (please provide in JPEG form). We'll fit in as much as we can. We'll also put information about the River Derwent, weekly expedition reports and photos.
You can preorder copies for your school $5 each to cover the cost of design and printing.
Email: andrew@expeditionclass.com by the end of Term 3
