Digital Collections - Pictures - Eric Milton Nicholls collection [picture].

Digital Collections - Pictures - Eric Milton Nicholls collection [picture].

From Castlecrag to Condobolin

Hi everyone,
I'm going on a journey on Saturday from Castlecrag to Condobolin. This is around 464km west of Sydney over the Great Dividing Range. I will travel through Lithgow, Bathurst, Orange, Parkes and arrive in Condobolin around 5pm. I'm going to Condobolin High School to teach for 10 weeks. I hope to have lots of photos for you showing the landscapes, the places and the people.
love,
T

More Holiday Fun

From dressing up as Jedhi knights to birthday parties in the park, it has been a really action packed two week break. Here are our holiday snaps,

Skating Afternoon

This school holiday it has rained for seven days. So today we went skating at Macquarie Ice Rink. It was the kids first time on ice skates. N howled and howled but I coaxed him out onto the ice by skating backwards and towing him around as slowly as I could without falling over myself.

In the middle of the rink some of the figure skating girls were being coached. They were in their skating dressed and had some pretty good moves.

T and A got the hang of skating after a while and had a great time.

What we did in the school holidays

Every school holidays I try to create a mini tour of the City of Sydney for my kids, here's what we got up to this Autumn;

1. 1788 tour of Sydney, back to the time of Captain Arthur Phillip
2. Exploration of the aboriginal sites of the Coves from our own backyard
3. Visit to the Australian Museum in College St to see the dinosaurs, N thinks that the small hairy Chinese one that runs and looks like an eagle is positively scary
4. Played soccer in the rain - well T did, he is practicing his goal shots
5. Daytrip to Taronga Zoo to see the new exhibits there, learnt that frogs drink water through their skin.
6. Arts and Craft activities at home and at a workshop
7. More backyard excavation - well they might develop an interest in archaeology

Here is one of T's photos from Taronga Zoo; I really like the giraffes close up...

Sydney in Autumn

T and I journeyed back in time to 1788 tracing the steps of the First Fleet and Captain Arthur Philip in the early years of the penal colony on the tank stream. At Museum of Sydney we viewed a NSW Corps officer's uniform from the time of the Rum Rebellion. We looked at the models of the eleven ships of the First Fleet and thought about the people of the Eora Nation who were impacted by this settlement. We realised that they were devastated by small pox and the other diseases of the Europeans. Those that were able fled over the Blue Mountains to join the Wirradjuri and south to the Murri. The Aboriginal tribes lived lightly on the land and were able to harvest the ocean in Sydney Harbour to sustain themselves for thousands of years.

In the early days of the settlement the number of Aboriginal people outnumbered the colonials. Governor Arthur Philip set up trade with them and quickly learnt their knowledge of the land. He did not understand the epidemiological impact that his Fleet had on their health and well being. The 26th of January is not only the date of arrival of the First Fleet it is also the date of the Rum Rebellion's coup over Governor Bligh. Australia Day is a day of dispossession and rebellion. Becoming a citizen of Australia on Australia Day brings with it an understanding of the many layers of our heritage.

Art Portfolio

T is getting his photography together to make a presentation. Over the Summer he took these photos - all of the head shots are self portraits using either a hand held aspect or the timer.

I have had the best of these printed out and T is collating them in a black paged book.

Self portraiture is an unusual art form for the photographer who finds their image reversed by the lense. Some photographers use the mirror to reverse this effect.