2007 was capped off beautifully with one final tour – ourninth for the year.  A small butstrong team of five took on the heat, humidity, mozzies and cane toads of DalyRiver and spent four fantastic days with the students and staff at WooliannaSchool, all of whom could not have been more hospitable. 

The team set up ‘camp’ on the floor of the school’s twoclassrooms, rolling up our swags bright and early each morning before the firststudents arrived for breakfast. Petrina, principal at Woolianna, and her husband, James, teacher (andeverything else!), rose at the crack of dawn each day to prepare the school forthe day’s activities. They fit the Red Dust program into their scheduleseamlessly, working closely with the team to fit the music and sport activitiesin with their classroom plans.

The music team worked with the older students to produce aterrific song entitled, “I Will Lead You Now”, which the students showcased, along with their music video, to theschool and visitors from the community and Darwin. 

Meanwhile, Glenn Manton, Mel Thompson and Vodafone’s TomCarolan assisted with classroom exercises, when Glenn wasn’t leading a varietyof sporting drills and black-belt Tom wasn’t directing the kids on properkarate yells and kicks.  The RedDust mob threw an end-of-school-year barbecue, with the help of Anthony Castrofrom NT Governement’s Alcohol and Other Drugs department, who made the driveout to Daly River twice during the week to lend a hand.

As per usual, the team ended up learning as much as whatthey were teaching, gaining new insights into community life at Daly River andbeing led on bush tucker excursions by the Woolianna students, tasting bushplums and bush passionfruit. The team reluctantly (despite the invasion of bugsand toads) departed Woolianna, hearts full and already looking forward to thenext visit…with many thanks to our Woolie friends new and old.