Introducing Mystery Class #6 Invergordon, Australia 36.166 S, 145.583 E Here we are--students of Invergoron Grade 6 Click on image to enlarge G'day to You All from Invergordon! Invergordon is a small rural community (population approx 500) in Victoria, which is the most southern state on the east coast of mainland Australia. Victoria is the second smallest state but has the second largest population. Hard To Find, But Many Found Us Our town isn't on most maps. But many of you had no trouble locating our town with the clues. In fact, a few of you even sent e-mails to our class asking if we were the Mystery Class #6. Sorry we couldn't write you back until the contest was over, but afterall this was a contest. Invergordon is about 30 kilometres NNE of Shepparton which is our nearest city. We are about 3 hours drive north of our state capital, Melbourne. We are 30 kms south of the border between Victoria and New South Wales. This border is the Murray River. Our Latitude is approximately South 36.166 degrees and our Longitude East 145.583 degrees. We are 180 metres above sea level. Invergordon has a small township of 14 houses and the rest of the community lives on dairy farms or orchards. (There are also some small hobby farms.) There are approx 500 people living in the area overall. In addition to the school, there is a church, a Guide Hall, community rooms, a cricket oval, 2 general stores, 2 fertilizer distributors, a BMX track, netball courts and tennis courts. There are also lots of channels to swim in during the summer. Our school Click on image to enlarge Our school has 60 students from Prep to Grade 6. Our Grade 6 has 10 students; 6 boys and 4 girls. There are three other classrooms, a Prep/Grade 1, a Grade 2/3 and a Grade 4/5. We have 6 computers in our classroom and 5 of them are connected to the internet. We have 23 computers in the school and 12 are connected to the internet. There are 9 rooms in our school. There are 4 classrooms, an Art room, a Library, a multi-purpose room where we do music, dancing and some Math, a staffroom and an office. We are lucky because our present school building was built in 1969 for 200 students and that is why we have so many rooms. The original school was called Dunbulbalane, but was changed to Invergordon in honour of our first school teacher who came from Invergordon in Scotland. We have four full-time teachers and three teachers who come for a day or half a day per week. They teach art, music and Library. Our classroom teachers teach us all the other subjects. Getting Old? He's Fabulous At 50! Our teacher (Chalkie) is Mr. Cairns. He is also the Principal. We think he is getting old. He will be 50 this year!! We also do Bike Education and went on a bike hike in early April. We rode to Brookfield and camped overnight in tents. Then we ride into Numurkah so that we can have experience riding around a town that has stop signs, roundabouts, shops, parking bays, and traffic. Numurkah is about 15kms from our school. Our school ground is over 1.5 hectares in area. We have a netball/basketball court, an oval for football and cricket, a rebound wall, a fort, play gym equipment and gardens. We pump water from the channel for the gardens and lawns, and collect rainwater from the roof for drinking. The water is collected in large concrete or tin tanks. We think our gardens look great. Each class is responsible for looking after their own garden. We also have a pine tree that is planted in the front of the school. It was grown from a seed that was brought back from a famous World War I battle field called Lone Pine Ridge. We hold our Anzac Day ceremony around this tree. Anzac Day is when we remember all the Australians who have died in wars, so our tree is very special to us. Surprises in Our Schoolyard Mmmm, Mmmm, good! (just kidding!) Click on image to enlarge We sometimes find brown snakes, even in our schoolyard. They are protected, but they are also venomous, so we have to be careful. Here's a picture of James holding a brown snake we found dead on the schoolyard. During the early Mystery Class activities, it was summer time here and we had already had some very hot days. Sometimes we ran out of drinking water and had to get a tanker to bring a load and pump it into our rainwater tanks. Last year we had to buy two loads of water. During the summer we often have days over 100F. Our winters are cold but we never have snow. We do have lots of frosts though. It is now Autumn here but most of our native trees don't shed their leaves. Love to Hear From You We have really enjoyed being a part of this project. We hope it wasn't too difficult finding us. We would love to hear from any schools who would like to find out more about us. Regards, Amanda, Brad, Charlie, Geoffrey, James, Jamie, Jedd, Khloe, Lisa, and Rachel Grade Six Invergordon Primary School Victoria Australia inverps@cnl.com.au Back to Today's Report Copyright 2000 Journey North. All Rights Reserved. Please send all questions, comments, and suggestions to our feedback form