The WA adventure begins!

We arrived in Broome, the launching place for our Western Australian study into School, Family and Community Partnerships, on the evening of Thursday September 9th. The weekend allowed us to adjust to Western Standard Time and a vastly different climate. A daily temperature in the range of 38C took some getting used to but was a welcome change from the dreary Melbourne winter weather of recent months. Over the weekend, we checked out the local schools and community support services and made preparations for a long trip to Karratha, in the Pilbara region. Whilst in Broome, it was impossible not to notice the tropical climate and beautiful sunsets over Cable Beach.

The Kimberley District Education Office located in Broome supports a number of schools in the Kimberley region. The indigenous community were clearly a priority in the local schools. Indigenous artwork was a striking feature of the presentation of the local schools as was evidence of the school and the community working together.

Today, Monday, September 13th, we travelled approximately 830 kilometres from Broome to Karratha. Whilst there was the option to fly from Broome to Karratha and save ourselves the long drive, we feel this experience has started to provide us with some understanding of the demands on schools and regional offices in these remote areas. Over the course of the drive, we only passed through two towns - Port Hedland, an industrial centre to the mining industry of approximately 15, 000 people and Roebourne, a small rural township. Other places on route were roadhouses on the highway. Travelling through this part of Australia is signified by long, long straight stretches of bitumen; vast, flat spaces of sparse scrubland and massive road trains 3 or 4 trailers in length.

We arrived in Karratha around 5.00pm this afternoon. Then followed one of the most difficult elements of the journey - finding our accommodation. Karratha streets are laid out in a similar circular pattern to those in our nation's capital, Canberra. After several laps of the perimeter of Karratha without finding ourselves any closer to the much sought after "Matebore Street" we finally untangled ourselves and found our destination.

Karratha is the home of the Pilbara Region District Education Office. Bruce Macauley from the Pilbara District Office will host us for the week. The Pilbara Region is 510,000 square kilometres in size; has a population of 45,000 people and comprises 29 schools. When you consider that the area of Victoria is 230,000 square kilometres; a population of 5.5 million people; approximately 1600 government schools and each of our school networks in Victoria consists of approximately 25 schools mainly within a neighbourhood, you immediately see a major challenge facing these schools and the District Office. We depend on the collegiate support of our local prins in so many ways. We are sure the WA prins are no different in offering support to colleagues. The question is just how do they overcome the tyranny of distance not mention all the other challenges we expect to discover over the next week.

Tomorrow, we head off with Bruce to visit Onslow Primary School, about three hours south of Karratha. Onslow Primary School has an enrolment of approximately 300 students aged from 4 - 17 years. Onslow is respected for the excellent special needs program they deliver. We look forward to sharing our "Onslow Experience" later.