To Parramatta by boat

Ferries at Circular Quay

"When I had enough money I wanted to visit Rose at Parramatta but I didn't want to travel by train. I was frightened of trains. I wanted to travel up the river by boat. People said the trip was very nice" ('Mary's Story', Unit 13)

On Wednesday 24th November, 2004 a small group of students from our class (Esraa, Jorge, Olga, Silvia and and Sohaila) and two of the teachers, Marion and Rosa, went to Parramatta by ferry. The ferry is called the RiverCat and it takes 50 minutes to get there.

While we travelled along the Parramatta River we stayed inside because it was raining. We looked outside the windows and saw the green banks of the Parramatta River. When it stopped raining, we went outside and took many photos.

We arrived at Parramatta and walked along the river. On the footpath there were Aboriginal paintings about the history of Australia since the First Fleet. One of the paintings shows the fight between Aboriginal people and white people, another shows white people taking Aboriginal children away from their families.

Next we went to the Heritage Visitor Centre, where we saw an exhibition about the history of Parramatta.From there we walked over an old sandstone bridge, called the Lennox Bridge, to go to Parramatta Park. On the way we saw the centre of the city, which was very busy and nice.
We entered the park through a gatehouse. We were walking to a table in the middle of the park, but a young couple was walking towards the same table. Suddenly Marion started running and beat them. We couldn’t believe how fast she could run!

We had a fantastic lunch with food from five different countries, (Russia, Colombia, Uruguay, Egypt and Jordan). We talked and laughed a lot. When we finished lunch we went to the restaurant in Old Government House and had coffee and cakes. The waiter took some photos because the place was very nice. There was a vine framing the verandah where we were sitting.

Finally we headed back home. Most of us caught the train, but Olga and Silvia stayed shopping. The day was great, we saw interesting things, we talked a lot in English and mainly, we had a lot of fun.

Olga, Silvia, Jorge

Interesting things we learnt:

• The original inhabitants of Parramatta were the Aboriginal group Burramattagal ("burra" means eel and "matta" creek)
• Reconciliation was first talked about as early as 1803.
• Can you tell us more...?