Excursions – Day-time High School Programs

Whether you are looking for a fun outing or for something more structured (but just as much fun), we will put a programme together specially for you.

Fun & Informative Excursions for:

Years 11 and 12 / HSC (Stage 6)

Years 9 and 10 (Stage 5)

Years 7 and 8 (Stage 4)

Useful Documents

Learning Environment

170 acres of old growth Australian bushland, unspoiled nature and rich cultural landscape.

Friendly wildlife roaming free
Aboriginal art and shelter sites
Bush tucker and bush medicine growing along the tracks
Knowledgeable rangers
The real Australian bush
Native and small farm animals

Choose any Subject or Combination

For our “Wild Nature” tailored workshops, we can build your program around one subject or a combination of subjects. Examples:

• Aboriginal Studies
• Agricultural Technology
• Biology
• Creative Arts
• Food Technology
• Geography
• History
• Human Society and its Environment
• Performance Arts
• Religious Studies
• Science
• Social Justice
• Technology

Structured Learning Outcomes

All workshops are designed to meet prescribed syllabus-based learning-outcomes. Our workshops offer different combinations of activities including animals, the bush, and traditional Aboriginal content.

All workshops are adapted and tailored for students of all ages, stages, interest areas and abilities:

• High School Students in Stages 4, 5 and 6
• Students with Disabilities and other Special Needs
• Overseas Cultural Exchange Students

Education Team

Our education team adapts each workshops for age and ability, and tailors the workshop for you to deliver prescribed syllabus-based learning-outcomes.

• Workshops are run by trained and experienced in-house rangers.We have a wonderful supportive network of specialists who we can call on if you need something in their specialist area such as horticulturists, traditional toolmakers and artists.
• Our Education Coordinator is both an educationist and an anthropologist, and works with our cultural advisers to ensure that all Aboriginal content in the programs is both appropriate and respectful, and that any knowledge shared is always with permission.
• Our ranger guides are experienced in animal care and handling, as well as in conducting in-field workshops with all groups of all ages and abilities.

Walkabout Workshop Choices

You can select a workshop or, alternatively, you can ask us to recommend a workshop for you. Your students will have great fun learning in our bush classroom.

Tell us what you are doing in the classroom so that our rangers can deliver your workshop in a way that supports the learning outcomes that you are looking for.

Connecting with Country Workshops – 2½ hours (2 x 1¼ hours + break)

Choose your “Connecting with Country” workshop

$18.50 per student – minimum 20 students or pay for 20
1 Teacher free with each 10 students. Additional adults pay student price.

Choose 2 modules from:

CC1 – Spikes, Scales, Feathers & Fur Workshop: Meet the Australian native and farm animals that the rangers care for at Walkabout Park.
CC2 – Bush Skills: Handle Aboriginal tools made using ancient designs, make ochre paint, throw a boomerang and wash your hands with bush soap. Examine how these tools were made and what they were used for.
CC3 – Animal Ecosystems*: Head out along the tracks to look for how animals make their homes in the bush and how they find food, from tiny termites’ giant nests, to evidence of bettongs gathering nesting materials and bandicoots digging for bugs, and other surprises.
CC4 – People’s Shelters*: Learn how Aboriginal people would build a hut or ‘humpy’, gathering everything they needed from the bush and making bark-rope to tie things down, and visit ancient sandstone shelters formed by the weather.
CC5 – Bush Tucker & Bush Medicine*: Go walkabout with your ranger to harvest bush tucker and bush medicine the way Aboriginal people have done for thousands of years. Learn about the seasonal nature of foods and the medicinal properties of plants.

*Aboriginal Sites Visit Extension

We can incorporate a visit to one of the ancient Aboriginal Sites located at Walkabout Park.

• Only for modules CC3, CC4 and CC5 (not CC1 or CC2 as these modules stay close to the Visitor Centre)

Your program will be modified so that the route for your Walkabout Workshop goes past the Aboriginal Sites, and the time to talk about the sites will fit within your overall 2½ hours of ranger-led activities.

When you book your excursion, tell us the 2 modules you have selected and that you want the Aboriginal Sites Visit Extension to be included.

Suggested Day Plan for 2½ hour Workshop

•  10:00 arrival and BYO morning tea
• 10:30 ranger-led activities 1¼ hours
• 11:45 break for BYO lunch
• 12:15 ranger-led activities 1¼ hours
• 01:30 workshop ends
• 01:45 departure

Wild Nature Workshops – 2½ hours (or as required)

Choose your “Wild Nature” tailored workshop

From $19.50 per student depending on requirements – minimum 20 students or pay for 20
1 Teacher free with each 10 students. Additional adults pay student price.

Please discuss your teaching requirements with us so that we can ensure the programme is appropriately tailored for your students.

Choose 1 module (these are all double 2½ hour modules):

1. WN1 – Aboriginal Studies: Interpretive Sites Visit including Ancient and Contemporary Cultural Concepts.
2. WN2 – Biology: Focus on fauna and flora adaptations and habitat.
3. WN3 – Geography: Focus on eco-systems and impacts of changing weather patterns.
4. WN4 – Food Technology: Focus on wild-growing traditional and contemporary bush tucker.
5. WN5 – Bush Regeneration & Primary Industries: Focus on seed harvesting, propagation and planting.
6. WN6 – Fully tailored workshop to deliver your unique learning outcomes. Choose a combined or individual subject approach. We can design a program to support the learning outcomes required for your students as defined by the NSW Department of Education.

Suggested Day Plan for 2½ hour Workshop

• 10:00 arrival and BYO morning tea
• 10:30 ranger-led activities 1¼ hours
• 11:45 break for BYO lunch
• 12:15 ranger-led activities 1¼ hours
• 01:30 workshop ends
• 01:45 departure

Condensed Workshops – 1½ hours  – maximum 20 students

You can choose animal encounters, a bush tucker walkabout, or a blend of both. Tell us what you are doing in the classroom and we will tailor the program to support the learning outcomes you are looking for.

For any small school group up to 20 students

Designed to make workshops more affordable for smaller groups.

For small groups of students with special needs

To accommodate students with special needs e.g. behaviour or concentration issues, or intellectual or physical disabilities, you may prefer to choose the Condensed Workshop with the option for a single 1½ hour session, or 2 or 3 shorter sessions with 30 minute breaks between each.

Pricing for Condensed Workshops

$12 per student PLUS $140 for the workshop – MAXIMUM 20 students
1 Teacher free with each 10 students. Essential carers free. Additional adults pay student price.
Pricing examples:
$284 for 12 students [$140 + (12 x $12)] …OR…
$368 for 19 students [$140 + (19 x $12)]

Suggested Day Plans for Condensed Workshops

Day Plan – 1 Session

• 10:00 arrival and BYO morning tea
• 10:30 ranger-led activities 1½ hours
• 12:00 break for BYO lunch
• 12:30 teacher-guided walk to sites or animals
• 01:30 departure

Day Plan – 2 Sessions

• 10:00 arrival and BYO morning tea
• 10:30 ranger-led activities 45 mins
• 11:15 break for BYO lunch
• 11:45 ranger-led activities 45 mins
• 12:30 teacher-guided walk to sites or animals
• 01:30 departure

Day Plan – 3 Sessions OPTION FOR SPECIAL NEEDS GROUPS

• 10:00 arrival and BYO morning tea
• 10:30 ranger-led activities 30 mins
• 11:00 break
• 11:30 ranger-led activities 30 mins
• 12:00 break
• 12:30 ranger-led activities 30 mins
• 01:00 break
• 01:30 departure

Deposit and Refund Policy

A $100 deposit secures your booking.

The deposit is non-refundable because, once your booking is confirmed, Walkabout Park will turn away other business for that day.

In the event of bad weather, your deposit is transferrable to another date or to be used as credit against another booking.

Wet Weather Policy

Make sure the students and teachers bring their rain gear.

Except in extreme weather, the program goes ahead in the rain.

If the weather is expected to be too extreme for the rangers to be able to run the program, or if it might be dangerous, Walkabout Park will contact you to reschedule your excursion or give you a credit for a future excursion.

If Walkabout Park does not assess the wet weather conditions to be too extreme but you would like to reschedule anyway, we respect this and will work with you to find an alternate date.

Calga weather patterns are quite different to the Sydney Basin and the Central Coast. It can be pouring with rain down the road in Kariong or Hornsby, but dry in Calga.

You can contact Walkabout Park up to 5 days before your excursion to make general enquiries about expected weather conditions, with more specific weather information available 48 hours prior.