Gindie Silos

A little over 10 years ago in 2001, I was invited to take part in a Writers in Residence project in Springsure. Along with a number of writers, poets, illustrators and publishers I was flown up to Emerald and then driven down to Springsure. I spent most of the week working in two schools in Springsure itself.

I enjoy both telling and creating stories with students and Springsure was no exception. Of all the stories that we created then, there are two that I still regularly tell. One was from the Catholic School, Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Primary School, and the other from the state primary to year ten school.

The state school one was called 'The Gindie Silos'. It came about because I chipped a school student who was sitting up the back of the group. He'd lifted up a bandaid on his leg and was scratching an itchy scab. I told him to put the bandaid back on and asked him what happened.

He told us all what happened in his backyard in Gindie and we worked on creating the story. You can read it as I published it on my website here.

Now I usually try to publish more than just the text. I usually invite students to do some illustrations. Find a Google map reference, maybe some Creative Commons photos and sometimes an audio podcast.

Since 2001 the Google maps and satellite images have got heaps better and so has their street view. Now if you want to have a look at the silos in the Gindie Silos stories you can. Go here and place the 'street view orange man' near the yellow house marker.

Here's a screen grab from the street view.

After the week had finished we were driven back to Emerald to fly home and, of course, drove through Gindie. I had trouble working out which house was David's but we did drive right past the silos and there was some burnt grass around the base of them. Maybe that's why I remembered the story so well.

The Day the Painted Fish Came to Life

It's a 43c day here in Rochester and we're talking about our favourite places.

• James - fish and chip shop
• Helen - the library
• Naomi - her friend's place where they play on the computer
• William - the pool
• Samuel - his backyard where he plays footy
• Aiden - the skatepark

After a bit more discussion I told everyone the story we had created five years ago with the Rochy Readers who were in the library that school holidays. It was called, 'Aidan and the Murray Cod' and, guess what, Aiden was back. Well somehow the new story we created this time had fish in it as well. Here it is.


'The Day the Painted Fish Came Alive'
One morning the Rochy Readers had gathered for a meeting at the Rochester Library in Mackay Street. They walked in the front door past Genevieve and said 'Hi.' The Librarian said: "Paul is waiting for you outside."

They were all glad to see Paul because they knew he would help with the little bird they had with them. It was such a hot day that the bird had fainted in the heat. Paul said: "Gently pour your water bottle over it and let it rest on my palette there in the shade."

Picture by Naomi

Then Paul set to work on the painting: it was one of the paintings going to Japan. Aiden said: "Is this painting really going to Japan?" Paul said: "Yes, they're going over to Japan, to our sister city."

Aiden said: "Oh, cool!" And as they sat down they heard the cicadas buzzing and buzzing and then over the top of them came the sound of the fire brigade siren and William said: "They normally practise on a Sunday. Samuel said: "It can't be a practice - it's the real thing!"

Naomi said: "I wonder where it's happening?"

James said: "Something smells like burnt chips!"

Picture by James

They ran down Mackay Street and there was the fire brigade. Just then a ute pulled up and the driver said: "Want a lift?" They all jumped on and arrived just in time to see the firemen blasting a great jet of water through the window of the fish and chip shop.

One of the fire officers said: "Can you help save the pictures?" The heat seemed to bring the window of the shop alive. It was melting and moving and it was just like the fish were swimming along the glass.

Naomi jumped up and said: "Let's run back and get some of Paul's canvases!"

Paul picked up an armful and gave them to them and they ran back to the fish and chip shop. It was really funny, the painted fish almost seemed to know. Through the heat and smoke they seemed to wriggle across the glass towards the canvasses. Then, one by one, they jumped off the window and onto the canvasses.

"Yes! Let's take them down to the Campaspe!"

The Rochy Readers walked back past the skate park near the river each carrying a canvas.

When they reached the river they held the canvases in the water and the fish drifted off and then, with a little flip or two, they swam off.

Naomi said: "Good luck fish! Oh well, we'd better take the canvasses back to Paul."

But you'd never guess what - the outlines of the fish, their tails, their fins, their scales and their lips were still on those canvasses. When Paul saw them he said: "Wow, that's wonderful, we'll send those off to Japan for sure!"

Three months after they sent the canvasses an envelope arrived at the Library. It had lots of Japanese stamps on it. The Librarian and the Rochy Readers opened the envelope and inside was a cheque for 30,000 yen, enough to buy a whole new collection of books for the Library and a good feed of fish and chips!

(© This story was created by Daryll Bellingham with assistance from the Rochy Readers
as part of the Campaspie Regional Library Service Rochester Branch vacation program on 14th January, 2009.)

Echuca is A-Mazing

One day in Echuca a group of young people were exploring the Oz Maze. The wind was blowing through the gum trees and the kookaburras were laughing wildly.

Picture by Austen

As they were lining up to pay for the tickets the attendant said: "All the maze is open but that area over there, you musn't go there. Whatever you do don't pass through it." The young people said: "Oooh."

No sooner were they in the maze when one of the boys said: "I wonder where that place is he's talking about?"

Suddenly he saw an orange construction fence. Beyond the orange construction fence there was something bright and shiny. It was a time portal. Matthew took off, jumping into the time portal. Grace and Gabi were a bit scared and wondered where he'd gone to.

In the ticket office the security guard glimpsed the video and saw what was happening. He leapt up and started running through the maze. "What's going on here?" he shouted.

The young people saw him coming. Janelle called out: "Oh no, he's after us, let's go!"

In an instant the young people were in the portal. They fell and landed on something really hard. "Where are we?" they cried out.

Matthew, the eldest of the group, rubbed his head and said: "It's a paddlesteamer."

And sure enough it was. It was an 1800's paddlesteamer.

Matthew looked at everyone. "Hey! we've slipped back in time. That portal worked!"

As the paddlesteamer came into the port of Echuca they heard a scream. It was the security guard. He'd come through the portal too but he didn't land on the paddlesteamer, he fell with a huge splash right in the middle of the Murray!

The young people said: "Hey, let's go! Let's get away."

Drawing by Gabi

They jumped onto a Cobb and Co coach. "He'll never get us now!" But that security guard was quick. He jumped on the back of the coach as they sped through the main street of Echuca.

One of the girls, Chelsea saw a strange door. "Come on everybody!" she yelled out. "Jump!" And they all jumped and followed Chelsea through that strange old door.

Chelsea must have guessed that it was another portal. But she could never have guessed where they'd end up.

"Wow!" said Austen. "This is sick! I love bowling!" And sure enough they were at the bowling alley.

He looked at the other kids and smiled. He was just thinking about a game when he saw that the security guard was in the bowling alley too! "Oh, no!" they all called out. All the young people started to run across the alleys.

Just at that moment a really heavy and very fast ball came down the lane and hit the security guard. The guard was knocked down, disappeared behind the bowling lanes and was swept down the portal.

Luke and Gabi reached for their mobile phones. "Let's ring our Mums!"

When the young people's parents arrived they all had a bit of explaining to do about how come they were at the bowling alley and not at the maze but they sure had a good story to share with their friends when they headed back to school. All their friends said: "That's amazing!" even though they didn't believe them.

© This was created by Daryll Bellingham and young library users at the Echuca Branch Library of the Campaspe Regional Library Service, 14th January, 2009.

The following map includes the locations of the story settings.


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The Tongala Tortoise Trials

Peter was throwing lumps of mud into Coomes’s Channel. He had ridden his red mountain bike down the flat road from the small township of Tongala in northern Victoria to the channel hoping to find some of his friends there.

“Where are you going?” said his mum.

“Off riding on my bike,” said Peter.

“Don’t go near that channel,” said his mum, “and make sure you wear your helmet.”

(Not really Coomes Channel but it would look something like this.) (Flickr download with thanks by - yewenyi)

Peter didn’t say anything as he rode away and his helmet dangled from his handlebars all the way to the channel. When he got there he was alone. None of his friends were there.

“They must be still at Vacation Activities.

The lumps flew through the air and into the irrigation water like army mortar rounds.

Eeeeeeeeeeeehhh! Splash! “That’s one.”

Eeeeeeeeeeeehhh! Splash! “That’s two.”

Eeeeeeeeeeeehhh! Splot! “Hey what did that hit?”

Now there’s not a lot of life in an irrigation channel. You do get some fish and some shrimps and insects like Water Boatmen. You do see cormorants and the big black and white pelicans chasing fish, even the odd snake.

But that wasn’t what Peter hit. What Peter hit was a tortoise and, boy, was that tortoise angry. That tortoise started swimming towards the bank of the channel. It climbed up the bank and waddled over towards Peter’s mountain bike. It opened it’s mouth and, chomp, it bit right through one of the tires.Pssssssssssssss.

“Hey, you stupid tortoise, leave my bike alone!”

Peter picked up a big rock above his head to drop on the tortoise but the tortoise waddled off into the long grass and reeds on the bank of the channel. Peter followed holding up the rock ready to drop it on the tortoise. The tortoise walked into a hollow log and disappeared.

Peter stood there with the rock still above his head looking for the tortoise.

(Flickr download with thanks by - poppalina )

The tortoise wandered out the other end, around behind Peter and bit him on the toe.

“Owwwwwww!”

Peter tripped over the log. The rock went flying through the air and landed on his head. Whack!

He was knocked out. The tortoise waddled off back into the channel. Splash.

Peter’s girlfriend, Corrie, arrived at the other side of Coomes Channel. “Peter, are you here?”

As she walked past the irrigation wheel she saw Peter’s red mountain bike lying beside the channel.

“Come on Peter I know you’re here somewhere.”

Then she saw him lying on the ground by the log and the rock beside his head. She jumped into the channel, swam across and started to give him the ‘kiss of life’.

“Wake up Peter, wake up.”

She could see his chest moving and felt his heart beating.

“Come on Peter, wake up.”

She grabbed Peter’s bike helmet off his handle bars, dipped it in the channel and manage to carry enough water back to splash on Peter’s face.

That did it. Peter woke up and when he saw Corrie’s worried face he said, “What happened?”

Corrie said, “I dunno. Maybe you fell off your bike and hit your head on this rock.”

“Oh yeah, that right. There was a tortoise in the way.”

“Lucky it wasn’t a Red Belly Black Snake. My dad said you have to watch out for snakes and fallling branches from Gum Trees.”

“Oh what would he know?”

“He’d know enough to wear his bicyle helmet.”

And do you know what? From that day on, Peter did too.

Created by Daryll Bellingham
with the assistance of the audience at
the Tongala Library Vacation Activities Storytelling Show,

Wednesday 7th January, 2004.
© Daryll Bellingham

Original story was published here : http://plainstalking.deni.net.au/storiescampTongala.html

Podcast recording of this story can be found in the menu bar or here.

I'd like to put a map with Coomes's Channel marked for you but unfortunately I can't because I don't know where it is so, if any reader can pinpoint Coomes's Channel on a Google Map for me, can you please send me an email with the map. Here's some possibilities.

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Emerald Dragons

Emerald in Queensland is a nice place to live. There's plenty of work for parents and the children can play lots of sport. One day, some children were kicking a football around at Emerald North School and one of the boys said, "Hey! Want to play a game that my Dad used to play when he went to school?"

"What's it called?"

"Force-Em-Back. You see there are two teams. One team kicks the ball to the other and, if they catch it on the full, they can advance 5 steps and kick it back but, if they don't, they have to kick it from where they stop it. Eventually one of the teams is forced right back to the fence and they lose."

Well that's what they did. The game was going fine until one of the kicks went so high it went right over the school fence. No one knows whether there was a sudden gust of wind or what but that ball flew over the neighbouring houses and towards the river with the team in hot pursuit.

They saw it flying over the trees on the river bank and thought, "Oh no, someone is going to have to swim for it."

When they got to the river bank however, the ball wasn't floating on the water or anything. They couldn't see it anywhere. All there was in sight was a bearded dragon sitting on the grass.



One of the girls said, "That bearded dragon looks a bit strange. Its got marks on its back."

"Maybe the ball landed on top of its back and left those marks. They look like the marks of a football."

"No," said the girl, "The marks are on the inside. Hey, guess what, I think the football has turned into a bearded dragon."

"Ha, ha! Don't be silly. How can a football be turned into a bearded dragon?"

"Yeah. I know but let's pretend. We'll take it back to the school and pretend it's the football. Should be a laugh."

Well, that's what they did. They picked up the bearded dragon and took it back to the school fence and said to the other team, "Sorry it took so long but the ball turned into a bearded dragon and we'll have to kick it instead."

They held it up and pretended to kick it but the bearded dragon flew from their grasp went sailing up into the air and down towards the other team.

'Catch it! Catch it!"

As the bearded dragon bounced the whole team dived on it and grabbed hold but they could not stop the dragon. It flew up into the air with the students holding on. Higher and higher it went and they all went flying up through the air and back over towards the river.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Call the Principal! Call the teachers! Help!"

The other students ran into the office and called out "Emergency! Emergency! The kids have disappeared! "

Admin dialed 000 and it wasn't long before there was police, ambulance and fire brigade in attendance. Every one headed down towards the river and started searching for the missing students. They couldn't find them any where.

Once the police and fire brigade had gone home however, the students saw 10 little bearded dragons sitting on a log. They took them carefully back to the school and fed them all their favourite foods - pies, sausage rolls, chocolate and ice cream - and eventually they started to grow slowly back into children again.

Do you know what though, every single one of them had long skinny finger nails and marks on their backs like football laces.

It's not surprising, I suppose, that no one plays 'Force-em-back' at Emerald North School these days. They do take special care of bearded dragons though.

Here's where it all happened -
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(Story created by Daryll Bellingham, Storyteller and students from year 1b/2a at Emerald North School, following a Chinese folktale about a magic tortoise with a special mark on its head.)


Emerald Dragons by Daryll Bellingham and students of Emerald North School is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.
Based on a work at austoryplace.blogspot.com.


(Bearded Dragon image, a Flickr Creative Commons download by Arthur Chapman)

The Sleeping Dragline

Now every knows that around the town of Emerald in Central Queensland there are lots of coal mines. Underneath the earth there is so much black coal that the miners dig it up with huge machines called draglines and load the coal onto trains to take to the ships waiting to take it to China and Japan.

One morning three children were sitting at home in Anakie on the Gemfields near Emerald eating their breakfast and watching their Dad pack some lunch to take to work at the coal mine.

"Are you going to dig up lots of coal today Dad?" asked one.

"No. I don't think so. We've got to repair the dragline. It's not working. I think it's gone to sleep."

"Maybe if you say the right magic words it'll wake up," said the girl.

"Maybe it's like Sleeping Beauty and you have to give it a kiss on it's mouth and then it'll wake up," said one of the boys.

"Well maybe I'll have to do one of those if we can't get it started," said their father, "Now don't forget to clean your teeth before you go to school. I'll see you after work."

"Bye Dad."

Their father jumped into his four wheel drive ute and drove off to work at the mine as the children got ready for school. He drove out of town, through the bush and into the coal mine. He parked his ute in the carpark, put on his safety helmet, picked up his tool kit and joined the work crew in front of the huge dragline down in the open cut mine.

"Look at it," said one of the miners, "You great, ugly, expensive bit of machinery get to work, you lazy machine!"

He turned the key in the switch to start up the dragline but it just lay there like it was sleeping.

"My boy said I should try giving it a kiss and then it might wake up like sleeping beauty."

"Oh yuck, I'd rather try magic words. Abracadbra, Abracadabra, Abracadabra. Wake up, Wake up, Wake up - aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!"

No knew whether it was the magic words or the scream but the dragline woke up and began to move. The huge scoop opened and closed and began to swoop down towards the men.

"Watch out. That scoop is coming for us!"

The men started to run but they weren't quick enough, the scoop had turned into a giant claw and had grabbed them. The big treads had turned into legs and out of the body of the drag line had sprouted wings. The drag line had turned into a dragon.

It leapt out of the coal mine and flew off with the men, roaring as it went.

Back in Anakie, the children were lined up at the school parade listening to the Principal telling them all about the GemFest that was happening that week.


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They heard a roar and looked up into the sky and saw the dragon flying towards the school.

Bigger and bigger it got as it flew closer. "Look at that!" Every student and every teacher looked up into the sky. They saw the huge wings beating the sky with sound of drums, the long tail swishing from side to side, the enormous mouth with its cruel curved teeth and its sharp claws holding ....... holding ............ five struggling coal miners. "Help! Help!"

"Hey! That's Dad! That dragons got our Dad!"

"What are we going to do?"

"It's probably flying towards the old volcano. If it gets up there we'll never find them."

"We'll have to lassoo it as it goes past. Anyone got a rope."

"What about the tug-of-war rope? It's with the phys-ed gear."

Five students ran and got the rope. One climbed up the gum tree with the rope and dropped the end down by the tuck shop. They tied a big knot and then stood in the front yard of the school near the gate.

They started to sing out - "Ha, ha Dragon. Ha, ha Dragon. You can't catch us. You can't catch us!"

The dragon looked down and saw the children. He roared a roar so loud the children's teeth shook and their hats blew off in the blast of the dragons foul breath.

"He's coming! Get ready to duck!"

The dragon flew down towards them with his spare claws stretched out to grab them, his eyes glowing red like burning rubies. His head and neck flew through the loop of the rope but his wings and body were too big.

The rope snapped tight around the dragon's wings and he crashed to the ground. The coal miners rolled out of the dragon's huge bucket claw and ran under the school with the children.

The dragon opened his mouth and the flames burnt the rope. He beat his wings and leapt into the sky again. The children watched him flying towards the old volcano.

"Hey Dad. You woke up the Dragon .... I mean the Drag-line."

'Yeh, kids. Thanks for that. We owe you one."

No one really knows what the dragon did at the old volcano although there have been reports about it terrorising students and tourists who visit there. Just ask ask the Year 6/7 students at Anakie about their excursion. Some people say though that the dragon flies back to the mine every morning to dig in the coal. We found this photo of a dragline blowing smoke at Ensham mine


(Photo courtesy of Ensham mines and www.gtp.com.au)

The Sleeping Dragline was created by Daryll Bellingham, Storyteller with the Prep, Year 1 and Year 2 students at Anakie State School - 12th August 2008.


The Sleeping Dragline by Daryll Bellingham and students of Anakie School is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License.
Based on a work at austoryplace.blogspot.com.