March 17-23, 2024: Issue 618
Sunday Cartoons
Sunday cartoons and animations returns this year. This Issue: The Key to A Dog's Heart
Some Narrabeen Nature things from & by joe mills
Joe Mills is a lovely gentleman who takes lots of photos to keep us all up-to-date on what's been happening around Narrabeen, Turimetta, Warriewood and Mona Vale. He also goes on bus and ferry trips into town. Last week he went to a great concert put on for Seniors (grandmothers and grandfathers - nannas and pops) as there's been some celebrations, that are still going this week, for our older aunts and uncles and nans and pops. It's about celebrating how great and special they are and happens once a year.Joe took some photos while he was in town for the concert too!
Our favourites are the ones he gets when he is recording what he calls the 'mood' of a day, whatever time of the day or year it is, whatever the season is. Joe knows that every single day is different - different colours at sunrise, different breezes and smells and flowers out, even the birds you see everyday can be acting a bit different than they were yesterday when they were fishing because today they're collecting twigs to build a nest and lay eggs that will hatch as baby birds.
We like to remember this when we're 'having a bad day' as it reminds us that the next day will be different - a new day, with new colours, new things the birds and other wildlife are doing - in fact, things can change even over a few hours, just like the sunlight changes the shadows of tress as it moves across the skies. So, if we stub our toe and go 'no, no, no!' at lunchtime, by after school time we might be ready to do some handstands and cartwheels again, because even we are changing our moods.
That's why we take a deep breath too sometimes - just to slow down a little and let a pesky mood, that's bothering us, leave or fade away.
Joe always send in some great information about what he has been photographing - and here is some of what he has seen and said last week.
Joe says: ''this is an unusual shot of our regular friend the octopus who we find in the tidal flats alongside the Narrabeen Rock Pool wall. Most locals call him 'Occy'. He is curled up here and displaying his light colours to disguise as a rock. In the middle of the pic, the two little white patches are his eyes.
To give you a bit of size, his head would fit in the palm of your hand, and his tentacles would reach to your elbow. He has become a local attraction.''
Joe's photo:
''I saw a smaller octopus nearby as well this week'':
An interesting cloud sunrise from Narrabeen Rock Pool, with an interesting reflection. This was last Tuesday 13 Feb 2024. The corner of the pool is the disturbed water on the right, and the calmer water on the left is what I call the tidal flats. This area gets exposed at low tide, and where our resident octopus & other sea creatures live.
Royal Easter Show 2024
The Royal Easter Show opens this coming Friday, March 22nd, and runs through to April 2nd. Although some of you may be already dreaming about showbags, and we've run a bit on that in this week's PBP's page, there are also:
- Livestock Pavilions Daily: 9.00am—7.00pm
- Dog Pavilion Daily: 9.00am—5.00pm
- Gong cha Carnival Daily: 9.00am—9.30pm
- Farmyard Nursery Daily: 9.30am—6.30pm
- Heritage Pavilion Daily: 9.30am—6.30pm
There are also some great resources you can download to have a look into what you may see if you visit this year's Show. On a webpage set up by the people who put the Show together you can see and get a copy of:
- Colouring Book Preschool & K-2
- Home is Where the Farm Is Workbook 1-6
- Farm to Table Stage 2-3
- Career Stepping Stones 7-12
- Livestock Showing 9-10
Pretty cool - although we like all the contests and parade that happen in the Main Arena too - all those different kinds of horses and cows.
The origins of the Show date back to 1822, when the emphasis was on agriculture and food provision for the new colony. In the words of the early RAS Founders, they needed to band together, to help each other.
The aim was, just a mere 34 years years after Europeans began settling here (1788), to “improve the quality of Australia's primary production by means of contests and competitions”.
When Pittwater was all farms of every kind people from here would enter their produce and animals and win prizes. Mr. Roche, a Bayview gentleman, would win prizes for his fruit - he had some of the best citrus fruits - lemons and mandarins and others, in Sydney and the whole state. A lady, Marie Stiles, who used to live at Little Mackerel Beach, would win prizes for her excellent chickens.
Does that make you curious about what the meaning of the word 'show' is?
As a noun one of the meanings is 'a spectacle or display, typically an impressive one'.
North View of Sydney New South Wales taken from the North Shore. 1822 by Joseph Lycett, ca. 1775-1828. Image No.: a928339, courtesy State Library of NSW
Home for NSW’s Rail History opens in Sydney’s West: it's a train hospital youngsters!
On Monday March 11 2024 the NSW State Government announced NSW Railway’s historic locomotives and carriages have found a new home in the heart of Western Sydney.
The $9.4 million Chullora Heritage Hub is a centralised storage facility for 50 of the state’s 220 heritage locomotives and carriages.
The historic trains have travelled by road and rail to the former Tank Annex Building at the Chullora Railway Workshops from three separate sites at Eveleigh, Thirlmere and Broadmeadow.
The building has received a thorough upgrade to ensure the protection and preservation of the historic collection with environmental, security and fire safety improvements delivered.
While the new location is not open for public viewing due to its function as a maintenance facility, it will give volunteers from Transport Heritage NSW the space they need to work on these one-of-a-kind engines.
The site at Chullora has been an important location for railway maintenance for more than a century. It was first established in 1913, and many of the buildings within the precinct date from the 1920s, with the Tank Annex building operating as part of the maintenance facility until 1994.
Among the rollingstock moving into the new building are:
- Locomotive 1219, this locomotive and its class dominated express and mail train services in the late 1800s, with many hauling branch line services right up until the 1950s.
- Locomotive 5096 was one of 280 introduced from 1890. This was the largest class of locomotives used anywhere in Australia and hauled goods trains more than two million kilometres until its retirement in 1965.
- Locomotive 2606 was one of 20 tank locomotives manufactured by Scottish company Dubs and Co. Introduced from early 1892, they were supposed to assist engines travel up the mountain from Penrith to Katoomba. Limited water tank capacity and problems negotiating the numerous curves hindered their work, so they were reassigned to hauling coal trains to Waterfall and Newcastle. Before its retirement in 1970, 2606 spent its later years shunting carriages into position at Central Station.
Another 70 locomotives and carriages will remain at the NSW Rail Museum in Thirlmere, including the famous 3801.
Locomotive 3801 was built in 1943 by Clyde Engineering and has been in preservation since its retirement from the NSW Railways in 1962. The locomotive was withdrawn from heritage service in 2007 for restoration and major boiler repairs. 3801 was officially relaunched at Sydney's Central Station on Friday 12 March 2021 by Her Excellency, the Honourable Margaret Beazley AC QC, Governor of NSW.
You can read more about the project HERE
The museum is open to the public 7 days a week, with heritage train rides operating every weekend on the newly refurbished Loop Line.
Might be worth a visit this coming Easter or Autumn school holidays.
All the historic trains are operated by Transport Heritage NSW. You can find out more by visiting the webpages at: Transport Heritage NSW. They even have Virtual Tours you can take of the trains - visit: www.thnsw.com.au/virtual-tours
NSW's Transport Minister, Jo Haylen, said:
“For the first time, the majority of our heritage rail collection will be sitting undercover and out of the elements, where they will be lovingly preserved by our dedicated volunteers.
“340 jobs were created in Western Sydney during the renovation of this historic building, which will now house our cherished railway past for the people of NSW to enjoy for generations to come.
“It’s vital we preserve our heritage fleet so the magic of being part of life on our railways isn't forgotten and continues to inspire.”
Jo Haylen also told us about this train, saying:
''This is engine 1219. This locomotive and its class dominated express and mail train services in the late 1800s, with many hauling branch line services right up until the 1950s.
Now inside the beautifully restored Tank Annex in Chullora, she's protected from the wind and rain, and ready for our hundreds of Transport Heritage volunteers to love and care for her.''
The Transport Minister also had a look around the new facility, a train hospital really, for fixing up these great old trains, and you could see some of the carriages and locomotives already there so they can be restored and spruced up and then get to the Rail Museum at Thirlmere so we can all visit them there.
Chullora is a suburb out towards Canterbury-Bankstown and 15 kilometres west of the Sydney central area, or 'town', so not that far away, although it would take a bit of time to get there - even with a car or train!
Chullora is an industrial area with many factories and warehouses, including Tip Top Bakeries and the printing plants for Sydney newspapers and magazines.
The Chullora Railway Workshops and Electric Carriage Workshops previously serviced and repaired suburban and inter-urban trains, and the Chullora Bus Workshops serviced the bus fleet of the Urban Transit Authority and its predecessors from 1958 until 1989.
This is "The Big Bicycle" at the old Chullora Recycling Centre:
Girls Rugby Open Day
When: Sunday, March 17th, 2-4pm
Where: Rat Park, Warriewood
Local Clubs are uniting for the ultimate girls rugby event!
We are hosting a girls' rugby union open day at Rat Park, grab your friends and head down to see what the game is all about.
Get ready to redefine what it means to be strong. It's not just about tackles and tries, it's about building unshakable confidence and making lifelong friends. We can show you that the field will be your new playground.
GUEST SPEAKERS, GAMES AND PRIZES
We've got the incredible Wallaroo, Waratah and Rat's Women joining us!
Listen to their inspiring journeys, learn from the best, and discover how rugby shaped their fearless path.
We have prize giveaways lined up, so this is your chance to score big on and off the field.
Join us for an action-packed afternoon featuring drill sessions, top Aussie female player guest speakers, and amazing prize giveaways.
Curious about the game? This is your chance to dive in and discover! Don't miss out!
A brief guide to birdwatching in the age of dinosaurs
Abi Crane, University of SouthamptonHave you ever wondered what it would be like travel back in time to the age of dinosaurs? If you stumble upon a time machine, remember to bring your binoculars. Birdwatching is a popular hobby today, with an around 3 million participants in the UK alone, and in our modern world there are a staggering 11,000 species of birds to spot.
Despite the popularity of their modern-day descendants, we often forget about ancient birds because of their more famous dinosaur cousins.
Birds are actually a type of dinosaur. They are closely related to smaller, agile meat-eating dinosaurs such as the Velociraptor. Ancient birds came in a variety of forms, from ones with teeth and claws to species barely distinguishable from farmyard chickens.
So, if you were to point your binoculars over the heads of Triceratops and Tyrannosaurus rex, what could you spot? Here is a quick introduction to six of the most interesting ancient bird species.
Archaeopteryx
Archaeopteryx is the iconic “dino-bird” from the Jurassic period. The discovery of Archaeopteryx fossils in Germany over 150 years ago provided scientists with the first clues about the link between dinosaurs and modern birds.
At first glance, the skeleton of Archaeopteryx is just like any other meat-eating dinosaur – sharp teeth, clawed hands and a long bony tail. Surrounding the skeleton of specimens such as the Berlin Archaeopteryx (discovered between 1874 and 1876) however, are imprints of feathers which form a pair of distinctly bird-like wings.
But for many years, palaeontologists debated whether Archaeopteryx could have used these wings to fly. Scientists now think it is likely that Archaeopteryx could have flown, but only in short bursts , like a pheasant. Recent technological advances have given us our first insights into dinosaur colour and studies of fossilised, pigmented cells have shown that Archaeopteryx had matt black wing feathers.
Confuciusornis
This crow-sized bird had a beak like that of modern-day birds, but still had large, dinosaur-like claws on its hands. It is thought that they lived in flocks, large numbers of which were killed by ash or gas in volcanic eruptions and preserved as fossils. Known from over 1,000 fossil specimens from China, Confuciusornis is one of the most common fossil bird species.
Some of these birds had a pair of tail feathers longer than their body, while others lacked these long feathers and would have looked comparatively stumpy. Scientists think these long-tailed birds were the males of the species and those with short tails were females. Like modern peacocks and peahens, the males probably used their extravagant tail feathers to woo the females.
Falcatakely
Discovered in 2020, Falcatakely, from Madagascar, would have resembled a small, buck-toothed toucan. Its oversized, banana-shaped bill only had teeth at the very tip. Although we don’t know what this buck-toothed bird would have eaten, its close relatives ate a variety of food, including fruit, fish and even larger prey.
Scientists think that birds such as Falcatakely could fly the same day they hatched from their egg, unlike birds today which spend their first weeks or months helpless in the nest.
Hesperornis
One of the weirdest birds from the age of dinosaurs, Hesperornis would have looked something like a six-foot-tall penguin with a beak full of sharp teeth. Its tiny arms would have made T rex look like a weightlifter, so it definitely couldn’t have used them to fly.
Instead, Hesperornis used its oversized feet to propel itself through the water like a modern cormorant. Out of the water, Hesperornis walked awkwardly upright and probably couldn’t travel far overland.
Vegavis and Asteriornis
Towards the end of the dinosaurs’ reign, the earliest groups of modern birds began to appear. The first of these birds to be discovered was Vegavis from Antarctica, which in the time of dinosaurs would have been covered in trees rather than ice.
It was probably an ancestor of ducks and geese and one exceptional fossil of Vegavis even has a rare preserved vocal organ. Analysis of this fossil suggested that Vegavis couldn’t make a songbird melody but could have made simple noises such as goose-like honks.
Sixty-six million years ago, not long before the asteroid impact, which caused the extinction of the non-bird dinosaurs, lived Asteriornis. This quail-sized bird from Belgium was an ancestor of modern ducks and chickens. Although it would have looked unremarkable compared to the giant swimming lizards and huge, toothed seagulls it lived alongside, this may have been to its advantage.
Scientists think that the small size of birds such as Asteriornis helped them to survive the mass extinction. Because smaller animals need less food and take less time to reproduce, these humble birds were able to survive and evolve into the birds you can see through your binoculars today.
Abi Crane, Postgraduate Researcher in Palaeontology, University of Southampton
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Why do trees need sunlight? An environmental scientist explains photosynthesis
Rebekah Stein, Quinnipiac UniversityCurious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com.
Why do trees need sunlight? – Tillman, age 9, Asheville, North Carolina
Trees need sunlight for the same reason you need food. The energy from the Sun’s rays is a crucial ingredient in how plants make their own food that helps them power all their cells. Since trees don’t harvest or hunt food, they have to produce their own. The way they make their food is a unique and important chemical process called photosynthesis.
What is photosynthesis?
The cells in plants and all other living things have microscopic components called organelles. One type of organelle in plant cells is the chloroplast, and it contains the pigment chlorophyll, which is what makes leaves green. When chlorophyll receives sunlight, it starts the photosynthesis reaction.
The name photosynthesis comes from the ancient Greek words “photo,” which means light, and “synthesis,” which means to make. During this food-making process, plants take carbon dioxide from the air and water from the ground, and with the energy from sunlight, make glucose. Glucose is a very simple type of sugar. Because it is a simple compound, it is simple to make.
Most of the time, photosynthesis occurs in leaves, and leaves take in sunlight to make food. There are some special plants, though, that actually absorb sunlight on their stems. Some of these include cactuses like the balloon-shaped golden barrel cactus, the spiky Munz’s Cholla and the paddle-shaped prickly pear. Some plants even have roots that can photosynthesize, like the rare palm Cryosophila albida.
Photosynthesis is billions of years old
Photosynthesis evolved more than 3.5 billion years ago. Initially, only single-celled organisms, kind of like today’s algae, could make sugar this way. Oxygen is a waste product from the photosynthesis process, and over time, these single-celled organisms released enough oxygen to change the Earth’s atmosphere. Ultimately, we and all other animals needed this to happen to be able to live and breathe.
Over time, aquatic plants developed, and gradually plants moved to land around 500 million years ago to better access their most vital resource: sunlight. Plants eventually got taller by around 350 million years ago. This is when the first tree evolved, which grew up to 150 feet tall. These trees looked like the evergreen trees we see today – sort of like pines, firs and spruce. And about 125 million years ago, trees that looked like the maples, oaks and beech trees we see today shared the landscape when dinosaurs ruled the Earth.
Not just good for plants
The Sun provides energy for the Earth. However, we humans are not capable of taking in the sun directly and using it to power our bodies. So how do we make use of the Sun’s energy? Plants do it for us.
Plants take in that energy and make food for us and other animals to eat and oxygen for us to breathe. We wouldn’t exist without plants and photosynthesis.
Like the ancient tiny single-celled organisms from 3.5 billion years ago, some microorganisms today use photosynthesis. Specifically, the algae that you might see living on top of lakes and the ocean do. Chlorophyll is why algae is green.
There are aquatic plants that use sunlight to grow. They typically make use of less sunlight because sunlight does not travel well through water.
In addition, there are a very few animals that can photosynthesize. The pea aphid uses pigment to harvest sunlight to make energy. The Oriental hornet uses a pigment in its exoskeleton to make energy from sunlight. The emerald-green sea slug eats algae and then incorporates chlorophyll from the algae into its body to photosynthesize. Because of this strategy, the sea slug can go nine months without eating.
So the answer to this question – why do trees need sunlight – is to make their food. And thanks to trees and other plants turning sunlight into their food, most of the rest of the living things on Earth get to eat, too!
Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.
And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.
Rebekah Stein, Assistant Professor of Environmental Science, Quinnipiac University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Curious Kids: Why do our ears pop?
Chris Brennan-Jones, The University of Western AustraliaThis is an article from Curious Kids, a series for children. The Conversation is asking kids to send in questions they’d like an expert to answer. All questions are welcome – serious, weird or wacky!
Hi Curious Kids, My name is James and I live in Melbourne and I’m 10 years old. Why do our ears pop when we reach a certain altitude? - James, age 10, Melbourne.
Hi James. What a great question.
There are three key sections of our ear – the outer ear, the middle ear and the inner ear. Your question relates to the middle ear and the area around the ear drum.
The middle ear space is pretty airtight, although air can pass into and out of this space by the opening and closing of the Eustachian tube (the tube that links the middle ear to the back of the throat). Most of us can do this by yawning or opening our jaws, which often results in our ears “popping”.
Your ears pop because of the pressure difference between the air outside and the air inside your middle ear space. I’ll explain how that works.
You have a small amount of air sealed in the middle ear space. And then there’s all the rest of the air outside, in the atmosphere.
Normally the air pressure inside the middle ear and in the atmosphere are very similar, or at least not different enough to cause you any trouble. As you increase in altitude (either in a car going up a hill, going up in a lift, or taking off in an aeroplane) the air pressure in the atmosphere decreases, making the air “thinner”, while the air pressure in the middle ear remains relatively unchanged.
This puts pressure on your eardrum as the air pressure in the middle ear expands relative to the air around it. This expansion causes not only the discomfort you feel before your ears “pop”, but also makes it harder to hear things, because the pressure on your eardrums makes the sound harder to transmit.
There is no specific altitude at which your ears pop, and during quick ascents, like during an aeroplane take-off, you may have to equalise or “pop” your ears a few times to keep up with the pressure changes.
Other times, like on a slow walk up a hill, your ears may equalise themselves without you even noticing.
The reverse can happen when you are descending in an aeroplane or going down a hill. The air in the atmosphere increases in density through the descent, while the air pressure in the middle ear space remains low like it was at the higher altitude.
This forces pressure on the eardrum and causes it to retract inwards (instead of bulging outwards on ascent) until your ears pop to make the pressure between the middle ear and the atmosphere more equal.
You can have some trouble if you are doing a significant ascent or descent and have a cold or an ear infection.
The mucus from a cold or ear infection can block the Eustachian tube, making it hard to equalise your ears properly. This can make your ears ache from even small changes in altitude and the eardrum is pushed inwards (on descent) or outwards (on ascent).
Babies and young children often have blocked Eustachian tubes – this may be one reason they don’t like flying.
Hello, curious kids! Have you got a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to us. They can:
* Email your question to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au
* Tell us on Twitter
Please tell us your name, age and which city you live in. You can send an audio recording of your question too, if you want. Send as many questions as you like! We won’t be able to answer every question but we will do our best.
Chris Brennan-Jones, NHMRC Research Fellow, Telethon Kids Institute, The University of Western Australia
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Curious Kids: why do spiders have hairy legs?
Jonas Wolff, Macquarie UniversityCurious Kids is a series for children. You can send your question to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au. You might also like the podcast Imagine This, a co-production between ABC KIDS listen and The Conversation, based on Curious Kids.
Why do spiders have hairy legs? - Audrey, age 5, Fitzroy, Melbourne.
Good question, Audrey! Believe it or not, I have studied the hairy legs of spiders for years and can give you some definitive answers on this.
But before we talk about the spider’s fur, think about your very own hairs.
Why do we have hair?
First, there is the hair on your head, which protects you from the sun and rain. Then, there is smaller hair above your eyes – your eyebrows and eye lashes. These prevent dust from entering your eye.
And then have a closer look – you have all that very fine hair on your arms and legs, you can hardly see. What happens when you very, very gently touch this hair or blow at it? It tickles! This very fine body hair helps humans to feel if something is touching you.
In spiders, it is quite similar. Their body hair helps them to feel if something is touching them. Say you took a paintbrush and gently touched a spider with it (don’t do this without an adult there, of course, because some spiders can be dangerous). This touch will make the spider’s hairs bend. The spider will feel that something big is touching it and probably think “Oh dear, there is something that wants to eat me!” and run off.
Like you, spiders have different types of hairs. But spiders can do much more cool things with their hair then we can with ours (except, maybe that we are superior in styling our hair in a cool fashion).
Spidey senses
Have you ever seen a spider with ears? Well, no (that would actually look funny!) That’s because spiders use hairs on their legs to listen! Sounds unbelievable, but that’s how it is.
Does a spider have a nose? I’ve never seen one, and I have seen lots and lots of spiders. To smell, spiders use hairs.
Does a spider have a tongue? Nope. They use – you guessed it – hairs!
So spiders can feel, listen, smell and taste with their hairy legs. Pretty cool, right?
Some spiders can also use their hairs to grip onto a very flat surface – this is why you see spiders walking happily across a window, a ceiling or high up on a wall. (This is also how Spiderman does it, by the way).
Actually, not all spiders than can do that. Only the ones that have special Spiderman-hairs on their feet can do it. These Spiderman-hairs are tiny and have even tinier hairs on them – hairs on hairs. Scientists are trying to learn from these spiders and create Spiderman gloves. With such gloves you could climb up a skyscraper like a spider!
Show-off spiders
Spiders can be quite colourful. Do you know peacock spiders? Here is a picture of one:
The peacock spider’s colours come from special hairs on its legs and body and they are used to impress other peacock spider mates and find a partner. The peacock spider boy waves his coloured hairy legs in a funky dance to tell the spider girl, “I am the best guy you’ll ever find”. Such a show-off! Here’s how they look when they dance:
So you see, spiders need hairs for quite a lot of things in their life – and that is why they have hairy legs.
Hello, curious kids! Have you got a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to us. You can:
* Email your question to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au
* Tell us on Twitter by tagging @ConversationEDU with the hashtag #curiouskids, or
* Tell us on Facebook
Please tell us your name, age and which city you live in. You can send an audio recording of your question too, if you want. Send as many questions as you like! We won’t be able to answer every question but we will do our best.
Jonas Wolff, Research Fellow in the Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
When the Sky Roars!
Published by Toadstools and Fairy Dust - more stories at the link
'Arnie the Doughnut' read by Chris O'Dowd
books of the month - march 2024: Diary of a wimpy kid by Jeff Kinney, published 2007 + What to draw and how to draw it by Edwin George Lutz, (born 1868) published 1913
Archive of millions of Historical Children’s Books All Digitised: Free to download or Read Online
Enter the 1: Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature here, where you can browse several categories, search for subjects, authors, titles, etc, see full-screen, zoomable images of book covers, download XML versions, and read all of the 2: over 6,000 books in the collection with comfortable reader views.
Find 3: more classics in the collection, 800 Free eBooks for iPad, Kindle & Other Devices.
WilderQuest online fun
National Geographic for Australian Kids
LEGO AT THE LIBRARY
Mona Vale Library runs a Lego club on the first Sunday of each month from 2pm to 4pm. The club is open to children aged between seven and twelve years of age, with younger children welcome with parental supervision. If you are interested in attending a Lego at the Library session contact the library on 9970 1622 or book in person at the library,
Children's Storytime at Mona Vale Library: Mona Vale Library offers storytime for pre-school children every week during school terms. Children and their carers come and participate in a fun sing-a-long with our story teller as well as listen to several stories in each session, followed by some craft.
Storytime is held in the Pelican Room of the library in front of the service desk. Storytime is free and no bookings are required.
Storytime Sessions: Tuesdays 10.00am - 11.00am - Wednesdays 10.00am - 11.00am - Thursdays 10.00am - 11.00am
We swim at Bilgola rock pool on Saturday mornings (8:45am till 11:30am). Our season runs between October and March
Mona Vale Mountain Cub Scouts
Find out more about all the fun you can have at Mona Vale Mountain Cub Scouts Profile –
our Profile pages aren’t just about those who can tell you about Pittwater before you were born, they’re also about great clubs and activities that you too can get involved in!