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ABC Listen. Hello, my friends.
My name is Ruby and you're listening to News Time.
Hi there, Ruby. Hello.
Today's show starts on a special patch of land in Queensland where some unique creatures have found a safe haven.
Then we'll head south to visit the Australian Marbles Championship at Brunswick Heads.
Then we'll zoom on over to the other side of the country to visit a flying school in Western Australia.
And then we'll zip all the way back to New South Wales to hear about a sacred site that's being saved.
Finally, we'll head back in time to an ancient Australia for a dino -rific...
WoW of the week. Yep.
Let's do it. Stow number five.
Edgbaston Reserve is a small piece of land in Outback Queensland.
Back in the dinosaur age, it was deep underwater and part of something called the Eremanga Sea.
Since then, it's been home to unique species of fish, snails and crustaceans.
Millions of years later, the land is still home to unique species.
37 of them are all in need of protection.
They haven't seen people that much, because they're really, like, rare.
An organisation called Bush Heritage Australia decided to buy Edgbaston Reserve.
They wanted to make sure the land and the plants and the animals that live there are properly protected.
They've made sure that people don't build any houses on the land or use it for other things that might harm the environment.
Good, because then the animals have more space to live and no -one will try and, like, hunt for them.
They would just relax and eat all the food.
They would have a calm and quiet day.
Recently, Edgbaston Reserve was officially labelled an ecological site of global importance.
That means it gets special protection from the Queensland government and no -one can use it for farming, mining or logging.
That's cutting down trees.
If someone tried to mine, they would actually destroy the plants.
If they destroy all of them, they won't be any more left and they're...
and they're so rare, you can't grow them, effortless.
Exactly! This decision is great news for all the plants and animals that call the Edgbaston Reserve home.
Bush Heritage says it's worth protecting because once something like Edgbaston Reserve is gone, you can't get it back.
Story number four. You've probably seen marbles before.
Small glass balls that come in lots of different colours.
Did you know that they can be used to play a game?
Play marbles? There's racing marbles on the ground.
Marbles, the game, has been popular with kids for hundreds of years.
It's cheap and it's easy.
You don't need a lot of equipment.
You just need some space on the ground and some marbles.
There are lots of different ways to play marbles, too, depending on where you are.
One way is to play by drawing a circle on the ground about a metre wide.
I think the aim is to, like, get someone out of the arena.
You have to make, like, a line or put a straight around it, put marbles on it, and then you have to, like, get your own marble and then try and knock people out of the circle.
Yes, that's it. The player with the last marble left in the ring wins.
The Australian Marbles Championship was held in Brunswick Heads this month as part of a festival called Old and Gold.
It was the first time the championship had been held in five years, so the players were super keen.
A kid's game and a grown -up's game.
Damien Farrell is 46 years old and he loves playing marbles.
He won the last championship, so he was keen to defend his title.
But in the end, the winner this year was a 14 -year -old named Santiago Villanuevo.
I would just say, good job if I was there, but I wasn't.
Regardless of whether they won or lost, the players all had lots of fun and they're already really excited for next year.
Sounds like a marvellous time.
Story number three.
What do you think it takes to become an airplane pilot?
Turn on the engine, put aeroplane wings on it, practise.
Australia is a pretty big place, so having a pilot's licence can come in handy.
In regional areas, you can drive for hours without seeing a single other person or a building or a town.
Farmers near the town of Esperance in Western Australia, they were looking for a better way to get around on their great big expanses of land.
So they were pretty thrilled when a new recreational flying school opened up in their area.
Cool. So you could check on all the animals, check on all the wildlife.
There are lots of benefits to flying around.
For one, getting a bird -dive view of a farm or a property can be very handy.
You can keep an eye on the animals and the land and the waterways very easily.
Lots of new recruits to the flying school are teenagers, which means they'll be able to learn a new skill that might help them get a job in the future.
You can just fly it to, like, wherever you wanted to.
Go faster to areas that you want to go.
Look out, bow! There used to be more flying schools around the regions in Australia, but over the past couple of years, they've closed down, for one reason or another.
The new flying school is bringing hope that the aviation industry, that's jobs to do with planes and flying, it might bounce back.
But maybe more importantly, the school is bringing teenagers joy and helping them feel a real sense of achievement when they control a complicated machine like an aeroplane.
Story number two. The Butterfly Cave is a place that sits on a Wabakal country just outside the city of Newcastle in New South Wales.
For generations, it's been used as a special space for indigenous Wabakal women to hold ceremonies and for female Aboriginal leaders to teach and educate young girls.
The bush is a special place and their family.
A company bought the land that the Butterfly Cave sits on and they were planning to turn the area into houses.
That meant the cave would have been destroyed and thousands of years of a cultural practice would have gone along with it.
The traditional owners of the land, the Wabakal people, they were not happy about this.
They didn't want to lose this important space for their community.
So they decided to fight back.
Then they can have more ceremonies for women.
A group of women argued with the government and the developers for 13 years.
Finally, the government listened.
The New South Wales government brought the land back from the people who wanted to build the houses and they've promised to protect the Butterfly Cave for generations to come.
One of the women, Aunty Margaret Harvey, said it was absolutely wonderful to hear that news, the most wonderful day of her life.
Good, because they would celebrate the women.
These women say the decision means they have freedom, freedom to access their sacred cave, freedom to come and go when they want to and freedom to properly engage with their heritage and their precious traditions.
And now it's time for our...
Wild week! This story made me go, wow, because the Terrorsaur was gigantic and huge and they were kind of cool.
Millions of years ago, the land now known as Australia looked very different to the way it does today.
For one thing, there was an inland sea covering the middle of the country, a place where there's now a desert.
And flying high above that sea was a species of prehistoric reptile called a Terrorsaur.
Terrorsaurs weren't technically dinosaurs, although they were around at the same time as dinosaurs.
They were flying reptiles.
They took to the skies long before birds even existed.
Whoa! There were some scientists on a dig in Outback Western Queensland recently and they discovered some Terrorsaur fossils.
They worked tirelessly to piece the bones together.
And it turns out, they'd found the fossils of a kind of Terrorsaur never seen before.
This one kind of looked like a scary pelican.
It looks like it's mixed with something with sharp teeth.
Yeah, but it's cool because a pelican doesn't normally have teeth.
The species, called Haliskia petursini, had a wingspan of about 4 .6 metres.
That means if it was in the middle of an average -sized room, its wings would reach from one wall to the other.
It was an intense -looking predator too.
It scooped up prey from the ocean the way a pelican does, except this creature had a massive jaw full of spiky jagged teeth.
They won't get me because I'm a very good hider.
Good because then I could catch a ride.
The recently discovered fossils make up the most complete Terrorsaur skeleton ever found in Australia, and it helps complete a bit more of our prehistoric puzzle.
And here we are back in the present day, scary pelican free and another countdown done and dusted.
That was awesome. Thanks, Ruby.
You are so very welcome.
Don't forget to do the News Time quiz.
The questions and the answers are in the show notes.
Bye bye. Catch you next time.
See you later, or as they say in Korean, 안녕.
