Staff Profile: Josh Bjelke-Petersen

CASSIE TWEMLOW | Publications officer

The travel bug bit Indooroopilly Year 5 teacher, Josh Bjelke-Petersen, hard and up until the first wave of COVID lockdown, you’d be hard pressed to find him in Australia. Now, he has settled locally and we welcomed him to the St Peters family earlier this year. I caught up with Josh to talk about his famous surname, travelling and his love of photography.

CASSIE TWEMLOW: Hi Josh. Tell me a bit about your heritage. Can I assume you are of the renowned Bjelke-Petersen family?

JOSH BJELKE-PETERSEN: Yes. Sir Joh and Flo were Granddad and Grandma. I grew up on Bethany, which is the Kingaroy farm. It was an awesome childhood growing up on a farm. I have three brothers and a younger sister, so there's plenty of space to run around and burn some energy. I can't imagine my parents would have survived with four boys all under the one roof if there was only a small backyard. My parents are still up there and it’s always nice to go back. I attended St John's Lutheran School Kingaroy - which is now a P-9 school - for my primary years and then I went to the local high school. I enjoyed my time especially because a good group of friends made life pretty easy.

CT: And what made you want to become a teacher?

JBP: My mum was a teacher. Admittedly, she started teaching preschool and that was never for me but, I always enjoy having fun with the kids. And I enjoy seeing them grow especially from the start of Year 5 where they are somewhat small and they slowly mature. Then they start to really appreciate all the different things they're learning and take pride in their work as well, which is always such a nice progression for people to see.

I did an HPE major and came here as a Prac Student in 2011 - I was actually with Cam Glass down in Lower Primary. That was a great time I really enjoyed the school; I really enjoyed working with Cam and just the atmosphere was very supportive. It was nice coming back for my interview and seeing some of the staff members that were here when I was on prac still here. Obviously, it speaks to the culture in school they hang around for a number of years.

My first school was up in north Queensland. I did four days in the classroom and then I was the PE teacher for a day, and that was a great opportunity. The school was a tiny (40 kids) and across the road was the local town pool. I had the keys to the pool so every Friday in Terms 1 and 4 we'd go swimming and that was always a lot of fun.

This year I coached the Year 8B girls Volleyball team here. I played Volleyball throughout high school and then socially with some friends. I quite enjoy the sport and the Year 8 girls are great and it was nice working with a different age group. The last time I had anything to do with Year 8 girls when I was in Year 8! It was a great group and we went undefeated this season, which was an awesome result.

CT: I follow your Instagram account and the places you have been are amazing – not to mention the photos you have taken.

JBP: I have a nice camera that I probably don’t do justice to but in the last couple of years I started getting into film (35mm and 120mm) photography. I have all the stuff at home to develop the film and that's a fun process. It can be long, but it is a rewarding process finally developing the film and seeing all the photos. I've got two cameras at the moment and I can't remember half the photos that I took on those cameras so it's always nice to develop the film and then remind you of all the fun times and all the things you did. It's always nice to have physical photos - I think it just attaches a little bit more meaning insofar as, you can't just go and take 1,000 photos of one thing, you need to be a bit more mindful of what you're snapping or you’ll end up going broke pretty quick.

CT: What's your favourite place you've visited?

JBP: I was very lucky to travel to a lot of very awesome places. I did three years up in north Queensland and had a bit of money saved so I did a bit of travelling. I’ve been to some spectacular places and I really like Norway. I was traveling with my brother and we went up to Svalbard, which is like this tiny island way, way up north, and got to do some cool things up there like seeing the Northern Lights which was pretty spectacular. Trolltunga (The Troll Tongue) [on the mainland] was a 30km round hike so that was big day. And then I went to Kjeragbolten and you can stand on that rock as well, but it’s a hundreds of meters down. And although my selfie game is strong, there was no way I was taking a selfie on this rock perched 800m above the fjord below.

CT: So, when the world opens back up again where are you heading off to?

JBP: Probably, Denmark. I was an exchange student in Denmark out of high school so, obviously, my host family is still over there. It’s especially beautiful around Christmas time - they do really cold cozy Christmases. Normally a bit of snow around. The other place would probably be Canada. Get back to do some hikes. Who knows - there's too many places.

CT: You seem to enjoy hiking. Have you done much locally?

JBP: Yes, I did Tibrogargan a number of years ago and it's pretty sketchy in parts. The back face of it is pretty exposed and steep. I didn't feel unsafe, but you definitely weren't like throwing caution to the wind. I haven't done Mount Beerwah, which is apparently a bit similar. And then there are a couple of nice ones like Mount Ngungun. I did Mount Maroon down near Mount Barney with some mates from uni.

CT: Thanks Josh. I look forward to seeing more of your photos when we all get to travel again.

Pictured (clockwise from top left): The night sky from Bethany, Kingaroy; The Catlins, New Zealand; Josh in Norway; Kjeragbolten, Norway; the Canadian Rocky Mountains; Milford Sound, New Zealand; Josh on Trolltunga, Norway. All photos courtesy of Josh Bjelke-Petersen. You can view more by scanning the QR code below.