February's nearly gone!

Hi all,

I can't believe that February is nearly gone. As of tomorrow we've been on this adventure for 2 months. We've sure done many wonderful things. We continue to enjoy Brisbane. It rains often, not every day though. And it usually only rains for 30 minutes or so. Several days have been pretty humid, but the temperature is usually in the 80's. The river, rain and size of the city make us think of Portland.

Last weekend we went to N Stradbroke Island, or Straddy. It was a 1 hour ferry ride to it. It's the 2nd largest sand island in the world. Fraser Island is the first. We met a new member of GED who will be with us on our field trips. His name is Rob Elvish, a man full of information, makes learning so interesting. We learned sand island ecology and about mangrove trees. We saw wildlife, plus a perched lake, a window lake, sand dunes of various ages and the rocky outcrop that started the whole island many many years ago. I've written some comments on my photos with more specifics: http://picasaweb.google.com/carlanilsen

We came back Monday afternoon from Straddy. The boys went and played several hours of cricket in New Farm Park while I did laundry and took a nap!

Tuesday night we saw a play called "White Earth". It's based on a book written by an Australian. It was intense, but good.

Wednesday, several of the students decided to go to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. We decided to tag along. It was well worth it! There are over 130 koalas there and lots of other Australian wildlife. We got to hold a koala-Hazel was her name! Such fun. We also got to wander among and feed the kangaroo and wallabies. The emus wanted some food too. They are kind of freaky though. We all had an awesome day!

Erik's working late tonight. The students turned in their research paper rough drafts so he's making comments.
We'll attend church this Sunday and sing for the service. Ken R. will be there so it'll be great to see him.

Must get to sleep! Hope all's well with you around the globe.

Carla

Kangaroo point

Just a quick note. There were no lectures today so we decided to check out Riverlife Adventures on Kangaroo Point. It's a part of land along the Brisbane River with 20 meter cliffs. They have lots of choices: rockclimbing and renting bikes and rollerblades. We decided to rent kayaks for 90 minutes and then abseil for 90 minutes. The kayaking was peaceful, so beautiful to see the city that way. The abseiling was intense, but we all did it and enjoyed it so much. Adrian was our trusted instructor. We went up these steep steps to get to the top and then he showed us how to repel down the cliff. Erik went first. He actually should have had an extra twist in his rope because he was sliding the whole way down and unable to stop himself. Made for a quick trip and his glove was sure hot by the end with the friction. Erik went a 2nd time and they got it figured out and he liked that better! Bryn and Ryan soon got the hang of it and went 3 times each. I did it too! Just one though. Can't believe it. It was so hard leaning enough to get over the edge, but once you got over the edge, it was really easy and fun. We're all tired out tonight!
We enjoyed some pizza, the first time we've gone out for pizza in nearly 2 months. It was at Johnny's Pizza-one of our pizzas was Tropical with ham, pineapple, green pepper and prawns! ( I remember we did have Domino's at Jeff and Faye's-that was good too.) All for now.

Brisbane

Hi,

We are now settled in Brisbane. It's a gorgeous big city, similar to Portland. There is a large river that snakes its way thru the city. It's called the Brisbane River. It meanders thru the city more than the Willamette does in Portland. One thing that is great is that there is a ferry system to get people from one side to the other and on down the river. They use speedy catamarans and they call them the city cats. They also have bridges, but not enough for the 2 million people who live here, according to one person we talked to. The city cats are part of the transportation system along with busses and trains. Last night, Erik, the boys and I rode down the river on one and saw the city lit up. It was gorgeous and such a nice evening.

Let me back up and fill you in on what we've been doing since Tiona. The miracle of packing to fit into our smaller rental replacement was that we got rid of some things. We went to Forster and dropped a pile of things off to Salvos-Salvation Army and we mailed a box of things back home. That helped. Erik got more oysters and said they WERE the BEST he's ever eaten. Thanks for the heads up Dad. We ate at a nice cafe, the waiter was an older man who was super nice. I had a sandwich with toast, fried egg, bacon and banana. Believe it or not, it was yummy!

We headed to Tamworth which was about a 5 hour drive. Along the way we stopped at a McDonald's, our first time eating there, but as in the states, they are the main option along the highways. The Aussies call it Maccuhs. Two things we like about Mackers, as we would pronounce it, is that they have free wifi and McCafes. A McCafe is inside a McDonalds and has rollup sandwiches, coffee, teas, and yummy desserts, like cakes and lamingtons. One McCafe I was in in Sydney only had the cafe sandwiches and chicken, you couldn't even get a burger!

As we drove along, Erik spotted our first wild kangaroo. They were out in a farmer's field. We turned around and went back to get a better view. So exciting. As we drove along we saw a gorgeous sunset. The sun was behind some big clouds and I got several pictures that all look unique. That was a fun thing to do as we drove along.

It was so awesome to be with Mem and Norm, they are wonderful people. Their home was very nice. We stayed there in Tamworth for 2 days. We went to a great wildlife park in Gunnedah, about an hour from Tamworth. Mem warned us that it "was run on the smell of an oily rag." But it had lots of Australian animals and birds. We got to go right in near 9 koalas. Some were asleep and others were awake. We got to pet them. There were two who were squabbling at each other, that was interesting to watch. There was also a baby one, which was so cute. It was about a foot long. We also saw kangaroo, a wombat, wallaby, ring tailed possum, dingo, fallow deer, and the ground where an echidna lives. Mem said he'd be burrowed under the ground away from the heat. We also saw lots of birds: several kinds of cockatoos, a wedge tailed eagle, a tawny frogmouth-my favorite, it looked just like a branch of a tree, parrots, lorakeets, emu, ostrich and more. If it wasn't such a hot day, I'll bet we would have stayed even longer. Mom and Dad, I think this is the place you told us about, we loved it.

Wednesday, we headed out with Mem and Norm, for Brisbane. We stopped along the way several times to see gorgeous canyons and waterfalls and rivers, some with water in them and some without. We spotted several kangaroo along the way and also an eagle. We stopped for the night at Ballina in a nice caravan park. The 6 of us stayed in a cabin together, ate a makeshift meal-which was great, swam in the ocean and the pool and played games. It was a fun evening. Thursday we went north to Pimpama where Bryn and Ryan took 3 rides on the ZORB. It's a huge ball, and they add water to it and roll down a large hill. They had a blast and we had fun watching. Mem and Norm went on to visit his sister and we went on in to the city. We stayed in a nice hotel in Brisbane, near GED-Global Education Design, where we were to meet up with the college students the next day.

Friday afternoon all 15 students arrived, during a downpour-another reason Brisbane feels like Portland. They had all had good experiences in different parts of Australia, conducting their research for the Contemporary Australian Studies course. After a bus tour of the city, their homestay families came and collected them and we came to our apartment. It's in a nice section of the city called New Farm. It's a gorgeous apartment, we feel spoiled. It has air conditioning, which is rare for Australians and it has wifi, a washing machine, stocked kitchen, and we love it. It's near a big park and only about 15 minutes walk from 2 city cats.

On Sunday, our friend from back at Graceland and Ann Arbor days, Todd Houston, picked us up and took us to church. Fun to see Todd again. He looks the same as he did 20 years ago, not fair! We met several others who knew of us, at church. Two women have been pen pals with Shirley F and Veryl and several knew Erik's parents. The service and class were very good. One funny thing happened. During the service, a gecko walked across the rostrum. I've never seen that before. After church, Shirley and Dave Judd, Val Shaw and Jim Ireland took us out to lunch and ice cream. We had fish and chips and Baskin Robbins. They showed us around too and we saw some beautiful sites. So nice of them to spend their afternoon with us.

This week Erik and sometimes Bryn have been attending the morning lectures. Today, Erik and the LC students are visiting the parliment building. Parliment isn't in session, but it will be later in our visit and they can visit it again then if they want. Ryan and Bryn have both been working on their math homework, trying to get caught up. It's tricky trying to do it. The boys are taking a break right now and playing cricket in the big park near here. They are also trying out a new boomerang they got. They did well with one that Uncle Mikey had made at the Aboriginal camp, but not sure how this one will work.

This coming weekend we all will be taking a boat over to N Stradbroke Island, or Straddy as the Australians call it. It is completely sand and has mangrove forests that we'll be studying. I hear we need to have lots of mozzy spray (for the mosquitoes).

We're so grateful for this Awesome Australian Adventure.

We're back online

Dear family and friends,

I see that it's been a while since I've written. We've been away from internet, a strange feeling. Bryn did well surfing that last time in Manly. He got up more than 5 times, I hear. Friday, our family went to Coogee beach one last time, the water there is so amazingly blue, green and gorgeous. We had some amazing fish and chips (fries). One of the cafes there is called "Chish and Fips"! We had lots of fun with the waves.

The next day we planned to pack and get ready for our camping trip, but the boys talked Erik into taking them to another beach: Bronte. Maggie went along also, she feels like a big sister to the boys. She's great. The other LC students have been awesome as well. They treat Bryn and Ryan so well, and help them feel part of the group. I’ve been so happy about that! Especially after Andrew and Kari left, I didn’t know how it’d go, but they are an awesome group of people. I hear that the waves at Bronte were great, Erik said the 2nd best after Coogee the day of the King Tide! I stayed home and packed and did laundry as we had to pack up everything to take with us. We said our goodbyes to Arundel house. It was a very good place to stay.

Sunday morning at 9 we loaded up a 20 passenger bus with a trailer and headed to the bush. We were about 2 ½ hours outside of Sydney. The nearest little town was Wiseman’s Ferry. We were in the Dhurag National Park, staying at a Buddhist retreat center. But the leaders of the camp were aboriginal elders, called uncles and aunties. Uncle Wayne and Aunty Jody, a married couple, were in charge of the camp. They are awesome people with so much knowledge, gentleness and compassion. We all fell in love with them! Uncle Wayne’s mom, a sweet, kind Aunty Lorna, and a 16 year old gorgeous fun girl, we called “G” were there as well. Also from further west in New South Wales was a young man, who was an amazing dancer, named Uncle Mikey and another man, so empathetic and kind, named Uncle Rob. We had a Swedish chef, named Ula, who we all loved and we’re fortunate to have her cooking again in Queensland. Derrick, a man from Queensland, a laid back Australian, also joined the camp. Uncle Dalles and Aunty Margaret joined us for a day too. Nat and Marta, leaders of Global Education Design rounded out the participants.

We were roughing it. Outhouses/no electricity/solar powered lights/fire warmed hot water/lots of dust and heat, but extreme beauty all around. They treated the camp as an immersion and thru lots of role playing, yarns (stories), dreaming stories, creating artifacts, etc. we learned much about aboriginal culture, their protocols and some of the struggles they have had to face over the years. We experienced wide ranges of emotions: frustration, joy, laughter, sadness, fatigue, compassion for each other and more. It’s really hard to explain our experience, but just know, overall, it was amazing.

Several of us had to face fears. One girl hates spiders and saw several huge ones called Huntsman spiders. Their bodies are over 2 inches in diameter. I’ll try to upload some photos as soon as possible. One girl hates ants and they have huge bull ants there, about 2 inches in length-many were bitten by them and it hurts bad! Thankfully the pain lessens after about 30 minutes. I, of course, hate snakes. So I was the only one who saw one. I was trying to be brave and headed to the showers one morning by myself and saw a red bellied black snake on the path about 15 feet ahead of me. He slithered off and I went the other way around, after getting Erik to walk with me. I happened to have a black and red shirt on and Aunty Margaret said that I thought I chose the color of my shirt that day myself, but…. I didn’t get a picture of the snake!

We also took a very long hike in the bush, where we got lost and ran out of water and were challenged by the heat and the length of the trip. Thankfully we found our lunch and more water after about 5 ½ hours. And we got to see some aboriginal carvings that were on a huge stone tabletop ridge. So impressive and special. They are between 35,000 and 55,000 years old. Not many have seen them as they are hard to find and behind locked gates.

We learned many songs and dances, Uncle Wayne is very professional at the dancing and singing. It was great fun to learn the songs and we had a big celebration late into the night our last night there, with 5 campfires burning around the circle. After the celebration we ate potatoes, yams, emu, kangaroo and quail that had been roasting in a pit in the ground, yum.

We drove back to Sydney Friday afternoon and got to eat supper with Gwen, Brian, Faye and Jeff at Flying Fajita Sisters, where the chef is from Seattle. Quite yummy, different than Mexican food in Portland. They put beet root and pineapple on the fajitas.

Saturday we rented a car and headed to Tiona, near Forster, Australia. It’s the resort that has been our church’s campground here for many years. It’s an amazing place with the ocean several hundred feet from our cabin and Lake Wallis another hundred feet or so in the other direction. They have a green cathedral, church under the cabbage palm trees and we were able to worship there today overlooking the lake, so wonderful.

We’ve learned a hard lesson though. In Australia, you need to always use the hand brake. We never use it in Portland unless we’re on a steep hill. And you can remove the keys without putting the car in park. (Can we do that in the states?!) We had just unloaded our things at our cabin and Erik went back to the main office to see if they had a fan, our room was pretty hot (thankfully it cooled down beautifully after sunset). He stopped the car in front of the office. It’s nearly a flat surface. Either Erik didn’t put it in park or it popped out of park and it rolled about 20 feet and hit a pole in the nearby playground. We’d had some trouble with the transmission slipping all the way here, but don’t know if that was what happened. 2 kids were playing on the equipment and weren’t hurt or hit or upset by it. Erik felt absolutely awful. It’s taken nearly 24 hours of calls and waiting, but they’d just now come with a new car and a tow truck. Yikes. As first they said that they weren’t going to give us a replacement car, but a nice person at Avis changed their minds. This one is smaller so we will need a miracle of packing to fit everything in. But we are so glad no one was hurt. It’ll cost us $2650 Australia. As I said, Yikes!

We’ve still been able to enjoy the ocean, ping pong, and the pool. In fact, we’re off to the beach again. It’s so nice here with a breeze and the cool ocean you can hop into. It was supposed to be 110 degrees in Sydney yesterday. They are having very bad bush fires in Victoria. 26 people killed already, so sad. Yesterday was the hottest day in February on record for Melbourne-117.

The plan is to drive to Tamworth tomorrow and see Mem and Norm Dudley. I knew them in Bozemen, MT when I was in 4th grade and have met them again more recently as they knew Marge and Tore and visited us in Portland. Then we all will drive to Brisbane as we have to be there by Friday the 13th at 14:00 to meet up with the students. They are all doing their independent research this week in different places around the country.

This has been quite a great adventure, thanks for reading. Email us and let us know how life is where you are: nilsen6@comcast.net

Love,

Carla