Aussie Pilgrimage Part 2 - Dicky Beach to Armidale

We're in Armidale, New South Wales, at the moment, visiting friends from John's uni days. We drove down from Rothwell on Sunday and stopped for the night in Tenterfield.

Yesterday we stopped for lunch at a place called Stonehenge Recreation Reserve where there are a lot of mammoth sized boulders. The interesting arrangements of these ones are all naturally occurring, unlike the other Stonehenge.

John doing his Atlas impression.

On Sunday we broke up the drive by stopping for a short hike. The scenery was completely different. It had an almost tropical rainforest feel. You would never know from these photos that it was close to a busy noisy highway with loud trucks roaring past. We didn't have long so we only hiked in for 15 minutes and then out again. It did get a little quieter as we went a long. Sorry to my FB friends who seen most of these on Facebook already.

The trees are immense. 

Sunday morning John got an unexpected chance to preach and share a little about our work with Wycliffe Bible Translators. It was one of the only Sundays left that he didn't already have a presentation scheduled.

A number were away on a cruise to Cairns.

Last week we had several times of getting together with old friends and make some new acquaintances with people who wanted to hear about our work.

Last week had few days break in a little suburb of Caloundra, Queensland, called Dicky Beach. (It's about an hour's drive north of Rothwell, that I wrote about in my last post.) The house where we stayed, which was lent to us by friends while they were away, is just a five minute walk to the beautiful beach of the same name. So our first order of business was to visit the beach.

Interesting tropical trees on the way to the beach.

First glimpse of Dicky beach.

The beach and surrounding area are named for the SS Dicky-- a 226 ton iron steamboat that ran aground during a big storm in February 1893. To read more of the history see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dicky_Beach,_Queensland

It was a cold windy day. Heavy rains had been predicted but didn't come our way-- or were all done--by the time we arrived.

There were several wind surfers out every day. Mostly they were further out. This one came in closer so I could get this photo.

There was another sign a little ways down pointing back toward this one to mark the area to avoid swimming in.

We came back via the "boardwalk" to get out of the cold wind. The soft sand is nice but is also quite a workout to walk in for long periods.

We saw these stunning flowers in someone's garden on our way back to the house. The wind was so strong John had to hold them for me.

For dinner John got take away fish and chips. The chips were gluten free and they grilled my fish. It was delicious. It was a great way to celebrate our first day at the beach.

After dinner we watched our Pastor Rudy Topete's sermon on YouTube, entitled, "Get over yourself." It gave me much food for thought.

One day there we also visited a light house, or two. Actually it is two right next to each other. 

This tea towel where we stayed was the inspiration for finding them.:

The older one on the left was built in 1896. The new one on the right was built in 1968. The old one was moved off the site for a number of years but after the deactivation of the new one the old one was moved back to the site in 1999. They are open to the public but we did not come at the right time. To read more about their history see the sign further down here.  

The high-rise building behind them cut short the usefulness of the new one. But it was still used as a harbor light from 1974-92.

 

I think if you double click this photo you can enlarge it enough to read the history. 

In between walks on the beach John got quite a bit of work done--programming, email and various arrangements for meetings and travel. I also did some laundry and wrote the previous blog post. 

Some other high lights from Dicky Beach:

We'll be here in Armidale until Thursday and then we plan to drive to Sydney. We've never driven this far on our previous trips to Australia. We usually fly from Brisbane to Sydney. But it's been a fun adventure and a nice way to break things up. As John said it beats sitting in airports.

Australian pilgrimage

I'm writing from Brisbane, Australia-- in a suburb called Rothwell.

It's just over a week since we got here

The trip was a long time in the planning and the flight felt interminable but now that we are here it's hard to remember how hard it all was. I had mixed feelings about coming. It's always a challenge to come on such a big trip. The biggest being leaving my mom for three and a half months. It's also not a vacation as most people think. But there have been some really delightful things about being here already and I am definitely looking forward to seeing loved ones in Victoria. 

Some of my favorite things so far--in no particular order:

The views from the unit where we are staying in Rothwell, Queensland..

Sitting on the balcony watching small planes fly by. 

There is a small airport with a flight school nearby. Being around small airplanes reminds me of my Dad. He had an airplane maintenance business for many years and I was his secretary for a few years in my teens and early twenties. So you could say small planes are in my blood.

Interesting flowers we saw on recent walks:

Watching and listening to the birds. 

Last Sunday when we were out for a walk we saw a man feeding this flock of Rainbow Lorikeets bread scraps and stopped and had a chat with him. 

John got more close up shots

Crested pigeons there too but they flew away when we got too close.

We've also met some new people and caught up with previous acquaintances and friends and had several meetings. Here are a few:

This magpie wanted to share John's lunch

Psalm 84:5 encouraged me on our flight here. Verses 3-6 are good too. But I especially liked verse 5:

"Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage."

We will be here in Australia for three and a half months. It feels like a pilgrimage. I'm glad I can find strength in the Lord and that he has blessed us so abundantly with caring people and enjoyable things to see and do.