Australian Pilgrimage Part 6 - Melbourne - Week 1

We arrived in Melbourne on a cold cloudy blustery day just over two weeks ago. As we waited at the outdoor pick up zone I found myself wishing for that big heavy coat everyone had been telling me I would need when we got down to Melbourne. 

I finally got the big heavy coat last Thursday at the Wycliffe clothing room they call Dorcus after the lady in the Bible (Acts chapter 9) that made clothes for the poor. You know the one that died and the Apostle Peter raised her to life again. Anyway, the coat I found is nice and warm and even a good color to go with my other clothes that I brought to Australia. You can see part of it in this photo taken Sunday with our friend Edna at Glen Hill Community Church, in Glen Waverley.

That's me on the left. Our friend Uli gave me the scarf when we were in Armidale.

But I'm getting ahead of myself...

John's brother, Doug, and sister-in-law, Melissa, picked us up from Melbourne airport on that cold blustery day and took us to his Mum's place for afternoon tea. It was great to see all of them after so long. For me it was about 7 years since the last time I was here. John came for a short visit in August of 2019 so 'only' 4 years for him. 

Afterward we drove to Ringwood, a suburb of Melbourne, to the house where we are staying for the next couple of months. It's provided for a very reasonable rate to missionaries in our denomination. 

I was pleased that thanks to some things that Mum and Melissa gave us and a few things we brought from Sydney I was able to throw dinner together before we needed to go grocery shopping. 

It wasn't gourmet but it met the need.
I chopped up some ham lunch meat we had with us from Sydney and added it to a bottle of pasta sauce and served over gluten free pasta. John had grated cheese on his. We had green beans on the side. Desert was gluten free bread with dairy free margarine and homemade quince jam from Uli in Armidale.

After we ate, John went grocery shopping for a few essentials while I stayed home to rest and unpack.

Over the next several days, in between lots of chores of various sorts: more shopping, banking issues to sort out, laundry, collecting boxes of our things from our church's attic (and then trying to figure out what to do with all the stuff--which we still are trying to figure out), processing mail from home, learning how to operate various appliances including the oven (It took us plus two other people to figure it out.), mending (which meant borrowing various sewing supplies from a couple of different people--that was before we had collected our boxes, which included a sewing kit.)

Calling friends and family back in America, including having a virtual meeting with my ladies small group (first time in a month). Working out times to connect given a 15 hour difference and a busy travel schedule was challenging.

And a few church meetings... (Bible study, prayer meeting, church presentation)

In between all that we also managed a couple of walks, including one with John's Mum our first Sunday afternoon. We also made tacos for 'tea' (dinner) for her on the first Wednesday evening here.

The first walk, on the first Saturday, was just the two of us. I wanted to see what there was to see within walking distance from the house where we're staying. So I looked on Google maps and found a couple of green spaces.

The first one was Norwood Park. It's only a block from here. It wasn't very interesting. There was a sign from last January suggesting people 'have there say' about an enhancement plan. It looks like it's still in the planning stages.

But despite the unenhanced state of the place there were some flowers to photograph.

The yellow flowering bush/tree is probably a wattle or related, not a great setting but certainly a pretty bush.

There were a few of these cute little wild flowers.

Then we were on to the next green space on the map: Evelyn Reserve, on Evelyn Rd. It quickly made up for what Norwood Park lacked. One of the first things we saw were these sulfur crested cockatoos on the grass.

Squabbles were frequent.

I don't know what they were eating but this one pulled up a lot of something.

We saw lots of trees covered with these beautiful little white flowers.

There is another section of Evelyn Reserve but we decided to save it for another time.

We went home a different way and found a street that lives up to Victoria's identity as 'the garden state'. There were so many beautiful plants, trees and flowers. Nearly every garden looked like it could have been in a magazine.

I couldn't take photos of them all. This is just a tiny sampling.  

I felt awkward about photographing the actual houses with the front gardens so I just aimed at individual flowers, or in this case, the tree without any things to identify the house. 

I loved the look of the ring of dropped petals on the ground around this shrub.

The next day John spoke at Mulgrave Reserve Gospel Chapel. I was sad to see how much the church has shrunk since last time we were there, but John is willing to speak to any size group. We appreciate the interest they have shown over the years and hope and pray that their numbers will pick up for them again in the future.

After church, since lunch wasn't happening that day at church like we thought it was, we rang Mum to see if she wanted us to come over for lunch since she lives nearby. But she wasn't home yet from her church (I think they were having lunch at her church that Sunday.) She rang back later, After chatting a bit she suggested we go for a walk around the lake at Jells Park which is near her apartment. It was a nice day for it--no rain and not too cold. So that's what we did.

An Australian black swan fishing. It took several attempts to catch it with it's head out of the water.

The birds on this islet are mainly Australian White Ibis I believe. They are quite large. They've nested here on this little island in the lake for quite a few years. We've seen them here other times too. It's nice to see some things don't change.

A stranger kindly took this photo of the three of us. In the background is the ibis island this time from another vantage point.

Australian coots

Sorry this is so long. I'll try to condense future posts more. Otherwise I could be still blogging about Melbourne long after we return home in a couple of months!

Australian Pilgrimage Part 5 - Time in Sydney

We made it to Sydney, or rather, a suburb north of Sydney called Warriewood Beach, just in time to meet the lady, named Julie, who was letting us stay in her downstairs "granny flat," unload our things and go to the grocery story to get some food so we could make dinner for another friend named Julie who was coming to see us that evening. It was good to see her again and we were delighted that she was willing to brave Sydney rush-hour traffic so we wouldn't have to. 

We had chicken and roasted veggies with fruit and biscuits (cookies) for desert.

The next day, Saturday, John met a friend, also named John, in the city for lunch. I used the "time off" to catch up on various chores: dishes from the night before and laundry and a couple of other little jobs. I also went across the road to see the beach. I only made it part way down the steps though as some of them were steep and my balance was a little off so I decided to wait until John came back so I could use my hiking poles--which were in the boot of the car--or lean on John's shoulder to steady me. 

This was the longest steep part. Part of the stairway was easier going.

I snapped a few flower photos while I waited for John. 

By the time John got back it was cold and starting to rain a little and I wanted a rest. So we decided to visit the beach another day.

Later I had a little alone time reading and having a "cuppa" on the covered porch. 

This interesting plant was on the table where I had my coffee.

 

Sunday was busy. John spoke at St. Ives Community Church. Afterwards there was a potluck. Then we had afternoon tea with a friend, Juliette, and then ended up staying for "tea" (dinner) with her family and a few friends. Her husband Andrew grilled up some delicious Aussie burgers. We had all the proper Aussie burger toppings complete with fried egg, bacon, sliced beetroot and pineapple. There were a few other things including, I think, spiral cut carrot which was surprisingly good on my burger too and lettuce and tomato. Sorry I don't have a photo. Juliette made experimental gluten free buns for me. They tended to fall apart as gluten free things often do, but I appreciated her effort and it beat eating my burger like a salad on my plate with a knife and fork which I think would take the fun out of it somewhat. In my humble opinion Aussie burgers have to be eaten by hand in a bun to get the full delicious experience. 

Two of the ladies at the St. Ives church potluck. I first met the lady on the left, Heather, back in 2016 when we were last in Australia. It was fun to see her again and have a chat. I'm afraid I don't remember the name of the lady on the right.  

With Juliette and Andrew

Monday we did finally make it down to the beach together. It's spectacular as you can probably tell from the other photo. But of course I took lots more photos. Here are a few:

Monday evening we had dinner at the home of friends, John and Eva. It was good to catch up and dinner was a real feast. Sea bass, roast veg, crispy smashed potatoes, salad and for desert: carrot cake. It was all delicious. I got the recipe for the carrot cake and hope to make it soon. (In case you are wondering it was gluten, dairy, nut and coconut free. But believe it or not still very delicious!) I raved about it so much that Eva very kindly sent the rest home with us which came in very handy over the next few days.

I forgot to get a photo but Eva sent me one later.

Tuesday friends, Graham and Faith, came to "our" place for tea (dinner). We served sausages and roast veg. And for desert we had some of the carrot cake that Eva sent home with us the night before. 

Wednesday we didn't have any meetings scheduled so John took the day off from programing and we went hiking in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park. Faith told us about it at dinner the night before. She highly recommended we go. She said it was an easy 30 minute drive from where we were staying and that the West Head Lookout has spectacular views of the ocean and other headlands. 

When we looked it up Wednesday morning we discovered that the the West Head lookout was closed for repairs but since there were a lot of hiking trails that were still open we decided to go anyway and check it out. We packed a picnic lunch and set out. The drive there turned out to be a little trickier than we expected, I think we took the scenic route. It was very winding and narrow and went right along the water. Coming back we found a more direct way which cut down on time and stress.

The map they gave us at the info booth when we entered showed what looked like a very short little loop called the Koolewong lookout trail. We decided to try that first and have our lunch if possible at the lookout. It turned out to be a fairly long and moderately challenging hike with a spectacular view and lots of flowers along the way. It was well worth the time and a delightful place to have a picnic.

This "cheeky" bird came right up to our car while I was putting on my hiking boots. He was likely hoping I would share my lunch. If so he was disappointed.

We were amazed to see so many plants in bloom in the winter time.

Golden Wattle in front of some sort of pink flowering bush.

There was a well-placed bench at the lookout where we ate and enjoyed the view.

This tree appeared to be growing out of the rock on the edge of the cliff in front of our picnic bench. It gave nice shade and had beautiful bark so I didn't mind too much that it blocked some of the view of the water. 

Here it is again at the right and top of the photo.

Our last evening we invited our hostess, Julie, to have "supper" with us. In Australia supper is a late evening snack after the evening meal. It's what Americans might call a bedtime snack. Though we didn't have ours as late as Aussies often do.  

Anyway it was a fun informal chance to get a little more acquainted and express our appreciation for her hospitality. We also got to share the rest of that delicious carrot cake and a few other nibbles.

With Julie, on the left.

We left for Melbourne the next morning. Stay tuned ...

But first here's one last photo from the beach in Sydney--this time with blue sky: