farewell to Austraila

We have been in Darwin at the CS home of Allen. Allen is camping this week and will only get home an hour before we leave. Allen's neighbour let us in and showed us around. It was so nice of Allen to open his home to us even though he would be gone. It was a great place to plan our next few weeks from and get used to the hot, hot, humid weather here. It is what we will be expecting for the rest of our trip.

Today marks the end of our Australia journey. We loved Australia. There were some parts that we loved more than others. We really loved Mission beach, we loved all the CS friends that we met along the way. What an amazing experience it has been for Dean and I and mostly for Colton and Miranda. To have someone open their home to strangers is such a cool thing. It will help us be more open to others and it has taught us to be better hosts ourselves.

Learning to play the didgeridoo

Darwin is an interesting city. We found it rougher than the other city's in Australia that we staying in. The streets are a bit dirtier and you can tell there is an underlying uneasiness in the people here. I found myself praying for the people of Darwin as we sat at bus stations, on buses and walked around the city. It was sad to see the substance abuse of the aboriginals.

We watched a movie last night called The rabbit proof fence. It is a story about the Australian government up until the 1970's removing the aboriginal children from their families to try to bred out their ethnicity. The movie portrayed the true story of 3 girls who where taken and put into an orphanage of sorts and they walked 1500 miles across the desert and outback to return to their mother. Just as they were reunited they were taken back to the orphanage and again they escaped and walked the 1500 miles back to their home. It was a good example of what we as white people have done to other cultures and wonder why they are damaged.


As a whole the country is amazing. It has been a dream of mine to one day come to visit and there were times when we talked about how easy it would be to live here. We read a book about Australia before we arrived and this is what the author said about the country....


Australia
 

It is the driest, flattest, hottest most infertile and climatically aggressive of all the inhabited continence. Australia has more things that can kill you in a very nasty way than anywhere else. Of the worlds ten most poisonous snakes all are Australian. Five of its creatures, the funnel web spider, box jelly fish, blue ringed octopus, paralysis tick and stone fish are the most lethal type in the world. Even the fluffiest of caterpillars can lay you out with a toxic bite. Even sea shells will not just sting you but sometimes attack you. The cone shell for example. If you are not stung or pronged to death, you may be fatally chomped on by sharks or crocodiles or carried helplessly out to sea by rip tides. it’s a tough place.

Author- Bill Bryson

and we lived through it...