Reflections on life...

This week our travelling plans were overshadowed by the news of the sudden death of a friends mother in a car-jacking in Zimbabwe. We were shocked and saddened and, as I have been studying JOY lately, I wondered how one could continue in joy during these difficult and trying times that we face in our life.

In my reflection and prayer, my thoughts wandered ...
"How are we to have joy in this painful world we live in? 1 Thess 5 says to "Be joyful always" so how do we hold true to God's word during our life experiences. In this instance I felt the Lord say, "Be joyful she is now with Me, be joyful one day you will be here too. Be joyful for my grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in your times of weakness, be joyful you are forgiven and you are watched over and you are so precious to Me. One day all pain and hurt and suffering will end, but for now you are My hands and feet to offer hope to those who are hurting in this world, to offer love and to offer my greatest gift of salvation."

I find a deep, abiding sense of gratefulness fills me and a security in knowing that God is good, His nature doesn't change like the ebb and flow of our emotions, like the shifting sands of our circumstances, He remains faithful, all powerful, all knowing and His love does endure forever.

Further reflections:
We spent two days this week at Australia Zoo, where we were again struck by the fragility of life, as we thought of the loss of Steve Irwin four years ago, he was a man of enthusiasm with an incredible zest for life. We were reminded of Psalm 103:15 "As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field, the wind blows over it and it is gone, its place remembers it no more, But from everlasting to everlasting the Lords love is with those who fear Him and his righteousness with their children's children."

So the call is to rejoice that God has given us the life of a flower, to flourish, bloom and be full in abundance of colour, happiness, joy and beauty. We have the chance to radiate to the world the creativity of God's creation and be able to stand firm and strong in the changes of lifes circumstances. We are called to be bright and be all that God has made us to be, for as long as He has given us, to use all our talents and gifts to glorify Him and to grow bigger and better, blooming fuller everyday. And then when our days, which are written in His book, are over, we get to go home and rejoice in the presence of the Lord forever.

May His grace be sufficient for you today.

Maryborough and Fraser Island

Jerome writes:

We left Airlie Beach, and travelled for two days, until we reached Maryborough last Wednesday. Maryborough is famous because it was the birth place of P.L. Travers, the author of the book Mary Poppins. We went to the street markets of Thursday and we also went for a ride on another famous icon in Maryborough, the Mary Ann steam train. We also drove pass the large factory were the Perth passenger trains are manufactured, I was so excited I nearly jumped out the window of the car! While we were in Maryborough, we took a drive to the town of Hervey Bay. We went to a great water park there as well, even though it was cold! We drove around to Rainbow Beach, where we left the caravan in storage at the caravan park and we took our car over to Fraser Island on Saturday. We all marvelled at the flat, smooth beach that you could drive on. Mum said it was like driving on the Mitchell Freeway!

We went to the old logging settlement called the Central Station. To get there, we had to navigate our way through the thick forest on a rough sand track. We went for a board walk at Central Station and we were all amazed at the straightness of some of the trees. From there we drove up to the famous Eli Creek and we went for a stroll along the board walk. We then went to the old Maheno shipwreck. The ship used to run between Melbourne and Tasmania, then it was converted to a hospital ship during World War 1. It was turned back to a passenger ship, until it was finally sold for scrap to Japan in 1935. On the tow up to Japan, it hit a Cyclone and the tow rope to the Maheno broke. It was then washed up on Fraser Island and has sat there ever since, rusting away It was so rusted and falling apart, that it was hard to imagine that it was a grand ship 100 odd years ago!

We spent Saturday night in a cabin, which everyone thoroughly enjoyed! We left the cabin mid-morning on Sunday and we went down to Eli Creek with our inflatable tube. One by one, we each got to float down the freshwater creek, which was so much fun. But, all fun was forgotten, when Josie, Molly and I were playing some distance from Mm and Dad. We were happily playing in the creek, when suddenly a Dingo shoots our from the bush. We panicked and ran and the Dingo started to run after us, not for fun either. Luckily, Dad angrily shooed it away, but we were all quite shaken. Apparently, when being threatened by a Dingo, the best thing to do, is to stand still and calmly walk away. We failed that test! God sure was watching over us and we thank Him for that.

We then went off to Lake Barrieen for lunch and then we drove back, through the forest and along the beach and back to the car barge, which took us back to the mainland. We were planning to stay the night at a free camp spot, but because our electric brakes weren't working for some reason we stayed in the caravan park for the night. All was good in the morning wo we took off and are now in Caboolture, we will go to Australia Zoo tomorrow and we are very excited about that.

PS We did have fun following in Colin's footsteps at Fraser Island! Floating down Eli Creek, visiting the Maheno, and singing the songs as we went! Jerome did some good research and found a picture of the original Maheno, just as Colin says in his song - "It's all gonna fade, it's all gonna rust, it's all gonna turn to dust, the stuff of this world gonna get trashed, only the things of the Lord will last."

Magnetic Island/Airlie Beach

Magnetic Island in the distance from the Ferry






On Wednesday we took a trip to Magnetic Island and made the most of the day by heading out on the 7.45am ferry - it takes 20 mins to get there, so we were there by just after 8am and we picked up two Mini Mokes that we hired for the day to get around. They were great fun and took me back 20 years to my driving days on the farm when we had a moke that we drove up and down to the bus stop - sloppy gears and brakes you stand on to stop - nothing changes with the Mini Moke!!!

There are only about 13km of roads on the Island and we covered it all a few times. We had breakfast at Picnic Bay and then went for a drive to the other side of the Island to Horseshoe Bay. It was a lovely sunny, warm day, and after a walk we found a spot at Alma Bay for a swim and a snorkel and lunch. After that we were going to swim again, but the large tidal change made many of the bays unswimmable, we had a brief snorkel and then had our BBQ at Picnic Bay and raced to catch the 5.55pm Ferry home. It was a great day and we marvel again at how beautiful our country is with its many wide and varied facets.

On Thursday afternoon we visited Riverway's a free swimming lagoon/pool which had a 75m swimming pool, that certainly tested the fitness! We'd love to see more of these in WA, free pool/lagoon play areas, wouldn't that be great in the long hot summer months.

We caught up with another family from WA on Friday before we headed out of Townsville, as well as having to get a faulty van indicator fixed. We spend a few hours at the Strand and the kids enjoyed the water park while we waited and had lunch and then all well, we left and got to Airlie Beach on the Whitsunday Coast in the evening.

The beaches are not that great around here, the sand is brown muddy stuff and it is nothing on our lovely white WA beaches - the islands, though, are lovely, picturesque, aqua blue water, nice snorkelling and lovely sunny warm days. We didn't do any Islands from here but have enjoyed a few days at a free water lagoon park on the Airlie Beach foreshore. The weather certainly has been nice - beautiful one day and perfect the next!

It is onwards south now to Hervey Bay/Fraser Island area.


Photos of Lovely Airlie Beach lagoon - we bought some skimmer balls had a heap of fun shooting them across the pool to each other!

Southward bound - Townsville

Townsville pics first






Having had such a wonderful time at Karol and Vicki Winiarski's it was hard to leave. We have met some lovely families up in Cairns and had some great fellowship times together. The kids would rather be home playing with Louisa, Kalina and Sofia (yes that is a littler Sofiathan our Sohpia!) than out sightseeing and the constant traffic of Cane trains has been exciting -starting at 8am in the morning and the last one usually at about 9pm at night.

Anyway, we headed off to Branston Beach, about 150km south of Cairns and spent a few nights here. It was a perfect spot right on the beach and very quiet. We visited Josephine Falls on a drizzly day and saw more cane fields along the roadside.

From here it was onward south to Townsville - however, we hadn't banked on being there on the weekend of the V8 supercar race - that meant every van park in the city was full - yes, literally full. We free camped some 20km out of Townsville for a few nights and drove in to do a trip up Castle Hill - the best vantage point to see the race, as we found out by the number of people up there!!!

The weather is warm and mild and today we came into town and found a spot at the Riverside Convention Park (like Advent park in Perth) We went down to the local Esplanade and the kids enjoyed the water play park with a big bucket of water that splashed down every few minutes. It is a big city, population about 170,000, and we will stay here for a few nights before continung on south.

Cairns

Jerome writes:

Well, its been quite a long time since we've last blogged because we've been free camping since we left Cairns and consequently haven't had any power! We spent one week in Cairns, staying with the lovely Winiarski family that we met at the Brisbane Growing Families camp. They have three girls aged 5, 3 and 1 so Molly and Sophia had fun playing together with them and they so kindly shared their playroom and toys which was a great treat for all the girls.

Their house was right by a railway that carried sugar cane, and being the harvest season, the trains were passing four or more a day, so I was in heaven! (everyone's a winner at the Winiarksi's!!)

While we were in Cairns, we visited the Muddy's playground, a huge playground on the foreshore - see the Fish picture. We also visited the Crystal Cascades, and Daddy, Joise and I had a swim in the fresh, cool water. (see picture)

We vistited Port Douglas and went for a ride on the Balleyhooley steam railway. At Port Douglas, we also saw the spectacular Mossman Gorge - see picture. There were people swimming there as well, but as it was getting late into the afternnon, we decided not to.

We decided to spend a night in the Atherton tablelands, without the caravan. We visited the village of Kuranda, we went to the Kuranda Markets, (where I was nearly eaten by a dinosaur - see picture), we went to the Coffee Works cafe, which Daddy enjoyed and we spent the night in a cabin. It seemed so big compared to our caravan.

The next day, we saw a massive Curtain Fig tree (see picture) in the rainforrest, then we went to Atherton where the scenery of undulating green hills reminded us of Tasmania.

It was on to Lake Barine on our way home, we had lunch here and then went on a little Lake Cruise that putted around the lake, and we saw a Red Belly Black snake, two Amethyst Pythons and a big eel. We had a Deveonshire tea to follow, that was yummy. We think we found the windiest road in Australia - the Gillies Hwy Atherton to Gordonvale road, it wound backwards and forwards heading down the range for 30km or so!!

By far the highlight of Cairns was going on a tour of the Great Barrier reef. We caught a boat 40km offshore out to a pontoon and we all went for a snorkle. We saw lots of different fish, clams and masses of coral. It was amazing, though I was expecting the coral to have brighter colours. Graces highlight was seeing the little electric-blue fish and Dad said it was like they had a battery in them. We also went on a glass-bottom boat and a semi-sub boat - see picture of Mum, Grace and Sophia. All in all we marvel at God's amazing creation in the big deep ocean.

North Queensland

How is this for a sunrise - over the ocean at Kurrimine Beach - now that is something we don't see in WA, so I had to get a photo. I love the awesomeness of sunrises, every day is different and they especially remind me that God says His mercies are new every morning - no matter what yesterday held, we can start afresh today. That is something I am always grateful for.



We left Brisbane on Wednesday last, and spent three days driving north, covering 1400kms in the three days. The kids were great and enjoyed the travel time reading, looking at the copious amounts of sugar cane that lined the road and watching an afternoon dvd! We praise God for keeping us safe on the road and are grateful for lovely travelling weather too. We stopped at few free camp spots, and in MacKay on the way up, and arrived at Kurrimine Beach on Saturday, 100km south of Cairns.

Here we stopped to have a break for a few days at a great van park in this beachside holiday town, a bit like Lancelin. It was peaceful and quiet and just what we needed after all that travel. The kids enjoyed the pool and we enjoyed walks on the beach, and the very balmy sunny weather - 28 during the day and about 20 at night.

On the first morning we were there Darren came back from the beach with some coconuts for breakfast! Everyone had fun trying to get the husks off and get them open, which required an axe, a drill, a hacksaw and a screw driver, we tasted the milk and then ate some of the flesh, which was fun and rewarding after all the work it took to get it! It has been interesting for us to see the change in weather and the change in sunrise and sunset as we have travelled north - there is so much to learn on the road. It is hard to believe they live up here in relative summer conditions all year!

Darren, Jerome, Josie and Grace visited the Tully Sugar Mill to learn about how the sugar cane is processed. It was a very interesting expedition - the sugar cane must be processed in 16 hours from the time of harvest, the sugar mill runs 24 hours a day from June to Nov and it is completely self sustained by its own electricity production by burning the begasse (rubbish sugar cane stalks and leaves) which runs the steam turbines that operate the heavy processing machinery. It has a very sweet and sickly smelling, like raw sugar/molasses and it was very loud as they walked through the processing plant.

Tully is Australia's wettest town, its average rainfull is 4490mm - wow! The highest one day total is 1140mm (no that is not a typo) and it also holds the record for the most rainfall in one year getting 7900mm in 1950. There is a big gumboot in town that is 7.9m tall and we climbed up to see just how much rain that was!

Today we travelled to Cairns, officially 5100km from Perth, as far away as possible - it will only be closer and onward home from here! It is warm, sunny and tropical and we are blessed to be staying in the driveway of the Winiarski family that we met in Brisbane a few weeks ago, although they did warn us about the rats, cane toads, sandflies and snakes that a often about, yuk! They have a wonderful garden full of lots of tropical fruits, including some banana palms - they generously gave us a hand of bananas and they are the fattest bananas we've ever had, delicious too. They also have a cane train line right behind their back fence so that is a winner for everyone and particularly for "you know who", who will be out there three times a day without fail I think! We've already seen two go by today and Jerome has decided this is all the sightseeing he wants to do in Cairns for the next few days!!

We look forward to doing a Reef tour and some day trips to Mossman, Port Douglas and Kuranda to see this wonderful part of our awesome country.

Brisbane

We spent Thursday at White Water World, the water park next to Dreamworld. We had so much fun, doing all the different slides. Dad, Joise and I (Jerome) did the Wedgie waterslide. You stand in a rocket-type compartment, then they count 3,2,1 and suddenly the floor drops away from beneath you, and you go shooting, almost vertically down to the pool below. I tell you, NONE of us did that ride again! When we got home that day we were telling about our favourite things and Mum worked out she'd done 26 rides on water slides - it was a great day!

On Friday, we spent our last morning at Dreamworld. We did the rides that we liked the most, these included the Log ride, Rapid ride and the Runaway Reptar roller coaster. We did the Motocoaster and Sophia got to do that, as she measured the right height. For that ride you sit on a motorbike and then go whizzing around the roller coaster track. Molly and Sophia got to sit in the sidecars next to Dad and Mum!

After lunch, we headed to the north of Brisbane, where we spent the weekend with the Growing families of Qld at their camp. We had
great fun with the different families, we did a kids programme on Character, learning songs about responsibility and self-control, it was great. There was one family that had come all the way from Cairns. On Saturday afternoon, we had a family games time. On one of the games, you had to squeeze through a spider wed made of rope, without touching the rope. It was very funny watching some of the smaller kids being fed through the rope holes! Everyone left on Sunday, leaving us by ourselves at the camp site.




















On Monday, we caught the Citytrain from Dakabin station to the city. We had morning tea at the Botanic Gardens, then we walked across the Goodwill bridge, that spans the Brisbane River. We caught the train home and went to have dinner with a family that had been at the camp, it was nice to spend time with friends and enjoy their lego city! I hoped to go on a cane toad busting walk, but there isn't many around as it is not the right season, what a shame.

On their recommendation, today, we went to the Opals Down Under shop. There, you could buy all sorts of precious stones and opals. We got containers and out the back of the shop, we got to fossick around the pit for different stones, which you could keep. There was one gold stone, that if you found it, you got to spent $10 in the shop and Grace found it, quite by surprise! How cool. The rocks were amazing colours and it seems incredible that they can be naturally found in such bright and varied hues - another amazing piece of creation by our big, big, God. Also, did you know 90% of all the world opals are found here in Australia - a little piece of trivia for the day.