We are home.

We arrived home on Tuesday night about 7pm. We were greeted by neighbors, family and friends. They had not only prepared the house so we could go right to sleep but also filled the refrigerator and pantry with food. That was a very welcomed surprise. All 4 of us woke up at 1:30 am hungry and it was so nice to have food.

We got the Internet and phones up on Wednesday. John's birthday was Thursday and we spent it looking for a vehicle. John purchased one on Friday. Our friends, Barb and Don came up on Thursday night and spent the weekend with us. It was so nice to see them.

We have been unpacking and visiting. Kait and Sam started school yesterday, Monday. They were happy to see their friends. They took TimTams and Vegemite to share with everyone.

Basketball and swimming practice starts tonight as well as John's band practice. So far I have resisted committing to anything. One week down the rest of my life to go!

I tried to put pictures up with our house and the fall leaves but it would not let me load them. I will have to check into that further.

Going Up Over

The movers arrive in the morning and the computers will turned off and packed up. So this is my last blog as an expat. It will be later in the week before we get the computers/Internet up. Goodbye for now. We will be home on Tuesday night.

St. Francis Xavier-Last Day

We had our last coffee at Litani's today. I have met some wonderfully amazing women whom have become good friends. It was sad to say goodbye.

At the Friday Morning assembly, the school had a very nice farewell presentation. Kait and Sam have made many friends and were sad to say goodbye. They will have many great memories of their year here.

Dinner with Edwards

On Thursday Night we had a farewell dinner with Pete, Jenny, Clare and Mathison Edwards. We will miss them. We got to know them 10 years ago when they were in Ohio. It has been wonderful to renew our friendship with them and hope we can get together again--maybe in 10 years?

Farewell Party--Helen's Family

We were given a farewell party at Alistair and Sue home in Towradgi, last Sunday. We had a great time visiting over lunch and enjoyed reminiscing about the past year. We met Helen's family last Christmas, and have visited with them throughout the year at family events that we were included on. We have had several Sunday lunch's at Sue and Alistair--always including a game of scrabble. We will miss them as they have welcomed us into their family this past year.

Helen's family: Sisters: Sue, Tricia, Shelley, Aunt Pat, Mother Betty, Alistair, Helen, Emma, Alex and Shaun.

We have only 5 days left in Australia and they are going fast. We leave early in the morning on the 4th of November and 29 hours later we will arrive in Napoleon in the evening of the 4th of November. Happy Melbourne Cup Day to our Australian friends and Happy Election Day to our American friends. Love to you all!

Going Away Party

The Friday Coffee Group had a party to wish us farewell on Sunday. The BBQ was at Marie and Greg Vitnell's home. The kids had a great time swimming and jumping on the trampoline as the adults talked and shared some wine. We had a great time! And I forgot my camera--sorry.

Coming Home

We will fly home on November 4th. That is in about 3 weeks. We will miss Australia, the great friends we have made and the wonderfully amazing year we have had--but there is no place like home! We look forward to seeing you all.

Kata Tjuta

About 30 kilometers away is Kata Tjuta (means "many heads"), it is a group of 36 red rock domes that rise from the ground. The tallest is 546 meters. These rocks are conglomerate of lots of small rocks--like concrete.
We did the Valley of the Winds hike. It was very hilly, and pretty.
That night we had a special dinner--Sounds of Silence. We had dinner on a far away sand dune to see the sunset of Uluru and Kata Tjuta. After the sunset, we learned about the stars and the southern hemisphere night sky. We were able to look through powerful telescopes to see Jupiter and its moons, and an amazing close up of the moon. We met people from all over the world on this holiday. At dinner with us are two couples from England. We met others from Holland, Norway, China, France, and USA.

Uluru

We drove to Uluru (Ayers Rock is the English name that is not really used). the first morning we were there we started out at 4am to see the sunrise.
We were with a group of people, for a bush tucker breakfast including damper,on a sand dune about 25 kilometers from Uluru.
Sam and Kait are looking for animal tracks in the red sand. They found lots of Goanna tracks--the 2 meter long lizard. We never did see a wild one but there were plenty around.
Back at Uluru we saw the ancient cave painting and learned about the dreamtime stories relating to the mammoth rock. The Aboriginals see Uluru as a sacred place and have been having religious ceremonies there for centuries. There were many places that we were not allowed to photograph. Tourism began in 1955, with only crude camping available. In 1983, a resort was opened. And in 1985 the property rights to Uluru was given back to the Aboriginal traditional owners. We had a very nice and modern 2 bedroom apartment to stay in. It was a marvel all of its own to see how a resort functioned and survived so far out in the desert. The first trip to Uluru from Alice Springs in 1873 took 3 months by camel.



Uluru is very large. It is a 10 kilometer walk just to go around the base. It stands 348 meters above ground and goes another 5 kilometers underground. So it is huge. From a distance it looks very smooth, but up close you can see grooves, caves and waterholes.

There is a visitors center (no photos allowed) were the Anangu from Mutitjulu and Yankunytjatjara sell artwork and artifacts and provide tours and educate us about their culture.

Hiking around Kings Canyon

We head out early before it gets too hot to hike at Kings Canyon.
You could definately see the layers of the sandstone that formed the canyon.
Here is the canyon. It is definately not as large or spectacular as the Grand Canyon. But it is still stunning and beautiful.

Then, we had the long, long drive to Kings Canyon. There was no speed limit so John maintained 140--that's KPH or about 86 mph. We were warned to watch for wild camels, kangaroos and emus. We did see a camel and cows.

This is our hotel in Kings Canyon--the only one for at least 200 kilometers. It was considered eco friendly with a small footprint. The room was very nice--with a sitting area in the back and a spa tub in a huge bay window.
This is our view out the window--The rocks were brilliant reds and oranges.

Alice Springs 2

We were picked up early for our quad bike tour. We drove out to a cattle station that was 3000 square kilometers--a huge family farm!!!! We had to go on a dirt road for part of the trip. We rode the 4 wheelers for about 2.5 hours through the desert.
Here we are!! It was only the four of us and two tour guides.
John got this photo--I am getting instructions about going down the steep hill.

That is me at the bottom riding off! This was a definite highlight of out trip. We learned a lot about the cattle. They just let the cattle graze and only round them up once a year for market. The cattle only venture about 5 kilometers from water. So the station maintains 5 waterholes on the property. The cattle come everyday to the water. On the given day, they trap them and ship them out on a cattle train--which is really a large truck that holds 200 head at a time. Several trucks make the long trip to Darwin (1,500 kilometers away) for butchering. They use the quad bikes and helicopters to round up stray cattle --no horse riding cowboys here. The only predator the cows have is the dingo. The dog attacks the calves if they get separated.

Alice Springs

We flew from Sydney to Alice Springs (4hrs). The Alice, is in the center of Australia. It is referred to as the Red Center as it is desert and very red sandy soil. The land was inhabited for 40,000 years by Aboriginals and was first visited by white men in the late 1800's. The town was set up as a single line telegraph station between Darwin(north) and Adelaide (south). the town is quite remote and has a population 25,000. We met many Americans as there is a military base communications base here, as well as many American tourists. The first night we went to a dinner to learn about aboriginal culture. We had Kangaroo, Emu and Crocodile for dinner. The men performed some of the traditional Aboriginal dances for us. We learned about the traditional tools, weapons and ways of life. It was very informative.
We hiked into the West McDonnel Ranges. Sam spotted a dingo on a dry river bed. And No--"the dingo did not eat my baby!"
We came to this surprise in the middle of the desert! Ellery's Big Hole was a very refreshing place to cool off. The kids swam and played in the water. It was 80 meters deep in the middle and quite cold. It was about 150 meters across-Sam swam it and was very surprised at the extreme cold in the middle.
We had a dinner planned where we were to ride a camel into the desert and have a bush tucker dinner. The camels are all lined up and tied in a row for our adventure. We are to ride tandem so Sam and I pair up. The guide chose Sam and I to mount first. The camels all sat down preparing for their "cargo." As Sam and I approach our camel, the guide says to just ignore her noises of protest--she is just a noisy camel--no worries mate! Sam put his foot in the stirrup and started to mount her and she started these horrific groaning noises. Sam is on and now it is my turn. The camel continued its loud protests. I got on the camel and now the camel has to stand up. In a very loud noisy way. The camel stands up with us leaning way back and then extreme forward as the camel gets completely upright. I am so happy to be in a normal sitting position and wait for the guide to adjust the stirrups as he promised. I notice all of the camels are beginning to get up with no passengers. Did you know camels don't like rain? Well, it started raining--in the desert--that is in extreme drought--I mean the worst drought in 50 years! And it rains as Sam and I are on a camel who does not like rain!! So all of the camels who are tied together--take off. I mean--stand up and start moving with out the guide fairly rapidly. I hear one of the other tourist yell--"Get the boy off of the camel!!!" The guide did get the lead camel and tie him to a fence. The remaining camels coiled around, with the camel Sam and I are on, in the center. So camels are all around us. Did I mention that when you sit on a camel you are really high off of the ground? No joke, we were 10 feet off of the ground. So we are high up surrounded by camels and a bit nervous. The guide quickly tied camel by camel to the fence with us being the last secured. He then had to get the camel to sit--which it did not want to do and protested quite loudly. Sam and I finally disembarked. The guide shared with John that he was worried we were going to be part of a camel race to the desert! He was obviously nervous. Needless to say --I do not care to get on another camel ever again. The tour ended abruptly for all and we had dinner in town. It took 3 Vodka tonics to get me to stop shaking. Sam, of course, was mad and wanted to go back and do it again!

Berrara Beach 2

As we headed up the walk to our cabin, we had a big suprise.
The kangaroos were everywhere!
They were quite tame and friendly. Many of them had joeys in their pouches. Kait and Sam named one Greta and her joey is Nigel. Sara, Bob, Mike, Fred, George and Mo kept us entertained for hours.
This was the alpha male of the group. We was as tall as John! No joke! We always stayed at a distant and kept a careful watch on his family.

We are beginning our plans to come home. We are expecting to be home the first week of November. That is in only 6 weeks. We still have our Outback trip the first week of October. So, see you all soon!

Berrara Beach

This weekend we went to Berrara Beach. We went south down the coast near a really small seaside village--Sussex Inlet. Upon recommendation from a family at school, we decided it sounded like the perfect place to celebrate our anniversary.
The are rooftops in the trees. The third one over was our "chalet." It was a very nice 2 bedroom modern cabin. We had a short walk down some steps to the beach.
The beach right in front was rock pools, but a short walk took us too a beautiful swimming beach.
After the kids got us up at 6:30 saying they were headed down to the beach and that they would see us later, we bolted up and joined them. We walked up and down the beach and checked it out. We had been told we would see kangaroos in our front yard in the morning so we were a bit dissappointed when there were none when we got up. We decided to get lunch before heading back to the beach for swim and sun.

Sam got 10th at MacKillop Trials!

Sam earned the right to represent Wollongong Diocese in the shotput (9&10yrs) at the New South Wales Catholic Schools Athletics Event. The event was held Friday, 5 Sept. at the Blacktown Olympic Park, a suburb of Sydney. His mate, Alex Sheridan, came to cheer him on.

Sam was part of the opening ceremony which included a prayer and the National Anthem, Australia Fair. It had already started raining, so after a few short speaches and introductions the events started.
Sam and Alex tried to stay warm. It was a very windy, rainy and cold day. His black and red uniform was the Wollongong team clothing that he was able to keep.
Here is Sam throwing his heart out in the drenching rain. He started out with just his singlet and shorts on --but it was too cold! He threw with his jumper(jacket) and wind pants on. He has a t-shirt tucked in his pants to dry the ball. It was really wet as were we all. We are proud of Sam's achievements--10th in the NSW Catholic Schools (about 2oo schools divided into 7 regional dioceses).

Wollongong Diocese Athletics Trial

Sam did it again! He got 1st place in the shot put at the Wollongong Diocese Athletics Meet. He improved his throw by over 1 meter. At regionals, he got 8.03 meters and today he was at 9.16 meters. Today, it was the best 8 kids out of 29 schools in the Wollongong Diocese. And he got 1st place! (can you tell we are a bit proud?)

He will go on to the New South Wales MacKillop Athletic Carnival --which is all Catholic Schools in New South Wales (our state, there are 7 states in Australia) on September 5th. He will represent the Wollongong Diocese and will get a Wollongong team uniform.

If he gets to go on, he will go to the New South Wales Primary Schools Sports Athletics Carnival (NWS PSSA) representing the Catholic school team: MacKillop Team, named for Mary Mackillop, who is in the process of becoming Australia's 1st saint.


Sorry no pictures, my photo did not turn out that great.

South Coast Athletics Trial

Sam got 1st place in shot put when he represented St. Francis Xavier at the South Coast Athletics Trial.
He is #9. He threw the shotput 8.03 meters. That is 26ft 1 inch. The shot put is 2 kg or about 4.5 pounds.
He got a blue ribbon and a letter inviting him to participate in the Wollongong Diocese meet on Tuesday.
Sam and Alexandra. Alex gets to participate in the next level in 100m.

Sam turns 10!

Sam's birthday was August 1st and we had his party on 08-08-08 at Hangdog an indoor climb venue in Wollongong. John, Sam and Kait were checking it out before everyone else arrived.
With parents belaying the kids climbed up really high. This is Sam on his way up.
That is Kait way up there showing no fear!
Sam is free climbing with no belayer.
Everyone takes a break for pizza, cake and icecream. Bronte and Kait are on the right and Isabel, Jackson, Sam, Brock and Alex are on the left. Liam and Rhys had to leave a bit early. They had an awesome time!