Our last 2 weeks in Sydney, NSW

On Tuesday, Jan 15th and Thursday, Jan 17th we had lectures in the morning, at the University of Sydney.  They were on "Introduction to the Australian cultural milieu", "Telling Australian Stories thru Film", "Introduction to traditional Aboriginal perspectives" and "Impact of European occupation on Australia on Aboriginal Australians".  So much good information.  GED has found such high quality lecturers, they are all knowledgable and interesting!

On Wednesday, Erik and I had dinner with Candice and Gareth and their 2 sweet children, and Kassandra, Clinton and Charmaine.  Gareth cooked an amazing meal, BBQ, salad and carrot cake!  What a fun family, we're glad we met them at Tiona.

                                               
                                                         The Unger and Care family

Friday, Jan 18th we had several varied excursions.  We toured the ANZAC Memorial and Pool of Reflections. And the Museum of Contemporary Art.  The highlight was a tour with Aunty Margret Campbell.  She led us around The Rocks and shared Aboriginal Culture and History, by first welcoming us to Country with ochre.  She owns a company called Dreamtime Southern X.  Here's some info from her website. 

     "Margret, as the youngest member of her family, was schooled from the age of 5 onwards in her traditional custodianship, the Baranbyatti Mirra Buuka or Dreamtime Southern Cross. Growing up on Dunghutti Country on the North East Coast of NSW and in Yuin Country on the South Coast of New South Wales, Margret considers herself to be one of the lucky ones and treasures the rich legacy of her family’s Cultural Dreamtime inheritance.
     To spend time with Margret is to understand both the inherent living wisdom and practical relevancy of her Ancestor’s Dreamtime Blueprint and the tangible, multi-dimensional ways in which the Dreamtime still influences and shapes our modern individual and collective belonging to this land we affectionately call down under. "

On Saturday, Erik and I went to the Rocks Market and found a Licorice shop.  Yum!  The owner/maker was very interesting.  We even bought some beet root/acai licorice, it's not bad, even kinda good. We also attended a panel discussion called "Resilience and Recovery: Getting by and betting better" which was part of the Sydney Festival's UTS Big Thinking Forum.

Sunday, we went to the West Pennant Hills congregation and helped for several hours at a working bee and then had morning tea (which included lots more than tea!).  That was fun.  June and Malcolm Stephenson, new friends from Tiona, took us to their home for a refreshing dip in their pool and a wonderful meal.  They drove us home, via Garigal National Park. An awesome visit, they knew Pappa and Mamma, so that was nice!

Erik headed to the Cricket with Ken and many of the students.  It was a shorter match called "Big Bash League", only about 3 hours long.  Brisbane got beat by Sydney, sadly.

The next week was filled with more lectures and excursions.  We learned about "Women in history", "Telling Australian Stories via Art", "Australian Environmental History since European settlement" and "Media Analysis and Contemporary Australian Society." 

We had a meaningful and stirring tour of the NSW Art Gallery, thanks Wes.  Several students got to see him dance at the Yabun Festival, sorry that Erik and I missed that.  We ate meat pies at Harry's Cafe de Wheels-I got an amazing pasty.  We also went to the "Just not Australian" exhibit and the "Australian Museum". 

Thursday evening we had a wonderful Italian meal with Julian and Marshall, two friends from reunion.  Great conversation.

Our final day in Sydney was spent at the Royal National Park.  This was the first year GED has included this on the trip and I'd say it was a success!  The area is gorgeous and we hiked for several hours with a ranger.  Such a gorgeous coastline.  We got to swim in a creek and in the ocean and stopped for ice cream on the way home.  A great day!!

Erik and I packed our things and took an early flight to New Zealand on Saturday.

Sydney was wonderful.  We did lots of walking (my left foot didn't like that).  We were able to watch a few movies at the Broadway Mall: Mary Poppins, Fantastic Beasts and Bohemian Rhapsody. We went to the Chinese Garden,  Coogee Beach, had a Thai Massage-awesome and saw "The Voice Behind the Stars."  Erik loved his visit to the Seafood Market and we loved our slice of Watermelon Cake at the Black Star Pastry.  The temperatures were usually in the high 80s to mid 90s, so we were plenty warm, but we weren't as hot as it got 10 years ago.  One day was 108!  And while we were in Sydney, Adelaide had a day that was 118! 

So long Sydney.

Our Blue Mountains adventure

On Saturday morning, Jan 12th we piled onto a coach bus, with Moshe as our driver, and headed to the Blue Mountains.  They are just a few hours outside of Sydney.  We stopped first at Mt Annan Botanic Gardens and Seed Bank.  We had an interesting lecture on "Evolution of Australian Biota".

I especially enjoyed learning about the Wollemi Pine which was thought to be extinct until a bushwalker (hiker) discovered some of them growing in the wild, in the Blue Mountains, in 1994.  There are fossils of them which are about 90 million years old.  There are less than 100 adult trees known to exist in the wild. Their location is very secret and only a few scientists and rangers know where they are.  We saw several at the Botanic Garden.  We also saw 2 Brown Snakes while walking near the Seed Bank.  Ugh, I hate snakes.

Then we headed up to the town called Katoomba to attend Scenic World.  It's the most "touristy thing" we do on our trip.  They have a railway that goes down into the rainforest at a 52 degree incline (128%), the steepest passenger railway in the world. That was fun.

But before we got to Katoomba we had to pull off the side of the road. We were climbing up the mountain and our bus was overheating.  As we were waiting for the engine to cool, we heard a loud crash.  Turns out a young driver with his learner's permit smashed into the side of the bus, near the front tire well.  Uffda.  It was only his 2nd day driving.  Poor kid.  Thankfully, no one was hurt.  We all piled out of the bus and waited on a nearby neighbor's lawn.  He was so nice and brought us out a few chairs and some ice water to drink.  Thankfully the bus was right and we made it to Scenic World on time.  We then settled in to the Katoomba hostel and a group of the students made a yummy bbq meal.  We then watched "Rabbit Proof Fence", which I'd recommend to you, heartbreaking though.

On Sunday we wound our way down and down to Jenolan Caves.  We had a great tour underground with a great guide, Scott.  The cave is 440 million years old and bigger than Lewis and Clark Caverns.  One unique and cool formation is Helictites.

Science alert!  {Helictites are formed by water slowly entering the caves through pores and cracks in the limestone. Helictites are named from the Greek word 'helix', meaning 'a twist'. They are small irregular growths which proceed in any direction contrary to gravity. The most accepted theory for their growth and development is a combination of capillary action and hydrostatic pressure. The saturated solution eminates from a pore so slowly that it doesn't form a drop. Evaporation occurs and a minute layer of crystal is deposited. A capillary tube slowly develops, through which the solution is drawn, extending the helictite. Because no drop forms, gravity has no effect and the helictite can develop in any direction, defying gravity.}

After our hike, we walked along the Jenolan River and found a gorgeous place to cool off.  I remember, 10 years ago, as we were heading back towards the bus, Ryan and Shane saw a platypus in the Blue Lake.  We looked and looked, but no luck this time.

We had a lecture first thing in the morning, "An Australian National Identity".  The lecturer and his partner made us Pavlova, but first we had to try a Vegemite Sandwich! Monday was our gorgeous, strenuous bushwalk of the Grand Canyon Walking trail + the Rodriguez Pass Trail to Beauchamp Falls.  Erik got 18,000 steps and 75 stories climbed.  I'm sure I got more steps since I have short legs!!  We kept up with the group pretty well until it was time to come out of the canyon, my legs nearly gave out, I told Erik I didn't know I could walk so slowly!  Several of the students had to wait quite a while for us to arrive.  Oops, sorry! It was worth it, so many beautiful sites!

The first week of LC OZ '19

I'm writing this from New Zealand on February 2nd.  More about New Zealand later.  As you can see, I'm having trouble keeping up with this blog.  We are busy with lectures and excursions and bush walks, etc, which is awesome, but it means I'm behind.  I had a grand dream to take photos, post them on fb and in google albums and digitally scrapbook them into 2 albums (using Forever).  I also planned to write my blog and create a journal/scrapbook in my "Happy Album" using my Sprocket to print the photos.  My dreams may have been a bit ambitious!  Oh well, I'm keeping up with about 1/2 of my goals.

Our first week consisted of 3 days of lectures in the mornings with a film or two in the evenings.  Our lectures are held in a new building, Abercrombie, on the University of Sydney campus.  Nat, with Global Education Design, coordinates the lecturers.  They are all great and I wish I could share all the things we learn.  It's quite fascinating learning about the culture, politics, biology, peoples, etc.  Here are a few of the lecture topics this week:  Plate Tectonics, Cultural diversity amongst Indigenous Australians, and European settlement of Australia.   We had an interesting tour of the Hyde Park Barracks too.

 Gorgeous cliffs at the beach in Cronulla, NSW.

                      Echidna at the Taronga Zoo, see how their back feet are backwards, better for digging the dirt and pushing it back away from you!

  Erik's trying on one of the convict women's outfits, but got stuck!

 One of our lecturers came to the International House.

 Hyde Park Barracks with our guide Scott.  He's also showing us the bedrooms/hammocks.

 Erik, Carla and Faye at Jeff's special tree.  We miss you, Jeff!

                                                                 Cronulla Beach

                                               Mira and Carla on the way to the zoo and Justin too.

                                                     Jackson, above and Bilbys, below.

We had Thursday as a study day, etc and Erik and I went to visit Faye Robinson.  We ate lunch at the cafe in her nearby park and took a drive to Cronulla.  Faye's husband, Jeff, went to Graceland with Tore and Marge and we stayed with them 10 years ago.  It was wonderful to see Faye again and we enjoyed our afternoon.

Friday we took the Ferry to Taronga Zoo, where we had a very wonderful and hands-on lecture by the zoo staff in their brand new Education building.  We even got to see Bilbys, which was a treat.  Then we had the afternoon to explore the rest of the zoo.  I was most happy to see 2 Platypus swimming and swimming.  They are so much littler than you'd think and so unique.  What a treat.  I also loved the fairy penguins.  Erik loved seeing the Echidnas and Koalas.  It's a great zoo and in a gorgeous location.

What a great first week.  All the students are on time to every event and so interested in learning and ask great questions!  A great start!