Another Cassowary

This one we ran into in the parking lot of a Rain Forest Discovery Center (well, we didn't literally run into it--but it sauntered by just as carefree as you could imagine).  This shows a full body view.  I think this one is also a female.  She's beautiful!

Tomorrow we fly to Brisbane, where the weather should be fairly mild.  It's our last city here.

Daintree Rain Forest and a Lesson in Trust

For the last few days we've been in Daintree Rain Forest, part of Daintree National Park, north of Cairns (pronounced "Cans").  Finally we're in warm weather again and the heavy clothing we packed goes to the bottom of the suitcases.  Here's a photo showing a bird's eye view of the floor of the forest.

We heard that this area is famous for its population of endangered cassowaries.  We were with some other people, one of whom saw one fleetingly in the forest.  But we didn't.  Here's a funny sign--some graffiti artist took the Cassowary warning sign and combined it with the speed bump sign to illustrate what might happen if you drive too fast.  

But all day I didn't see one and was mightily disappointed.  Then we checked into our motel in the rain forest, and look what was hanging around.  

This bird is magnificent.  It has this weird crown thing on its head and heavy, scaly feet.  It's about 5 or 6 feet tall!  It looks as much like a dinosaur as anything else I've ever seen.  This one is a female--they are the prettier of the sexes for cassowaries.  She lays the eggs and he incubates them and takes care of the chicks.  Kind of like penguins... Great for illustrating the evolutionary line of birds from dinosaurs.  And great for me--yet another encouragement to believe in what I cannot see.  

An Aboriginal Perspective

In the last post I mentioned how the Immigration Museum in Adelaide, South Australia, includes a lot of material on the shameful way that British and other immigrants to Australia have treated the Aboriginal peoples here (who preceded them by 10 or 20 thousand years).  Here's a piece of art that was done by an Aboriginal artist.  It shows the White City on a Hill, made possible by the shacks and labor down below.  See what you think.

Welcoming and Excluding--the Australian Experience

Immigrants are a big deal here!  Basically ALL the non-native peoples who are Australian have been or are now immigrants (like the USA).

Like many other First World countries Australia struggles now to incorporate people who are refugees--immigrants of a sort, fleeing from economic, religious, or political persecution.  We attended an Evensong in Melbourne in St. Paul's Anglican Cathedral.

Now take a look at the banner high on the outside of the Cathedral.  Here it is.  I'm glad to see that this diocese is really championing inclusion and welcome.  I think the banner is effective because it showcases the young who need a safe place to live--they are the ones to be running things tomorrow, after all.

Then in Adelaide at the Immigration Museum I was pleased to see a good deal of attention given to how immigrants from white Europe treated the native peoples here--those whom we call Aborigines. Lots of exhibits detailed exclusionary attempts and attempts to forcefully kidnap little kids and take them to missionary schools, often Anglican, to teach them how to be Brits.  And this entailed separating them from their parents--often with violence.  How tragic--people are still healing from it.

This is the Australian experience.  It might help us think about how we do things in our own nation.

Aussie Icons Aplenty

The other morning we left our motel to begin the drive towards Adelaide in the state of South Australia.  We were in Hall's Gap in the Grampian mountains.  And what did we see just outside the motel door?

Not just any kangaroo but a mother kangaroo with a little baby in her pouch!  Turns out, when the moms bend over to graze on the grass, it's a perfect situation for the baby to do the same.  Nice way to learn!

Then crossing the mountains we stopped at a lookout for the view and a large bird fluttered up into a tree.  Turns out there were a male and female Laughing Kookaburra right there...and they just let us photograph them as much as we could...

Note the iridescent blue patch on the female's wings.  Unfortunately these ones were somber, and not laughing...

We stayed at a place on the banks of the Murray River, the most significant river in Australia.  There we had 5 great Australian Pelicans patrolling the river right outside our door.  With blue fairy-wrens in the yard and so many water birds...it was fantastic.

But sometimes things don't go your way, right?  For the last 2 days we had lots of driving rain and winds as successive Antarctic fronts blew their way across the continent.  And so it goes.

Seek and Ye Shall Find

We're in Australia now.  We spent a wonderful, full day in Melbourne, in the far south of the country.  It's winter here--but the temp got up to maybe 60 degrees in the sun.  Here's a picture I really like of the city--taken from a marina to the south.

Last time we were in Australia the only place I could see a kangaroo was in the Melbourne Zoo!  That's despite all the signs between Sydney and Melbourne that warn travelers of their presence--signs like this one:

I was starting to joke that they all run away when they know we're in town...but last night we had our first sighting--in farmland, away from much civilization.  They're like deer in that they come out at dusk and often hop right across the path of your car.  Kinda scary.  So today we drove to the Grampian Mountains and hit the jackpot.  Get a load of this:

They hang out in packs.  Also saw the head of a platypus at a distance in a pond on the farm!  And today got a glimpse of an emu in this kangaroo neighborhood.  Wow!

38 Years of Gestation

Today we leave NZ, flying from Queenstown to Melbourne, Australia, for the next leg.  We were fully 1/3 of the sabbatical here, and enjoyed every minute (well, as long as it wasn't that cold winter rain...)

I was reflecting back recently.  Why New Zealand?  What's the big motivation for so much time spent there?  The answer is a little funny.

43 years ago I was a junior in university.  That's when I took the required science course--Geology 101 and 102.  I put it off because I thought it would be so hard and I would hate it.  Wrong!  But the textbook we used had all these beautiful illustrations of landforms in it.  I'd pore over those for minutes and minutes because they were so gorgeous.  And pretty soon a theme emerged--the photos were courtesy of the New Zealand Tourism Bureau--credited in each caption.

So ever since age 19 I've had a bee in my bonnet about seeing NZ.  And with Barry's enthusiasm and especially with God's blessings, we've been able to be here.  It's at the point that it no longer feels different--but instead it feels just right.

That being said, we're really looking forward to being home again, with all the blessings--especially the people and the work at Christ Church--to look forward to again.