New South Wales, Always an Adventure

Well, well, well. Yesterday, Saturday the 27th, Graham and I completed another leg of our trip. We managed to make the 13 hour drive from Cobden, Victoria to Sydney, New South Wales. This drive was most definitely longer than our drive from Adelaide to Cobden and we saw more of a change in the weather as well. The rain came down for close to 45 minutes and the majority of it was heavy. Several cars were pulled off to the shoulder, but being the men that we are we decided to keep going, albeit at a slower pace. The rain eventually cleared up and we made a gas/mackers stop (mackers is abbreviation for McDonalds, Aussies love to abbrev). Sydney is a huge city, that is about all I'll say about that. Five million large to be exact. Once we got in to Sydney it took us a fair while to find the place where we're staying, but with help from several people we managed to make our way here eventually.

Our accomadations for the next 5 days is at a house owned by a great auntie once removed. You could just say a distant relative of mine I suppose. Her name is Mary and she's actually originally from Canada herself but has lived in Australia for the majority of her life. Our plans for the next few days go something like this. Tomorrow morning Mary is taking us down to a wildlife sanctuary which is one of her favorite places to go. Apparently we can actually pet the Koalas there and do all that touristy stuff. I suppose we'll have to take some pictures of that at the very least. The day after that Caitlin is flying back to Australia and landing in Sydney for about 30 hours. She'll stay with us for a night and we'll probably end up taking a ferry underneath the Sydney Harbour Bridge and past the Sydney Opera House (both of which we saw last night on our way into the city. After we drop of Caitlin on the 31st we'll have to head down to the circular quay and probably set up camp for the New Years fireworks. As Aunt Mary said, everybody and their dog will want to see the fireworks and so we'll probably hang around the shops and the opera house all day to be able to get a decent view of the once in a lifetime experience. New Years day will probably be a sleeping in one and most likely just relaxing in a quiet suburb after a night of millions of people. The second of January is the day that we're planning to leave for Byron Bay. If all goes well we should be able to make it to Byron Bay for a late dinner and meet up with some of the people from the YWAM Adelaide base, which I suppose is a part of our Australian family by now.

Before I get going I will leave you with a bit of lame humour, nothing I made up myself but two different signs I saw in the last two days. The first was along the Hume Highway between Melbourne and Sydney and it was for a town called Howlong. The sign literally read 'Howlong this Exit'. Like I already told somebody, if you say it as a question with an asian accent it's much more funny. The second sign was one I saw today on our way back from a walk along the wharf. Mary's house is near an old Psych Hospital and they have many different buildings with many different signs, some of them still being used as specialized wards for certain things. The sign read 'Schizophrenia Fellowship', no joke. Now before you go off and say how mean that is, just think about it. Does there have to be more than one person in the room? Meh, I'll let you wrestle with that deep and profound thought. I must get going but I would love to hear how Christmas's went and what the New Years plans are. Cheers for now.

Thanks again for all of your prayers and Christmas wishes. I have felt encouraged many times by family and friends and am truly blessed to have supporters. Your continued prayers in the next couple of weeks would also be appreciated as we are planning to be on the road for most of January. Thank you.