Skiing In Australia in August !?!?

To get to the snow here we actually had to drive to Canberra (30 min. away) and meet a bus which drove us another 3 hours to get to Thredbo which was the ski hill. We then could enjoy 5 or 6 hours on the slopes! Although it can't quite compare with Canadian Rockies, it was pretty good and I can't complain. It was also nice to get my snowball fight in for the year!

Photo 1 - Gum Trees on the Ski Hill!
Photo 2 - One of the hills which was off limits to skiers but we go right over it on the chair lift - not much snow!!
Photo 3 - A standard easy ski run
Photo 4 - People on the Ski Hill at the end of the day!
Photo 5 - All of us from Warrambui who went skiing, after a long day of skiing and ready to hop back into a bus for 3 hours! Russell, Kira, Candice, Dallan, Heidi and I

July Events!

Well as it looks like on my blog it may seem I didn't get up to much in July but that is actually not true at all. During the second week of July the majority of our staff went to Sydney for a week where we attended the huge HILLSONG conference. It was much like breakforth but a lot bigger. 'Hillsong United' did all the music so it was cool to learn a bunch of new songs, and everyday the speakers changed so we also got a variety of that. In the afternoons there was time to go to electives but also time to just look around. The conference was held at Olympic Park so wherever you looked you would see something to do with the Olympics, I thought this was pretty cool!!

Here are just a couple photos, the one is of all of us who went (so pretty much all the staff here!) and the other is just a shot of the conference from our seats. During the evening program we had assigned seats but for the rest of it you just could sit wherever you found space.

This was also a week where we got to experience the City Tram...morning and evening, two trains each way. We were among many other Hillsong goers though so that was good.

And then when we left Hillsong, Lena (the german intern) stayed in Sydney so we had to say our goodbyes as she was flying home back to Germany, so exciting for her but sad for the rest of us.

Also in July we went on our midyear intern retreat to Minnamurra. Just a small town off the coast. The house we stayed at was only about a 30 second walk to the beach. Although it is 'winter' here and not swimming weather we did go down and up to our knees with one of us - Heidi going fully in! We also went out and did a TreeTop walk which was just this really high structure that walked us through a huge gum tree forest - I thought it was pretty cool and took way too many gum tree photos! It was good to get out and see some more of Australia while hanging out with the people here...I even got them playing mini sticks one night!

So there's a couple photos from that too - the one is of us at the Tree Top walk, and one is of us 4 interns- and in the photo we are eating pavlova - classic Australian dessert, and the last one is of Heidi and I at the beach...now you can see it was a bit of a chilly windy day!

But anyways just one more update to keep you guys up to date and more to come later! Enjoy!

NZ photos

Here are just a couple photos from my new zealand trip...can't really sum it up in a couple but here goes. The first one is the view from Christchurch at the top of a Gondola ride. The second is of me playing mini golf - there are soo many golf courses in NZ it is crazy! While driving around everywhere we found some interesting things, one was this huge semi-truck on the side of the road - perfect photo op! One is the view from the side of a suspension bridge that we walked across....the biggest in NZ. And the last one is of me and a sheep - one of the 60 million that live in NZ. We went to the world famous sheep show in Rotorua where they shear sheep and show you all the different kinds of sheep and before and after you can cuddle them and get your photo with them!

New Zealand Holiday

Well as a break to get away from 'work' which is really just another big holiday for me in Australia but anyways I got to go to New Zealand with Dallan (who is actually my intern coordinater at Warrambui)!! We spent 10 days going from the South Island up to the North Island....many of those days crossing from one side to the next without driving too much! We started in Christchurch where we rode the Gondola up to see how huge the city really is and enjoy some beautiful views! We then drove up to Westport which didn't have too much but to get there was spectacular, we drove right through (I drove - very windy cliffy roads!) Lewis Pass. This was fun driving as I wasn't worried about staying on the left side of the road but instead I had to focus on all the curves, no but it was actually really fun so that was good. Also New Zealand is know as the adventure country of the world, this didn't have any impact on me but for Dallan (who I was travelling with) he did bungy jumping so although you can do this pretty much anywhere in NZ he did it at Hanmer Springs. And convienently there where hot springs there too so we got to enjoy that. Not quite like Banff but there was snow there so I did really love that and even got to make a mini snowman!
From Westport we went to Nelson, and then on to Picton where we caught the ferry up to the North Island. We got to see heaps when we left the country because of all the random islands but then for the rest of the ferry we just had ocean all around us. Coming into the North Island we came to Wellington - NZ's capital city! Had a look around at all the parliament buildings - the famous beehive shaped building and a couple more!
From Wellington we headed up through Palmerston North and then to Rotorua. Here there are heaps of natural hot pools so of course we enjoyed the beautiful smell of rotten eggs. From Rotorua we went through hamilton and are now in Auckland. Today we went to the world famous sheep show where they talked about the different kinds of sheep and then they sheered one in front of everyone. Very cool and just made me love sheep even more!
New Zealand to me is much like Canada so that has been great...lots of mountains, hills, and everything is so green! Even in 'winter' here I can wear shorts and jandals (flip-flops) and not get too cold! Also in NZ there are heaps and heaps of sheep everywhere! Everywhere you look so that that has been great.

Well there will be more to come later and I will try to add some photos, we've rented a car so it has been really easy to get around and I have gotten lots of left-side driving so that has been great! Again I will fill in more gaps with details later but enjoy this for now!

Holidays!!

So just to give you all a taste of some of my holidays adventures. I got lucky and scored almost two weeks off of work and got to enjoy it with a lot of great people. I started off by flying to Melbourne with a friend from camp here - Kira (she works in the office). We spent the weekend there at a conference called Grassroots. Met some great people there and also got to see a bit of Melbourne.
From there I flew out to Coolangatta - or the Gold Coast where Joel, Jesse, and Marla picked me up!! Later that evening Lena (intern from Warrambui) flew in to meet us too. This is when the real holiday began. To give you a quick summary I will do this:

Tuesday - Movie World
Basically the rivalry of Disney Land but it was still pretty cool. Got to go on some crazy scary rides, watch a lot of scenes from movies, go to SHREK 4D....watch a real stunt show, among other things it was a packed day of fun!

Wed - Australia Zoo
So cool because we got to actual interact and cuddle a lot of the animals. It was also very cool to see all the Steve Irwin stuff they have everywhere - and we were in the crocasium....and we saw Robert Irwin (that was pretty cool!)

Thursday - Driving and Bundaberg
Drove 800km or so I think...had a stop at a town called Bundaberg where the famous Australian Rum distillery is. We stopped here for a quick tour and then we were on the road again! This day I drove for like 2 hour and through a city with traffic lights, this wouldn't be a big deal normally but this was a manual!!

Friday - Hamiliton Island
We took a ferry out to this beautiful island, all day we spent just relaxing on the beach, driving around our hired (rented) golf cart. No cars on this island! Really just a day to relax and not do too much.
Also from friday-sunday we stayed in a gorgeous villa in Airlie Beach where each night we could come back and make ourselves a proper dinner and just relax in a house like thing (as opposed to a hostel).

Saterday - Ocean Rafting
Spent a good portion of the day out on the water on this powered raft that could hold about 30. This day we also got to go scuba diving which was amazing and I can't wait to do it again! Also we ate lunch of Whithaven beach and enjoyed that!

Sunday -
Joel, Jesse, and Marla left and Lena and I hopped onto a bus to Mackay. Here we spent the evening at the Mackay Harbour and touring small town art galleries!

Monday -
Very early morning as a taxi picked us up at 5:30 and brought us the airport where we flew to Sydney. On this day we stayed very busy using many different ways of transportation that is for sure! We did a tour inside the Sydney Opera House so that was really cool!! Also we did a harbour bridge cruise, we expected a little boat to show up but a huge cruise ship came in that our ticket matched up to! We got to enjoy afternoon tea while looking out onto the harbour bridge and opera house and sydney tower!

Tuesday
We enjoyed the Sydney Tower - got to go up it as well as do an Oz Tower adventure. Basically just a 4d adventure of Australia. We also did the Sydney Aqurium which was way better that I would have ever thought!! Busy day but we enjoyed the afternoon just wandering around and doing shome shopping. We then hopped on a bus that took us to Canberra where we had people from Warrambui waiting to pick us up and bring us back.

It was an amazing trip and I'm so glad that I could get out and see some of Australia. But also it was great to get back to Warrambui and get back into the some what routine life! Well sorry that was a quick summary, I guess you will have to wait for the real good stories when I come home!! Enjoy!!

Easter Camp - Warrambui Style!

Every year Warrambui puts on an Easter camp for the confirmation aged kids of New South Wales (and whoever!) This year there were 23 campers and 20 leader!...therefore us interns where campers with Dallan as our leader when it was group time and leaders for everything else - a bit of a mix up weekend. It started on thursday night where we did a passover meal in the centrium - and later did a Taize service - just lots of music and readings - much of the songs where the sending songs from campfire at Kuriakos actually!! On the friday we did a mock Sanhedrin drama where we as an intern group became herodians..we had to make up a cheer and prove our points. It was really fun because everyone got into it and acted out their roles. That afternoon we walked to stations of the cross walk - it was very well put together as we experience many different aspects of the Easter story as we went. That evening was a bit different as we were all blind-folded and they walked us through the easter story again using sounds. The following day - Sat. we fasted all day...the campers didn't know about it but we knew. We got breakfast and then went the whole day until sunday morning. On sat. we just did a lot of skit preparing and such. Also just lots of hanging out and not doing too much. Although at one time we went down to the basketball courts and Joel and I taught everyone how to play 'toilet tag' and now they call it the toilet game! Sunday morning we got up nice and early - 6:00 and woke up all the campers cheering 'He is Risen' - from there we walked to the tomb to see that it was empty! There we had a sunrise service with lots of singing and readings and such. Leading from the tomb we did the bushwalk trail up to the lookout point (highest point of warrambui) and then the path lead us the to the campfire. Here we (the interns (me) and Bri) lead everyone in a bunch of campfire songs. Joel and I lead 'Brown Squirrel' and they LOVED it! I have not heard them stop talking about it since! We then got a cooked breakfast as our first meal since the day before and carried on singing. Jumping ahead for our last meal of the weekend we had a party lunch in the center! They had decorated it all up with ballons that we had wrote 'what easter means to us' attached to the bottom of them....we then walked to the new building site and let them go!! Easter camp is the very busy impacting weekend but overall it went really great and I have again met new people (even though I recognized a lot of them too!)

I don't know if you all knew but for Lent we as a staff here at Warrambui gave up watching TV...so when the campers all left we set up a movie in the centrium and watched it big screen just like the movies. Well now we are all back into camp life again as we have our second school group coming in this week that we has interns will be leading programs and the whole deal so looking forward to that!
Again sorry I don't update this often and sorry the photos are limited - I do have a whole lot more, it is just the internet connection is so slow it would take me ages to download them all!! Enjoy and hope you all had great Easter's too!!

Jack Johnson Visits Wollongong and so did we!!

So last thursday Lena, Joel, Marla, and I all headed out in a very full car to head out to the green city of Wollongong - about a hour south of Sydney for a Jack Johnson concert! We had decided to go camping so the little car was packed with eski (cooler), swags (heavy duty sleeping bags with mattresses), and other camping gear! Also we were in a quite a rush as we arrived in Wollongong with just enough time to set up our tent and race to the concert. The concert was very very good...although we were nearly at the back of our row we were kind of middle close to him so that was amazing. He nearly played 17 songs with his band of a bass player, drummer, and piano player (who at times was playing two pianos at once!!) I suggest that if anyone ever gets a chance to go to a Jack Johnson concert they should definetely go!! Then to make it better he came out and did a 3 song encore so that topped it all off. As well as Jack Johnson there was another guy named Will Conner, Matt Costa, and special appearance by some Australian Aboriginals who did some dances and played the didgeridoo!!
For the weekend we stayed at this campground called Surf Resort - or something very close to that. When we arrived we were the only ones in the tenting area and we were less than a walk away from the ocean!! On sat. we spent the entire day almost at the beach, we also had rented a body board so enjoyed surfing the waves!! Then to conclude the day we played tennis at the campground - it was my first time playing and it was soo fun! On sat. we drove back home with one quick stop in Kiama to see the blow hold - unforunately the tide was out so we didn't get to see the famous blow hole but we did get to enjoy climbing the rocks - the one photo is of Joel 'hanging off' one of the rocks. We got back just in time to quickly get to Canberra to see Sky-Fire Fireworks. One of the radio stations put it on and it was so good - set to music and everything. We joined a big group from Woden (the church we attend) so that was heaps of fun! All in all it was good to get out and see more Australia and especially good to see Jack Johnson!!