Oranges, Whales, and Finals!

Hello Sydney Markets! Bill and I decided to venture out to the MASSIVE markets out at Flemington. As you can see... it is rather large and VERY loud!! All the vendors yell out their prices, trying to differentiate their products from their neighbors! We left with quite a nice bounty... almost 1 kilo of cherries (a taste of summer for us!), some strawberries, and 16 kilos of oranges!!! Yes, that's right... 35.2 pounds of orange goodness! We hope Phil likes oranges because we gave him half of the box (about 30 oranges) for his birthday present!! :)

Canteloupes = Rock Melons = "Rockies" (Australians shorten EVERYTHING!)

This was a great adventure! Lloyd took a group, including Bill and myself, out Whale Watching in his boat! It was so much fun! And... guess what... we saw Whales!! I almost had a hard time believing what I saw... Luckily I had my camera to prove it! We saw about 8 or 10 whales and had a great time driving around searching for them! The best part was when a whale jumped out of the water - it was almost like we were at SeaWorld! The whale did a perfect spin out of the water - it was amazing! Unfortunately, I wasn't able to capture all of those spectular instants... All I have to prove of our sightings is this little tail! Oh well, its still proof!

Bill finally finished his finals for the semester! He will be taking a winter course, so he doesn't get too much of a holiday before the next big round of classes. He finished his classes well and feels he learned very practical information! Always a plus!! :)

Tomorrow we are off to Melbourne for a 5 day holiday. It will be a whirlwind trip and we plan on seeing a great deal! We are so excited... we are getting to go see Coldplay while we are there!! Anyway, we are driving, so keep us in your prayers.... its a long 14 hour drive on the coastal route! Don't worry, we are staying the night at Lakes Entrance along the way! :)

We will update next week with pictures of Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road!

Oklahoma friend #2!!

This week we had our second visitor from Oklahoma. My friend, Mike Albert, from Beaver, Oklahoma stayed with us for 3 days. He just graduated from OSU and accepted a job as a Landscape Architect in Aspen, Colorado. Sydney was the first stop on 21 day holiday to Australia and New Zealand, countries 21 and 22 for Mike in total!!

Below is a picture from Centre Point Tower overlooking Darling Harbour. Nice view, huh? I was able to take him exploring the city on Tuesday capped off with an Australian BBQ hosted by Julie and Rohan.

Wednesday was when the trip really started to get interesting! I took Albert driving along the coast line to explore the famous beaches of Sydney. Well we ended the trip at the South Head, near Watsons Bay. The following picture is from the South Head. We knew there was something weird going on when we saw police cars and a police rescue truck at the bottom. When we got to the top it was just as Phil had warned Cristin and I earlier this year- a suicide. Apparently the Gap is known for being a place where lots of suicides happen. Mike and I saw the rescuers repel down the cliff to retrieve the body (luckily we couldn't see it!).

We were able to see a few whales as they were migrating for the winter! There were about 3 or 4 whales in the distance. We needed binoculars to get a good view, but we could definitely see the water they were blowing out just no big jumps like you see in the commercials!! How's that a suicide and whales all in one spot??? Crazy.

Here's the token kangaroo picture. We were afraid he might not see one on the rest of his trip so we took him to the local zoo. We need to work on a discount that's our 3rd trip since we've been here and surely not our last!
Thursday night we went to see the movie Cars. It felt like we were back in Oklahoma because the whole movie is set off of Route 66 and Interstate 40. Plus, there were lots of country songs that reminded us of Oklahoma. But after the movie we walked out to the beach and took lots of pictures.

We had a great time with Mike. It was great to catch up. We wish him well with the rest of his trip and new job!!! Cristin is already planning our trip to Aspen!

Going to Canteen Creek!

I (Bill) found out this week that I will be able to make the trip to Canteen Creek. The uni has found sponsors to fund our trip, which costs about $5,000 per person. We will be leaving on a Monday and return that Saturday in mid July. The only drawback is that at this time Cristin will not get to go with me. We are still working on that, but if possible she may me meet me in Alice Springs for a trip to Ayers Rock.

For those of you who don’t know, I have been working on a project for my entrepreneurship class for an Indigenous community located in the Northern Territory of Australia. We will fly to Alice Springs then drive for a day and a half. We will be camping out on the side of the road in the Outback (Please….no snake or dingo stories from you guys!).

Pretty much 100% of this community of 200 people are supported through government funding. The community only has a government run grocery store, health centre and school (up to year 8). Other than that there are no other businesses.

A group of 3 men went to the community work program director asking for assistance to set up a business utilizing their native stingless bees. The director contacted our uni and we worked to develop this business all semester.

There have been many hurdles as communication with community has been very difficult. We had no idea how much honey we could produce or even what kind of stingless bees were in Canteen Creek. Our goal has been to create a business that fosters learning and growth in the community. As most community members only have an eighth grade education, we have lined up several training opportunities in stingless beekeeping, which is quite new and completely different to commercial beekeeping, and basic business skills. The idea is to reward the employees with higher wages for completing training courses. They will also be in charge of training new employees the skills they have learned after the first 2 years. We have tons of potential with the community, we hope the business will be successful, but at the same time we look for the employees to gain confidence and skills that can be transferred to other businesses.

Here are some links to the community:

http://www.deadlymob.org/col2_ob.cfm?randid=945158

http://www.barklygroupschools.com/html/canteen_creek.html

http://www.schools.nt.edu.au/canteen/

This link is a blog set up by another group in my class. There were 3 groups working on this project. This group and two others from my group will be making the trip. We will put together one business plan from the 3 plans to present to the community.

http://abc.net.au/catapult/interact/gameplan/honey.htm

I am so excited for this trip! What we are doing for this community falls right in line the goal of Rotary to promote world peace and understanding. I will have lots to report to my Australian and American Rotary clubs. I can’t wait!!

More Sites of Sydney following celebrity traveler, Susan!

As you can see by all the pictures, we had a very fun and full week with our Okie friend, Susan! We were able to do so much! I only wish that it hadn't been so cold! Fortunately, she got to see some great Sydney winter days before experiencing some very cold and wet weather! :)

I am trying to remember all that Susan got to see and do (I will tell all that she did, although Bill and I weren't able to accompany her some during the week!) :( Most Australians that I tell about our week are VERY impressed with everything we accomplished! And, can you believe Susan got to have a fairly "restful" holiday as well! Looks like a win/win!! :)

On Sunday morning, we picked Susan up from the airport and went straight to Cronulla for breakfast. That same day we went to the Rotary markets in Caringbah, where Bill had to work the gates for a couple of hours. After meeting some Rotarians that have welcomed us so warmly, we traveled into the city to drop Bill off at Uni for a meeting and then Susan and I went to the Rocks to see about 50 artists out on the pier painting as people walked around to see all the different styles of art in the area. Also, the Rocks has one of the best markets for Sydney souvenirs. Later that night we went to the Hillsong City service and had a great time!

This is a view of the Opera House that most people haven't seen! Susan took a ferry to the Taronga Zoo and got some spectacular views of the Harbour and the bridge! She also took a tour of the Opera House! I can't wait until Bill and I can find a great opera to go to... I just know he would love that!! ;)

This is Susan wearing the classic Australian "Akubra" hat - doesn't she look all Australian! We are at Paddy's markets - that place was packed!!!!
This is Bill trying to fit his head into a viking display at the National Maritime Museum. Unfortunately, his head is too big!! hahaha! He would make a pretty fierce little viking, huh!
SCARY!!! We had some pretty close encounters at the Sydney Aquarium! The aquarium is a great highlight of Sydney. It is also in a great part of the city. The National Maritime Museum is across the pier from the Aquarium. After the Aquarium, we had to go
Okay, to summarize, Susan got to see so much of Sydney! She went to a nearby vineyard called the Hunter Valley for a day tour, went to the PowerHouse museum and the Sydney Art Gallery. She went to the Royal Botanical Gardens (near the picture shown above) and the Taronga Zoo. She toured the Opera House and visited Miss McQuaries chair for spectacular views of the Harbour. She fed kangaroos and cuddled koalas (as you can see in the pictures from our previous post). We went to the Aquarium, the Maritime Museum, Coogee Beach, Cronulla Beach, and of course, Bondi Beach.

All in all, we had a fantastic week and loved seeing our friend! AND, we are thrilled to have Mike Albert come stay with us on Tuesday! Mike is getting to see more of Australia than we have at this point, so we will be taking some notes from his experiences too! I am sure he will have some great stories! Thanks for reading our blog - sorry we have been so bad about updating lately! I will work on updating more often so that they won't be so long!! We love and miss you all!

See all the cool things you can do if you come see us! ;)

I will write more about our adventures... I just wanted to get these pictures up now!

We had a great time with Susan and have so much to write about! We love you all! Check back again tomorrow!! :)