sacred wild donkeys

The community had several wild donkeys that just hung out on the outskirts of the town. The donkeys were there for two reasons 1) the aboriginals never kill an animal that they don't eat and 2) the missionaries taught them that Jesus rode donkeys. Therefore, they consider them sacred. They also point out that the donkey has a cross on its back.

Even though they are sacred they said we could still ride them!! My international friends were a little hesitant so I had to show them that it was ok. We were prepared for a real rodeo, but we could hardly get the donkeys to move!

If there is a next time, I think we will probably tie an apple to the end of of a string on a stick. I'm confident that will work.

Football training

Everyday at 3 o'clock about 20 guys met out at the football oval for training. This was definitely their favorite part of the day. These guys eat, breathe and sleep Aussie Rules Football. One of the first questions they asked us was "which team do you barrack (support) for?" So as foreigners we usually said a different team each time they asked.
They let us kick the ball around with them before they started the real training. The ball is passed by either a kick ( what we call a punt) or a hand punch (like an underhand volleyball serve), but never thrown. I would have to say that the time at the football oval was probably my favorite part of the trip also. It was good to see what really gets them going. I thought this picture was funny. You think these two guys are just spectators, but they are the coaches. They didn't ever say a word to the guys while they were training.

This is the community bus used to get the team into town for their games. As you can see they are the Canteen Creek Blues. They said that this 22 seat bus usually takes about 50 people to the game each week! Not to mention that they travel down 180km (108 miles) of rough, dusty gravel road. One window was missing and many of the seats were torn. The book on the dash is an old bible.

From left to right - Martin from Sweden, Joel Mick (eldest son of eldest son or soon to be president of community and also a "love song" fan, especially Michael Bolton and Celine Dion), Bill, Kenneth, Janet from China

The guys are holding one of the hives we made. The hives are just a box cut in half with a small whole for the bee to enter. That being said we only made 3 of them during our stay. We had a hard time communicating with the guys. We couldn't tell if they wanted to work or not.

While the guys were making the hives, the ladies were doing paintings. The paintings are going to be used in developing a logo for the honey. We will most likely use a name from their native language.

The kids are going to paint some of the hives.
This is my favorite picture. The kids liked it when I took their picture and then showed it to them.

Here is a picture of the community from atop their water tower at sunset. The mixture of colors made this definitely the best time of the day. No, I didn't profess my love for Cristin in spray paint while on the water tower.

Collecting honey

Graham (vice president of community), Janet (sydney uni student), Kathy (community assistant and our host). This is the group making our way into the bush - looking for the bees.

Martin, Sydney Uni student from Sweden, is listening to the bees inside the tree.The stingless bees are quite small!! Apparently, there are several species of stingless bees in Australia and we happen to be working with the smallest kind. They are about the size of an ant. This is one reason why this honey is going to bee so expensive!!!
Adrian Mick (community president b/c he's the eldest son of the community founder) swinging away at the gum tree. Once we have enough hives started we will not have to chop into the trees, but can just split the boxed hives once per year to grow the business.

That's the nest!

Melbourne

This is the beautiful city of Melbourne. The downtown area is very artsy and is known for its great architecture. Bill and I wandered around the city all day for our first day. There are beautiful parks, large sport arenas (the MCG), and fantastic shopping! Bill experienced his first Tiffanys, Louis Vuitton and Prada stores!! :) Of course, we were just looking - not buying! I'm sure he enjoyed it as much as I did! ;)



We went to a fantastic Picasso exhibit at the National Gallery of Victoria. It really was fascinating. I thought the sign was pretty cool, too!
Monday night we went to a Coldplay concert and had a great time! We had seats in the 2nd row!! It was amazing - I definitely lost my voice that night! Chris Martin was very entertaining to watch, and is very talented!


This is just a brief glance of what the Great Ocean Road looks like. Imagine that times 4 hours! It was VERY windy - we never knew what to expect around the next turn! Tuesday we spent most of the day driving to the West of Melbourne on the Great Ocean Road. It is a definite must if you are visiting Melbourne!

Below is a picture of the 12 Apostles. It was an absolutely amazing view - well worth the drive! This trip to Melbourne was so much fun. While we were in Melbourne, we stayed with a fantastic couple - Trevor and Jillian Keetley. They were terrific and we were so appreciative to make some great friends during our trip!

Quick Update: Bill's trip to the Aboriginal village of Canteen Creek has been postponed for 1 week. He will leave on the 17th of July. I can't wait to see his pictures - it will be an amazing experience, I'm sure!

Thanks for your prayers and emails, Bill and I are having a great time! We hope you enjoy reading about our adventures! :)

Trip to Melbourne

We made our first Australian road trip last weekend! We drove down to Melbourne from Sydney. We decided to take the coastal route which takes about 12 hours! Sounds like fun, huh!! :) Actually, we had a great time and learned alot about Australia! The pictures below are all from stops we made on the way.

Pelicans for Glenis! This was taken at our first stop - a town called Bateman's Bay. This is only a few hours outside of Sydney - many Sydneysiders go there for weekend holidays. It was a very neat little town with a beautiful bay area. One thing - Australia is a lot like Oklahoma in the sense that the names are not very easy to pronounce. We have lots of Indian names, Australians have lots of Aboriginal names. We entertained ourselves by trying to read the signs as we passed them. It wasn't easy!!! Cristin wrote down a few that were particularly interesting: Ulladulla, Wandandian, Wallagaragh, Mallacoota, Bermagui, Croajinglong, Koo Wee Rup, and Dandenong. I still don't know how to pronounce some of them!One of our big stops was at the Bega cheese factory in Bega (go figure!). We toured the factory and then, at the end, we tasted all the cheeses. The milk comes from hundreds of surrounding dairy farms. The Bega brand is one of the most recognizable cheese brands in Sydney. Kangaroos on the golf course! This was just off the highway in a small town. It reminds me of Caddy Shack. We are such tourists... we had to stop and take pictures! :)
Here's Cristin at the Killer Whale museum in Eden. The story behind this museum is that a killer whale named Tom, helped the local whaling industry in the early 1900's. Tom would herd other species of whales to the whalers so they could kill them and give Tom the lips and tongues (gross). He often slapped his tail on the water to wake up the whalers. The whalers would jump in their boats and Tom would lead them to the whale. It is a pretty interesting little story, but the town is built around the (now terminated) whaling industry.

When we were leaving we asked a lady working there how far it was to Lake's Entrance (the town where we were staying the night). She told us about 3 hours. But, she was very concerned that we get through the mountains before dusk. This was so we could get to our destination before the kangaroos and wombats would be out. So its sort of dangerous to be driving through these country towns around sunset. We thought this was interesting her advice was not to watch out for kangaroos and wombats but to get off the road because of kangaroos and wombats!
This picture is for J.C. back home. I think his all time favorite movie is "The Man from Snowy River." We made it to our hostel in Lake's Entrance just after dark. The trip felt like we were driving down Route 66. We didn't need a map, we just followed the same road as it lead us through every small town between Sydney and Melbourne.

The next morning we started our trip again to finally reach Melbourne. We made a couple of little stops along the way, but were pretty anxious to get into the city. But, the Australian countryside is very pretty and the drive along the coast was very relaxing! We highly recommend it for anyone who has the time!

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!! :)

Our First Visitor!! Oh, to hear an Oklahoman accent again!

So, the countdown has begun... only 1 full day until our friend Susan Crenshaw arrives in Sydney!! We can't wait to host our first guest... we have spent a lot of time planning how to cram all of the best parts of Sydney into a one week holiday! We will be tour guide EXPERTS by the time you all come to see us! ;) Also, we can't wait to talk to a friend from home - face-to-face! So far, using our webcam to talk to our families has been our saving grace. But now... the real thing!!! We are pumped!

Since our last update we have done a lot of real world things.... study, study, study and work, work, work! :) Fortunately, we have been able to have a few fun adventures in the mean time! We attended our first Rugby game (Cronulla Sharks vs the Dragons) with a friend of mine from work Sarah Stark and some of her friends! Barbara (exchange student from Austria) also went! We had a great time. I'll admit, I spent most of the time in confusion, trying to figure out what was going on!




For Mother's Day, we celebrated with Phil and Glenis and their family. We also celebrated Rohan's birthday as you can see here. This is Julie and Rohan and we spend a lot of time with them! We actually went to their house for dinner last weekend and Julie decided on a Mexican theme for the meal. It was so great! Funny thing was, we had to teach Julie how to say "quesadilla!" We had a great time and appreciate so much being friends with them!




We will post so much more about our adventures with Susan... I am sure we will have a lot to share!

Thanks for reading!!! We love and miss you all!! :)

Guys Day Out

Sydney Swans vs. Melbourne Demons
A couple of weeks ago, Phil took me to see my first Aussie Rules Football game. This game is quite different from American football or "gridiron" football as it's called here. There are no offsides, the game is continuous, and the ball must be either "punched" (much like an underhand volleyball serve) or kicked. The differences in the atmosphere include: meat pies instead of hot dogs, the crowd sings the team songs in unison when goals are scored, instead of saying "come on Swans" they yelled "con Swans," and the most popular fan apparel was a team scarf even though it was a hot day. Phil was able to explain the game very well as he used to be an Aussie rules umpire. Even though the Swans lost, the game was very exciting and came down to the very last second. It was great experience and I can now watch sports on tv again because I now know what's going on! Tomorrow Cristin and I plan to meet some friends for our first professional rugby game (Cronulla Sharks vs. St. George Illawarra Dragons).

Today, I was invited on a deep sea fishing expedition with Lloyd Markwell of Caringbah Rotary and some of his best mates. There were seven guys in total including another Rotarian, Eddie Swinyard and his son Marty. As you can see we had an early start. Lloyd and I were on the boat by about 5:40 am! They say catching a fish is the best medicine for sea sickness! This was my first catch of the day. I know it doesn't look too big but it was still very exciting. I caught three fish for the day but none of them were classified as "keepers." This fish is called a sweep; we were looking for Red Snappers and another one that I can't remember the name! We were usually fishing in water about 65 metres deep, using mullet fish and squid as bait.
Here's Captain Lloyd and Garth on the way home. This was especially a good trip because we were able to see dolphins. None of my pictures turned out, but I promise we saw them! They also said that this area was good for seeing whales in September and March. Cristin and I have put this on our calendar.
Here's the boat. It's huge, 43 feet long! All in all the day was very exciting as there were many "firsts" for me. We all had a great time. It was even better when I was able to bring a fish home for Cristin (of course, she thought it smelled!). We cleaned it and cooked it for dinner. It was excellent! We both are excited about eating more fish now!