church, kangaroos and glowworms

may 4, 2008
10:15 PM
camp fletcher

happy 21st birthday jodi! i hope her birthday was fun, but i'm not sure how it could have been spoiled...we are in australia after all. =)

carl drove us to hillsongs church this morning. we had to laugh when we were directed where to park by multiple parking attendants. i really enjoyed this church, but i'm not sure i would actually attend it if i lived in sydney. the worship music was unfamiliar, but deeply moving. it was a little odd to have three screens to look at as i worshipped though. it felt as though i was at a conference, with the booths of merchandise outside of the sanctuary and "commercials" before and after the service for upcoming events. we had several people come up to us and initiate conversations, which made it more personal than it might have otherwise been. i feel like it would be hard to have a sense of community with so many services and so many people. i don't doubt that God was present at this church or even that he is using these people to minister to others. i just feel like it could be difficult to get connected unless you were being really purposeful about doing so.

our next stop was featherdale wildlife park. we hadn't even been there two minutes before i was holding a wallaby. it gave me quite the thrill to pet the koalas and kangaroos and to just be so close to some of my favorite animals! i love marsupials.

on our way to camp fletcher, we stopped for lunch. jodi and i shared fries from red rooster to go along with the rest of our food. and then we discovered 30 cent ice cream cones at mcdonald's, which was across the street. unlike the rest of food we'd found so far in australia, this was cheap! and it also turned out to be quite delicious, although it was slightly different than a soft serve cone in the states. with our stomachs satisfied, there was a bit of napping on the ride to the camp.

after getting settled, we hiked down to a beautiful waterfall right behind the camp, which we later returned to when it was dark to see the glowworms. glowworms (pictured at the bottom) are incredible-they looked like sparkling points of colored light all along the cave wall, which would disappear as soon as a beam of light from a torch shone on them.

aside from two jaunts through a bit of australian forest, the evening was filled with delicious food and games. i laughed so much. we convinced carl to join in our games and he kept us quite entertained. we played spoons, 10,000 with dice, and ended with numbers (using dice) which was exceptionally competitive. snatching the pen turned out to be more violent than i anticipated! =) and carl was quite impish as he hid people's papers or made me chase him to get the pen, which was decidedly against the rules. but he didn't seem to care too much. and i think he was more readily forgiven because of his charming aussie accent.

"bum on the seat-you have that rule in the us?" -carl

the sky here is really something at night. the stars are breathtaking. its strange to look up and see a completely different mix of constellations. carl showed me what the southern cross looks like, and he taught me well since i was able to show meagan and jodi when were on our trek to find glow-worms.

time for bed before our day of hiking tomorrow! it will start early with brekky at 7:30!