Australia Day 6 - 'Roo Poo

One of the things Phil misses most about the States is having biscuits and gravy…especially from Cracker Barrel. This morning, Lara and I got up early and cooked breakfast – an authentic southern dose of sausage gravy and biscuits. Now, biscuits here refer to “cookies”. There are no frozen or canned biscuits here and no Bisquick in the stores. Sharon found an easy biscuit recipe so Lara made some easy drop biscuits and I made sausage gravy. There is no American pork sausage here, so we bought some pork mince and added salt, pepper and sage. We tried to reproduce a good ‘ole southern breakfast as best we could with the ingredients we had available. It wasn't Cracker Barrel but Phil said he really enjoyed it.

We talked Phil into staying home and getting some rest today. His back is still giving him trouble from the accident in July and this morning he woke up with a sore throat.

We met at the church at 9:00 am. Ward let us use his Vonage on his computer to call home. We got to talk to our girls for the first time since we left. Actually, we only got to talk to Bailey. We miss them so much. We also talked to Lara's mom and dad.

Our hosts then took us to Oakvale Farm and Fauna where we saw lots of native Australian animals. The highlight was getting up close and personal with the koalas and the kangaroos. We bought some feed bags and the kangaroos ate right out of our hand! Ward said he got some kangaroo poo on his shirt. We didn’t get to feed or hold the koala’s, but we did get to pet them. The park only allows that twice a day and we were grateful to be there during one of those times.

Click to watch Lara feeding a kangaroo

(Click on any photo to enlarge)

Tonja demonstrating the "Aussie Salute" (shooing away flies)

See the Joey in the pouch?
Fletcher: (L-R) Jon, Mitchell, James

Sniff, Sniff

(L-R) Stan, Kathy, Pete, Graham

Ward petting a koala

A peacock. Before...

...After

A turkey

A wallaby

An Emu

A Red Deer

A Dingo

A 6-Foot Bat

After leaving the park, we drove by some sand dunes where part of “Mad Max” was filmed.

They took us Lexi’s on the beach for lunch. Afterwards, we walked on the beach for a while and Chipper and I tried our hand at playing Cricket (similar to our baseball).

Janet said the water always reminds her of God’s love…so massive…always moving and flowing…sometimes it can get angry, but it always settles down. I thought that was an insightful observation.

Donna was blissfully happy. Her two favorite places are the ocean and Australia. Here she is enjoying both.

Ward and Tonja walking hand in hand on the beach

Jon and James walking hand in hand on the beach.
(OK, maybe not hand in hand...)

I drove again today. I’m getting very comfortable with it now.

Tonight Janet hosted a barbeque for us. She has lived in Newcastle all of her life. Most of the members of the church attended. We had sausages, salad, steamed veggies, lamb chop and steak. They are feeding us like royalty. Stan keeps us laughing. He’s always quick with a joke or a pun. (He and Joe Progar would get along swimmingly.) James and Jon are staying with Stan and Jon is picking up Stan’s joke habit. Tonja also entertained everyone with some of her classic jokes. Everyone here absolutely loves her laugh! It was another great night of fellowship. Stan told me how grateful he was for FCC’s support of Phil and Sharon because, by supporting them, we were really blessing their church. We had a good talk about church leadership.

Eddie (left) and Stan -- both are Elders

L-R: Chipper, Graham, Phil, Ward

During the BBQ,a beautiful double rainbow appeared.

We absolutely love they way people talk here. They have such a beautiful lilt and soothing cadence to their voice. It is both relaxed and sophisticated. They rarely pronounce “r’s” at the end of their words. Their accent is very lyrical -- almost musical. We especially love the way they pronounce Chipper's name. Down here, he's "Chippa". They way they say his name is much cooler than the way we do.

We are watching remarkably little television and, with the exception of James and Jon who have a World Phone, none of us have been able to use our cell phones since we left Los Angeles. I must admit, I’m enjoying the break from being tethered to either of those devices. Cell phones are not as prevalent here. Some people do have them but they don’t use them nearly as frequently as Americans do. It is illegal to drive here while talking on your cell phone. I wish that were true in our country.