The "Break"

I put the title of this post in quotation marks, because to say that you had a vacation while you are already in OZ seems a little counter-intuitive. This last week, we didn't have class in order to give students an opportunity to travel. In order to save money, and because I can't think of a place I would actually like more than Lennox Head, I stayed at the camp with five other students. On Wednesday, I took a bus into Ballina, a neighboring city, in order to volunteer with Coastcare. This group looks after the beaches by planting native vegetation, taking action to prevent erosion of the beaches, and eradicating invasive species. I worked for a few hours cutting back Bitou bush that had been sprayed with herbicide a month or so earlier. It was rough work, and we all ended up with scrapes and bruises. I was especially impressed with the 60 year old man named Ron who worked with the five of us. He seemed to be working harder than the rest of us! I mentioned this to the leader of this operation, Lee, and he informed me that Ron is 88 years old! I think there must be something to this bacon and cane sugar diet.

Thursday, I returned (after getting lost and touring most of East Ballina) to help out with a group of school children who had come to help plant native wattle in place of the Bitou bush. The kids were typical 8-9 year olds. When they found out that I was American, they were sure that I must know Miley Cyrus personally. They worked hard in the heat, and most seemed to enjoy being outdoors for once. I found from the teachers that the children don't often get to take breaks from the classroom to go outside for trips like this. Considering that the school is walking distance away from some of the most beautiful and biologically diverse land in the country, this is unfortunate. Environmental education in Aussie is sadly lacking in the same way it is in the States. When I individually spoke to the kids about what they learned about in school regarding the environment, they had mixed reactions. Some impressed me with their knowledge of erosion of beaches, littering and other issues. Some of them said they had never even heard of global warming. My favorite answer regarding global warming was, "Well... its like when you litter... and then all the penguins... they die.... and that's bad cause they're cute!"
I will say that these kids were remarkably well-behaved and hard working. It was a pleasure to spend time with them, and I hope to get to do it again.

Tenterfield Trip

Our "Australia Life and Culture" class takes various field trips on Mondays. The 19th of September, we left for our first overnight adventure to beautiful, exotic Tenterfield, NSW. Alright, maybe not exotic - this little town was like Mayberry crossed with Texas. We left on Saturday the 19th of September. Now let us remember that this was the day after my friends and I went out for my birthday. I won't go into detail, but lets just say that the three hour bus ride that followed a long night of bar hoping was rough on a few of us, to say the least. Anyway, we survived and arrived at the Golfer's Inn Motel by lunch.


After lunch we got back on the bus and headed for Bald Rock, the largest Monolith in Australia. The climb up was over and around huge slabs of granite. This is where a famous bushranger (a cowboy up to no good) named Thunderbolt had his famous hideout. He waited among these rocks and in caves for unsuspecting travelers to pass by. He would then steal whatever he could manage to take including gold, horses, and stagecoaches.

The view from the top of Bald Rock is stunning. No picture could adequately capture it.




Yay! We made it! The girls on the trip took a group photo.
Here we are taking a break with our fearless leader Lyn.

After descending Bald Rock, it was tea time! Ah, tea time in Australia, one of my favorite things. Tea time usually takes place once in the morning and once in the evening. "Tea" can be in reference to anything from the literal drink to snacks, or even to dinner itself. During this particular tea time, we replaced those spent calories with two foods that truly make me want to move here: First, damper. Damper is a completely carb-filled, white, processed-flour bread that is simply delicious. We slather it with butter and then Cocky's Joy, a syrupy, sticky-sweet spread that is essentially cane sugar. In addition to this we ate Anzac biscuits which are coconut cookies, also fabulous. The tea is similarly smothered in milk and sugar.

After this, we headed off the the Doctor's Nose Winery for a wine tasting. Most of us had never done a wine tasting before - some of us weren't even allowed to drink in the States yet. (Drinking age is 18 here.) It was great fun. We tasted several different wines, all made in from the grapes in the fields surrounding us. I even got a special birthday port with my name on it as a surprise!

The next day we woke to an Aussie brekkie (breakfast) of eggs, toast and bacon. Another pause to talk about Aussie bacon: Aussie bacon will make even the most stringent vegetarian throw down their hummus with abandon and chow down.

Anyway, back to the story. We went to Billabong Blue to fossick for sapphires. This consisted of shoveling a bucket of dirt through sieves and then washing the remaining rocks. Most of us found small sapphires or other gemstones.

Lunch was shared with community members from a Christian missionary called Danthonia Christian Community. The group consisted of people from all over the world, many from the U.S, who were temporarily living in this community. The group shares everything, and is not paid for the work they do in their sign-making business. The group is almost completely self-sufficient and most of the lunch we ate came directly from their land. (Little did we know the sandwiches we were eating were actually kangaroo, not salami.) It was an interesting experience to say the least.

After this we toured Tenterfield's many historical buildings and met the Mayor of the town. We saw the place that Sir Henry Parkes gave his famous speech urging the states to federate. There was also an old railway and museum, and several other old shops and businesses. It was very similar to what we would find in an American pioneer village or museum. The two countries have similar stories during the Industrial Revolution.

I'll end with bits from our teacher, Lyn Lockery's poem about the trip:

"We left the coast for country life,
a chance to get away.
To climb Bald Rock and fossick too,
up the Tenterfield way.

We walked right into Thunderbolt's cave,
the tank traps passed us by.
Bald Rock was really awesome,
with views that made you cry.

The Doctor's Nose was a special spot,
some tried to crack a whip,
found new friends with Peter and Jan,
got the taste of grapes on our lip.

At Deepwater we passed the 'Wee log' (where you relieve yourself after a long day of driving)
we headed for Billabong Blue,
sapphires and zircons gleefully found,
then damper and a trip to the loo.

Danthonia Christian Community
met us with friendship so kind,
showed us how they made their signs,
then a lunch, the best you could find.

We toured the town with Val as a guide,
learned Tenterfield's history with glee,
heard of Parkes and met the Mayor,
then we all returned to the sea. "