Gold Coast

I'm now home and looking forward to my next vacation. I got up at 4AM on Thursday to catch my flight; landed at the Gold Coast at 8:30AM and walked down the tarmac in 27 degree weather. What a great start! It was a great trip with lots of beach time, quite a few other activities, and little sleep - ranging from 3 to 7 hours per night. It was quite relaxing. Here are some of my pictures. Enjoy! One more place for me to take people who come to visit me.

I did the trip with one other friend. Juerger arrived in Sydney at the end of July and is in my connect group. As I was thinking about the possibility of taking a holiday, I was trying to think of who to go with and he came to mind. Here we are on the day of arrival. We didn't spend a lot of time at Surfer's Paradise because it's "tourist central" but we did go there and then we found some much better beaches to go to.

We stayed at a YWAM base a few km's from the beach and didn't rent a car. Public transport was not good so transportation was a bit of a challenge. We got up at 4AM and did the 1 1/2 hour walk to the beach for the sunrise. This is how we were welcomed...

In case anyone doubts I was actually there...

After two early mornings in a row, it was time for caffeine. Take a good look at the straw - It is not balancing against the side of the cup. Nothing like a strong coffee to wake a person up. Now, I know that putting up a picture like this will raise some eyebrows - it's a caramel latte; and yes, I did drink it.

After waking up a bit, it was time to head off to Seaworld. We started our time there by watching a water ski show. This picture was taken near the end.

Next was a dolphin show. They had some new kind of flying dolphin - kind of like a flying squirrel. I've never seen a flying dolphin before, but here's the proof... Ok, ok, it just jumped out of the water and I happened to get the dolphin without the water below it in the picture.

Having seen the water skiers and dolphins getting an adrenaline rush, it was our turn. This picture was taken from the top of a large Farris wheel. We later went on the roller coaster you see in the picture. It was good fun, and the operator asked a few questions to make sure I could handle it since he saw my knee was wrapped up.

After a long day, we found a quite place to sit - a little bit of sand, lots of water, and no other people! As we sat there eating leftovers from our picnic lunch and enjoying the sunset, a couple of pelicans swam by. Not too often they come this close, but I think it knew what I wanted; and I was ready.

Saturday morning I slept in to 5AM and caught the train to Brisbane where a friend of mine picked me up. She used to be in my connect group but went home to Queensland (neighboring state) in May. I hadn't seen her since that time so it was good to catch up. Her sister joined us and we went to the Australia Zoo. For those who don't know, that's the one that Steve Irwin built and ran. Although he passed away in a tragic accident last year, the zoo is going strong and really building on his image. The temperature went up to somewhere around 40 degrees so some ice cream was great to keep us a bit cooler.

Julie and her family really blessed me while I was there. She insisted on paying my entry fee to the zoo, they tried hard to make sure I had not costs for food or anything else while out there, gave me an i-pod (her sister had just bought a new one and was looking for someone to give the "old" (the second last model) one to.), had me join the family and some other guests for a big (and amazing) meal Saturday night, and put me up for the night (their suggestion). Julie even gave up her bedroom for me. I joined them for church Sunday morning then had fish and chips on the beach for lunch with her family before heading back. With all the other blessings, the greatest part was simply being in a home with a family. I love my friends, have a great house to live in, and have great house mates, but there's something different about a good family atmosphere.

One of the big things at the Australia Zoo is the "Crocaquarium" It's a 5,000 seat stadium where they do a crocodile show. They started the show with some children's singing and dance where they got 7 year old Bindi Irwin (Steve's daughter) involved as a naturally born entertainer. They then went on to some other things, and ended with the croc show. They started the show by telling us that crocodiles cannot be trained as many animals can, so the only way to do the show is to work with the croc's two instincts, food and territory. Terri Irwin was in charge of this show and did a great job although so many things went differently than planned that Terri said it was probably the most unusual show she had ever done.

We spent a relaxing Monday at the beach, then went to Byron Bay with someone from the YWAM base. I can now say that I've been as far east as I can go in Australia (not counting islands and water), so I guess now I have to work on the other three extremes.

Here's the typical coastline on the Gold Coast.

Every major outcropping of rock has to have a lighthouse right? As we walked to the lighthouse, we looked out over the ocean. This area is a popular migration route for whales and dolphins so we kept an eye out for them. We managed to see a few whales in the distance.

From the other side of the lighthouse we had a slightly different vantage point. You can't see this too well in the picture because I've compressed it, but if you look closely, you can see my right hand is swollen. I guess having a bummed knee isn't enough, so I'll just injure more body parts :) What happened is that after an hour in the back seat of a small car that morning, my knee was stiff and couldn't support my weight so as I was getting out of the car, I grabbed door frame to lift myself out. Little did I know, Juergen was looking the other way as he closed his door - with my hand caught between the door and the frame! I stood there in pain as he tried to open the locked door. He wasn't thinking clearly so I had to unlock the door and tell him that he needed to use the handle to open it - not just pull by my hand. No broken bones, and limited bruising but it's sore. I haven't completely believed her to this point, but my physiotherapist (who makes a living out of putting people through pain) says I have a high pain thresh-hold. I'm beginning to wonder if maybe she is right, because I should not have been the one thinking rationally in this situation. Oh well, as you can see in the picture, we're still friends :)

After going to the lighthouse, we bought some food and went to the beach again (noticing a theme here???) after an hour we noticed some clouds building up and people clearing off the beach in a hurry. We joined the throngs and almost made it off the sand before the rain started. We found a building to get protection in and watched through the open door as the rain poured.

It wasn't long before the rain turned to hail and we were really glad to be in a building.

...and thus, our beach time on the holiday was done. We went off for hot chocolate, then back home for one final meal before getting to the airport for out flight home. The flight was delay due to the storms happening in the area and I got home after midnight. It was a great trip, but I feel like I need a holiday to recover from my vacation. Isn't that the way it usually goes?

So, now I have classes for two days, church for two days, and then I'm off to another place for the AOG state conference. That will be followed by an intense time of finishing assignments, preparing for exams, likely having surgery, and men's conference.

This has come up really quick, but there's only 6 weeks of class left before Christmas. So now the next big decision is what to do then. Any suggestions? I have a few ideas and one invitation, but nothing confirmed yet. I have less than a year left to see the rest of the country. Anyone care to come join me for part of that time? It looks like going to Uganda is out of the question now because I'll be recovering from surgery and not able to work hard physically. I'm hoping to be able to walk without severe pain by then, but the normal standards would say I shouldn't get my hopes up too high. I'll see...