Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Christian Peacemaker Teams

As some of you know we have recently returned from a delegation with the Christian Peacemaker Teams (http://www.cpt.org/).
We spent two weeks on a delegation to the West Bank in the Occupied Territories of Palestine.

We spent time in Al-Quds (Jerusalem), Beit Lahem (Bethlehem), Hebron and At Tuwani.

I have put up more photos (with descriptions) on Facebook. The links are below:

This first album has general photos of our time with CPT, as well as some insights into Palestinian response to the continued occupation of their land.


This second album has specific photos of Hebron and At Tuwani, as well as some thoughts on the nature of occupation and oppression.
In the coming months we will make presentations around Australia with a twofold aim:
1) to promote an alternative narrative to the mainstream views about the Israel/Palestine conflict, and in the process build up solidarity for the Palestinian cause; and
2) to promote CPT and its work, and to hopefully build up enough support to form an Australasian regional CPT group.

Please get in touch with us if you want more information on our talks, or how to learn more about the Israel/Palestine conflict.

Sunday, May 4, 2008

New photos on Facebook

Hey all,

We have started to put photos up on our Facebook account.
But you should still be able to access them all publicly from these links:

Our Wedding photos:

Photos from Jordan:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=37732&l=747ce&id=694926264

Photos from Israel:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=50706&l=eb14a&id=694926264

Photos from Eqypt:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=50365&l=71c85&id=694926264
Photos of our Nullarbor trip:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=50142&l=85386&id=694926264

Photos of my bike!:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=50153&l=5ed4d&id=694926264

Erin and Casper : )

Monday, May 14, 2007

Well, sorry its been such a long time since we've posted. Partly its because we no longer have internet at home, but mostly its that we have had a very intense few months and have just been trying to focus on getting through the basic life-y things.

These are our photos from our trip to melbourne this year.
There's also LOTS, so hopefully you dont get too bored.

We took the famous restored steam train 'Puffing Billy' through Dandenong ranges out of melbourne. We sat on the edge of the window with our feet out of the carriage as we went along. Great view! Sore bottom. The driver forced us into the cabin and insisted he take our photo. Turned out quite nice, though.

We were in melbourne afterall, so stencils were a must.
We spent alot of time in alley-ways. This was my favourite.

Casper and the Horses on Dan and Gemma's Wangaratta property

The biggest hedge maze in the southern hemisphere! WHOO! Casper was much more excited than me at the idea, but once we got in there, I have to admit... it was rather fun.

A little town called 'Bright' in the hills near Wangaratta. Casper reading under a willow tree.

The river in Bright. We went for a long swim before fish and chips for lunch.

The view from Dan and Gemma's place.

We went for a day trip out to Mt Buffalo - the following photos are the view from the top.
It's quite beautiful.

We even found a little cave to get into. It was full of water and was absolutely freezing!

We then came back through Melbourne, borrowed Kip's car (thanks Kip!) and went for a drive along the Great Ocean Road. It is so beautiful. We even came across a few koalas!

The drive was a little tedious - always zigging and zagging and being stuck behind grey nomads. I got quite tired by the end of the day. But the views more than made up for it.

This is a shot of Apollo Bay, which we really liked. As we were camping overnight, the largest thunderstorm ever felt like it broke right over our heads... the next morning we saw the paraglider - lucky the storm had passed.

We went through the Otway National Park. Which is very similar to the area around Walpole and Denmark in the South West of WA. We fell in love with it straight away. It even had its own treeptop walk... but with a silly name like the 'Otway Fly' : )

This is a few photos of Erin blowing fairies on the walk into the fly.

These are some of the trees in the park and from the fly. I could almost feel like I was in Walpole...

As we left the fly, the whole region descended into this crazy fog. This is one of the beaches - same day as the photos above! You could barely see the water.

So when we got to the Twelve Apostles, this is what we saw. Not what we were expecting but still really stunning.

We made it all the way out to this cute place - called Port Fairy : )

We then made our way back to Geelong, where we had organised to meet up with a Baptist Monastery called the Community of the Transfiguration. A friend had suggested we should see if we could meet with them. Well we joined with them for thursday night liturgy, and then ended up staying two nights with them. They were so hospitable.
This is the house we stayed in. It's called the mother house.

This is their hall.
And this is a photo of us with them.
In order, left to right, back to front: Miriam, Terry, Stephen, Neil, Andrew, Helen, Heather, Graeme and Steve... (and me)

Post Script (May '08): We've decided to move to Geelong to be a little closer to the community. We are spending a few nights a week with them in compline and getting to know them. They have sold the property in the above photos and are about to start building in Teesdale. It's very exciting!

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Bussleton, Albany, Bremer Bay

Having a stretch


These are some pics from our journey down south. Turns out that if you don't add the photos for a blog entry in exactly the correct order, there is no way that you can then switch them around. (At least no way that "computer-retard-Erin" can figure out, anyway)
So, as a result these photos are all in reverse-chronological order (except the swan photo above which should really have gone at the bottom)... so I suggest starting at the bottom of the post and moving upward. I'm going to write the captions from the bottom up so it will definately help if you want them to make sense.
Anyway, the whole trip was actually 'work' for Casper because he needed to visit some of the camps that were running. Luckily I got to tag along and suddenly it was a holiday. YAY! Much fun.




This photo doesnt really show the massive waves that were breaking over the edge. The ocean was wild, and would flow into the pool but somehow it always stayed calm.
It also was shallow enough that the water had evaporated and left an increased salt level... so I jumped in and to my surprise was VERY bouyant. I even tried to dive down and it kept spitting me back up to the surface.








This was the highlight. We wandered along the rocks near Little Boat Harbour in Bremer, and stumbled across this incredible rock pool. It was beautiful green, and had heaps of beautiful seagrass and fishes in it!







Some of the old machinery at the Homestead.







Casper stayed cleaner than I did.








We spent some time at Wellstead's Homestead in Bremer Bay, where they have a MASSIVE grove of heritage-listed mulberry trees. We got very purple, and some nice old lady saw me up a tree covered in mulberry juice and decided I must be the "mulberry nimph"...
This is some moss on the tree.







Some rather ridiculous photos of Casper and I. We tried and tried and tried to get a good shot, but alas, no. They all came out with us looking either over-enthusiastic, or slightly insane. Oh well. These are the best we could manage.







And the Estuary from the same spot. (you can see the little town on the left)









Casper and I then made our way to Bremer Bay, which is another holiday tradition. Last year was the first year I didn't go there since I was 5... so I thought a Bremer fix was definately in order. This is the bay from the top of the hill.





The human pyramid. These are campers from Glen Echo camp. We spent the whole day with them chilling out at the beach. Unfortunately they had a gastro outbreak so we kept our distance... eeek.






Frenchman's Bay again...








Campers Jumping off Bombie Rock at Frenchman's Bay in Albany








Swan Yoga





Geographe Bay in Bussleton. I took this while we were visiting sailing camp (thus the boat). There was a little bunch of beautiful black swans just hanging out at the waters edge... I don't think I've ever seen swans at the ocean before, so it was quite exciting! They were also very very funny to watch.