And here is part five and the final instalment of my trip’s pictures! It was so hard to choose which ones to share, and which not to. I’ve delighted in looking through the ones I was able to print, but seeing them here is special, too.

We took a walk down to the Detention River one warm afternoon, so the children could enjoy cooling off in the water. It was a beautiful setting, and I enjoyed seeing the little “peek” out to the ocean across the river flat! This particular river, at least near the sea, is a tidal river, and it was nearing high tide when we were down there.

Sometimes I wonder what makes one place stand out to you as being extra-special, and what makes another one just, well, ordinary. I think it has a lot to do with where one feels loved and accepted (such as my family home, for example), but I’m convinced there’s more to it that I don’t see, too. Perhaps it’s spiritual, or some other sort of tie like that that resonates with me—I don’t know. But whatever it is, when I am able to connect with others and share in the joys and struggles of walking this walk of faith with them, even for just a short time, I come away feeling very enriched.

Our last evening there, my “family” and a few other additions to the crew drove about half an hour inland to Dip Falls. It was a beautiful, fascinating place. I’ve never seen rocks quite like these before!

During the winter, the water flows over the entire expanse of the falls, from bank to bank, but since it was mid-summer when we visited, there was only a little bit coming over. Even that amount was pretty, and I loved the rock’s colors on the upper portion of the falls, especially!

And, of course, since the rocks looked like pretty easy stepping stones, most of us decided to climb up to get a different perspective.

The most intriguing part about this particular waterfall, for me, were the rocks. They were like pillars, all jammed up against each other vertically, and seemed to go straight all the way down to the rock underneath (wherever and whatever that was) in this pillar formation. There was no vertical distortion that I could see—it was all at a 90° angle in reference to the earth.

They were also sliced cleanly horizontally, some in slightly larger than 1 ft/30 cm slices, others more like 5-6 ft/1-2 metre slices.

And then, I counted the “sides” on the pillars, and a lot of them (the ones that weren’t round) were five-sided, or pentagons. I did see a couple hexagons, but they all definitely were made with a similar pattern!

I did not end up going on the upper level of the falls, but they seemed to be made of similar stone, lots of rocks stacked and packed together in the same sort of regular symmetry, but with smaller “columns” and more were four sided instead of the five sides further down. These were also warped and twisted more, as if they had been laid down, pushed up at a different angle, and tweaked some as they were going up. I wondered how two similar, but very different rock formations ended up right next to each other—and how, scientifically, their appearance can be explained! Fascinating to study, anyway. Shows how great our God is! (If you have any information on why these rocks might be like this, I’d be interested to know!)

In the end, after a too-short two weeks in Tasmania, I left for the States with mixed feelings. I looked forward to being with my family again, but these people had showed me another side to the body of Christ, which was very special. I’m hoping that someday, I’ll be able to go back and visit again. But we’ll see what the Lord has planned!

Have you taken any memorable trips lately? What kind of unique natural formations have intrigued you before?

…and here is part two of my trip to Tasmania! I’ve shared pictures of the community multiple times since I’ve left, mostly with family, but I’m not tired of looking through them yet! Sometimes I wonder if the maxim “a picture is worth a thousand words” would be more appreciated as “a picture is worth a thousand memories”. 🙂

I stayed with two other girls in a house while I was there, and some of my “off” time was spent there. All family-oriented occasions were spent with my host family, so in many ways it felt like I was with family even though my own was across the ditch many kilometers away!

Many fun days were spent in the kitchen, helping out with various tasks. I got to help with some meal prep, but mostly my time was spent on other odd jobs around the place.

One of the biggest jobs that needed to be done was garden work. We spent many hours weeding and harvesting food from the garden! Although it was hot, dusty work, and sometimes bull ants marched across our path, I really enjoyed the chance to get my hands in the ground and see fruit from our labors (oh, and eating the fresh strawberries that had been sitting in the sun for a while…you cannot beat that!).

Another big job that we girls did together was work up nine kilos (over 19 pounds) of garlic. The garlic heads had split apart before they were pulled up, and wet sand got in between each clove, so we had to peel and work up the whole lot. It took three or four afternoons of work to get them all ready to be processed, and we were all a little sick of the job by the time it was finished, but I really enjoyed the time spent working together! Even if it isn’t fun work, doing it together as a group is very enjoyable. Great memories! (By the way, we figured out that if you have dry garlic, the easiest way to peel them is to soak them in hot water first—it really makes the job go faster!)

Two of the children who live there—I loved getting to know them! I miss having little ones around, especially the toddler stage. My baby sister is too grown up for that now!

One day we had a couple boxes of mince to repackage. Didn’t take long, but I did manage to get a picture of that! (Why is it that you rarely have your camera on you when you might want to have pictures later?)

Well, I ended up with a few pictures of the community that didn’t really fit anywhere else, so they were stuck in here. There are so many things I could say about my time there, but perhaps this will satisfy for now. Next up is pictures from a quick trip some girls and I took to Rocky Cape—what a beautiful area!