Oberon Exchange Weekend

We started the weekend on Friday night arriving at our billets and getting settled in. Our billets were lovely hosts and we enjoyed being out of the city on a country farm. As a special treat they gave us a tour of their farm and the kids got to feed the baby lamb with a bottle!

On Saturday morning, the exchangees meet in town to begin our morning drive out to Kanangra/Boyd National Park. We were happy to see the Canadians, Val and her son Kieran make it down from the Gold coast to participate in our exchange event. The drive out to the park was on a pretty dusty road, the bushwalk was quite a climb, and the flies were a tad annoying, but the effort was worth it, as the views were spectacular!

Here, Tom is actually laying down on a lower ledge. It looks pretty impressive though. The boys in the back are Avery and Kit checking out how far it is to the bottom. Honestly, it did not worry me too much when I was there as it seemed safe, but now looking at the photos creeps me out!

You cannot see what is underneath you when you are up there.

After lunch we headed for the Jenolan caves. We ended up doing the Lucas Cave tour after a caffeine fix to get us through the afternoon. The cave tour was brilliant! The guide had interesting stories, and the lighting showed off the massive size of the cave and the impressive stalactites and stalagmites. He taught us that stalatites hold 'tight' to the roof, and stalagmites 'might' get to the top.

On Saturday evening we gathered at the Royal Hotel for a delicious meal, where our billets joined us. The adults had time to socialize, as kids were rarely seen after finding a playground outside.

On Sunday morning our billet gave us a tour of the local school. I don't know of any school that has an agricultural program like this one. They care for various animals, hatch eggs, and grow a garden. Avery now wants to become a farmer.

We then headed out to Evans Crown Nature Reserve. We wondered how we would make it through another bushwalk, but our tireless leader Beth continued on. We were revived when we saw what we would explore. The reserve was surrounded, and towered by these massive granite boulders just tempting us to climb them. We made it up to several lookouts and took heaps more photos to fill up our harddrive.

We're in here somewhere.

Avery and Kit again.

The ETL at Oberon.

Missing home.
Ginette, Tom
Avery and Jocelyn















For lunch we stopped off at Tarana Pub to conclude our weekend. We said goodbyes to our wonderful exchange friends. For a first time exchange activity, we would definitely say this is a keeper!

Our last Term Break in Australia

Well... our last official big holiday in Australia has come and gone. We spent the last holiday on the beach... actually many beaches on the north east coast.

We got some terrific photos! We have dowloaded many of the photos on Facebook as there is just so many... so you can find us there.

We did not get much sleep on the beginning of our holiday; cramped quarters all night, sharing a blow up mattress, Avery coughing, Jocelyn talking in her sleep, and noisy campgrounds was just part of it. The sun beating down on the tent really early in the morning just made things worse.

The good thing was that Tom and I had some peaceful moments getting up with the sun. We enjoyed going for early morning strolls while the kids slept in. Moonee beach had to be our favourite morning walk. This photo shows you why.

Our trip to Fraser island turned out to be quite an adventure too. Jocelyn and I got sick just before going. You can see by the photo she is not feeling to well as we head over on the barge.

Because we weren't feeling well, we decided to stay at a resort on the island so that we would not have to stay in a tent. We just figured that we all needed a good rest. It paid off because we recovered quickly and we were off exploring the island in no time. We also were glad to have a kitchen and a good shower to clean off from all the sand at the end of each day.

Fraser island boasts to be the largest sand island in the world, and is the only sand island with a rainforest in the middle of it. Driving on the island was quite an experience. Especially with Jocelyn recovering from the stomach flu.

There were a number of things to see on the island. We spent the first day just hanging around the resort and letting Jocelyn get caught up on her sleep and then headed out the next.

At the tip of the island is the Champaign pools. We got to explore the sea creatures in the area.

This has got to be the biggest jelly that we have ever seen.

The Maheno ship was shipwrecked in the early 1900's. During the war they decided to use the ship as target practice.

We have so many whale photos now it's ridiculous. Tom is looking for the perfect shot and thinks that he has to take a million to get the right one. I will just put one picture on the blog not to bore you too much. It is just so magical watching these gigantic beasts the photo does not do it justice.

Just before leaving the island we stopped at Lake Mackenzie. It is one of the top 10 beaches in the world. The water was crystal clear!

We were fortunate to be able to stay at our wonderful billets from first term on the way home. Good food and conversation. They had the kids have a go on their surf skiis... fun!

We have made some wonderful friendships here and hope we will be able to keep in contact with them when we return home.

We are hoping to have a spooktacular time this weekend at our Halloween party. We hope that you are having good fall weather.

Signing off,

The Andress'