Canyoning, Bush hikes, Parents & Parrots

We're about to enter into our last month in Australia, how crazy! For the next two weeks we're finishing off training with a canoe trip, caving and a fair bit of theory; followed by two weeks of site tours.

About to start our epic canyoning adventure!

The last couple weeks since we last wrote have been adventure filled, I'll start with canyoning. Though Sam has done a bit before, it was my first time. We headed to the Blue Mountains with our friends (& trainers) from work Jemma & Deaco, to do the big Butterbox Canyon. Jem & Deaco are quite experienced canyoners, though this was the first for either of them in Butterbox Canyon.

Down into the dark

The day consisted of abseiling our way down and through the canyon & through many waterfalls, jumping and swimming through pools and a fair bit of scrambling. It was incredible! Our abseiling skills were put to the test, as well as our nerves on a few occasions. The scariest part of the day for me (Katie) was after abseiling halfway down a 50m descent. We had to abseil further, underneath a large boulder wedged in the canyon, down a waterfall, forward a couple metres through a pool, and then out down the remainder of the descent over another waterfall. Finishing the descent by jumping in a very cold pool and swimming about 10m to the next bit of rock. I was pretty nervous abseiling into the dark down the waterfall, especially as nobody can see you once you begin. After doing the first section, the pressure of the falling water wedged me between two rocks of which i needed to climb through to get out. I panicked a bit and shouted out to the others that I was stuck, who thankfully could just hear me over the noise of the water. It wasn't a nice moment as they couldn't see me and therefore didn't know how much trouble I was in. After a quick prayer and some determination I managed to push myself free and head down the rest of the waterfall. Sam was last to come down and managed it well, and we were so relieved to see each other safe at the bottom! It had been horrible for Sam not knowing how stuck I was, and to do a rescue in that spot was not simple. Thankfully I wasn't directly under the fall when I was stuck which saved me from getting too cold. Some of the pools were so deep, filled with very cold water in the shadows on the canyon. We saw some incredible views of the rock, and at times couldn't see the bottom or the top!


We had a couple set-backs during the day which meant we reached the exit of the canyon a fair bit later than planned. We put on our warm dry clothes, downed some food, and started our hike out and up the cliffs. Sadly the 'easily identifiable path' wasn't that easy to identify, so we bush-bashed our way in the right direction as night fell. On went the head-torches and we continued to scramble upwards, until finally we spotted a small arrow scratched into the rock confirming our correct direction. It was such a relief! It reminded me of Psalm 139 where it says 'to you God, the night shines as bright as day'. It brought me such comfort to remember that God knew exactly where we were and how close we were to safety, even when we don't. He guided us onto the right path that continued onto a ledge (100m up) where we knew there was a 10m lead climb to be done. We found the bolts and headed up one at a time with just our head-torches for light. Knowing we were 100m up the cliff doing a difficult climb was pretty scary, but thankfully the darkness concealed how exposed we were, and actually made it alot easier than it might have been in the day! What amazed me is that I experienced such an incredible peace & calmness during the hike out. I would have usually been more worried & upset, but God just filled me with an incredible peace and trust in him, as well as joy! I felt him with us every single step of the way. There was then still some scrambling and hiking to do, before we finally made it back to the car - 3 hours after we'd exited the canyon. God rewarded us with the most spectacular sky of stars we have ever seen! There are no lights for miles, it was a perfectly clear night, and every inch of sky over the Blue Mountains was absolutely breath-taking! What an adventure!

After a short weekend of resting & recovering, we got ready for our last training bush hike - 4 days doing Kanangra to Katoomba, back in the Blue Mountains. Sam's parents Gill & Graham flew in on Monday for a 2 week visit, and we were thankful to have an hour with them that morning before we headed off for our hike! It was so so nice to see them again. So we said hello & goodbye, and left them in our little home in the national park, where they had a lovely few days exploring the area & the sites of Sydney.

Ready to start at Kanangra walls (behind) with Mt Cloudmaker behind on the far left - this is where we hiked the first day

Our hike took us through some beautiful parts of the Blue Mountains, and on the first day Sam navigated us really well and we followed a long ridge, climbed up & down Mt Stormbreaker, and then up & down Mt Cloudmaker - the highest of all the mountains there! We found the clouds where they were made (heh heh) and from then on, the rain barely stopped until the end of the next day! We camped near a creek where it rained all night long. Heavy rain was forecast all the next day and we knew the next cave (dry spot) wasn't till the 3rd night. We made a call to do the next 2 days walk in one, so we could reach the cave that night, to garrentee we could get somewhere out of the rain to dry off and warm up! We started early, ploughed up and along Mt Strongleg and down it's steep ridge, crossed 3 rivers, and made it to that original night's destination by 11am! We'd made good progress, but the second leg got a lot tougher with many ascents. I was so exhausted half way up and my face got so hot that I nearly fainted. I was really struggling and had reached my limit. The team were awesome, fed me sugar, and divided some of my load between them! I felt so much better, headed on, and then suddenly out of the mist two beautiful black, red-tipped cockatoos flew right past me! They're very rare and I knew instantly it was a personal gift from God, reminding me he was there. Sam told me later he'd asked God to give me something, knowing that only He could really lift my spirits. Hallelujah!
We were all completely saturated and didn't stop for lunch, but only took short breaks for snacks, and to rid ourselves of leeches. We finally reached our cave at about 4.30pm. It was soooo good to finally get out of the rain! Jemma somehow made an awesome fire with wet wood and we soon got dry, warm, fed, and had quite a good nights sleep. Thankfully the last day was dry and sunny. It was still quite a long day, that finished in the green gully - a beautiful clearing in the mountains that was filled with kangaroos and wallabies! They hung around to watch us de-brief and eat, it was a great ending.

Australian King Parrot

It was wonderful to come home to Gill & Graham who had enjoyed a nice few days. We spent the weekend showing them around some of our favourite local places & beaches, eating lovely meals, and visiting Hillsong church in the city. From there we headed up to Waggstaffe for the week - an absolutely beautiful holiday home belonging to some good friends of ours. One day G&G visited some wineries, whilst Sam & I got the ferry to Palm Beach (otherwise known as
Summer Bay - where Home & Away is filmed). We're not the biggest fans of H&A so we didn't recognise much, but it is by far one of the most beautiful beaches we've seen yet! Sam had the surf to himself, and I sat and did some sketching. Another highlight of the week happened whilst sitting out together on the balcony, two wild parrots came and hung out with us! They came so close, and even ate out of my hand once.

Tomorrow we're heading out on a self-guided two day canoe trip, then next week we'll have a couple days of caving training. In-between we'll be finishing off some theory & assessments, before finishing May with a 2 week site tour of various other local outdoor centres.

As the end draws nearer we're really looking forward to starting our life in Chester and seeing what God has in store for us. We're also becoming increasingly aware of how hard it will be when we leave, saying goodbye to so many special people who have made such an impact on our lives! We're going to miss them very much.

Much love from us both xx

Autumn in Australia

Hey everyone!
The clocks have turned back, the evenings are getting shorter and the temperatures have begun to drop. Everything seems to be coming to an end and the winter is fast approaching, making it increasingly difficult to imagine that it is Spring at home and the UK is slowly coming back to life from its winter hibernation. Spring is both Katie and I's favourite time of year and so we are finding ourselves daydreaming about warm spring days with all the blossoms and excitement that comes with these next few months.

Katie's team at Deer Park

Just before Easter we had our last day working on programme! This means the end of working with our teams on camps and running activities. Feels so strange and quite sad to have finished work in a sense, as from now until we leave, we will be doing training and finishing up things for our cert 3 qualification. But the rest of April and May are going to be pretty fun!


Looking back over the last couple of months work has been pretty busy especially with many new staff arriving and several old staff moving on. We have both felt an increased amount of responsibility in our teams and are both enjoying the challenges that brings.

There have been many highlights of Australia, many of which Gods hand has been a part of, but one recent highlight over a period of approx. 3 weeks really stands out. Katie and I really got to see God at work in one of our friends who we have loved and been praying for for several years. Under some hard circumstances she came to stay with us at our home in the National Park. I felt God tell me that all he wanted is for our friend to get to know and experience his love and how much it was for her. The way he used Katie and I to do so was such a blessing to us. She lived with us for the most part of 3 weeks. We spent a lot of time praying and talking with her as well as just hanging out on beach, surfing, and canoeing further up the river for a picnic. Katie felt God tell her that our friend would accept his love before she left, this prompted us to go to Hillsongs city campus, somewhere we had wanted to go for a while. The service really spoke to our friend and she said she finally understood how much God loved her and how much he wanted her to live a life for Jesus. Amazing! It would be fantastic if you would pray for her as she begins her new life in Christ.

God is still working through us both to speak to so many children about him. One particular way was through both of our first Christian Discovery (CD) presentations. We both focused on the theme of Jesus being our rescuer and how we need to be accept what Jesus has done for us to be free from a sinful world. It is quite a difficult task to work out how you to tell 50-100 year 6 girls and boys such a prospect but through much hard work and prayer we were both able to write our own CD's, filled with personal stories and dramas ect. I feel we both did well and that God was sowing many seeds into children's hearts through us. It was great fun, it's a shame we won't have time to do any more before we leave!

Although work has been busy and demanding we have found time to get out and about and continue spending time together seeing and doing what any good tourist should do. We have been sailing on a yacht with a friend from church,  gone for dinner with friends on the harbour and spent time surfing, kite flying and hanging out on the beach. Recently we went to an Aboriginal BBQ, and ate kangaroo, emu and crocodile! They were all really tasty and no, they didn't taste like chicken. We celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary recently, and spent the day at the famous Toronga Zoo, and later had a meal out at Bondi.

Bethany Hamilton

About a month ago, we spent the day at the Australian Surf Open! An international pro surfing and skating event, hosted near Sydney. The place was packed, and we had fun watching the different heats out on the water, and some famous names. In the evening, a local church was showing the new film Soul Surfer. - The true story about 13 year old Bethany Hamilton, who had her arm bitten off by a shark whilst surfing in Hawaii. She's now a pro surfer, a Christian, and came out in the church after the film to share her testimony! It was so powerful, and so cool to see her.

We have been praying and asking God where he would like us to be once we return to the UK and both of us really feel called to Chester. We both feel that Chester is where God will use us the most to bring glory to him, so we are very excited about returning. God has also provided Katie and I with a car! Given to us by Katie's parents, as they were recently given a new one - how awesome is God?! This will be a great blessing when we return and will hopefully mean I can look into getting a job at a sailing centre in the Chester area. Katie's happy to get whatever work she find initially, whilst she looks into getting involved with Christian counselling and photography in the future.

It has been a fantastic few months here in Australia and we are really looking forward to the last couple of months of which we have two weeks off and several weeks training. We would really appreciate your prayers as we have a lot of knowledge tests and assignments to finish for our Certificate 3 in Outdoor Recreation.

I hope you are all well and for those in the Northern Hemisphere are enjoying the spring!

Lots of Love,

Sam & Katie x

Canoeing, camping, lots of God, and a few spiders

Hi again.

January has been a very busy Month for us in which a full weekend was quite rare. We did get through it though and really enjoyed it at the same time. God has been teaching us lots and placing us in some great situations which really required us look to him for strength.

After our time off over Christmas, the New Year and my Birthday, we were slightly apprehensive about going back and finding everything really tough to get back into. However we didn't go straight back to work but had a few days of training including another 2 day bushwalk in the blue mountains, 2 days canoeing on the Colo river and abseil vertical rescue assessments. The bushwalk was a fantastic one and although quite challenging terrain with dense vegetation, we really enjoyed it. We started with some really steep climbs which were pretty tough going, then finished with a nice hike along the ridge, and then down into a valley where we set up camp on a really nice area of sand next to a wider section of river. At the end of the first day we had a lot of time to rest, swimming in the river, jumping from rocks and relaxing by the camp fire. The next day involved a shorter walk but a much more challenging one during which we did a significant amount of off track bush bashing to test our skills with a map and compass. Katie, Nathaniel and Myself were very pleased with our efforts as our decisions took us with pinpoint accuracy to our final destination, which we were so happy to reach at the end of a long hot day. The second day was made much easier with a midday stop at some deep pools in the river of which we could jump into from large boulders. It was very refreshing, even when you had to make your jump quite far to avoid landing on a large eel...

Our canoe trip was like luxury in comparison. We canoed down the Colo river in a beautiful area North of Sydney, staying overnight at a nice spot next to the river before finishing the next morning. Canoeing allows you to carry a lot more and because we had just completed a bushwalk during which you only the necessities, we packed with us many luxuries. We slept with actual pillows under our heads and took many breaks to eat mangos and plums as we cruised down the Colo river.

After these two trips and our final abseil vert rescue assessment (passed) we began a 5 day Leadership in Training camp. The camp is for young leaders in churches across New South Wales and Victoria. During the camp Katie and I played the role of leaders to the young leaders. We got to support them and teach them, as well as learn with them the key elements to running a great bible study. We spent a lot of time with God, praying, listening to great sermons, worshipping and preparing for our morning bible studies with our group of young leaders. It was a very exciting time with God and Katie and I learned a lot throughout it.

During the first week in February we got the chance to visit and work from another site west of Sydney called Attunga. It was a lovely site with some lovely people of whom several were from the pacific northwest (Seattle) so chatting to them was fun. Katie and I both enjoyed it because we were able to run quite a few of the sessions by ourselves now that we have been trained. We also had our first camp-out expedition, with 60 year 7 boys! As they were from the city - hiking down a mountain carrying all their gear, camping at the bottom and cooking their own food was quite an experience, and they were quite hilarious for it. The rain did pour though, and so Sam's group of 60 whom were due to camp the next night, had to sleep in the barn instead. The most exciting part was that we were able to run our own 1.5hr christian discovery sessions with our individual groups of 15 which meant we got to chat to them loads about who we are in Christ, how God provides for us and how he sent Jesus to die on the cross. What an awesome opportunity to tell them about such exciting news.

We are now starting another week of school camps back at our usual site in the national park. Lots of activities to run and assessments to pass. The main ones over the next couple of weeks are abseiling, climbing and canoeing.

Other than work Katie and I are enjoying our time relaxing at home and on the beach, surfing, kiting and reading. Katie was asked to photograph the church youth formal recently where she got some great photos. In other news Katie was also bitten recently by a white tip spider on her leg. They're only semi dangerous, but it looked pretty nasty and was quite painful. So after a couple days off work, some anti-biotics and medical cream to boost her immune system and stop her skin dying she is fine again. We also recently discovered a huntsman spider nest in the bathroom! So the pest control have been in today to sort it all out...Australia hey!

We are super excited that Sam's parents are coming to visit in about 3 weeks! They'll have about 10 days here and were hoping to get a few days off work to do some stuff with them.

Love and Prayers, Sam and Katie

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! Hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year Eve. We’re really looking forward to this year; another great 6 months working in Australia, and then heading home for the next chapter in our lives – settling in Britain, after what will be nearly 2 years of living and working in mainly Greece & Australia. We’re also really looking forward to the wedding of some of our best friends Kas & Jon, who got engaged on Boxing day! We are so excited we’ll be there for it, and I can’t wait to be Kas’s maid of honour! Congratulations again guys!

Ready to start our hike

So to re-cap on this very big month…We had 2 weeks of training before Christmas which included a 3 day bush-hike through the Blue Mountains, and then some Sail training.

The Blue Mountains has some of the most stunning views in New South Wales, but sadly we had very grey weather which meant for most of the hike we could only see about 10 feet in front of us due to fog! Often hard going as there were many steep hills and crags to scramble/climb up and down. But it was still a great trip – we love our training group and really enjoy spending time with them. We camped our first night under a big overhang/cave, which gave us nice shelter. On the second day we decided that due to the bad conditions, we would walk straight to our final destination, cutting out one night camping, and therefore doing two days of hiking in one. The skies however actually cleared that afternoon and we got some incredible views. On our walk we saw 2 lire birds, and more than enough leeches! Sam was prepared and brought a saltshaker on the hike, which we used up completely whilst getting them off us!  If we get the chance, we’d love to visit the Blue Mountains again in better weather.

Sailing in Sydney Harbour with my team

For the basic sail training, Sam turned from trainee to trainer as he was asked to teach us for 2 days. We had perfect wind, as he taught rigging, tacking, gybing, points of sail, man over board, picking up a mooring, and plenty of theory to go with it. I already knew most from my sailing in Greece, but it was great to refine my skills and really improve. The others really seemed to enjoy it, and Sam loved the opportunity to teach again, and apply all his skills and knowledge from working with the RYA for so long.

At the end of term there was a great staff Christmas party where everyone gathered for a BBQ. During the day my (Katie’s) team had our term social. (Sam’s went canyoning a couple months ago). We spent the day sailing around Sydney Harbour on a yacht, belonging to Sam Hudson’s family. It was my first time in a yacht and we had so much fun sailing around and seeing the sights. We moored up near a beach where we jumped off and swam around before getting back on board for some lunch.

We wondered how Christmas would be for us this year, spending it away from family, and in the middle of summer. We were a bit homesick running up to Christmas, but God provided for us and blessed us so much with some amazing friends, that we had an absolutely amazing time throughout Christmas and the New Year. We treated ourselves to a meal out on Christmas eve to spend some time by ourselves, at an amazing seafood restaurant on the beach. It had glass walls so we could watch people surfing in the sunset, which was beautiful.

For the rest of the Christmas holidays we were completely looked after by the wonderful Hudsons. We woke up and shared presents at our place, before being picked up by Sam Hudson and taken to his parents, Andrew & Keena, for a really nice Christmas lunch with all their family. It was fairly similar to a British Christmas dinner, just that we had everything cold, and had salads as well. It was so good! Later in the afternoon we went with Sam & Lex to Lex’s parents, where we had another Christmas dinner! Similar again, but we also had prawns, and Sam had a swim in their outdoor pool! It was quite surreal spending Christmas day in the sun, but we had such a good day.

The two yachts that came first 1st and 2nd at Hobart!

Boxing day was epic. We went out on the yacht into Sydney Harbour, to watch the start of the Sydney to Hobart (Tasmania) yacht race! It was incredible, hundreds of other boats joined us at the sides to try and get a view, it was so crowded and an amazing atmosphere. 86 yachts took part in the race, and it started in quite windy conditions so the water was pretty rough with the wind blowing right into their course. This meant there were lots of tacks made in front of us, and no less than 10 helicopters above to record the action! Sam was pleased to be able to sail the yacht back after the race to a little bay – his first ever time. He loved it and did really well, as it’s not too different from dinghy sailing.

We were blessed to spend a really relaxing week then in the Hudson’s holiday home in a place called Waggstaffe, about 2 hours away. It was great to relax, sleep, read books, sail in the bay on their catamaran, take lots of pictures, and play lots of Mario-kart! I got Sam a really nice power kite for Christmas and his Birthday, so we spent lots of time flying it on the beach, and even in the sea. Sam also did plenty of wakeboarding over Christmas which he got really good at. Annoyingly, I’ve had an ear infection and a cold so didn’t spend much time in the water, but did go out once on the cat which was fun, and pretty fast! It was great to be able to spend a week with Sam & Lex’s new baby Max. He’s started smiling and is so adorable.  We’re sad we wont get to watch him grow up after we leave, but are very grateful to be here for his first 9 months!

New Years eve was a night we’ll never forget, as we got invited to spend it in Sydney, at Sam’s Grandma’s apartment. She lives right next to the Harbour Bridge, and from the balcony has the most breath-taking view of the bridge, harbour, and opera house – so exactly where all the fireworks are! We had a lovely night there, and there was such an exciting atmosphere from the thousands of people celebrating beneath us!

Our view for the New Years eve fireworks!

Our night got more eventful though, as about 5 seconds before midnight, when the whole city was counting down, Sam Hudson quickly turned to check on Max, and walked into the glass door of the balcony! The whole thing shattered as he fell down with it into the living room, and then midnight came, and the whole sky exploded with the most incredible firework display we have ever seen, and continued for the next 20 minutes! We were all in shock with what had just happened, and with the fireworks going on at exactly the same time that I nearly fainted and had to lie down, half-watching the fireworks, whilst others helped to bandage Sam up. The ambulance came, and he later went to hospital for plenty of stitches. He’s doing fine though, and we were amazed to see how God’s hand had been on us all. Both babies were in the other rooms, safe from the glass, and slept the whole way through, Sam’s wounds were all on his limbs – none on his face or torso where things might have been more serious, nobody was cut at all and the ambulance happened to be right beneath us at the time, so they got to us in no time at all. God is so good.

Then 2 days later, Sam turned 25! It was a beautiful day, and we spent it together at Jambaroo water park. It was crazily busy and therefore had lots of long ques, but we had such a fun day together. In the evening lots of our work friends were back on-site after Christmas, so we had a great BBQ with them. Sam is used to often going out sledging in the snow on his birthday, so he loved the change of having a birthday in the summer for once!

We don’t go back to work till Monday 9^th, so we’re currently really enjoying being at home, and not doing much at all. Rest is so good. As is monopoly deal, and scrabble, and flying Sam’s kite.

Next week we have our last hike, which will be done without a trainer, followed by a few days canoeing training, with camping again in between. After that we’ll be back on site working as normal. Please pray for us as we start to get back into the work mode, pray that God will renew our heart for work and for the children he brings us into contact with, that God will be glorified in all we do.

We’ll try not to leave it as long until we next write. Thank you to everyone who sent us Christmas cards – they’ve been lovely to receive! We miss you all a lot, and look forward to seeing you later this year! All our love, the Knotts xxx

Christmas in the sun

So another couple of weeks have past and the pace is beginning to slow as we approach Christmas and the Australian summer break. There are fewer camps booked for the next few weeks which means Katie and I will be doing some catch up bookwork and training. We have a final week on camp followed by a couple weeks of training which takes us up to our Christmas break from the 24th of December to the 6th of January. We are very much looking forward to our training, as we will be back out to Stanwell tops to be assessed in our vertical rescue techniques in abseiling that we completed our training in last weekend. We will also be on a 4 day hike through the blue mountains, to complete our next section of training in navigation and bush hiking. We will also be doing our sail training but to what extent we will be involved in the learning process I am not sure. I say this because from last week Katie has decided to be both surprising and awesome and having not done any official lessons in sailing or ever taught it before, she is now taking groups of students out sailing and has even done an assessment on one occasion!

This last week has been a great week because God allowed me to experience the love he has for the youth of Australia. I was able to spend quite a lot of time with one group this week, as opposed to changing groups throughout the week, which meant I could begin to build a bit of trust with them. We had 2 Christian discovery discussion groups together and I asked God to speak through me to my group. I encouraged the students to tell me everything they struggled to believe, didn't like, were angry about and just didn't understand about God and Jesus. This led into some really great discussions in which the students began to understand different aspects of living for Jesus at their own levels. The best aspect about talking to the students is that I never know what to say, and by allowing them to ask honest questions means that I have no choice but to trust in God for how I should answer their questions. I really felt God speaking to them as we discovered together that to trust and have faith in God in the big areas of our lives, we often have to recognise God’s answers to prayer in all the little areas of our life in order to build our faith. I have no idea what they were really thinking and how our time together will affect their lives, but as I felt God encourage me to pray for them individually this morning, I really felt Gods love for them and knew that he will continue to be with them in their lives. We are so blessed to have the opportunity to build relationships with the students out here and chat so easily with them about God! Awesome!

Over to Katie to tell you about wildlife and our plans for Christmas. I miss England still very much and hope you are all doing really well.

Hey hey everybody! We wrote our first Christmas cards tonight and on the front were two cool looking Koala bears in Christmas hats, sitting in a Eucalyptus tree decorated with baubles. It kinda summed up how random and different Christmas feels over here! It’s nowhere near as hyped up as it is at home which we kind of miss, and it’s just a bit bizarre that it’s summer, but we have some great plans and we’re really looking forward to it.

We’ve been blessed so much since coming here not only by our awesome friends Sam & Lex (from Samos), but also their amazing parents Andrew & Keena who have helped us feel so at home. We’ll be spending Christmas with their big family. We’re really looking forward to it and feel so blessed for being invited to share it with them. After that we’re heading up to a place called Wagstuff, where we’ll have a week with them in their holiday home. Really looking forward to just chilling out after being so busy lately, and we’ll hopefully get some sailing in.

         Speaking of sailing – on boxing day we’re going to be on their family yacht in Sydney Harbour, watching the start of the big Sydney sailing race to Hobart! (Tasmania). I’ve been checking it out on google and still can’t quite believe we get to do that, it’s going to be incredible seeing all those awesome boats!

        

Some quick highlights from the last week;

- Seeing a 2 metre long diamond python snake slithering up a tree in front of us at work and coiling itself around the branches

- Seeing 2 lorikeet birds land right in front of me on my way to work. They look like mini parrots – bright green, purple, yellow & red, and they always seem to fly in twos, which I think is nice. (check them out on google images)

-We were invited to help at a recent Church youth event on Cronulla beach, where they were being taught to surf by Sam and a few others in the sea, and a guy from Christian Surfers came to speak. We got fish & chips afterwards and watched possums climb the trees.

-I joined in the Church choir practice this week to sing Oh Happy Day, which was pretty fun. Reminded me of choir days in school with Mr. Williams

- Last weekend we went windsurfing! No-one’s into it here, but we found that one of the boatsheds in work had some very retro looking kit, so we put it together and had some fun. The board is the longest I have ever seen, but Sam still managed to plane on it!

- Much to our delight and after a few weeks of looking around in the shops, we found scrabble!

Thank you for all your support and prayers – we appreciate them so much! We miss home a lot, I guess especially now that Christmas is coming, but we know that this is exactly where God wants us for now. Please keep praying for us, and particularly that we would continue to feel more settled in Church and at home there.

Big love from us both x

Another 3 weeks in the land of Oz

3 weeks have gone since our last update. It has definitely been a busy 3 weeks with lots of work, training and fun.

Over the 3 weeks with regards to work, we have been doing a lot of shadowing, learning how each instructor conducts each session, evaluating what they do well so we can develop our own skills in the best ways possible. We have been recommended to make the most of these times as it won't be long before we have our own groups and are running sessions by ourselves. Some of these sessions such as 'bush cooking', 'pool canoeing', fishing etc. don't need any specific training or assessments, and so after seeing them run once or twice, Katie and I have been leading them ourselves! In addition to these sessions there are activities that need a relative amount of training and several assessments for us to be able to run by ourselves. Initiatives (SK and KK), and Low Ropes (SK) are two of which Katie and I have now passed respectively. Other activity sessions such as Archery need extra assessments so we are half way through some of those. Then comes the more skilled activities such as leading abseiling, climbing, and bush hiking which demand a more extensive training programme before we can lead these ourselves. These however are definitely some of the more enjoyable.

With regards to training in these we have had 2 days hiking followed by a 3 day hike in December. We have yet to complete any training in rock climbing but have now had 2 sessions of abseil training which has been great. Last weekend we had 2 full days of abseil training, during the first day we went over different set ups as well as learning how to self belay and different rescue techniques. The most complex skill we learned was how to demonstrate an emergency prussik system halfway down our abseil. We had to demonstrate on our second day that without instruction we could self belay down a 12m vertical cliff stop half way down and switch our system over to allow us to ascend rather than descend. We then had to demonstrate that we could prussik (climb back up the rope using several ropes and knots) back to the top of the cliff. One of the best aspects about our abseil training was where we got to do it. The first day was in and around the centre and the second day was at a location called Stanwell Tops, an area of the National Park about 20mins from the centre. While we were debriefing and filling in our abseil booklets we were lucky enough to see a tiger snake slither by about 2 metres from where we sat, very exciting.

Christian Discovery (CD) has continued to be an exciting part of working here. One specific small group that Katie took with 15 10 year olds after a CD was particularly exciting. The beginning of the week looked difficult with none of them really being interested in it all, to many of them being excited about God and wanting to take bibles home with them to read! One girl even said to the group "I think it would be a great idea if we all trusted in God when we get home"! Amazing. They all agreed, and started to voice personal things like everyone to be praying for.

A few weeks back we got to do something really special and went to see one of my best friends from secondary school in York - Luke Woodroffe. He was down from Cairns with some friends doing some white water kayaking, so we met up for dinner in a place out west of Sydney called Penrith. We are hoping to stay with him in June between when we finish work and fly home.

The weather is slowly getting hotter as we approach Christmas and summertime in Australia. At the moment goes from hot, humid and still with no rain, to cool and windy with rain in hours so you never really know what the day will be like. For me this is the perfect weather because you get regular breaks from the hot sticky days. As well as the weather the sea is slowly warming up but is still pretty chilly when sat waiting for the right wave. Katie and I had a great afternoon recently at a beach in the National Park called Garie, which is also a popular surf spot. I caught a couple of good waves on my new board but still have a lot of improving to do. Speaking of water sports a few of the staff get together on Thursdays to have a sails and ales evening after work with a race and a couple of beers, a fantastic idea! We have raced in some chilled out North Easterly winds and some epic fun Southerly winds - both make for some challenging race conditions. I am trying to get out sailing regularly so that I can return to the UK a much better and experienced sailor.

We are getting on well with the staff here and spending time with them is great, we had an awesome dinner in Wollongong with Scotty B (a guy on Katie's team) and his wife yesterday which was really nice. Wollongong is about an hour from our house so we took an afternoon to drive along the coast road through the National Park stopping at some amazing views and some great little beaches, one of which was called Scarborough. We are really looking forward to our time off over Christmas and New Year, but still don't really know what we will get up to or where we might go.

Thank you all for your prayers - we appreciate them greatly. Katie will be re-doing her timed 400m bronze medallion swim this next weekend which she is quite nervous about, and would appreciate prayer for time and motivation to get out and practice her strokes before the weekend. We have been discussing our future a little bit over the last couple of days which is an answer to our prayers that God would begin to guide us in our next step. We would also like prayer for finding time to be with God both praying, listening and reading the bible.

We really miss everyone at home in the UK, Norway and in Seattle and pray you are all doing well.

Some pictures from our new home..

View from our balcony

Cockatoos hanging out on our balcony

Feeding the Cockatoos

Our living room

View of Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge

Being tourists outside Sydney Opera House