June 7, 2015

This will probably be one of my last posts, four weeks from today we will be home! It's crazy to think that a year and a half has gone by. It's also going to be weird to live in a country where most everyone has an American accent so people won't stop and stare at us when we speak! The scariest thing about coming home is that I'm going to have to go back to driving on the other side of the car and the other side of the road again. I'm kind of worried about that.

 We have been super busy lately and time has gone by so quickly that my posts end up being about a month apart. I looked at the last post date and was shocked to see it's been a month; I thought it had only been two weeks! Oh well, it's good to be busy. 

Two weeks ago Elder Cook came to Australia to speak at Notre Dame, the Catholic law school in downtown Sydney. He spoke on religious freedom. While he was here he spoke to lots of different church groups, and it just so happened that we were able to go to every one; we heard him speak five times. He was one busy man the week he was here. Accompanying him was President Kevin Pearson, the Pacific Area President. He is an amazing man and a very inspiring speaker. He toured with Elder Cook for a week, went back to New Zealand for a conference on the weekend, and then came back to Australia on Monday for a three-day tour of our mission. We got to hear him speak a couple of times during his tour, plus four times the week before. We feel very fortunate that during our year and a half in Australia we've been able to attend meetings with Elder Nelson, Elder Bednar, and Elder Cook. I've been up close and personal more often with General Authorities in Australia than I ever was at home!  
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865630075/Elder-Cook-visits-Australia-New-Zealand.html

Both North and South missions attended as well as all the senior missionaries

We spoke at a Relief Society women's retreat a couple of weeks ago. It reminded me of church camp for women instead of for girls. The women had a 3 day retreat at a really nice lodge in the mountains. Well, I say mountains in a general way, Australia has many 'over the top' scenic places, but they don't have what Idaho would consider to be a proper set of mountains; their mountains are just really large hills! However, they are really beautiful. It's winter down here, and I love how Australia does winter, it's just cold enough to make the leaves turn color on the few trees they have that aren't evergreen trees. Winter down here is just like a beautiful fall day at home. Rarely do you even have to wear a coat! We had a few days last week that were really cold, not Idaho really cold, but cold nonetheless. But after about 3 or 4 days of cold it went back to balmy and beautiful. 

On our way home from the women's retreat we stopped at a place I've wanted to go to ever since we got here. Now that we know we're leaving soon, we're trying to see all the things we have put off seeing because we didn't feel like we had time. On one of the main streets we go down to travel home, is the most elite of all the boy's schools in Sydney, well, I think it's probably the most elite in all of Australia. It's called The King's School. It has a huge campus, as big as some small college campuses at home. Besides the classroom buildings there are several dorms-- lots of students come from outside the Sydney area, and some of them from Sydney live too far away to commute easily day to day (Sydney covers a huge area, it's a really big city!), so they live in the dorms while school is in session. The little boys, grades K-6 don't board, but the older boys, grades 7-12 do if their parents choose to have them do so. Tuition is $30,000 a year and tuition with boarding is $52,932 a year. As we drove through the campus, we were amazed at the top notch buildings and facilities. There is an Olympic size pool, many sets of tennis courts and rugby, cricket and football (soccer) fields. There happened to be a big rugby game going on while we were there, so we stopped and got out of the car and watched for a while. A man standing by me told me that the game was the big playoff game between the top two boys schools in Sydney. The King's School won, so I guess they are the best in Sydney!

The boys have to wear their uniforms to all school events,.I snapped a picture of this young man so you could see they even have to wear their uniforms to games!

My little pocket camera just can't do far-away shots well, it's just too little. You can see the boys in the bleachers all in uniform. You can see from the picture below how far away I was, so this picture is pretty blurred, sorry.

This is the rugby field, you can see how far away I was! It's interesting to me that, in spite of all the rich people who send their kids to school here, there are no bleachers, the fans just stand around on the grass around the field.

Last Saturday we drove out to one of the more rural suburbs in the area and went to the sheep dog trials. We'd gone to sheep dog trials in Utah with Aaron and Jessica and really enjoyed them, so we thought we'd try the Australian version. The part we liked best was the Yard Dog Trials. It was held apart from the Sheep Dog Trials. In the regular sheep dog trials, the dogs have to herd the sheep through different areas and up and down hills and be able to cut a certain number of sheep out of the herd etc. The Yard Dog Trials on the other hand, are held in a very small area and the dog has to get the sheep into a pen, bunch them up, back them off from the gate, then herd them through the gate and back out into the pen, and then do it all again going the other way. The shepherd (I guess that's what they call him, it's the dog's owner/trainer) can't touch the dog or the sheep, he can only give the dog verbal orders. The part we saw was the novice dog trials, so the dogs were young and were just learning. Most of them were pretty obedient, but the dog I filmed was so excited to do his job that he didn't always obey his trainer, he was especially bad at the 'down' command, he just completely ignored it. Some of the other dogs we watched would get down when they were told to, but then they'd slither forward on the ground when they didn't think the trainer was watching. It was pretty funny to watch them. 

Most of the dogs we watched were Australian Kelpie dogs. They are the true Australian sheep dog, they were bred in Australia as sheep dogs. The dogs we watched in Utah were almost all Australian Shepherds, which interestingly enough, are not Australian at all, they were bred in America and are American sheepdogs:)      

Waiting for the signal to 'go'

The dog and the sheep are actually running really fast, you just can't tell it in the picture.

This is the Australian Kelpie-- all the dogs we watched Saturday were Kelpies

These are the kind of dogs I'm used to, the Australian Shepherd. I wonder how they ever got the name Australian Shepherd when they were never bred in Australia??!!

Here's the link to the Yard Dog Trials I filmed:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qjrp4dFLNzU&feature=em-upload_owner    You can tell this dog is young and not very experienced, the sheep escape quite a few times before he gets them all in the pen. All the sheep have to be completely behind the gate line before the trainer can shut the gate. You can see this little guy has lots of enthusiasm, but needs a lot more experience before he's ready to compete with the big dogs!

We were invited out to dinner the other night with some friends of ours, Dave and Rashika and their daughter, Devmone. They are from Sri Lanka. Dave works for a big manufacturing company in Sri Lanka. They manufacture clothing for Victoria's Secret, Macey's, several sports clothing companies, and various top brand clothing lines. They moved to Sydney a year and a half ago so their daughter could have the opportunity to receive a quality education. She attends Tara, the girl's side of the King's School. Actually, Dave doesn't live in Sydney full-time, he's based in their home city, Colombo, Sri Lanka. The company he works for has plants in Sri Lanka, India and Bangladesh. Dave travels internationally quite a bit, so he pretty much just visits his family in Sydney as often as possible. I've been helping Devmone with her English essays and speeches, so they took us to dinner as a thank-you. We had a wonderful evening. Dave is very, very knowledgable, and we learned a lot of world history that night! Living in Sydney has made me realize how narrow most American's knowledge of the world is. Most everyone I've met over here, whether they are Australian, Chinese, or Sri Lankan, knows more about the world than most of us Americans do and they all know more about America than a lot of American's do. It will never cease to amaze me.     

May 2

Last week we attended the Anzac parade. This year was the 100 year celebration, so it was a big deal. We went to this parade last year and it poured down rain throughout the parade. This year we'd been having torrential rains for days, but lo and behold, the day of the parade dawned bright and beautiful. We took the train downtown with friends and got a great spot on the sidewalk right next to the street. This year commemorated the 100 year anniversary of the ANZAC (Australia New Zealand Army Corps) troops and the slaughter they met at Gallopoli. Anzac Day--April 25th-- is one of Australia's most important national holidays. It commemorates the anniversary of the first major military action fought by the ANZAC troops during the First World War. The pride both countries took in the name still endures today. When war broke out in 1914, Australia had only been a federated nation for 13 years. When Britain declared war in August 1914, Australia became involved because they were part of the British Commonwealth. In 1915 Australian and New Zealand soldier made up part of the expedition that set out to capture the Gallipoli peninsula in order to open the Dardanelles to the allied Navies. Their ultimate goal was to capture Constantinople (now Istanbul), the capital of the Ottoman Empire and an ally of Germany. What they thought would be a quick way to knock Turkey out of the war ended up becoming a stalemate which drug on for 8 months. Finally, at the end of 1915 the allied forces were evacuated. The Australian troops lost 8,000 soldiers, this made a significant hole in the Australian population when the war ended. If you are interested in learning more you can find more in-depth information here: http://www.anzacsite.gov.au/

In Australia, it is traditional for a riderless horse known as the 'Lone Charger' to lead the annual Anzac parade. The custom apparently dates back to the time of Genghis Khan when a horse was sacrificed to serve the fallen warrior in the next world. Later on, the riderless horse with the backward facing boots came to symbolize a warrior who would ride no more.

I love to see the WW II Vets being honored. Australia is very proud of its veterans.

HMAS stands for Her Majesty's Australian Ship

This is Elder Roger Williams who works in the mission office. He marched in the parade wearing his father's WW II medals, his grandfather's WW I medals, and his wife's father's WW II medals. I recorded him talking about the medals and the family history related to those men. The video is below.

Here is a closeup of the medals, the large one is Elder Williams for his service in the Australian Army, the others belong to his father, grandfather, and his wife's father. 

This is a copy of the hand sketch of Elder William's father's tank when he was captured in Italy in WWII. In those days units were often accompanied by artists who sketched war scenes. In this case, his father was sent into a village (sorry, I can't remember the name) that ended up being full of Germans. His tank was soon overtaken and his father was taken prisoner. The Germans shot all the POWs in the ankle to prevent them from running away. His father was also shot in the leg. Due to the lack of medical help and sanitation, the leg soon became infected and gangrene set in. In order to save his life, the doctors amputated his leg. Because it was late in the war and Germany by this time was functioning on very little support, there were no antibiotics or pain killers, so his father's leg was amputated with nothing to numb the pain. They just sawed it off while he was awake and could feel everything. He eventually passed out from the pain. Once it healed, he was sent home because he was of no more use as a soldier. His tank was just left on the street where he was captured and remained there for many years. This picture is of his father's tank, a copy of the original by the artist.

If the video does not play, this happens most often when using an iPad, follow this link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9nimc4dyDk&feature=em-upload_owner

I was happy to see the US showed up for the parade:)  

Nice to see the Stars and Stripes so far from home.

It wouldn't be an Australian parade without the bagpipes, or without the 'almost' national anthem song of 'Waltzing Matilda'. I've learned to love that song!

Check out this short video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AKvIeifF58&feature=em-upload_owner

A little background on the traditional Australian 'slouch' hat. It was first used for the Victorian Mounted rifles troops. The left side is traditionally turned up and secured with a rising sun badge. The left side is turned up to allow for a rifle to be slung over the soldier without damaging the hat. It is decorated with an emu plume. The plume originated in WW I when the soldiers used to chase down emus and steal their feathers as a mark of their riding skill.

I'm finding myself becoming a little more Aussie everyday. We go home in two months and I'm going to miss this country and all it stands for. I will especially miss the people. We've had the opportunity to meet so many different people of many different nationalities. Next post I will write about that. Today, I'd like to end with a thought from our service center meeting this morning. Jared, the building maintenance manager from the Sydney office just returned from spending time at the service center in Papua New Guinea. He showed a picture from a pick up basketball game he set up with some of the employees of the service center. He said that the people who work at the center there are very representative of native Papua New Guineans, most live in homes constructed of corrugated steel and anything else they can find to protect themselves from the elements and pretty much live hand-to-mouth. PNG is the poster-child nation for third world nations. When they set up the basketball game, no one on either team had shoes, so they scrounged up some socks and they played outside on the blacktop in nothing but socks. Everyone had a great time though and the picture is full of smiling people. Jared said visiting Papua New Guinea always makes him realize that happiness is not about what kind of possessions people have, it's about serving people. By in large, the poor people of the world are often much happier on a day to day basis, than many people from well-to-do nations. They give and share what they have with one another and serve one another. Happiness comes from helping others, not from the material possessions we possess.   

April 10

It's been a long time since I've blogged. There's a couple of reasons for this, mostly I just have a hard time making myself take the time to do it! We are busy all day and often much of the weekend doing our job, so when we have free time, I don't want to do more work, and writing a blog is work, so.... I just don't do it. Sorry. Secondly, we don't have much time to do sightseeing kinds of things anymore. I know it appears that we are always out and about having fun, but in reality, we are mostly in the office and traveling about doing work related things, but they are not particularly interesting to read about, so that's another reason I post so rarely any more. It's hard to believe that we will be home in less than 3 months! It's Fall down here, so the weather is getting cooler. It's weird to think that we will leave here in July, the depth of winter here, and fly into the hot summer weather of the northern hemisphere. We originally were planning to leave Sydney and fly to Beijing for a few days and on to Taipei, Taiwan where Dave served his mission for a few days and then fly home. The more we talked to people from Beijing though the more the idea of going there in July seemed like a bad idea. Apparently, July is the worst month for heat, humidity, and air pollution. In July, the heat and humidity intensify the pollution to the point that you have to wear a mask every time you go outside. I hate heat combined with humidity, and apparently Beijing has a corner on the 'misery' department weather-wise that time of year. Spending our outside sightseeing time covered in a mask didn't sound so great either. Last week we decided to change our flight plans and move our China trip a few months forward to April of 2016. Apparently, springtime is a really nice time of the year to go, so that's our new plan. We will go straight from Sydney to Las Vegas on July 4th and get our house in Vegas put in order and then go to Idaho on the 13th as originally planned. Going home has always seemed so far off, but now it's becoming something we have to plan for in the not-so-distant future. It seems like we've been gone forever, but at the same time, the time has gone by really fast. Weird how that happens. It's kind of like when your kids grow up, it seems like they will be little forever, but then one day, they aren't little anymore and you wonder how all those years went by so quickly.

I thought I'd post at least one work picture today... this picture was taken at a meeting we went to recently. We attended a meeting for a group who work to advance the rights of New Zealand citizens living in Australia. A very common path for people of the Pacific Islands (mainly Tonga and Samoa) is for families to migrate from an island nation to New Zealand (this is the first stop, because it's so easy to get citizenship in New Zealand-- it only takes 2 years) and then once they get NZ citizenship, they move to Australia because there are more jobs here and the pay is so much better ($17 an hour minimum wage). There's a very long and somewhat complicated history involved with people from NZ migrating to Australia, but choosing not to get Australian citizenship. It used to be there was a great deal of reciprocity between the two nations and so choosing to  not become an Australian citizen was not detrimental overall to the average person. Even though they were not citizens, they still got medical benefits, housing benefits, etc. However, since the early 2001, Australia has tightened up the opportunities that used to be available because they felt that the non-citizens were becoming too much of a burden on the government welfare benefits. Now there are many NZ citizens lobbying for more benefits. One of the big pushes though, and one we support, is for NZ citizens to follow the required processes and get their Australian citizenship. Probably the biggest benefit of citizenship is the educational benefits open to Australian citizens. I've talked about it before, so I won't go into detail, but the education benefit for Australian citizens is terrific, the government loans them the money for university at 4% interest and they are not responsible to begin paying it back until they have a job earning $53,000 a year. Once they reach the $53,000 mark, the loan payment is automatically deducted from their paycheck, kind of like taxes are, so the person never misses the money because they never had it, their paycheck came with the deductions already taken out. The nice part of this system is that a person never has to have money up front to pay for school, no out-of-pocket money for tuition and books like in the US, the government makes the loan and collects at a later date, once the person has a good job. Keep in mind though, $53,000 Australian is like $43,000 US dollars, so really an income of $53,000 is on the low side compared to the US. The cost of living over here is very high compared to the US too. Right now it's about 76 cents US for $1.00 Australian on average, it varies day by day. The last time I got $300 from the ATM, when I checked my bank statement it showed my withdrawal was $263. Right now is a good time to be a US citizen in Australia:) But I digress... the meeting we attended below was for us to get information to try to help the people we work with who would like to get education, but aren't eligible for the government benefits for citizens. That's my new project, to design the 'best option' pathways for non-citizens. Really, their best option is to return to New Zealand and go to school there because NZ has the same education program that Australia does. What these people really need to do, is go through the process to become citizens, but it costs several thousand dollars for the average person to do this, so most don't. What surprised me when we got here was that, even if you are born here, if both of your parents are non-citizens (even though they may be legal Permanent Residents) you are not a citizen. You have to live here 10 years after being born without leaving the country, and then you become a citizen. The US is completely opposite, if you're born in the US, you're a citizen. I thought all countries were like that, but I was wrong. Most countries are like Australia, at least one of your parents has to be a citizen in order for you to be a citizen if you're born here. If the US had this law, a lot of the immigration problems we have now would not exist! The Chinese couple we are good friends with, the young couple who got married in November, were planning to go to the US the first of October for October Conference the first weekend, but their baby is due the end of October and apparently you have to have a visitor visa to go to the US on a Chinese passport and part of the visa includes a medical check and one month before the delivery date is considered too close to allow them to go. The US doesn't want to chance the baby being born early and becoming a US citizen by accident!! They will have to postpone their trip until after the baby is born.

The picture below is of us and the ladies who are spearheading the movement to try to get the Australian citizenship laws changed. Our boss, Johnny, is on the end. He was just sustained as an Area Authority Seventy in Conference last week. He will be wonderful in that calling. We have been so blessed to have him as our boss. He is so kind and caring. He is a very great man and I have a great deal of respect for him. We will miss him when we go home:(

Last weekend we went with some friends, the Finches (relatives of our friends the Finches from Fruitland) up north to the top area of our mission area. The town, McLean, originally was made up of people from Scotland, so the town has continued the tradition of having Highland Games once a year. It was fun to go, especially because the trip up was so beautiful. We stopped at many beaches and at several lighthouses. We stayed at a wonderful Bed and Breakfast on our trip also. It was nice to have a couple of days to just relax. I've only included a few pictures. You are probably tired of seeing all my pictures of beaches!

It's funny, as we walked through this area of sea grass, all I could think of was 'ticks, I bet there's ticks on these things'. I guess I was an Idaho girl for too many years. This type of grass reminds me of the sagebrush back home and I was immediately on the lookout for ticks.

The walk down was nicer than the walk up!

Look at the roots on this tree! We stopped to take pictures and the rancher was out clearing out his ditches. This is a fig tree, non-edible figs, he said he figures this tree is about 150 years old!

The first day was full of bagpipe competitions, both individual and groups.

My husband's middle name is 'Gordon' his relatives from Scotland were from the clan Gordon.

Watching the pipers in the rain!

Another beautiful beach and the surrounding rocks.

Grandkids: 

I thought you might like to see some of the interesting little things we saw on our trip.

This is the Bed and Breakfast house we stayed at. The man who owned it was very nice. He had some cool plants and trees around his house. We got to pick grapefruit off his trees for breakfast! He gave us some to take home and also some limes he picked off his tree just for us.  We made guacamole with the limes and some avocados we got. 

This little frog was sitting on the porch when we went to go into our room. The owner of the house picked him up to move him off the porch and into the bushes. He had to get his hands wet before he could touch the frog because if you touch the frog with your dry hands it will injure the frog's skin and it will die.  I had to take a quick picture because the frog was really scared and kept trying to escape and jump out of the man's hands. He was a very strong frog. 

I'm sorry that this picture is sideways, I forgot to turn it before I uploaded it. If you turn it and look at it correctly, I think it looks kind of like a little puppet with two yellow eyes. What do you think? This is a ginger plant, not the kind of ginger we eat, but it's still called a ginger plant. 

This plant is called dragon fruit. You can eat the red fruit that you see on this plant. It's pretty good. We eat it in fruit salads.

This little girl was getting ready to compete in a Scottish dance contest. She was dancing a Highland dance where she had to dance over crossed swords.  I took her picture because she is wearing the Gordon tartan. We are from the clan Gordon, so if you were to dress in the clan of your Scottish ancestors, you would be dressed in this same plaid.

I took these guys pictures because I thought you would like to see what an Australian lifeguard looks like. I'm not sure why, but the lifeguards have to wear these suits and those funny hats. I thought they looked silly, but apparently the Australians think they look just fine. 

You can tell this tree growing at the edge of the ocean has spent a lot of its life in the wind. It is growing pretty much sideways. The kids playing in it really liked the way it grows, it was just their size!

I love you all very much and miss you. I will get to see you pretty soon, summer is coming!

March 1

This past weekend we had to do training in Canberra. We were pretty excited because we've never been to Canberra before. It's about a three hour drive south of Sydney. This trip was our first time out of the state of New South Whales. Canberra is located in ACT, Australian Capital Territory; it's the Washington D.C. of Australia. Apparently, many many years ago there was quite a ruckus between Melbourne and Sydney vying for the honor of being the capital of the country. Because there was so much trouble between the cities, it was decided that they would find a spot halfway between Sydney and Melbourne to be the capital. Canberra was the winner, so the area surrounding Canberra is called ACT; it's much like the District of Columbia in the US. Australia has 6 states and two territories, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory. ACT is basically made up of Canberra and the surrounding cities; ACT is very small, especially by Australian standards! We drove down Wednesday night because we wanted a to have a little time to check out the city before our evening meetings.  We started at the government buildings early in the morning. We spent a little time in the Parliament building where all the government action took place until a few years ago when they moved to a newer and bigger building.

This is the main room where the governing of Australia happened for many, many years.

This is a mock up of the crown jewels and the associated royalty paraphernalia, the originals are in London!

This is the mace; it is carried in by the speaker of the house and nothing can happen in a session unless the mace is here , resting in it's holder.

The new Speaker of the House!

This the the chair the Speaker of the House must be sitting in throughout the entire session. It was beautiful and has lots of ornate carving, some of the wood used in the chair is from England and dates way back to the early 1200s. 

One thing I found very interesting is that it is compulsory to vote in Australia. If you don't vote you have to pay a huge fine! We toured a lot of government offices, but I won't bore you with all that.


Directly across a huge pavilion area, is the War Memorial. We absolutely loved this building and wished we had more time to spend there. We spent about three hours, but that short amount of time barely allowed us to make a dent in seeing all that was available. The Australians are very, very loyal to their ANZAC soldiers from WWI and this building began as a tribute to the dead from that war. Once Britain joined WWI, Australia was automatically committed as well because at that time, they were part of Britain. Australia was a fairly young country then and their loss of 60,000 men devastated their land. They opened their doors to immigrants and began to slowly rebuild their country. When WWII came along, their losses were big, but nothing like the amount they lost in WWI. It seems that WWII is the big war we always hear about in the US and I was always under the impression it was the worst war of the two, but for Australia, WWI was the worst war because of the impact losing such a huge portion of their working citizens had on their country.

This life size statue is a tribute to John Simpson who landed with the ANZAC troops at Gallipoli. Gallipoli is where the ANZAC troops fought and were so decimated. Sergeant Simpson would carry water up to the troops on his donkey and then haul wounded men down. He is famous because the Australian's feel that he exemplifies the Australian value of self-sacrifice.  

This was a huge long wall called the Roll of Honor. You can't see it here, but in between the rows of flowers are the names of all those Australians who died in World War I. The red flowers are poppies and signify the flowers from the poem, In Flanders's Field.  http://www.greatwar.co.uk/poems/john-mccrae-in-flanders-fields.htm

It's hard to get the perspective, my little camera doesn't do the job very well, this picture was taken from the steps of the War Memorial looking down across to the Parliament Building.

This is the center of the War Memorial building. The reflection pool has an eternal flame burning and through the door at the end of the center is the Tomb of the Unknown Australian Soldier. The Aussies borrowed some ideas from the US.

After we left the War Museum we spent quite a bit of time in meetings, but then we got up early on Friday morning and drove to the Snowy Mountains. The 1980s movie Man From Snowy River was the impetus to get us headed down the road in that direction. Also, Aaron's wife Jessica's name was inspired by Jessica in the movie. The country was beautiful and it reminded me a lot of the mountains outside of Boise, the ones before you get to the really huge mountains. Much of the country reminded me of the Palouse area of northern Idaho. The odd thing though was that there were no pine trees, not even one!! Instead there are eucalyptus and gum trees. It was pretty odd to be in the mountains but never see a pine tree!

Jindabyne is one of the first cities as you enter the Snowy mountains.  I'm not sure, but I'm guessing that Jindabyne is an Aborigine word, at least it sounds like one! 

Again, my little camera doesn't do justice to the view, but you can get an idea of the valley with the mountains in the background.

Here's the very beginning of the Snowy River. The headwaters are right under the dam.

We stopped at the ski lift and bought a ticket to the top. It was just us and the mountain bikers!

This mountain is the highest spot in all of Australia!!!

Here we are riding up in the middle of eucalyptus trees, not a pine tree in sight!

The ski runs don't look too tough, at least if you compare them to what we have in Idaho!  However, Thredbo is where Tora Bright skied and she was an Olympic skier, so there must be more to this place than meets the eye!

The silver poles sticking up are snow making machines. Even though this is the highest mountain in all of Australia, apparently Mother Nature needs a little help making enough snow in the winter!

It's a little rocky at the top.

The view from the top of the ski lift.

This is a picture I took of a picture they have of the mountain in winter. 

As we left the ski hill we saw a mama kangaroo and her baby just hanging out, resting in the shade.

This ranch (you can barely see it in the distance) is in the area I imagine the ranch from the movie looked like.

They have a huge set of reservoirs thats supply 9 dames with the power needed for this area of Australia.

This is the spillway on the dam that feeds this reservoir, no water flowing today though,

This reservoir was right by the Bed and Breakfast we stayed at.

This couple were our hosts at the Bed and Breakfast we stayed at. We loved their house and enjoyed their company. Joe immigrated from Venice, Italy when he was 24 years old to work on the big dam project in the Snowy Mountains. I loved his accent! 

The last town we visited before we headed down out of the mountains.