Air Walk

On a rare sunny Saturday, we drove south to the Huan Valley.  I think it might look a bit like Ireland, as it is green rolling hills and pastures, small communities along the river, and sailboats moored in the little bays.  It is a beautiful place.  Our destination was the Tahune Airwalk which is on the edge of the National Forest. 

Unlike our forests which have pine trees, here, most of the trees are eucalyptus.  This was like a rain forest with lots of different plants, trees, ferns, and a river running through it.  It is one of the homes of the Huan Pine which is now protected from logging because it is so rare.  Woodworkers can only use salvaged Huan Pine which has been washed down by floods.  We had a lovely guided walk through the forest and then up onto the metal airwalk which is like a catwalk that winds through the tops of the trees.

After lunch, we walked around the other side of the path and crossed the swinging bridges.  Marvin was not too happy after he crossed the first one to notice that there was an “s” on the end of “bridges”.  He does not like heights and hanging high above the rushing river was not fun for him. I thought it was great.

Sunday was church meetings and choir practice.  We are practicing for two performances, one for the community and one for the stake.  Of course the director wants the music memorized, so Marvin has been working on getting it on his computer so we can practice it more and be ready for Dec. 14 and 15. 

Nothing outstanding occurred during the week, just work, but here is a picture of some of  the volumes of books that we have been digitizing.  The first books we did were about  500 images.  Now, they are closer to 900 per book.  Each book is one year’s burial records for a large cemetery in Hobart.  We are about 1/3 of the way through this project.

Yesterday we had a baptism after church of a 19 year old girl, Bronte.  There are so few young single adults in the ward, but they are strong.  Afterwards we went for “tea” at the Stake Relief Society Presidents/High Priest Group Leader’s home.  It was wonderful to get a chance to socialize and become better acquainted.

Getting ready for Thanksgiving has been a bit of an eye-opener!!  We were looking for turkeys (ham is the Australian meat for holidays) and finally found this one, a 16 pounder for $70.00!!!  We didn’t buy it.  We found a turkey roll with dressing in the center.  It will have to do.  Also, no canned pumpkin for pumpkin pie.  The people are huge pumpkin eaters and you see lots of different pumpkins in the grocery stores, but they all cringe when we talk about pumpkin pie.

  I will be making pies from scratch this year and will probably have to make extra to take to people who can’t even dream of making pumpkin into pie.

(The Australian dollar is about the same as the US dollar, so, yes, that is the correct price we would have to pay).

Word of the Week: “panel beater” =  a car repair business (which we hope we never have to visit).