Sunday, 18 May, 2014

Dad finished up his first course yesterday and he was really pleased with how the whole course went.  All of the guys passed the exam which is always good. :-)  After each course, Dad gives out an evaluation form about the course and the instructor.  Dad received wonderful comments about his teaching - it always feels good when others appreciate your knowledge.  We had two visitors to our unit this week: Munir (a colleague of Dad's who is actually leaving the company) and Harry (Dad's boss).  Harry actually treated us to take-out last night.  After that, Dad and Harry spent the evening reloading the ipads which the students use for the course.

I have now knitted eight baby beanies and two adult beanies.  I was able to stitch up the adult beanies without assistance and they look okay.  I don't want to try and do it with the baby beanies on my own, though, as I want to make sure that they are done perfectly.  I also started on my online course 'Sharing the Gospel' this week.  After stating the objectives of the course, the main one being that 'the main purpose of missionary work is to bring people to Christ', I learned about the growth of the church in the past 150 years.  It's amazing how fast it has grown, especially since the 1960s.  There are little tests every now and then and, so far, I have passed the ones I have taken.  I had to take a pretest for one of the sections and got 6 / 12 - not too bad, eh? :-)  On Friday, I finally took advantage of the gym here in the building and did a half hour on the treadmill.  I hope to get more use of it in our final week here.

Dad had Tuesday off and so we decided to go to Rottnest Island which is 18 kms off the coast of Western Australia.  We caught a ferry from Perth and it took 1 1/2 hours to get to the island.  Once there, we took three walking tours given by volunteers on the island.  There are not very many permanent residents on the island, but there is a school and a teacher there (something like 5 - 9 kids over grades Kindergarten - 5 -- I'll put up my hand for that job :-)  The three walking tours we took were: 1) Reefs Wrecks and Daring Sailors Discovery Walk - Pilots were stationed on Rottnest Island between 1848 and 1903 to guide ships safely around the Island's dangerous reefs. This free walk from the Visitors Centre to the Bathurst Lighthouse involves enthralling tales of the exploits of the Pilots and crew on Rottnest. The tour incorporates the pilot crew accommodation, the boathouse and replica pilot boat;  2) Quokka Walk - Rottnest Island's famous marsupial, the quokka, is discovered in this informative walking tour. With an educational focus, this walk
leads participants to the quokka's natural habitats and imparts some interesting facts about this iconic animal; and 3) History of the Settlement Walk - A free guided history tour around the settlement. See where gaolers and ship pilots lived and worked. Discover why Rottnest

became an Aboriginal 'open prison' in 1839. The volunteer guides were fabulous - they have such an amazing knowledge of the island and its peoples and animals.  The weather was fabulous - we had a wonderful day out.

the red ferry in front is the one we took to Rottnest Island

a quokka

tree knocked down by strong winds which began growing upwards again

 a building built by aboriginal convicts 

our view from the seats at the back of the ferry on the way back to Perth

"Millionaire's Row" on the way back to Perth