Touching Timor....Part 1

Have just returned from a 10 day vacation to Timor Leste with a group of intrepid fellow travellers and what an amazing experience it has been.   Culture shock? Well it was pretty hard not to be affected by the abject poverty rampant in this country of just over 1 million people.  

Would I go back again....you bet!

first week....

Resisting the urge to post a plethora of baby shots from the gazillion I have already shot, here are a few taken each day of Tarquin's first week of life!

feet first!

On the 11th May 2013, Tarquin Fenna Knox made her entrance into this world.
This is the story of her birth...firstly at home and then at the hospital when she decided that she was going to arrive feet first!

six barrel soda co.

....being the intrepid traveller that I am (cough cough!), it was off to Wellington for 5 days.  Explored sites and streets with the added intrigue of trying to find the Six Barrel Soda Co.  I was given strict instructions by Shayna to find this place and try out the goods!   Took a while, but a small sign on a large wall led us to a narrow staircase.....

the church in the middle of nowhere....

coming back from the country earlier in the week, I drove along a road that I have driven many times before.  ....and each time I see this sign along the roadside on a gate saying that up the driveway is a church.   It has always puzzled me as to why there was a church in the middle of nowhere in the first place and judging by the driveway with its long dirt track pocketed with innumerous dirty big potholes, I was getting curioser and curioser.
....so I stopped, turned into the driveway, negotiated my little car up that dirt track through the bush and this is what I saw...

85 years young

A celebration worth flying to New Zealand for....my beautiful mum is 85 years old.

beach mission 2013

....so beach mission is an outreach to the Caloundra community with the goal of spreading the gospel.   For our family, this was our 7th year of being part of the team.   

I'm posting a smattering of New Years Eve pool party shots, as well as some from the the Kids Club programme and wait for it.....the Smashing Bumpkins bush bash dance workout!!   

In between them all are random landscape/coastal pics I took....some when I finally managed to get out of bed at 3.30 one morning!

bushfire!

...last night I went to Orion to pick up Elise from work and the closer I got to Springfield the smoke was becoming more thick and choking.   After picking her up, we drove around the area just to survey the smoke, the haze and the few small blazes that were burning in the distance.


Man, that fire erupted quickly out of nowhere....what an amazing sight and so incredible to hear the sound of fire surging through the bush....

The Naran's New Zealand Adventure....with family!

Well I guess you could call this Part 3 of our New Zealand holiday....

not so much about skiing as the previous post!

  The weather was decidedly milder than we expected

 and with little rain, the days were absolutely delightful.

 

The Naran's New Zealand Adventure - The Skiing!

...so the first couple of days were spent skiing at Coronet Peak...just out of Queenstown