my backpacking trip to Walpole

These photos are from a backpacking trip that me and three of the youth from Westchurch went on in the beginning of January. We backpacked for three days and joined up with a group from the Perth Church of Christ. The terrain was extremely challanging at some points during the trip, but we managed and I just kept looking up when we were hiking ENORMUS sand dunes. After we got to the end of the track, we went back to the place we camped at the first night, called The Valley of Giants, named after the giantic trees, and did a tree-top walk. It was incredbile; Amy was a little weary of heights, but we all encouraged her to keep going! Walpole is in the south of Western Australia and the surroundings are so different compared to the coastal terrain Perth has to offer. It was much cooler down there and the trees were incredible to look at, I felt so small standing among them. All in all, it was a great trip and I learned how much your body is capable of if you push it a little.

The weekend was pretty slow. It's been really warm and humid here, so we've been trying to stay in water as much as we can. Luckily, Sue from our church has a pool and we tend to drop by regularly for a quick dip! Friday night, Sue invited me to stay for dinner after I had been for a swim. I babysit her little boy Billy sometimes, so it was really nice to spend time with them. Friday night, I sat in the comfort of Helen's house and watched the Grammy's by myself. It was great. Me, Hayley and Amy decided to do a 40-hour fast beginning at 8pm Friday night and we ended it at noon on Sunday. So, Saturday was a little painful, going without food is a lot harder than you think! We spent time occupying our minds by watching Gilmore Girls and making invitations for a lady at church who has asked us to plan her 50th birthday party. Me and Amy think we should go into business planning parties, we've been helping with quite a few lately. And Sunday is always busy with church. We had a church meeting after the service, which I gave a compeling youth report and we talked more about the possibility of combining with the Perth church. All the discussions were fairly positive and we are working on moving forward with our meetings. Sunday evening a few of us went up north to Ocean Reef to visit another congregation. I was pleasantly surprized to see Ryan Deetlef who had just come back from his big trip around the world. I almost didn't regonize him. The Deetlef family invited me and Amy to stay for dinner and we didn't end up leaving until around 10:30pm. They are such a warm and loving family, it made me miss mine so much. Their middle son, Lee, reminds me so much of my brother, it's kinda spooky.

And Monday has been filled with lots of work. We're planning a Valentine's Day Dinner for all the singles of both churches, so we've been running around everywhere trying to get organized for it. I'm still convinced that Valentine's Day is a holiday created by american greeting card companies, and they've still managed a way to invade their propaganda on Australia.