Australia: Walking Life's Path and New Friends, Day 4

I decided I'm going to add a phrase for each post because it's much more colorful than just listing the days. Saturday morning began a little different then most other days. I was unsure of what time I had to wake up and apparently when I did I was 5 minutes late. So I rushed through breakfast, and our driver, Nelson's mom, was flying all over the house trying to get everyone out the door. Then we flew down the streets to get to the train station and boy what a crazy car ride that was. Once we arrived the train was docking and the trains here wait for no one. Because of this, me, Tim, and another brother ran up and down a flight of stairs to board the train on time. This was way too much physical activity before 8AM.

After a short train ride, we ended up at the Harbor Bridge. Since we were early (don't ask me how that happened), we walked onto the bridge and took a bunch of scenic pictures. The view is breathtaking. "I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams,"~Red: The Shawshank Redemption. This is the first time I've seen the Pacific and I can say Red would be pleased. As 8:30am rolled around, we headed back to the train station to meet up with the rest of the group. So what exactly were we doing this beautiful, sunny, morning? A group of saints does a 10k walk in Sydney. This isn't any normal walk, however. The terrain changes, the location changes and the scenes are stunning. We started beneath the Harbor Bridge, which took us a while to get going due to all the photos being taken. Then we followed a public trail alongside the Pacific. We passed by many exotic plants I don't see often or ever in the US. At one point we came upon a park with these massive palm trees. Ray took this as a good opportunity to take out his Frisbee. While everyone else was taking a break, a handful of us were throwing the disc. Beautiful day for it too.

We continued the journey and eventually wandered through the rich neighborhood where the houses were over a million dollars to own. It was a nice thing to see, but I was glad when we ended up on a narrow trail with the ocean on our right and the Australian Bush on our left. Our walk took us by view after view and my goodness they were breathtaking.

I was so relaxed and happy to enjoy this journey. Our travels led us to an overlook point where you could climb down the rocks onto an old lighthouse and a view that engulfed a large portion of the harbor. All the Americans and a few Aussie's climbed down the rocks to get close to the ocean. Ray went the farthest as he scaled the walkway to the edge of the lighthouse. I thought we had reached our end, but we still had a bit to go. Our trekking took us on a jungle like path where a wild bush turkey appeared. The birds here are in higher variety than what they are back home. Yes they're louder, but they're bigger and prettier. Finally after such an enjoyable walk we made it to the end where we hopped on a ferry and took it straight across the harbor. This gave us an awesome view of the Harbor Bridge, the skyline, and the Opera House. I've always enjoyed riding sea vessels and when you add in spectacular views, that takes the cake.

Lunch was had in one of Sydney's busiest shopping areas and it was Japanse Ramen. Remember how I said I'm fed well here? It gets better and better. After slurping down a massive bowl of noodles, we took public transportation back to Yu-lin's house. Even after we had walked all day, we were now going to pass out flyers. The nice thing about doing that here is that your are allowed to put them in the the mailboxes which allows you to cover more ground in a faster time. However, a good number have "No Junk Mail" stickers on them so unfortunately those were off limits. 

The last event for the day was a YP meeting and BBQ at Yu-lin's house. Now when I say BBQ, it was more than a standard BBQ that I was expecting. First there was sausage. Then came chicken. Then lamb. Yes you read that right. Then kebabs. Then prawns. Then steak. It just didn't stop. But I wasn't complaining. Before the YP meeting, some of the younger kids took a liking to us, especially Tim, Anthony, and I. They attacked us with pillows, laughed at our jokes, and basically never left us alone. During the meeting, we taught the young people some songs from Junior High Camp and Mountain Top. I'd say they liked them. Ray, Naomi, Jenny, and I each gave them a simple testimony about why we came. It was a privilege to experience a YP meeting on this side of the world and seeing the great group of kids they have here as well. That's all for day four, come back for day five because it was incredible.