Arrived in Australia...

After four days of travelling (five flights, leaving from five different countries) I've finally arrived safely in  Townsville, in the north east of Australia. For the next four days I'll be staying at YWAM's University of the Nations campus in the city, and then changing accommodation to spend a week at a nearby backpackers' hostel. I'll have four days of meetings with the College of Education, and then a full week at a larger university gathering with more than a thousand people.

Although the 4-day trip seemed rather long, I arrived a day early in Townsville and this meant I had some time this morning to go for a long walk and explore the town a bit. Just fifteen minutes from the YWAM campus is the beachfront area called The Strand. I went for an early morning (after breakfast) walk along the seafront to a hill that marks the location of a fortress during World War II. You may have heard of the Battle of the Carol Sea in May 1942, and the bombing of Townsville just a few months after that. The most enigmatic aspect of my walk, however, was finding official posts containing bottles of vinegar all along the beach area. Turns out that this is because marine stingers (jelly fish) can cause a lot of injuries during the summer months.

Click to enlarge photo

My walk was sufficiently early in the morning, that I passed many dog walkers and was impressed to see that border collies were often the dog of choice. Aussies have good taste!! I also saw an amazing range of birds, trees and tropical plants - some of which were familiar to me from my years in Africa, and some species that I'd never seen before. We'll be busy with meetings now for the next few days, but we'll probably have some free time again on Monday morning, and a couple of us are hoping to go and visit a place where we can see koalas. Seems a pity to visit Australia and not see at least one of their most well known national animals. In the meantime, thanks for your prayers over the coming days as I meet with the college of education people.