Easter Hike

DO you ever get stir crazy? I am as much a home body as anyone else, but at a point I just go a little stir crazy. That was yesterday morning. Yes it was Easter Sunday, but I HAD to get out of the house! Now there are not many options when that happens here in the middle of Australia, you can go to Wollies (the grocery store) Kmart (just what is sounds like, but dirtier than the typical US shop, oh and about 3 times more expensive) or you can go out bush. We opted to go out bush. My husband is the only one who wore sensible footwear, the rest of us are wearing sandals or flip-flops (thongs if you are Aussie). We have been here over a year and still not traveled over and up to Stanley Chasm, so that is where we went. I packed a little picnic lunch, the kids jammed as many chocolate eggs into their mouths as possible and we were off.
Normally we would have been in church celebrating Christ rising from the dead, but sometimes God and His splendor can be better worshiped outside in His glory. I get that from my Dad. The white trees are Ghost Gums (big eucalyptus trees) and they smell so good. SO not only was this a great little walk in the "woods" but it was like a spa treatment too.
Emma and I dressed up a bit, well I have a skirt on and a hat (both I made by the way, hubba hubba). And everyone has on a hat...gotta have your hat here. Oh and that is my beat up "Stu Tote" over my shoulder. Sam decided he was not walking another step, so up on mamma's hip he went. On the way down he got to ride in style up on his daddy's shoulders
The landscape here in Australia is just so dramatic. And the colors are so intense RED dirt, dusty SAGE foliage, WHITE tree trunks of the ghost gums and the BLUEST Sky I have ever seen. As we were driving out I have the most amazing inspiration for quilting. I have to finish some more bags of course first...but that is always the case with me. The picture above is of the chasm.


We were stationed in Ft Hood, Texas before coming here. I love the wide open views of Texas. Australia is very similar to that, except even more wide. There are cattle stations and Aboriginal camps sprinkled around, but for the most part nothing else. Just views. Some of the oldest mountains on Earth thrusting up out of red dirt softened a bit by spinifex grass. I love it here. Come visit!
Finally, some of God's amazing outback animals. We saw 2 Perenties yesterday (monitor lizards) the first guy was really enormous. I thought someone had tossed a log out into the road, but it was this really massive lizard. Then on the way out of the park we saw this fellow being molested by some German tourists, so we had to get a picture too. He was about 3.5 feet of reptile. My husband says there is a bigger one out where he works, that likes to peek in the windows of the chow hall.