It’s been a very last minute thing – made possible because God worked a miracle through some amazing people getting me a new MacBook Pro (thanks again!), and also having credit card lol – picked up my tickets on Thursday! It’s going to be an awesome trip, totally looking forward to it…it’s going to be busy too: GYC, photo shoot for next years GYC branding and brainstorming for marketing, Weimartians @ GYC (reunion with people from Weimar College), shooting a friends wedding, 400 odd mile road trip up to Grants Pass, then down to Mount Shasta for Christmas with some really cool friends (it’ll be a white Christmas – just checked the weather, -12C to -2C and snowing!), then a week when I don’t know what we’re going to do! I say we because one of my best buddies Kerrod is joining me in Sydney for the trip – we’re going to have a blast…the USA isn’t going to know what hit it.

So yeah, it’s going to be heaps fun! And I’d better get packed ASAP or I will be saying j’ai manqué mon vol!

My friend Philip Mills over at his blog has posted something that I think everyone who’s asked that question will appreciate – check it out HERE!

We had some games out in the paddock – and few old ones like freeze tag, and bull-rush; and a new on called “Great wall of China” which was really fun!

I make up (with my parents helping with chopping up veggies) enough Singapore noodles for half an army (well, it looked like it), and people brought sweets – it was a nice meal. We had a bonfire and sat around it eating and having a chat. Then afterward we sang some songs of praise to God for He is worthy of praise!

Also I took a shot of our church family on Sabbath:

Here we are before heading out on the ride. Left to right: me, Joshua and my dad

The pines are about 35-40km from where we live, and are a pine forest plantation of – I’m guessing – 50,000+ hectares. There’s a river with a large waterfall and swimming hole going through it too, so in summer it’s great fun swimming there (though I have swum there in winter, but that’s another story). We go riding on the logging tracks – which are great as they have water bars (or rollovers) that we get a bit of air on going over on the bikes. This time we did a 7km ride that started with a really steep climb for 1km then dropped down through a tunnel of dense pine trees, followed by a few km’s of easy riding (well almost easy ) then another down hill run with lots of ruts. We then came out to the main road where we left my dad (he had a walk with my mother who also came along), after riding down the road for a few hundred meters, we went down track 300, a great track that’s mostly downhill, and has lots of water bars! At the end of that track is the waterfall where we were meeting my parents (they were driving in from another track). While waiting for them to turn up we were riding around on the large expanse of rocks that are in the river – lots of rock slabs to drop off of! I had a bit of a crash here too – was going over a ledge, and miss-judged my peddle stroke, next thing I found my self going over the handlebars! Wasn’t really hurt (praise God!), just a bit sore – though it gave Joshua a laugh, as normally he’s the one who crashes…

By this time it was starting to get dark and cold, and my parents hadn’t turned up yet. So Joshua and I had the bright idea of lighting a fire. I had a flint/magnesium stick in my camelbak, so we tried to build a fire – if you’ve ever used a flint stick to light a fire in the cold you’ll know what I mean by “try,” and if you haven’t, you should try it! On the 4th attempt – on the third attempt my parents turned up – we had a fire going! Now we could relax around a warm fire while we ate – nice!

Long exposure of us sitting around the fire singing.

After eating we sang a few songs and praised God for the amazing beauty that was all around us – Psalm 148 sums it up really well: “Praise ye the LORD. Praise ye the LORD from the heavens: praise him in the heights. Praise ye him, all his angels: praise ye him, all his hosts. Praise ye him, sun and moon: praise him, all ye stars of light. Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens. Let them praise the name of the LORD: for he commanded, and they were created. He hath also established them for ever and ever: he hath made a decree which shall not pass. Praise the LORD from the earth, ye dragons, and all deeps: Fire, and hail; snow, and vapour; stormy wind fulfilling his word: Mountains, and all hills; fruitful trees, and all cedars: Beasts, and all cattle; creeping things, and flying fowl: Kings of the earth, and all people; princes, and all judges of the earth: Both young men, and maidens; old men, and children: Let them praise the name of the LORD: for his name alone is excellent; his glory is above the earth and heaven. He also exalteth the horn of his people, the praise of all his saints; even of the children of Israel, a people near unto him. Praise ye the LORD.”

All up it was lots of fun! Joshua and I had a really good time – he’s a great friend! And it was good to have my parents company too!

After coming through a rough section Joshua’s rear derailer’s guide wheel came off – we spent a while looking for it, but the parts of the guide wheel are small so we didn’t have much chance of finding them, plus it was getting dark. So, what do you do when things like this happen? Well, you ask your best friend to help! And that’s what we did, we had a prayer and started looking again and within five minutes we’d found all the parts and were on our way again – praise the Lord!

Only problem was that it was now dark and we still had 5-km to go – well, that’s no problem when you have a head-torch in your Camelbak lol. It was fun riding in the dark, though a bit challenging as we were on a rough track, which ends in a right-of-way going through a farm. It’s fine when it’s dry but we’ve had a whole lot of rain this winter, and the ground was a bog, mud was spraying up all over us as we came flying down the hill. At the bottom of the hill is a small creek which had risen from the rain, and we came down the hill and straight into the creek – wet shoes and pants! After that it was just a relaxed 2-km ride on a dirt road to Joshua’s place. It was great to have a decent ride, as I haven’t had one since summer!