Minnamurra Rainforest, EASTER SUNDAY 2014

Minnamurra Rainforest Centre says: “Visit Minnamurra Rainsforest wher nature is easy to reach.” They are open 7 days 9 am to 5 pm. You can find out more when you go to:

http://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au

Our plan was to go to Minnamurra Rainforest early in the morning on Easter Sunday, the 20th of April. We had booked lunch for 1 pm in Wollongong. That meant we all had to get up early to have breakfast before 8 am. We were all very good and got ready on time. We were the first visitors at the Centre arriving there just before 9 am. Well before midday we were back home again to get ready for lunch in Wollongong.

We were very lucky again with the weather. It was a perfect day for a walk through the rainforest.

This snake greeted us on a wall of the Visitors' Centre. — This snake greeted us on a wall of the Visitors’ Centre.

Here we met up with our son Martin and his daughter Lauren.

They had gone all the way up to Minnamurra Waterfalls. Peter and I had remained on the lower level, taking quite a few photos of the forest. Here are some of the photos:

Here I googled some tourist information:

‘”It’s an incredible feeling, to stand among the trees in this ancient patch of rainforest and imagine a time when it covered most of the land around here.”

Visit the multi award-winning Minnamurra Rainforest Centre and experience the splendour of the rainforest.

Chat to friendly staff in the Minnamurra Visitor Centre – they’re experts on the area so will be able to give you plenty of useful information – and check out the interpretive signs and Aboriginal artefacts on display. You might also find that perfect little present or souvenir in the Centre’s gift shop.

Then it’s time to wander the network of elevated walkways through the rare remnant rainforest that once reached throughout the Illawarra. Feel your senses awakening as you listen to the birds, feel the spray of the waterfalls and spot rainforest residents – perhaps the superb lyrebird, eastern water dragon or swamp wallaby.

There’s also a picnic area by the river, so pack your hamper and enjoy a barbecue in this splendid environment.’

Location: shown on Minnamurra Rainforest Centre map
Getting there: Minnamurra Rainforest Centre is located in the foothills of Jamberoo Valley, west of Kiama on the NSW South Coast. To get there from Jamberoo, drive west on Jamberoo Road and turn left onto Jamberoo Mountain Road. Take the first right onto Minnamurra Falls Road, and you’ll find Minnamurra Rainforest Centre about 3km along to the end of the road.
Road access: Sealed road – 2WD vehicles.
Opening hours: The Minnamurra Rainforest Centre is:
Open 9am–5pm (Monday-Sunday).
Closed on Christmas Day
Facilities: picnic tables, gas/electric barbecues, flush toilets, drinking water, cafe/kiosk, carpark, lookout, trackhead/access point, venue
Vehicle entry fee: $11 per vehicle per day. For passengers travelling by private transport (bus or taxi), the fee is $4.40 per adult and $2.20 per child.

http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/NationalParks/parkVisitorCentre.aspx?id=N0069

Easter Sunday 2014

After we finished Lunch, the Easter-Bunny came around and handed out little Easter Eggs. — We still had some deserts left when the Easter-Bunny came around and handed out little Easter Eggs.

We had had a buffet lunch. These lovely decorations were above one of the buffet tables:

This beach is opposite from where we had lunch. I took pictures of Peter and Granddaughter Lauren in front of North Wollongong Beach.

Peter took this picture. — Peter took this picture of North Wollongong Beach.

The five Buddhas

We have been visiting the Nan Tien Temple yesterday and spent a little bit of time at the Main Shrine with the Five Buddhas.

AuntyUta

“The five Buddha’s of Confidence, Longevity, Wisdom, Inner Beauty and Peace grace the shrine with 10,000 smaller Buddha’s, showing that everyone can achieve Buddhahood.

Li-Bu-Wei Buddha

Amitabha Buddha

Tuo-Pao Buddha

Miao-Se-Shen Buddha

Gan-Lu-Wang Buddha
This Buddha’s symbolic direction is east. He signifies confidence and fearlessness. The hands are in a mudra of appeasement or consolation. With the daily occurrence of violence and natural disaster around the world, many people find it difficult to face the future. The tranquility gained from following the Buddha’s way better enables one to remain calm; like a mountain unmoved by ravaging elements, one can approach each day without fear.
This Buddha’s symbolic direction is west and his hands are in a mudra of concentration. He signifies infinite light and boundless life. Amitabha Buddha presides over the Western Pure Land. Praying to Amitabha Buddha improves one’s constitution and increases longevity. With sincere and continued practice of…

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HAPPY EASTER

Happy Easter everyone!

Sydney and surrounds is bathed in beautiful autumn sunshine. We are so lucky that after all this rain during the past few weeks the skies cleared up.

The Pagoda of the Nan Tien Temple near Wollongong.

Yesterday, on Easter Saturday, we went to the Nan Tien Temple. We had planned on having a vegetarian lunch in their downstairs Tea Room. The extended car places near the Temple were all taken. It was absolutely amazing how many cars were parked everywhere. We had never seen the place this packed full. It turned out there were celebrations going on for Buddha’s Birthday. However we found out later that the birthday had already been on the 8th of April. Never mind this, more celebrations are planned. The next celebrations are going to be on the Mothers’ Day Weekend.

It was announced on the speaker system that people could register their children between the ages of two and seven. From 12,30 on these children would be given a special birthday celebration party in the courtyard. Everything for free! Later on we saw lots of food- and gift-stalls near the courtyard. We did not get any food there for we had already eaten an excellent lunch in the tea-room.

My choice was first of all some Cappucino.

The coffee arrived well covered in chocolate together with a dish that looked liked minced meat but was vegetarian of course.

I had ordered a curry dish with rice which was delicious. Sorry, I forgot to take a photo of of this rice dish. I took some photos of these interesting glass teapots that contained some exotic teas.

We went for a walk further up the hill towards the Gratitude Bell. Peter took a picture of me near this bell. Martin did give the bell a try chiming it. The sound is very pleasant and carries over large parts of the surrounding area.

This is Martin near the Gratitude Bell looking towards the Pagoda.

Here I caught Peter as he is walking near some tall bamboo plants at Nan Tien Temple.

Port Kembla Beach was deserted on Easter Saturday Morning.

This is our son Martin going for a swim in Port Kembla Pool.

The wind on that morning was very unpleasant. Lauren did not go for a swim. Peter and I decided too that we would not go into the water.

The previous day, on Good Friday, we had Caroline and Matthew staying with us and also Monika and a lot of her family, including little Lucas.

Lucas liked to play again with some toy cars.

Time to have some marzipan covered Nut Cake that Peter made.

Caroline did bring some home baked apple and plum cake along, and Krystal and Monika had also baked some cake!

Our Frangipani bush started flowering just in time for Easter!

A Dream

Some time ago I woke up from a dream that puzzled me. I was asking myself why on earth would I dream such things. I thought about it for a while and later on made the following notes in draft:

“Not being able to read the street names in a directory.
Not knowing Peter’s phone number.
Getting on a bus not knowing where it was going.
Going to sleep on the bus, waking up after one hour.
Having no idea to what place the bus took me.
Everything looking totally unfamiliar.
Having asked for the toilets finding out they are on a different floor and can only be reached by climbing up some pipes which I cannot do!
Originally I left a party where I felt I could not talk to anyone. I just did not know what to say to anyone.
I wanted to look for a toilet somewhere else, thought I’d be back soon and didn’t mention to Peter that I was leaving. Later on I felt awful that I had not told him where I was going. Our house with a toilet was supposed to be close by. So why on earth did I board a bus? No idea.”

I guess I had no idea where the bus had taken me. Everything around me looked totally unfamiliar. I wanted to find out where I was. This is why I tried to find in a directory where the hell the bus had taken me. I was thinking I should ring Peter and let him know where I was. Then I realised that I did not have his phone number. The mobile phone number is so very long, I never bothered to remember it. So this meant I could not ring Peter.

I woke up from this bad dream when I realised no way could I climb up on these pipes to reach the toilets. And I felt I had to go to the toilet. But this is how the dream started. I had that urge to go to the toilet. I have no idea why I ended up on that bus instead of going home to visit our toilet there. Going to sleep on the bus did bring me even further away from toilets. How did I know I had been asleep for one hour when I did not even know which route the bus had taken?

This is all so confusing. Who where these people at the party? Why couldn’t I talk to them?

Lets Check Out the Damage So Far – Cyclone Ita

Thanks for the update, Jenni, and I hope you get your very big nap now. 🙂
The pub story is hilarious. Love it very much! 🙂
I think I am going to reblog this post to spread the good humour.

Unload and Unwind

Cooktown – that large piece of tin is the roof from the pub which is a good few kilometers away from this spot

Even though Cyclone Ita was downgraded to a Category 4 as it hit the coastline it did some fairly impressive damage as it swept its way inland travelling south-westerly. Winds have dropped from 300 km/hr to 180 km/hr according to the last update but the rain and winds are still an issue.

So far the Cape and the surrounding islands have suffered the most damage at the hands of Ita but it was still strong enough when it got to Cooktown last night to make quite the impression according to reports that are coming in.

It may no longer be a category 4 or 5 but the winds are still more than enough to make a very large mess as it moves down the coast.

Poor Pub – but the…

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Manus Island Detention Centre

Images for Manus Island Detention Centre

I googled the above and was surprised that there were many, many photos about the Detention Centre to be seen.

Palm Sunday

The following is a copy of what I wrote last year about Palm Sunday. Tomorrow is going to be another Palm Sunday. I can’t believe how quickly one year has passed!

“Palm Sunday morning was a glorious morning for me. A few minutes after seven o’clock, when the sun had just started coming up a bit, I slowly walked to the church carrying my piece of palm which Peter had cut off for me from our palm tree. I arrived at 7,30. People were already walking towards an outside table where the priest started blessing the palms. After a few minutes everyone assembled in the church for the Palm Sunday mass.

During mass the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Luke was read. Some parts were read by a narrator, then there were other parts being read by a different person; in bold types was printed out on the overhead screen what the crowd (the congregation) had to read, and Father read the part of Jesus.

Towards the end Jesus said: Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.
And the narrator said: With these words he breathed his last.”

I wrote last year in response to one comment: “We have a priest who’s always coming up with new ideas how to beautify the church and its surrounds. His enthusiasm is uplifting. On Good Friday there were Hot-cross buns for everyone who participated in walking to the fourteen Stations. I had asked Peter to come and pick me up. This is why I could not stay for refreshments. And further on I did not make it to go to Saturday’s Vigil. We had visitors. Somehow I also did not make it to go to Easter Sunday Morning Mass. It was a lovely Easter anyway. I like it when we have visitors.”

Well, this was last year. This year Palm Sunday is on the 13th of April and Easter Sunday is not till tge 20th of April. We are very lucky that this year too we are going to have visitors again staying with us over the Easter holidays. I am very much looking forward to this. Nobody in my family is Catholic. That means I ought to make an effort to go to church by myself.

Human and Nature Dynamics (Handy)

Human and Nature Dynamics (HANDY):

Modeling Inequality and Use of Resources in the

Collapse or Sustainability of Societies

Unequal Society

. . . most closely reflecting the reality of our world today . . . .

Egalitarian Society

… depletion alone, if large enough, can result in a collapse — even in

the absence of economic stratification.

Equitable Society (with Workers and Non-Workers)

. . . a much higher ratio of Non-Workers

to Workers, shows that a collapse in an equitable society could be avoided by reducing the average

depletion per capita. We note that this scenario could also represent a situation where, rather

than having paid Non-Workers, the workload per capita is reduced, with the whole population

working fewer days a week”. Such a work-sharing” policy has been successfully implemented

in Germany over the past few years for reducing unemployment . . .

UTA’S COMMENT:

Above I show a few extracts from this Handy report.

KREUZBERGED ON TV

KREUZBERGED - BERLIN COMPANION

A couple of months ago, in the bleakest of the bleak Berlin midwinter when the temperatures fell seriously below “Friendly” (or during those only two weeks when it actually got cold), we were approached by a lovely French lady working on a short documentary about Berlin-Kreuzberg for ecoplus.TV to talk about the borough and the directions in its evolution.

The interview took place in the courtyard of Betahaus in Prinzessinnenstrasse. It was so cold that our faces were going into freeze-mode as we were talking. Still, the two of us had it better than the interviewer´s friend who was our camerawoman and sound-technician. When we met at Moritzplatz her hair was still wet from the shower she had taken before. By the way we started the interview it was frozen solid.

Yet she never complained and in no way suggested she was uncomfortably numb because of the frost. She soldiered on and went…

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