Jean’s Story – Part 6 – Adventure Down Under

After our long cruise-ship trip from Europe (described in Part 5), we arrived in the Australian harbor of Sydney and then traveled the 400+ miles to Melbourne where we quickly settled into our rented house in the suburb of Glenroy.  Son David started first grade, and husband Earl started teaching science at the government-assigned high school where a position had been waiting for his arrival.

My immediate project was to “finish our family” before I turned 30, and I missed that goal by just a little over a month.  Baby Angela arrived on February 2, our little Aussie (who would have dual citizenship until she was 21).

We loved living in Australia and adjusted quickly to driving on the left side of the road and celebrating Christmas in the hot summer of this down-under land with the reversed seasons.  Our love of travel took us on frequent sight-seeing road trips, short weekend camping trips around Melbourne and longer vacation outings to Sydney and up and down the coast.

Our biggest travel adventure was a 10-day expedition to the Outback, an all-expense-covered camping excursion provided by Earl’s school, chaperoning 20 teenagers on their annual field trip.  Not a luxury outing by any standards; we stayed in tents and most of our meals were provided outdoors by the accompanying cook.  But it was a trip to desert places you mostly read about in geography books, still fairly undeveloped during this late 60’s trip.

One of the most interesting places we visited was the small opal-mining town of Coober Pedy, where, because of the extremely hot weather, most of the residents living in underground houses.  We toured one which was just dug out of the soft rock and we were amazed by how comfortable and well-furnished it was.  If you needed a new shelf, you just dug it out of any of your walls.  When I was researching how this amazing town was like today, I found that there was now a hotel there – and it had dug out one room underground that was a casino!  I’d like to go back and see that!

We ran across many aboriginal people, living in shacks all over the desert.  This was before government programs were widespread to help indigenous Australians integrate into the general population with modern living conditions.

One of the high points of our outback adventure was a visit to one of the most outstanding nature features of the country, Ayers Rock, which our whole group climbed, a steep ½-mile hike that took an hour to get to the top.  Although climbing this beautiful huge red rock is still possible today, it is now discouraged by its aborigine owners, who consider it sacred territory.

Earl’s teaching contract with the Australian government was for two years and we would be heading back to the U.S.  However, this trip home provided another travel adventure.  We stopped in New Guinea to visit some missionaries I had known for many years.  I know this country has become modernized in the last 50 years, but back then we flew into the interior on a tiny plane that landed on a very short rough landing strip where we were met by locals in native dress – more like National Geographic undress!  Yes, they looked fierce with their spears and warrior makeup but they greeted us warmly.  However, at last I had a brief encounter with  “real natives” that I had heard about from the missionaries that stayed in our parsonage home when I was a little girl.