Hello everyone,

I'm sorry that it's taken so long, yet again to update you on our whereabouts! We are still in Australia, in a little village called Murphy's creek close to Toowoomba, about 2 hours drive south west of Brisbane. We left our original placement (Barney's bubble) for a number of reasons but mostly we weren't learning much about building, which is the only reason we went there. After a few panicked days of trying to find another volunteering project we stumbled on Lynne's place where a bunch of students from Queensland University of Technology are rebuilding a cabin that was washed away in the January floods last year. The original building stood meters from the creek at the bottom of Lynne's garden. It marks the halfway point of the bicentennial trail, a walk from the top of the west coast of Oz to the bottom which takes 12 months one way! People walk it, ride horses and sometimes cycle it. Lynne has provided hundreds of people a place to recuperate and rest their horses and weary bones. Unfortunately on the same day as Lynne's house was washed away, her neighbour's was also destroyed, killing a little girl and her father. The water was recorded travelling 200km/h on that day, 28 people in total were killed in the area, 3 are still missing. If we look across the creek from the new cabin we can see the concrete foundations which is all that is left of the little family's home. It is very sad. 

The half-finished new cabin
The group of students, working in the project are all studying architecture and have given up their summer holidays to help complete the project before the anniversary of the floods on January the 10th. We all work from sun up to sun down in 30c heat, 14 hours a day. Em and I have no idea what we're doing so get given the 'easy' jobs which generally involve lifting rocks, shoveling sand and moving bricks, although we have become masters of rock walling (you can see our efforts in some if the photos!) It is absolutely knackering but everyone is so kind and friendly, especially our Australian adoptive mother Lynne and her son Jak who cook us delicious meals, force feed us cake and cups of tea...its just like being at home! 

We had a break from building over Christmas and spent it with Lynne and her family. The day was beautifully hot. We spent it playing tennis, eating prawns, mango, smoked salmon, chocolate and drinking champagne. Lynne and Jak run a chilli chocolate company and make a variety of different products, so most of our meals involve chilli in some form- chocolate, jam, chutney, sauce! It's a good job I'm used to my dad's hot cooking! 

African Drummer at Woodford

During our time with the students we had discovered about Woodford Folk Festival. The festival lasts a week and cost $600 per person! Lynne, who is about 21 at heart, had bought her ticket months ago! We have no money, but fortunately managed to get accepted as 2 of the 2000 volunteers who work at the festival! We were given the very prestigious role of Garbologists (litter pickers!) and had to work at 6am every morning, cleaning up after the night before! IT WAS AMAZING! We camped with Lynne who set up a miniature version of her house complete with door mat, kettle, kitchen cupboards, coffee table and fridge! We worked every morning but got to spend the day watching bands we had never heard of, buying hippy clothes and eating vegan food! The weather was gorgeous and we met some lovely people who were on our Garbology team- Nate and Dee from Ireland and Julie and Anja from Germany. Unlike festivals at home there was no obnoxious drunkenness, no fighting and there was hardly any litter for us to pick up! We got thanked by most people who saw us working, we got free water, cheap food and free gifts as well as our tickets paid for! We discovered some new music- Xavier Rudd, Goyter, Frank Yamma, Tom Thum, Benjalu....all Australian and all awesome! We spent new years eve there, listening to some incredibly loud African drumming that Emma liked. We saw Buddhist Monks complete a sand Mandala, Indian performers, Japanese interpretive dancers, Aboriginal performances and Emma danced at a Ceili for the first time instead of having to play in the band! All in all we had a brilliant time!

We are now back at Lynnes ready to continue with the building work. We are planning our next stop in Oz as we only have a few weeks left here. Our rough idea is to go North to Cairns to see the Great Barrier Reef and then head on back to Sydney to catch our flight to Singapore which is booked for the 15th Jan. We'll keep you all updated on our plans and hopefully post some photos of the finished cabin.

Miss you all,

Love Roo and M

x