"Like a Walk in the Forest"

Our home at Rowville has a beautiful backyard. It is called the Dandenong Ranges.
On Thursday morning we took a short drive up into the mists at Olinda to the National Rhododendron Gardens.
In 2004 we travelled half way round the world and at that time visited the Kew Gardens in London, beautiful. The garden at Olinda was equally so, "back in our own backyard".
The entrance is in a forest. As we entered,we looked up at the majestic, gun barrel straight gum trees where 6 or 8 Laughing Kookaburras burst into their frenzied laughter. It was a magic moment. To the early "white" arrivals to Australia, the laughter of these birds sounded like frenzied demons. To me it sounded almost heavenly.
It was a 7 degree Celsius nose dripping day and as we wandered through some of the kilometers of tracks, paved and unpaved I was reminded of John Denver's song, "You fill up my senses like a walk in the forest". We sat by the lake and opened our thermos of coffee and our home made meat pies. We had a wonderful time.
If you live in Melbourne, you must make a visit within the next 2 months, there is an entrance fee but it is well worth it.


I wished that I had taken my little binoculars as well as my camera because the birds were splendid, even the little brown jobs.
Some of the ones that I did see were Jacky winters, New Holland Honey Eaters, Yellow Tailed black Cockatoos, Long Billed Corellas, Galahs, Magpies etc etc. At one stage I descended down Lyre Bird Gully to see if I could see the lyre Bird that I was hearing only to find that the whip Bird crack was actually being made by the Whip Birds themselves!



On the way home Peta Sue spotted some firewood at Lysterfield, just a couple of kilometers from home. I went back immediately with the trailer as you have to be very quick. My day was complete, I just got my trailer filled in the nick of time so to speak, as two husky young fellas came in a Hi Lux Ute and threw in the wood that was 50 meters further up in seconds flat.

Every day is a gift from God
I suppose it is easy for me to say, living in health, comfort amidst such beauty.
The Apostle Paul had no such material comforts as I do, But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, was able to say, "I have learned in whatever state I am to be content".