On Thursday, January 14, 2010, we took the Elders with us to visit with members in Colac Colac and Cudgewa. We spent a little time in Corryong and visited the grave of Jack Riley, the man said to be "The Man from Snowy River"
We visited the Holland family in Cudgewa. They have a wonderful swimming hole in the creek behind their house. We walked out to see it and watched as their girls played and splashed and had a great time. Elder Justet and Elder Watts (L to R) would sure like to have gone in as well. It was a scorching hot day!
On the second day of our flat inspection trip we took another ride down the Murray River in Echuca. We rode the same boat, the Emmy Lou, that we rode last time. There has been more rain this past year and the river is considerably higher than it was last May. Notice the house boats docked along the bank. People just tie up their house boats and stay there for their vacations swimming in the river and fishing from the boat or the bank. The river used to be the main way goods were taken to Melbourne from the farm lands, vineyards and ranches. The once bustling port in Echuca was the third largest port in Australia. It is inland, nowhere near the ocean. 
After we inspected the flats of the Missionaries in Griffith, we took a few minutes to visit the site of the Hermit's Caves on the bluff above the city. The caves were once the home of an Italian immigrant named Valerio Ricetti who lived the life of a hermit in the caves during the 1930's. The flowers painted on the rock to the left of President Nielsen were painted by Valerio. This was his living room. The kitchen area was to the right in front of the rock on the right and the sleeping area was behind President Nielsen. Mr. Ricetti had created lovely gardens and rock walls painstakingly stacked as terraces. Most of those things are gone now.
We took Elder Justet and Elder Watts to oz.e.wildlife on January 4 to see the kangaroos, koalas, black swans, wombats, emus, and so on. Elder Watts was new in the country and thrilled to see these fascinating animals close up. While we were watching the koala bears I noticed this stringy bark gum tree. It struck me that this is a beautiful representation of repentance. When we strip off the sins we have committed and remove them from our lives we are left clean, white and beautiful like the bark on this tree. As the tree grows it continues to shed the stringy bark. Like the tree, we must continually repent every day so that we can stand pure and clean at the last day.
