This was one of the longest airplane travel trips I have ever had the chance to take , and long it was! This was my second time out of the country, the first being London , England.
My husband had been asked to speak in gorgeous Sydney, AU in 2007, and I was the lucky one to be able to go alongside him and be a "travel partner" and undercover travel enthusiast !
Australia to me was much different from what I had ever thought in my mind. A land far , far away. Having only read from childhood books that I once read to my preschool class .."Alexander and the no good, very bad day" where Alexander the boy with the very bad day wishes he could 'move to Australia and even his mom says to him in his day's problems..."even people in Australia have bad days" Literally, this is all I knew for most of my life of this sweet, friendly country..a line in a children's book!
My new philosophy in travel is that you can't really know anything about a place or destination for yourself unless you 'go' there yourself! We found this country to be one of the most friendliest , humble and hospitable we have ever known in our travel adventures ever!
There is one extremely unexpected thing that happened to us one evening at dusk . We were caught by surprise when traveling by foot back to our hotel which was centered on the marina side of downtown Sydney. We had been exploring the downtown city this one evening, walking quite a bit. We realized it was getting late and since it was a foreign country and we were naive about the way things are there we were not paying attention to the signs and how to travel by foot back to our hotel. Feeling lost , we decided to take a "short cut" through the main city and cut across through the beautiful Royal Botanic Gardens centered directly in the middle of the main city we were walking around earlier and the hotel we were staying and headed to. (see my posted photo of the exact place)
It was getting much darker at this time and we really couldn't make out the signs of the park and its rules. Since there was no gate closing this park we assumed it was open and safe to walk through, so we proceeded through. Understand that we are American's just carelessly and ignorantly on our first trip to AU and having no map in hand, no one around to consult with about the park, we begin to walk a bit faster due to the very eerie , even chilling sounds around us. My husband and I grip each other's arms as we felt like we were in the midst of a horror film or a scary haunted forest reality show and we were the stars! The sounds that got to our pounding heart's attention ended up being Bats! Hundreds, thousands of Wolf Bats! When I realized we were walking under a canopy of all different sizes of bats and on every side of us, surrounding us and we were in a foreign country, trapped in the middle of a closed Botanical Garden trying to get to our safe hotel on the shore...I pretty much freaked out and in a fun, exuberant and excited fashion tilted my head down, covered my face with my jacket, and ran the fastest I have ever have in my life! The darkness , the mystery, and the fear of the unknown was one of the most exciting memories I have had in my whole adult life!
The lessons I take from this experience are many ! I won't share the obvious, such as a world traveler should have a map, have a plan, know the city before you go out to dinner, ask the hotel for help "before" you venture off. I am looking deeper. I am thinking about the spiritual life here.
We have our safe places in our lives that are predictable,open, clear, and things that we expect, however there is darkness..there is evil, there is uncertainty, unpredictable hard times. Without being prepared for those darker times in life, as I explained in the situation I shared like the closed, dark and scary times of the Gardens we will be caught by surprise and will freak out and run! What if in life you have prepared ahead of the scary moments like health problems or cancer, marriage problems, financial disasters, family disfunction, rebellious children or teens. In life we are given tools to turn on the LIGHT on these such scares. We have resources to utilize. We have to be vigilant and be ready at all times paying attention to the signs before disaster or scary , unpredictable dark comes to our paths.
For me personally it is in knowing God..having God's word as a "Lamp unto my feet and a Light unto my path " Psalm 119:105
God is light; in Him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have with Him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin. 1 John 1:5-7 |
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