Perth Australia

A Quokka on Rottnest Island Freemantle

















Dinner with Charles, Moira and friends
















Perth City

Fr Thi ( pronounced Tee) my host in Perth

Hi everyone I am on the last day of my journey and I will be returning home on Tuesday morning the 1st of May a bit jet lagged but hopefully awake enough to celebrate Mass at 9.30 in the Holy Ghost Church in Crowthorne, in thanks giving to Our Lady for bringing me home safely. It has been a long time and I have learnt quite a lot about myself and my vocation, but more about that later when I have had time to settle back home and reflect on my seven months away form the parish.

I have found Perth a lovely city and if I was to emigrate to Australasia it would be here I would settle. The city is very clean and they have made a good job of integrating the old with the new. As usual the worst offenders of integrating new and old buildings are the banks and the government building. However now there is a good control on all building and a heritage committee intent of preserving the lovely old buildings they have in Perth.

I went to New Norcia to see the monastery that I had heard about at Quarr Abbey but they were not really interested in me and I had to take a guided tour with everyone else. Listening to the guide you could see that really it was a big business with a wage bill of over a million dollars. There were only seven monks residing and two of them were over eighty. What did surprise me was the amount of women who worked there. I think they out numbered the monks by two to one. The abbot even had his own personal PA. How things have changed since my days in the monastery. And how they must have changed since the days of the founder who in the middle of the 1800s came to start a mission to teach and preach the Aboriginals and help them. It was an interesting day. One little aside that made me laugh was in the local hotel which is owned by the monks. Charles, Moira and myself went for coffee there but we could only have it black as there was no milk. The abbey owns 32,000 sq acres with lots of cattle, sheep and dairy herds, but no milk for their local hotel, not even long life or powered milk. It just reminded me of the other world that monks and those who work for them live in. It was the same at Quarr. There is always tomorrow and does it really matter?

Saw other parts of Perth and Freemantle Fr Thi has been a great host while I have been here taking me here there and everywhere, as far as Margaret river which at the time of our visit was a little creek. On the way we went to a place called Mannapuh which was lovely and part of it has been built on a canal system. Mind you according to Fr Thi it cost you an arm and a leg to live there.

Well thats all from me until I arrive home God Bless and thanks for all your support and prayers Fr Kevin