A Melodious Sonnet

And here is part five and the final instalment of my trip’s pictures! It was so hard to choose which ones to share, and which not to. I’ve delighted in looking through the ones I was able to print, but seeing them here is special, too.

We took a walk down to the Detention River one warm afternoon, so the children could enjoy cooling off in the water. It was a beautiful setting, and I enjoyed seeing the little “peek” out to the ocean across the river flat! This particular river, at least near the sea, is a tidal river, and it was nearing high tide when we were down there.

Sometimes I wonder what makes one place stand out to you as being extra-special, and what makes another one just, well, ordinary. I think it has a lot to do with where one feels loved and accepted (such as my family home, for example), but I’m convinced there’s more to it that I don’t see, too. Perhaps it’s spiritual, or some other sort of tie like that that resonates with me—I don’t know. But whatever it is, when I am able to connect with others and share in the joys and struggles of walking this walk of faith with them, even for just a short time, I come away feeling very enriched.

Our last evening there, my “family” and a few other additions to the crew drove about half an hour inland to Dip Falls. It was a beautiful, fascinating place. I’ve never seen rocks quite like these before!

During the winter, the water flows over the entire expanse of the falls, from bank to bank, but since it was mid-summer when we visited, there was only a little bit coming over. Even that amount was pretty, and I loved the rock’s colors on the upper portion of the falls, especially!

You can see how high the first level of the waterfall is by the two girls in this picture. (And yes, those are good-sized logs leaning against the rocks that were brought over the falls during the winter.)

And, of course, since the rocks looked like pretty easy stepping stones, most of us decided to climb up to get a different perspective.

The most intriguing part about this particular waterfall, for me, were the rocks. They were like pillars, all jammed up against each other vertically, and seemed to go straight all the way down to the rock underneath (wherever and whatever that was) in this pillar formation. There was no vertical distortion that I could see—it was all at a 90° angle in reference to the earth.

They were also sliced cleanly horizontally, some in slightly larger than 1 ft/30 cm slices, others more like 5-6 ft/1-2 metre slices.

And then, I counted the “sides” on the pillars, and a lot of them (the ones that weren’t round) were five-sided, or pentagons. I did see a couple hexagons, but they all definitely were made with a similar pattern!

I did not end up going on the upper level of the falls, but they seemed to be made of similar stone, lots of rocks stacked and packed together in the same sort of regular symmetry, but with smaller “columns” and more were four sided instead of the five sides further down. These were also warped and twisted more, as if they had been laid down, pushed up at a different angle, and tweaked some as they were going up. I wondered how two similar, but very different rock formations ended up right next to each other—and how, scientifically, their appearance can be explained! Fascinating to study, anyway. Shows how great our God is! (If you have any information on why these rocks might be like this, I’d be interested to know!)

In the end, after a too-short two weeks in Tasmania, I left for the States with mixed feelings. I looked forward to being with my family again, but these people had showed me another side to the body of Christ, which was very special. I’m hoping that someday, I’ll be able to go back and visit again. But we’ll see what the Lord has planned!

Have you taken any memorable trips lately? What kind of unique natural formations have intrigued you before?