September 11 Friday It is funny. In South Africa, the group came up with the Stump the Austin game. Now I've acquired the name Austin Library. As in “Is the Austin Library open?” whenever one of the Taiwanese have a question on pronunciation or grammatical English, or any other question for that matter. They are all a fun group. They love taking pictures of each other. They are all hard workers. And I am happy to answer their questions. In particular I have a lot in common with Derek and we talk quite a bit. He has similar tastes in music/movies/many other things. We had a long conversation one evening, where he said the Taiwanese all liked me and how he could tell I had inner peace, which is something he finds rare in the people around him and which he is seeking. He does volunteer at a temple back at home and that is a place where he finds peace.

September 12 Sabbath. Thank God for the little things. On Monday when we started out we were told we would have one day off and it was scheduled for Saturday. Then they got the weather forecast and it looked like Sunday would be hotter and they tentatively changed it to have Sunday off and we would work on Sabbath. Well, I talked to Jeffrey and he said we could work something out no matter what happened, but as it turns out on Friday the updated forecast had a very hot Sabbath and an much cooler Sunday, so we are having our day off today. That means we get to go to Kata Tjuta. But first we walked around Uluru in one three hour loop. We have seen segments each day, but this was the whole thing. We had a relaxed middle of the day and in the early afternoon we headed to Kata Tjuta. Kata Tjuta is much less developed and still fairly private for the Aboriginals. There are only a couple walking tracks and we did the main one through the Valley of the Wind (which truly lives up to its name). The aboriginals believe the wind is the voices of their ancestors. The formations at Kata Tjuta are similar to Uluru, but the rock is much more intermixed with other mineral deposits, which is why the erosion has happened much faster here than at the Rock. Uluru seems to be a much purer iron ore base, slowly rusting away. We were supposed to go generally together as a group on this walk, but somehow the group got split in two with four of us heading west around the loop and the rest going east around the loop. So we met halfway around on the back side. And Janet lived up to her quickly solidifying reputation: she got all sullen when I did not want to walk with her back around the half of the walk I had already done, instead of getting to do the whole loop. Sorry, but I wanted to do the whole walk, not keep her company. The clouds and setting sun conspired to make a fantastic work of art on the horizon as we finished up our walk. Back at camp we had a great dinner of burgers and salad.

September 13 Sunday Our extra excursion today was to the Maluru Art wherehouse. Their gallery at the cultural center is only so big and everything else is stored at the wherehouse. There are thousands of carvings and tools, but not nearly as many paintings as I had hoped. But I did find a very beautiful piece and snagged it early on. In the gallery at the cultural center are three pieces I would love to have, but they are all over $2000. This was quite a bit smaller, but also in a price range I can justify.

September 14 Monday We got up at 5:55 to try and catch a sunrise, but the clouds did not cooperate. It was still beautiful, but just not we had hoped for. We still have two more chances. Work was again productive and Danny made a special dinner of kimbop, korean sushi.

September 15 Tuesday Our last day in the field. By the end of the day we had a week total of 263 bags of buffle removed and the equivalent area of 3.499 square kilometers cleared. That put us as the second highest group this year. There is only one session remaining. Not that it is a competition, but it felt good to know we had contributed. Derek, Gary, Geoff, and I cleaned out the van, while some of the others started prepping dinner: kebobs. Dinners have all been team efforts and the food was wonderful all the time. We were using up as much of the vegetables and food