Husband Father Teacher Pilgrim

Our First Trip on the Bunbury Hwy

Carolyn and I went down to Boyanup for a couple of days to get away.

We relaxed, caught up with some reading and simply enjoyed being there for each other without distraction.

C

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On the way home...

We came home via the new Bunbury Hwy.

The image to the left is looking north out of the Shell Roadhouse just outside Bunbury.

Once you leave this roadhouse the road goes through no towns and is 110 - 100 km/hr road all the way into Perth City. Thats a distance of 160 km.

The road does cut about half an hour off the trip from Bunbury to Perth. From that perspective, its great. You no longer have to travel through the 60 km/hr zones and string of traffic light in Mandurah

However, one serious drawback is that there is nowhere to stop. There are a few places where you can pull over and stop. But there is nowhere attractive enough to want to stop. There is certainly no privacy on the side of the road.

The old Roadhouses that have been there for years closer to Bunbury are still there. You could stop there for a toilet break if you had the presence of mind to do so. But after that it is one long stretch of open road.

Carolyn and I were alone without kids. So it wasn't that bad. But I dread the thought of driving that road with young kids in the car. I hope that decent rest stops will be built in the not too distant future.

Below is the file report in the new road from the 9 News network. The link that I got the file from is given below the clip.

New Bunbury Hwy

New Monasticism and Anabaptism Conference

This coming weekend there is a conference in Melbourne that I would love to go to. Its purpose is to explore the connections between the Anabaptist network and the Neo-monastic movement.

Some of the speakers and participants are people that I would very much like to spend time with and explore ideas with.

My wife and I looked seriously at me going. We priced Airline tickets and considered the logistics.

But in the end timing beat us.

It is the weekend before all staff are due back at school. I would begin the year tired and with a head full of ideas and a gut full of emotions that would need to be worked through and processed.

Loading myself with this kind of burden right at the beginning of a school year would not be wise.

I take heart in the fact that the Peace Tree folk will be there and will be able to feed the results of the conference into the Perth Emergent/Radical/Anabaptist networks in various ways over time. All of us will benefit from that.