It's been difficult to gain access to computers whilst we are in our host families but I am fortunate enough to be able to write this to you.
We arrived safe and well on Thursday and a lot of us feeling tired and jet lagged travelled from Sydney airport to different regions within the diocese of Maitland and Newcastle. I am in the region of Blackbutt - yesterday was a service day. This was an opportunity for us to give something back to the community - we were told that the region had a storm last year and a lot of trees within the nature reserve were destroyed so we planted various trees for the Kangaroos and Koala Bears to eat eventually. We then walked around the nature reserve looking at the various animals and birds - it took a while to drag Fr Dominic away from the Koala Bear with the baby! We then returned to our host families and spent the afternoon with them. We had a mass in the evening where a group from Papua New Guinea provided dancing and music to bring the gifts to the altar at the communion. The Australians provided a BBQ afterwards for all of the World Youth day groups.

Today we were fortunate enough to have mass this morning, the Zimbabweans provided some of the music drumming, singing and dancing. The Columbians followed starting a conga around the church whilst the members of the Australian parish watched in astonishment! We then walked through the streets of Blackbutt to the train station with a cross and icon taking these on a train to 'Nobbys beach' meeting more people from different areas of the region. The Australians had put on a big festival with music from various countries. We went to the beach, on the funfair and met people from Norway, Canada, U.S.A., Korea, England (liverpool and southwark diocese), australian police and so many more! We have returned home and some are going to a karoake provided by the parishes of Blackbutt tonight whilst I am socialising with my host family. Tomorrow we are having mass with the other countries and then spending the afternoon with the host families. Monday we move onto Sydney!

It is very difficult to explain the experience when you just cannot see what we can see! However I will try my upmost to upload photos so you can get a taste of the sheer mass of countries in the area - and we are not even in Sydney yet!