Down Under

I’m in Australia for a few weeks, having arrived here on October fourth. This is not the first time I “crossed the line” since I visited Indonesia and Papua New Guinea in the past, but it is my first time in Australia.
The brothers here are a curious mix of various nationalities. As waves of immigrants arrived in Australia from various countries, bishops requested priests who could say mass in the languages of the new arrivals. The brothers here obliged by recruiting missionaries from the countries of the immigrants. Thus there are Italian, Czech, Polish and Indonesian brothers in the Province, as well as native Australians. The diversity of practices and cultures among these brothers did not exactly make for smooth sailing in the early years of the Province, but they seem to have at last found a certain equilibrium. In fact, the cultural differences makes them more interesting.
I had a day off from visiting the friars and I used it to see some of the other unusual creatures on this continent (see picture).