A Monk’s life

Posted on March 7, 2009
Filed Under Australia - The land down under, Holidays, Breaking news, Photography - All about the photos Baby!, 365 | 3 Comments

Last weekend I decided, that rather than sit alone at home, bored stiff, while the other 5 units of my family spread off on their own adventures (or work), I would go on a day trip to New Norcia. It’s about 2 hours drive north of Perth and boasts a monastery town with a pretty amazing history.They offer walking tours with a guide twice a day so I timed my visit to catch the tour. I have to admit, the town has an impressive history and some pretty spectacular buildings, alters and paintings.

This was one of the 4 boarding schools in New Norcia. At the time, they were segregated. White girls, aboriginal girls, white boys, and aboriginal boys all run by nuns and monks.

Boarding school a la monk (by She'll Be Apples)

Apparently a artist was commissioned to make this piano with the little ivory that the monks had in their possession. Because there was such a scarcity of ivory at the time, there was not enough to make the traditional keys, so they are reversed. Ivory on the top instead.

One of the many churches in New Norcia (St Gertrude’s I think)

Look up...waaaaaaaaaay up (by She'll Be Apples)

My favorite image… this alter and the ceiling mural were exquisite!

Drawing eyes towards the heavens (by She'll Be Apples)

Ironically, after flying 15000 km to live in Perth 5 years ago, it took a trip to New Norcia to meet another Canadian! A woman from Saskatchewan who also holds a pretty big interest in photography (as did her partner.) This commonality resounded with all of us and we spent most of the afternoon together having a drink and a laugh after the tour ended. As you can see in this next image of one of the boarding schools, the day was pretty much overcast and what looked to be a pretty decent storm was on the way!

By the time 6:30 rolled around, I knew I should head back. With 2 hours driving ahead of me, I didn’t want to be caught in the storm or the dark really, with the road under quite a bit of construction (I.e. red gravel blocks off an on, slowing to 40km and then up to 110km.) As is turned out, the storm seemed to have preceded me, leaving tree branches, bushes and gum nuts all over the road making the drive just a smidgen longer as I avoided the debris and slowed over the gum nuts so as not to ~~go flying off a cliff~~ ~~skating all over the road~~ slam headfirst into a land train who did NOT feel the need to slow for the gumnuts.

I was almost home when I saw the sunset over the ocean. WOW! I couldn’t bear making the left turn towards home without stopping to get a shot of the technicolour sky! I convinced myself that abandoning my kids for 10 minutes more wouldn’t scar them for life (or at least not that badly) and headed to the beach.

The result.