Saturday/ Sunday 20/21 March - mid tour evaluation. Ania and Marieke

Saturday we awoke inside an old train turned sleeping quarters at ‘The Crossing', a beautiful permaculture property with a focus on educating youth about conservation. The Crossing's Dean & Annette Turner run a Sea to Snow adventure each year for young people, taking them on boats, bikes and boots from the coast to the Alpine region of NSW. On top of this, they run educational camps and conservation programs for international students, and local schools. The Crossing began developing ten years ago; built by regular volunteers, community members, wwoofers from far and wide, and on this particular weekend, eight Oteshians joined in on some hard labour to help build the foundations of the dining hall as part of an exchange for our stay there (we also got to pick out what we wanted from the garden for our delicious salads & eggs from the chooks!). 70% of the property's facilities have been taken from the site itself, and where possible materials have been recycled or reused. Some of us really got into the hard slog of digging holes & worked up a nice sweat. So great to be part of such a positive community initiative. Ania discovered a love of wwoofing. ?
So we were lucky to spend our two-day mid-tour evaluation at The Crossing - can't believe we're halfway already! It began with a beautiful deep ecology workshop run by Alice. Thank you, Dr. Alice! You took us to a place where we could appreciate our place in nature and the universe through John Seed and Joanna Macey's teachings. Both days were filled with discussion on workshops, changing the skit, bike maintenance and general tour logistics/functionality! Go team Otesha! We achieved a lot in a couple of days and did it with many fun games in between sessions and skill sharing, i.e. Matt's martial arts & Marieke's laughter class.(Ania)
Hey guys, true to my nature of loving life ALL the time I have to say that our mid-tour evaluation was THE BEST!!! We were loving the atmosphere of the ‘Crossing' and the amazing surroundings. Early morning jogs involved pot holes and gorgeous sunrises, days involved lots of personal development, team work, much skinny-dipping in the river, a naked bike ride through the forest (for naked cycling day of course!) and heaps of gelato tastings. On our day off Rach, Matt and I went bare foot bowling and between the three of us we won every game (no such thing as competition on Otesha!) The whole group fixed ours, and eachothers, bikes and made a fire to sing and play guitar around. Stories of travel and childhood brought the group closer and it was a really bonding time. Kelly and I also came up with a great song to perform at the end of tour concert that had everyone laughing. Great times all around, and a very spiritual and healing time for many of us as well. Thanks to everyone for making it a wonderful experience. (Marieke)