we make critically important Indigenous connections. Wewill try and neatly weave in nature, culture and community and provide many unique opportunities to talk, eat, travel and walk in the landscape, and for those that want to fully enjoy the summer, also swim.

### The Australian part of the Exchange

For European participants, the final leg of the flight connection onward from Dubai takes you over thousands of kilometers of 'outback', mainly desert Australia in mid-summer as the sun rises. It will be warm to hot for much of your stay in Australia, but it is usually and thankfully a dry heat. Ballarat being at a higher altitude is typically a few degrees cooler than Melbourne. European participants on the recommended arrival flight will be met on exit from customs and driven to Ballarat as soon as is feasible to the Federation University Australia Camp Street accommodation in central Ballarat, via a registration desk outside Building S. Registrants on flight connections from New Zealand and elsewhere in Australia are advised to pre-book and take the Ballarat Airport Shuttle directly to the Ballarat Railway Station. Camp Street is then only five minutes walk away. If you coming vie central Melbourne, the trains run approximately hourly. The rooms you will stay in Ballarat are very comfortable and modern and have shared common areas. Most have private ensuite bathrooms but there is no air conditioning.

Ballarat, with 100,000 people is the largest inland city in Australia besides the national capital, Canberra. It is the site of a major 'gold rush' from the 1850s and preserves much of the 'Victorian' colonial era architecture in its central streetscape. Once you are rested, a bus will pick you up at 1.30pm and take you for an Aboriginal ' Welcome to Country' and of sit down lunch of Australian bush produce from Saltbush Kitchen at MADE: The Museum of Australian Democracy, Eureka . 'Eureka Stockade' was the site of a nationally significant rebellion and brief, deadly battle between gold miners and the British Colonial forces on 3 December 1854. While the miners lost the battle it led eventually to the development of Australian parliamentary democracy. Australia is not yet a republic, Indigenous Australians are missing from the national constitution and unlike in New Zealand there was no early treaty. Westill have a lot to learn.

Weplan after lunch to take you by bus for a walk (or optional swim) at picturesque St Georges Lake, Creswick, a former mining reservoir, then drive across the volcanic plains through the forest to Daylesford Botanical Gardens on Wombat Hill and also to taste the waters at local Hepburn Springs Spa (modeled on the European invention). By now were are in Djajawurring country, one of over 300 distinct and different Indigenous nations that comprised Australia at the time of mainly European 'discovery' and invasion. A 20 minute drive will take us for dinner from the wood fired oven at the rural Captains Creek organic winery, before a 40 minute drive back (past my place in tiny rural Kingston) to Ballarat where most people will gladly try and sleep off the jet lag.

Our first very full day is designed to immerse you in the diverse places and practices of Australian adult and community education, and in the process show

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