There's been a lot going on these past few weeks, but we're here at the Free Spirit Resort just outside Darwin and loving it. Many thanks to our friends and family who have supported and loved and farewelled us enough to get us this far.

It's now 4am NT time and we've got the airconditioning on full bore. I'm still getting a kick out of condensation on the outside of the windows. It's the opposite of winter in Fourth Ave Toowoomba with the gas heater on and our windows streaming on the inside of the windows - and much better since any mould colony should develop on the outside of the house.

I thought it rained every afternoon up here - 'set your clock by the afternoon storm mate'. When we got up on Saturday there was no afternoon storm. The kids were disappointed and I lost a little credibility with Sophie and Laura. I did get some of that back, however briefly, when it stormed at midnight and bucketed down through till late morning the next day (see the pics). It hasn't rained since. But it has been threatening to. I'm telling the kids that we're living in strange times with climate change and stuff like that (you know, to keep the rabbits out).

We're in a bit of a routine now. Nicole and Amber are exercising in the morning and when Nic gets back she logs on to the 'Sacred Space' website for some morning quiet time. This is hard, given that the six of us are living in a small two-bedroom chalet. While Nic centres and meditates on the reading for the day, we are climbing over her and the chairs to get from the bedroom to the table for breakfast, amidst the usual robust dialogue of siblings and a father yelling out to the kids to 'keep it down while your mother meditates'. There is a 'jumping pillow' in the complex and a pool (see pics) and enough to keep the kids entertained, at least for the next little while.

Mark and I started work yesterday (three weeks of pd in Darwin) and met most of the Tiwi College team during the day. The project itself is fantastic, unbelievable really and perhaps a little overwhelming (see below). But at the end of this first day the question on my mind is why people from all over the country (Tasmania, NSW, Victoria, South Australia and of course Toowoomba), and many with children (there are 24 children of the college staff who will be living in Tiwi College) have packed up houses and kids and either resigned or got leave from jobs to be a part of this. Andrew White, the Tiwi College project director, probably answered some of this during the day when he presented the history of the project and the understanding and insight that grounds Tiwi College.

It's hard to capture this in a paragraph (no justice here to Andy's fantastic presentation), but here goes. There seem to be two key aspects to the significance of this project. First, Tiwi College is an initiative from the Tiwi people themselves and is grounded in a 'capacity building community management' model, not a 'service delivery' model. It is a school that has grown out of the hopes and dreams that the Tiwi have for their future, and we who have come here to work and live in the college do so at the request and within the governance framework of the Tiwi. Second, since the school is a five-day per week residential college and is being built from the ground up in an uninhabited place on the Island (Pickertaramoor) the broader community elements such as housing, shops, etc. that make schools work must be created. This is a huge project, yet is an advantage nevertheless, since we are able to establish these elements to support the internal school elements such as school-wide pedagogy and curriculum. The Northern Territory Christian Schools Association have learned about these broader community elements through recent experiences elsewhere, particularly the residential school at Woolaning.

In theory, it seems there is every reason that this school will succeed.

In practice, there are a number of issues that will keep us focussed, one in particular: the accommodation is not yet finished on the island and school starts on February 6 (Waitangi Day), about three weeks away. Mark and I travel to Melville on Thursday for an overnight stay so we should have a better idea of where things are at after that. There is one plan that Mark and I will fly to the island to teach for the week, perhaps under tarps till the buildings are completed, and back to Darwin on the weekends. Nicole and Amber and the kids will stay on here at the Free Spirit. Did I start this post with 'we're at the Free Spirit and loving it'? We'll see how long that lasts.