Uzlahku

Well, it isn't literally 'uzlah'. As uzlah means to be on your own.
I went away with other people; those who didn't believe in Allah. So, let's just assume that I was alone.

Only me, My God, and His creations.. Subhanallah.

I spent the last weekend at Mt Gambier for my Volcanology field trip. And boy, what a blast that was. The volcanoes; they were just amazing! Subhanallah..

Let the picture speaks..


The sky, during the journey to Mt Gambier


Guess what lake this is?


Blue Lake; me and my cabin mates went out for a morning walk


Where we stayed. It was awesome!!


The first set of outcrop that we had to study on the second day. Awwhh..we love you too, rock!


Climbed up to Rotary Lookout, where we saw a lower unit of phreatoStrombolian magmatic rocks and an upper unit of Phreatomagmatic Sutseyan rocks. (Can't believe that I still remember what they are..ahaks!)


And from up there, we looked down upon Valley Lake and Brown Lake (which apparently is no longer a lake!). Sorry, Yan was in the way when I took this picture.

Then came the interesting part. We climbed UP and INTO Mt Schank! Cool!


So here's Mt Schank crater. This time Daniel was in the way. Anyway, note that grey area at the middle of the Volcano. You'll see it up close in a while!


Here we are, at the very top of Mt Schank crater rim.


And down we go into the volcano crater!


And here we are at the very bottom and center of the volcano. Remember the grey area that I mentioned earlier on? Here it is! It says, THE END. Yeay!

This grey area is the conduit of the volcano. The conduit of a volcano is, for those who don't know, where the magma rises and flow/erupt out of a volcano.

Then we had to climb out again. Walked around the rim, went down through a kangaroo track, and found another volc! This time, a maar.


Us, walking around the rim of the crater.


Still going around the rim. (Aah..the 'traveller guy', Richard! ;) )


And finally, the maar. This time, Dan is in the way. (Why am I always taking picture form the back of people's head??? -may be an explanation to my shortness..haha)

The best part about walking down mountains is that the vegetation changes along the way. So, here's one part of it:


And another:


On the third day, we went to see some lava blisters, aka Termouli (I think that's how you spell it!)



My girlfriends, in case you are wondering if there are any other girls or not on this fieldtrip! There's Shanon (holding the hammer, facing the front), Tamar (holding the hammer, facing the camera), Andrea (in blue-her 5th layer! ;) ) and our lovely volconologist, Heather (in orange).

Someone was saying that geologists are the most destructive lot of people ever. Because where ever we go, we got our hammer out and start bashing the rocks!! huhu..

Next, we went to look at lava caves. These were originally lava flows that form tubes. But the inner lava flowed all the way out, leaving the inner side empty, and as the upper layer collapses, it formed a cave.


Disappointing for us, we couldn't go into the cave. Understanding this disappointment, Ray, our course coordinator said, 'Do you want to go into the caves?'. "YES!!" shouted the whole group. "Well, follow me then", said Ray. "Hooray!!" chanted the excited geologist-to-be! haha..
So Ray brought us to another lava cave where we could actually climb into it.
And here we are, climbing into it



And still climbing down


And finally, inside the cave

of course, it's dark..what did you expect to see?? =P

Right after someone shouted, "Hey, turn the lights on!", Yan stepped and fell into a hole. And the guy went, "I told you to put the lights on!~". Hahaha..


A view from inside the cave. Subhanallah..

And as usual, once we climb into somthing, we've got to climb out again. So out we went. And here's how dirty my hand got:



"Euuww..disgusting!", said Pat, one of the demonstrator when he saw my hands. "Hey, I'm a geologist, ok!", I said. "Let's have a look at your hands". So, Pat showed me his clean hands -obviously he didn't went into the cave!! "So you are not a geologist. Coz geologist don't have clean hands!", I continued. Hahaha..laughed Pat.

Then we continued out journey:

A view of Mt Napier, another volcano.


Our final stop: Tower Hill Volcanic Center.
The depression you see is part of the maar, with some scoria and spatter cone complex forming the small hills in the middle.

Wanna see the walls of this maar?
Here:

Cool aite! We did a ~17m strat. log on this unit in such a chilly weather. Consisting of phreatomagmatic and magmatic lava that alternated due to the alternating amount of water that interacted with the magma.



But despite the weather; this guy could still go to a deep sleep!


And finally, we headed back of to Melbourne and reached uni at 9pm.

Rabbana ma kholaqta haza bathila..Subhanaka fakina 'azabannar.

My uzlah session was not during doing all the field work, obviously. Though I had my own secret time of whispering praises to Allah. The uzlah part was mostly during the journey. From Melbourne to Mt Gambier, and from Mt Gambier to Melbourne. As it was a long journey. So I had plenty of time to think about stuffs.

At the same time, listening to marvelous nasyid from an ipod i borrowed from a friend. Which helped me a lot in thinking about life. About God. About nature. And to marvel and admire the nature,the scenery. To watch the clouds go pass. To star-gaze the stars. To stare meaningfully at the moon, where we both conveyed messages to each other, agreeing that Allah is our God, our Creator. To watch the birds fly in their groups. Having in my mind that Allah is holding them up in the sky. To watch the cows in the meadows, lazing around and grazing the grass; reminding me of how we could be even more dishonorable than them, if we chose the wrong way to lead our life.

To regret all previous sins. To regret all current sins. And continuously seeking forgiveness from Him. Pleading Him, may he grant me his Heavens, and keep me away from His hellfire. To take the opportunity to ask for all that I wanted; as the doa of a traveler is always granted. To renew my intention in being on this road. To search for my Creator and to go closer to Him. The feeling.. His presence.. It was...

Speechless..
Let it remain my secret and Him.

3 hari, daku mencari cinta. Dan alhamdulillah, He granted it to me. And now i'm back in Melbourne, with a new spirit! May it last. Ameen.



Mt Gambier 2009, in memory.