HELLO! -- Read my journal below before the pictures! They are very out of order so it might be confusing...
This flag is now hanging in my dorm room :)
The Script Concert
The girl who practically wrestled me to get the flag I caught.. so we split it
Feeding my camel... I thought he was gonna bite my hand off!
Celebrating after our outback adventure...
Camel Rides!
ROADTRIP to Monkey Mia
Campsite in the Outback
The bluest water I have EVER seen...
Shell Beach
The ground was millions of tiny shells!
This is what happened when I dropped my camera...
Campsite at Monkey Mia
The PROBLEM van
My driver Ryan!!
The 3 beuts..
"Spinal Tap" van
The Kitchen
My van... "Jim's Brazilians"
Bush fire!
This is what I caught Bob doing...
Tanning!
We had to wear hats at ALLLL times
I ATE TURTLE
Sandy tents
OUR HOME ^
Kitchen at campsite
Church made out of shells
Off-roading jeeps taking us into the outback
RED DIRT
Pretty sure this could win an award ^ ??!
On our camel!
This is how high up we were on our camels!
DINO PRINTS
Dorm room at University of Notre Dame Broome
Where we spent a night in our vans ^
HELLO!
The past two weeks have been the BEST part of my study abroad experience yet... It was so amazing and I have so much to share!
THE SCRIPT CONCERT
Right before my two week break, I went to a concert in downtown Perth in a venue somewhat like the Target Center in Minneapolis.. "The Script" are one of my favorite bands..they are Irish and amaaazing...so a couple of girls and I decided to buy tickets! If you don't know who they are, Youtube them and watch "The man who can't be loved" or "Breakeven" :) We got there about an hour after the doors opened because we had class so we were a little disappointed we wouldn't be able to get right in the front.. We rushed there after class, walked in and walked right into the front row!!!! It was standing room only and somehow we managed to get front row center... The concert was packed after another hour standing there but totally worth it because I touched Danny's hand (the lead singer) three times. :) At the end of the concert, Danny came back for an encore and had a huge irish flag he draped around him that said PERTH .. The crowd went crazy when he held it up... at the end of the song, he threw it into the crowd and thanks to my height I SNATCHED it!!!!!!! Girls were seriously trying to wrestle me to the floor and I was playing tug of war with one girl for a good 5 minutes straight. Since she wouldn't let go, and I thought she was going to end up decking me, ha! we decided to cut it right down the middle and split it... So now I have half of Danny's Irish flag. :)
CAMPING IN THE OUTBACK
As part of my Australian History class, all study abroad students from the United States go on a week long field trip to Broome, Australia. I packed everything in one backpack and was ready to leave at 4:45 am! We had to make sure to bring two pairs of shoes that we could throw away after, old t-shirts, shorts, hats, etc. I really had no idea what to expect when they told us that! We drove to the airport and boarded the plane that left at 7 am... It took about two hours to get to Broome and when we landed it was SO HOT. About 95 degrees! It was the smallest airport I had ever seen.. just one little shack-like building in the middle of nowhere! The heat felt so great after being in rainy Fremantle the past two months... We then got in a van and drove to The University of Notre Dame Broome, one of the sister schools to mine. I couldn't imagine going to classes in that heat every single day! We dropped our bags off in our dorm rooms and headed straight for Cable Beach (rated #3 best beach in the entire WORLD). White sand, blue water.. it was AMAZING!! We stayed there all day soaking up the sun (getting burnt to a crisp) and then ended the day with camel rides! This has been one of the BEST and funniest experiences... about 12 of us decided to do a camel tour of the beach during sunset. Camels are a lot bigger than I thought! Martha and I rode on one together and they had people beside us taking our cameras to get really cool pictures... the ride was one hour long and we watched the sunset to end it! Elissa's camel which was right behind me was spitting on and licking my leg the entire time! After the camel rides we came back to the dorms, ordered pizza and went to bed! The next day we woke up and were ready to travel into the outback.... All 22 of us (Plus Lynn and Charlie) got into off-roading jeeps and spent 4 hours holding on for our dear lives into the outback.. Martha and I completely lucked out again (my luck is seriously changing on this trip) we got to ride with the family in their air conditioned, luxury vehicle because there weren't any spots left in the 13-person jeeps! We rode with the family dogs too! It was the bumpiest ride ever! We weren't even driving on real roads. By the time we got there we were definitely ready to be out of the car... we pulled into a little campsite and got to see our home for the next week! Tents were already set up from the group before, and Peta (the leader of the trip) placed us all in certain tents depending on how big we were, how many people, etc. Well, she put all of the "tall boys" into tents that were a little bigger.. except I was taller than some of the "Tall" boys! Martha and I got seriously the smallest tent ever and I didn't even fit sideways.. hahaha! We had to fit EVERYTHING plus ourselves in to the tent.. 2 small backpacks, one large backpack, 2 day packs, towels, shoes..it was a tight fit and definitely was interesting trying to sleep. Not to mention we were living on red sand. Our tent was covered with it the entire time, and we slept with it all over every night! Every morning we would wake up about 630 because it was so hot.. they would make us toast over the fire and we would sit in a circle listening to their stories. The family was a husband and wife (Maria and Colin) with their brothers, children and grandchildren. Most of us were expecting tribal paint and for them to not speak english, but they dressed in normal clothes and shared stories with us. We did so many things over the week it is hard to remember!
-Went to a turtle hatchery
-Made our own spears and hunted for crabs
-Ate turtle
- Visited 4 private aboriginal beaches and swam in the ocean each day.. no one is allowed on these beaches except for the aboriginals.. they are the most beautiful beaches I have EVER seen
-Viewed 7,000 year old aboriginal footprints
-Spear throwing lessons
-Ate a home cooked meal around the fire every night. The food was AMAZING.. we had stews, steak, vegetables, chicken, TURTLE and great desserts every night!
-Learned so much about their culture and discrimination between white australians and
aboriginals
-The film AUSTRALIA was filmed in the Kimberly- the part of the outback that we were in... Colin got to go on set and meet the actors and director because they wanted to thank him for letting them use his land
--Had to be careful and watch out for crocs, snakes, jelly fish, etc. While hunting for crabs Maria found a stone fish on the rocks.. one of the most poisonous fish in the entire world.. If anyone would have touched it they die instantly! Scary!
-On the last day we were driving back from a beach and noticed a HUGE cloud of black near our campsite..we knew something was wrong when all of the drivers started speeding toward our campsite and stopped talking... we got there and there was a huge bush fire right next to our campsites..our tents were literally 30 feet away from the flames.. we had to run and move all of the tents, kitchen, supplies, trailers, gas tanks, etc. Fire Control was there twenty minutes later and tamed the fire... SCARY!
-The family gave us a surprise birthday party for Luke who turned 22 on the trip... they tricked us into going to look at the stars and we came back to a fully decorated campsite with cake and fireworks!
After the week I was definitely ready to go home and take a shower... but then realized I would be living out a van for another week...
ROADTRIP
We rented 3 WICKED vans, 4 people in each (well you are supposed to have 3 in each..) and took a spontaneous road trip along the northern coast of Australia. All of the drivers (Peter, Ryan and Jake) and Martha and I went to pick up the vans in Perth the next morning after the outback adventure. We ended up having to wait 3 hours for our final van.. apparently there was a problem with it that they were trying to fix (which we later found out they DIDN'T!) This put us way behind on our driving schedule! Everyone was waiting back at the P&O to get on the road... we finally got the 3rd van.. Each van was painted with a different theme as you will see in the pictures...we got SO many looks, laughs and pictures taken of our vans.. My van was "Jim's Brazilians" with Ryan, Martha and Micah. The best part of it all was that all of the vans were manual... No one knew how to drive a stick except for ryan (wonder why I chose his van..) PLUS all of the gears are backwards in australia! along with the fact that the wheel is on the other side... The boys practiced for about 5 minutes in the parking lot and then decided they felt confident. Lets just say the ride through the city of Perth was interesting. They kept killing the engines and forgetting to drive on the left side of the road... so one girl had to sit in the front of each van to help them with directions. We finally got back to the p&o and picked everyone up! We packed as light as we could... We stopped at the grocery store and then we were on the road! For our trip we really had no plan of where we were going, what campsites we were sleeping at or what we were doing.. which made it SO fun. The first day we drove about 5 hours and had to stop because driving at night is SCARY with kangaroos jumping out onto the road! We ran over a dead one and saw so many on the side of the road! We slept in the town of DERHAM in the vans and woke up at 5 am to start driving again... we stopped at random beaches, such as Shell beach and other sites along the way... we decided to drive all the way to MONKEY MIA... we stayed at Dolphin Resort campsite for two nights-it was SO FUN! We met so many people from around the world that are just traveling along the coast of australia.. One couple we met have been traveling for a couple months and ever intersection they get to they flip a coin whether to go right or left... The beach was amazing and dolphins would swim right up to you... there was dolphin feedings every morning and at night we would have bonfires on the beach and they would just be right next to the shore! We would cook food on our little stoves that came with the vans but one night Martha and I cheated and ordered pizza to our resort :) We did have one problem van.. the van that they were working on for 3 hours...
it guzzled about twice as much gas as any of the other vans and overheated about every hour... they wouldn't give us a discount either! We all split gas money and spent about 110 each plus the cost of the vans, insurance, food... wellll worth it! After Monkey Mia we decided to travel back so people could get to class on Monday! We spent our last night in the middle of NOWHERE at a rest stop along the highway.. you could practically hear the animals in the australian bush! The road trip was a success....
Now I am back to the reality of school and can't believe how much I have to do in the next two weeks... I also have SURF CAMP friday-sunday night that I am very excited for!!!
Love
Abbie
