Three days in the Australian outback is not long enough. It took us a day and a half to get there
and a day and a half back. I thought it was going to be a long trip, but it turns out the bus ride there flew by! I sat next to my friend Sarah the entirety of the ride out there, and it was so much fun, I did not sleep once. We talked about a loooot of stuff currently going on in our lives, listened to music from a few years ago we both loved (odd stuff, hardcore, old popular alternative songs, and some current indie stuff) and sang aloud shaking our heads and what not, it was silly and awesome. We also listened to two sermons from my church back home on men and marriage and women and marriage. It was amazing. We both tried so hard to fight back the tears as we were realizing so much about ourselves and humanity, our generation and how messed up things are. I could go on about this for quite awhile, and some of you have already gotten an earful and I apologize, but I would love to talk about it more so ask me! Well as we got closer to Trilby Station, we made a few stops for photo opps. This was a mine in a town called Cobar. I have never seen a mine from the top before, they are pretty sweet. Can't imagine working outside in the Australian sun though. Ick. We also stopped by the Darling
river, which also runs through our Outback home Trilby Station. Let me tell you right now, I have never seen a muddier river.... when I found out this was our option of where we could swim I said no thank you! Maybe I should be a tad more clear, it was not the mud that scared me away, it was the fact that many students in the past had gotten intestinal parasites from the river.... that just does not sound like any fun to me! Plus, come to find, there was a pool if we really needed it. This shot from the river was taken from Trilby, a 200,000 acre sheep farm, swarming with kangaroos and emus, in the middle of absolutely no where. A two hour drive to the closest corner store. Crazy. Well their land was so amazingly beautiful, from the sunsets, to starry nights, to the strange attachment and wonder which came from the vast nothingness and massive blue skies. Our first whole day there started with a walking tour by Liz, the owner of the land responsible
for the guests, (her husband Gary takes care of the animals and land). She showed us a sheep shearing barn, taught us about how that worked... sadly there were no sheep in there at the moment, I guess that only happens once a year. They are so far away from civilization that the area they live in has something called the flying doctor. Each home has a vast array of different vaccines labeled with numbers, so if anything happens you call the flying doctor and he will walk you through what to do and determine if it is bad enough for him to fly out there to help you out. Mind you this is all free.... the vaccines, the service, everything. *Ahem, cough, U.S. you suck at health care, cough cough* Any who, Liz and Gary's property is so big they have to use a plane to heard their sheep and look around making sure everything is alright. He owns two planes and two helicopters.... they fly to get into town because it takes too long to drive. What a lifestyle.
We had campfires every night and made smores and shared life stories, it was a great bonding time. Our second day there we were split up into two groups and when on a driving tour of the property. This was probably my favorite activity of them all. We drove around for four hours stopping at different places, taking millions of pictures, and getting to experience the feeling of being all alone in the middle of this red stained land. This shot to the right was our bus ride out there, amazingly all four of us roomies were on the trip, which was pretty cool. Might I point out Kelsey in the far back right, cracking up... love her. And poor cat who had dust flying in her eyes so she could not keep them open for the picture. Good thing I just bought handy dandy eye shields, aka massive purple sun glasses. They also helped to keep out the flies, which seemed to attack your face every five seconds out there. Anyway, our tour was amazing. We had a very good group of people who helped make for some really funny stories, my personal fav was taking a picture of Wes jumping off one of the old abandoned cars and getting a sweet mid air shot, then an even sweeter falling on the ground with his feet up in the air shot. Do not worry folks he did not get hurt! We stopped in the middle of no where multiple times, we found some
old abandoned cars, some man made body of water people out there use to use for drinking, and Liz and Gary's previous house. The amazing thing about their old house is that they just let it be. You can walk right in and find dishes in the cabinets, newspapers on the table, clothes in the closets, the beds are fully made, the shower has old shampoo, you get the idea. It is amazing that they could just let it be out there, no worries about vandalism, and since it had been there for 30 years nothing seedy had taken place, which is something that would never happen back home. Their biggest concern is making sure the doors get closed so that animals do not get in. The purpose for leaving the house out there is so that if anyone gets stranded hopefully they will stumble across the home and be able to survive a bit longer than if they were stuck in the hot
sun alone. This picture to the right is from the bathroom sink, I got so many fun shots of this house it was hard to figure out which one to post, but this is one of my favorites. It gives you a good idea of how the red dirt just takes over out there. Let me just mention 4 days later, I am still blowing my nose and the red dust has not seem to have fully left. It was really fun as we were driving along out there to spot kangaroos and emus running around freely. Emus are probably one of my new favorite animals, watching them run is so humorous. They are basically this big blob of feathers bouncing up and down with tiny little legs and an even skinnier neck. I wish I got close enough to one to take a picture. Well the rest of our trip was full of hanging out enjoying the people and the property. We had the option of sleeping outside every night, however I did not make it through the first, haha. Meg and I decided to give it a go, and the first half hour of just laying there being mesmerized was totally worth it. However the night turned into an icy cold, rocky, uncomfortable adventure very quickly. So around 5 am Meg saw that I was awake as well and asked if I wanted to go in. I had been wanting to go in forever, but we only had one flashlight so I cold not just leave her. Well some other girls got up to
go in as well, and well I could only find one shoe. This normally would not be a problem, but the outback is infested with nasty burrs that hurt and get in your socks just by thinking about walking outside. Such tricky little guys. So I finally came to the conclusion Will was asleep on my other shoe... but being that I was exhausted and freezing and needing to go to the bathroom I was in a very odd state of mind and the thought of waking him up was stressing me out, haha. Meg came over telling me to just wake him up, and Kelsey came over saying the same, but both of them strongly disagreed to the thought of helping me and walked away. So after about 5 minutes of getting even more cold I finally started tapping him, which took awhile. When he finally started to move I said "Will, I need you to roll over" then his head shot out of his sleeping bag and he
looked at the sky and said something along the lines of "Oh my gosh it is sooo beautiful"...... haha. By this time I was cracking up, and I just repeated asking him to roll over to which he replied "roll over?" then just started rolling and rolling. Thankfully my shoe was under him so I just took off. And apparently he kept rolling for awhile, so I found out the next morning, haha. Well I have rambled on for quite a bit about this trip, but one thing it really did was finally give me the feeling of being in Australia. I know I am here, but I have not felt like it 100%, but the red dirt, and absence of people, and abundance of new life, finally gave me the feeling of "wow, I am really here" which was amazing. Also, getting to go stay out there for three days really made me realize why Aboriginal people are so in love with their land. It has this captivating power which takes over you that you cannot put to words, it is amazing. Despite the burrs, flies, and lack of sleep this was my favorite experience so far on my Australian adventure. I could go on about it forever, and will share much more upon my return. Thanks for reading and I will leave you with a few more pictures...
Oh the red dirt, I cannot get enough!!!! Above were our tours tire tracks... below was edited a tiny bit just to enhance the colors, but I think it is one of my top 3 favs from the whole trip. The one below that was the sunset on the field behind our cabin the first night there, amazing.
and a day and a half back. I thought it was going to be a long trip, but it turns out the bus ride there flew by! I sat next to my friend Sarah the entirety of the ride out there, and it was so much fun, I did not sleep once. We talked about a loooot of stuff currently going on in our lives, listened to music from a few years ago we both loved (odd stuff, hardcore, old popular alternative songs, and some current indie stuff) and sang aloud shaking our heads and what not, it was silly and awesome. We also listened to two sermons from my church back home on men and marriage and women and marriage. It was amazing. We both tried so hard to fight back the tears as we were realizing so much about ourselves and humanity, our generation and how messed up things are. I could go on about this for quite awhile, and some of you have already gotten an earful and I apologize, but I would love to talk about it more so ask me! Well as we got closer to Trilby Station, we made a few stops for photo opps. This was a mine in a town called Cobar. I have never seen a mine from the top before, they are pretty sweet. Can't imagine working outside in the Australian sun though. Ick. We also stopped by the Darling 
river, which also runs through our Outback home Trilby Station. Let me tell you right now, I have never seen a muddier river.... when I found out this was our option of where we could swim I said no thank you! Maybe I should be a tad more clear, it was not the mud that scared me away, it was the fact that many students in the past had gotten intestinal parasites from the river.... that just does not sound like any fun to me! Plus, come to find, there was a pool if we really needed it. This shot from the river was taken from Trilby, a 200,000 acre sheep farm, swarming with kangaroos and emus, in the middle of absolutely no where. A two hour drive to the closest corner store. Crazy. Well their land was so amazingly beautiful, from the sunsets, to starry nights, to the strange attachment and wonder which came from the vast nothingness and massive blue skies. Our first whole day there started with a walking tour by Liz, the owner of the land responsible 
for the guests, (her husband Gary takes care of the animals and land). She showed us a sheep shearing barn, taught us about how that worked... sadly there were no sheep in there at the moment, I guess that only happens once a year. They are so far away from civilization that the area they live in has something called the flying doctor. Each home has a vast array of different vaccines labeled with numbers, so if anything happens you call the flying doctor and he will walk you through what to do and determine if it is bad enough for him to fly out there to help you out. Mind you this is all free.... the vaccines, the service, everything. *Ahem, cough, U.S. you suck at health care, cough cough* Any who, Liz and Gary's property is so big they have to use a plane to heard their sheep and look around making sure everything is alright. He owns two planes and two helicopters.... they fly to get into town because it takes too long to drive. What a lifestyle.
We had campfires every night and made smores and shared life stories, it was a great bonding time. Our second day there we were split up into two groups and when on a driving tour of the property. This was probably my favorite activity of them all. We drove around for four hours stopping at different places, taking millions of pictures, and getting to experience the feeling of being all alone in the middle of this red stained land. This shot to the right was our bus ride out there, amazingly all four of us roomies were on the trip, which was pretty cool. Might I point out Kelsey in the far back right, cracking up... love her. And poor cat who had dust flying in her eyes so she could not keep them open for the picture. Good thing I just bought handy dandy eye shields, aka massive purple sun glasses. They also helped to keep out the flies, which seemed to attack your face every five seconds out there. Anyway, our tour was amazing. We had a very good group of people who helped make for some really funny stories, my personal fav was taking a picture of Wes jumping off one of the old abandoned cars and getting a sweet mid air shot, then an even sweeter falling on the ground with his feet up in the air shot. Do not worry folks he did not get hurt! We stopped in the middle of no where multiple times, we found some
old abandoned cars, some man made body of water people out there use to use for drinking, and Liz and Gary's previous house. The amazing thing about their old house is that they just let it be. You can walk right in and find dishes in the cabinets, newspapers on the table, clothes in the closets, the beds are fully made, the shower has old shampoo, you get the idea. It is amazing that they could just let it be out there, no worries about vandalism, and since it had been there for 30 years nothing seedy had taken place, which is something that would never happen back home. Their biggest concern is making sure the doors get closed so that animals do not get in. The purpose for leaving the house out there is so that if anyone gets stranded hopefully they will stumble across the home and be able to survive a bit longer than if they were stuck in the hot 
sun alone. This picture to the right is from the bathroom sink, I got so many fun shots of this house it was hard to figure out which one to post, but this is one of my favorites. It gives you a good idea of how the red dirt just takes over out there. Let me just mention 4 days later, I am still blowing my nose and the red dust has not seem to have fully left. It was really fun as we were driving along out there to spot kangaroos and emus running around freely. Emus are probably one of my new favorite animals, watching them run is so humorous. They are basically this big blob of feathers bouncing up and down with tiny little legs and an even skinnier neck. I wish I got close enough to one to take a picture. Well the rest of our trip was full of hanging out enjoying the people and the property. We had the option of sleeping outside every night, however I did not make it through the first, haha. Meg and I decided to give it a go, and the first half hour of just laying there being mesmerized was totally worth it. However the night turned into an icy cold, rocky, uncomfortable adventure very quickly. So around 5 am Meg saw that I was awake as well and asked if I wanted to go in. I had been wanting to go in forever, but we only had one flashlight so I cold not just leave her. Well some other girls got up to
go in as well, and well I could only find one shoe. This normally would not be a problem, but the outback is infested with nasty burrs that hurt and get in your socks just by thinking about walking outside. Such tricky little guys. So I finally came to the conclusion Will was asleep on my other shoe... but being that I was exhausted and freezing and needing to go to the bathroom I was in a very odd state of mind and the thought of waking him up was stressing me out, haha. Meg came over telling me to just wake him up, and Kelsey came over saying the same, but both of them strongly disagreed to the thought of helping me and walked away. So after about 5 minutes of getting even more cold I finally started tapping him, which took awhile. When he finally started to move I said "Will, I need you to roll over" then his head shot out of his sleeping bag and he 
looked at the sky and said something along the lines of "Oh my gosh it is sooo beautiful"...... haha. By this time I was cracking up, and I just repeated asking him to roll over to which he replied "roll over?" then just started rolling and rolling. Thankfully my shoe was under him so I just took off. And apparently he kept rolling for awhile, so I found out the next morning, haha. Well I have rambled on for quite a bit about this trip, but one thing it really did was finally give me the feeling of being in Australia. I know I am here, but I have not felt like it 100%, but the red dirt, and absence of people, and abundance of new life, finally gave me the feeling of "wow, I am really here" which was amazing. Also, getting to go stay out there for three days really made me realize why Aboriginal people are so in love with their land. It has this captivating power which takes over you that you cannot put to words, it is amazing. Despite the burrs, flies, and lack of sleep this was my favorite experience so far on my Australian adventure. I could go on about it forever, and will share much more upon my return. Thanks for reading and I will leave you with a few more pictures...
Oh the red dirt, I cannot get enough!!!! Above were our tours tire tracks... below was edited a tiny bit just to enhance the colors, but I think it is one of my top 3 favs from the whole trip. The one below that was the sunset on the field behind our cabin the first night there, amazing.
1 comment:
I didn't read it. At all. Nothing. But I bet it was swell. The pictures were nice. I'll read it when my brain is working.
Haha...
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