Spring Break

Hello!

So I had this amazing week.  

Friday: It starts when I get back from work and then try to work on my philo paper Friday night.  It was a struggle, but I got done.  Then I said, "It will be here when I get back," avoided doing my laundry, packed a bag, and went to sleep.  

Saturday: The next morning the bus was here bright and early and 17 ND kids, 3 Germans 

(Kate I'm looking at you), our driver Graham, and I headed North.

It was a fairly small bus, but that made it better for lots of games of Euchre (which Joan and I slowly improved at) and general chit chat.  

We made our way to the pinnacles, which are just

 big rocks.  They were created over thousands of years and are in this desert in the middle of a green area.  

We would just drive for hundreds of miles...er kilomet

ers... without seeing anything.  Apparently no one owns big portions of the Outback.  There isn't much fresh water, the land is far from anything, and it can't be used for farmland.  It made me appreciate how isolated this place is.  The bus driver said Australians in the Outback always wave at passing cars because you so rarely see other people.

We attempted to sand board, but there were locals at the dunes with 4-wheelers and dirt bikes (which looked pretty fun, though mildly dangerous) so the driver said we would come back at the end of our trip.

We got to Kalbarri when it was dark and stayed at a hostel there.  The hostel was set up like a big house.  There were 6 bedrooms with 4 sets of bunk beds each, a kitchen, living room, and front porch with picnic 

tables.  After dinner we walked down to the 

beach.

Sunday: We drive to Z-bend gorge.  Only in Australia, they say Zed...not Z...  So Zed bend gorge is a river in this big hole in the ground where the water has cut through the weakest rock.  We took some sweet pics, I absailed down a small cliff, and realized how much I loved nature.

We drove more, then arrived at shell beach. 

 It was pretty cool, but the shells were small and they hurt my feel.  We get there right at sun set which was awesome.  We visited in the most westerly town in Australia.  We spent the night at Monkey Mia, a little tourist town.  We laid on the beach before going to sleep and attempted to find the Southern cross.  None of us knew which stars it contained, so I made up my own.  I could find it almost every night.  But later we were told that it wasn't the real southern cross.

Monday: We woke early so we could watch the dolphins feed.  My friend Joan was picked to

 feed one and that was pretty cool to watch.  The dolphins would swim just a few meters from the shore.  

I built a turtle, attempted to read my history for like 5 minutes, played volleyball, swam with the dolphins then at 1100 it was time to drive to another beach for lunch.

There are 22 of us and someone needed to make each meal, but not all 22.  I usually attempted to help, realized there was nothing for me to do, then found ways to be entertained (also usually my strategy at Christmas and Thanksgiving.)  Joan and I walked down the street in search of something of interest.  We found this lady who lived across the street from one of the most beautiful beach scenes I have ever seen in my life.  She had this shop attached to her house where she sold trinkets and made clay pots.  I really wanted to buy something because it was such a neat place, but I don't' like trinkets so I couldn't.  She fed us coffee from these 4 oz coffee cups (the smallest I have ever seen in my life) and told us about her family.  If someone solves all the world problems before I get a chance, I think I will just build a house next to hers and live there for the rest of my life.  

We stopped at a bottle shop where I bought some wine for the first time ever.  The lady didn't ask for my id.  I was a little bit disapointed.

We visited some stromatolites then spent the night at a hostel that had only salt water for cooking and showering.  I saw some sting rays on when Lindsey and I went for a walk that night.  Only we thought they were manta rays, which would have been a lot cooler, and probably a lot safer as I attempted to get close to them to take their picture.  We saw more the next day in the sunlight.

Tuesday: This is my first encounter with a coral reef and basically I think they are one of the

 coolest things I've ever seen.  We started with a glass bottom canoe, which was pretty sweet, but I think we scared the fish because we didn't see a whole lot.  Later I went back out with my goggles and saw all kinds.   We saw the plants from the boat, but with just my goggles I got to see a lot more fish.  Except I could only hold my breath for so long, then would emerge sputtering and spitting.

The Ningaloo reef is close to shore and very accessible.  The Great Barrier Reef (which I will visit from Cairns) is about an hour boat ride from shore, but has bigger fish and plants.

I took a nap on the beach, fed the fish some bread, and played some soccer.  Then late in the afternoon it was time to drive to Exmouth, which had freshwater showers.  They also had a sweet resturant with lounge chairs by the pool (both associtated with the hostel/hotel).  Some other ND kids and I ordered ice cream and hung out there for a while.

Later we met up with another tour group with 23-28 year-olds from Ireland, Scotland, and England.  We chatted with them for a little while.  One girl said that she had toured South America and whenever she ran out of money she would stay in one place for a little while and work, then head on her merry way when she had enough saved.  We were going to challenge them to a game of volleyball, but it got dark outside.  We probably would have won.

Wednesday: We woke up late and got some snorkel gear.  Then I spent as much time as I could in the water.  The fish aren't scared of people.  I swam an arm's length away from a tu

rtle, we both move at about the same pace, and once I looked up to see a turtle and shark swimming together.  It was awesome.  I saw clown fish, zebra fish, an octopus, a skate, and a thousand other fish I couldn't identify.  If you imagine flies swarming rotten food...then replace the flies with colorful fish the size of your little finger and replace the rotten food with a gorgeous red sea plant, that is what I saw.  I could have stayed longer, but we had to return our gear and make dinner.  Oh and we stopped at a windmill on the way back to the hostel.  We could see whales way out in the water frolicing and shooting up spray.  There was an older man there watching the whales with us and after asking if he was from around there he said he and his wife were retired and lived in the area, but his wife was in the car talking to their daughter in England.  The top of that hill that the lighthouse was on was the only place she could get reception.  I thought that was hilarious.  As we were leaving a bus of older people arrived.  I decided their trip was probably markedly different than ours.

For some reason, I guess the windmills didn't churn out enough power, there wasn't any electricity at our hostel from 2200- 0200.  We went to the beach instead, then returned and went to sleep in the dark.

Thursday: I did a little of my school work on the bus, but also played more euchre and slept.  This day was the most driving.  We stopped at a few gas stations.  That sounds like no big deal, except they would be the only sign of human life (minus the road) for 150 kilometers.  Each had gas, snacks, a puclic bathroom, and some wildlife (kangaroo, birds,...) to veiw.  They were all overpriced, but the tour didn't include snacks or drinks, so I bought some ice cream and diet coke from time to time.  We stayed the night at a farm.  The farmer made kangaroo soup and chicken soup for us.  It was very good.  He also said things that I have heard many times in the States, "Farms are getting bigger or dying."  "The farmer is not getting much of an increase from year to year, but the price of food keeps increasing."  I tried to ask intelligent questions so when I talk to dad or grandpa next I have something intelligent to say about farming in Australia.  The fields are monsterous there, so I asked how big of a combine head they use.  He said a 45 ft is the biggest and after that the hills cause a problem.

We had a fire and marshmallows, then it started to rain and we called it a night.

Friday: At this point I was about done with traveling.  We rode for a little while.  Visited the Hut River Province.  So in 1970 Australia joined some sort of Union with the Europeans or something, but the important part is that they were no longer allowed to export wheat to certain countries.  So the wheat demand dropped 90%.  So the government said, "Yo farmers, you are only allowed to grow wheat on 10% of your farm."  This was a problem for a lot of people.  One dude decided it was illegal for the government to do such and decided to secede his land from Australia.  He send the government a letter saying such and then took the next year to read everything he could about the legalities of suceeding from Australia.  To this day he calls himself a prince and his wife a princess.  He prints money with his picture on it and knights people.  The Australian government doesn't want to invade his land and force him to do anything, but they can't seem to legally force him to stop.  I thought the entire thing was ridiculus.  Oh and the guy's name was Leonard, prince Leonard.  He offered to let us sit in the royal chair.  I passed on the chance.

We drove a little longer, then went sandboarding. It was fun, but not better than sledding.  And the sand is a pain to climb back up the hill in.   

We visited Greenough Wildlife Park.  I saw a lot

 of swee animals.  There was a bird that said, "hello."  A miniture horse a camel, emu, lots of kangaroos, a croc, some lizards,  birds...then there was this ostrich.  The Park gave us food we could feed to the noncarniverous animals.  The ostrich is noncarniverous, so I wanted to feed it.  But it had a beak that looked like it could put a hole in my hand.  So I was standing there with a pellet in one hand contiplating how I was going to feed it to the ostrich and the bag of pellets in my other hand.  I'm enjoying the sunshine, trying to solve this problem...when out of no where, the ostrich swoops it's head down and grabs the entire bag of food.  The horse runs over and the two of them eat all of the food (and the bag).  I was just standing there stunned...then realized the hilarity of the situation.  We arrived back in Perth at about 1915, ordered some pizza and learned of the Notre Dame victory over Michigan.  We talked to the 4 ND kids who went backpacking, apparently it rained (as in torrential downpour) 4 of the 6 days they walked and was 40 degrees at night.  I think I will wait for November to try such an endeavor.

Saturday and Sunday: Wrote a philo paper, watched ND lose to Michigan State, and got excited for life.

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I don't know if you find any of this interesting or not.  I guess if you don't think it is interesting don't read it.  I hope to do descriptions like this for travling and emails for chatting.  Sometimes I lie though.  We will see.  

Notre Dame put together a weekend trip to Albany and Denmark for us, so I will have more stories on Monday.

Cheers,

Brittney