What a week it's been! I just returned from an amazing 7 day/2000 mile road trip and as a result I have a new respect for truck drivers after living on the road for seven days. Obviously living in a confided space with 6 other girls had it's up and downs, but overall it was an awesome once in a lifetime experience, and a great way to see the "real" Australian outback and some of Oz's best kept secrets! There were a total of 30 students (mostly from Notre Dame USA and CSBSJU) stuffed into 3 RV's, and one camper van. In total, we went from Perth (bottom left of the state) up to Tom Price, over to Coral Bay, and back.
Highlights(s) of the week: Having a dance party in the middle of the highway (central Australia is pretty desolate. In our 8 hour car ride from Karijini to Coral Bay, we saw 1 car other than our own), stargazing every night in the middle of the highway, sleeping on top of the RV, and exploring the gorges and jumping of cliffs at karijini.Low point(s) of the week: getting my credit cards stolen, sleeping on the side of the road and hoping no one ran us over or decided to break into our RV's in the middle of the night, and not showering for 7 days.
Here's how the week shook down
Day 1 (Saturday): We picked up the RV's bright and early from Perth, and drove 14 hours to Karijini National Park. We slept on the side of the road next to a semi-truck (Desperate times call for desperate measures)
Day 2 (easter Sunday): We woke up with the sun, and finished the drive to Karijini. We found 2 water pools that were within hiking distance from our campsite, but we decided it would be more fun to cram 20 people into 1 RV and drive there anyway. We cliff jumped and swam in rock pools for the afternoon, and then met up with the campervan at night. The stars were so gorgeous that I decided to sleep on the top of the camper. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but at 4 am when I had to use the restroom and was 12 feet up in the air, it wasn't so much fun.
Day 3: We decided to stay longer at Karijini and explore the park's gorges since that is what it was famous for. This was my favorite day of the trip. We found some of the coolest waterfalls and rock pools i'd ever seen both in person and on TV. I felt like I was living in an episode of Planet Earth. There is a stream that goes probably two miles long, and people can swim, climb, crawl, and jump the majority of it. There is a spot where guests are advised not to go any further, but being the adventurous kids that we are, we decided to walk about another half mile only to find another amazing rock pool to jump into (although clearly marked a bad idea) and a few of us walked even further to find a 100 foot waterfall into the most amazing meadow hiddin in the gorges. While watching the waterfall, I had never been so scared and amazed at the same time in my life. Had i walked 5 feet further, I would have walked straight of a cliff and died. It was awesome. One of my friends brought a waterproof HD camera so I got some of it on footage!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrnBgWkT3tA
After we played in the gorges for the day, we left for Coral Bay, which was an 8 hour car ride. We were strongly advised not to drive at night since kangaroos and cows tend to hop out on the road, but we figured it would make the experience even cooler if we saw some wild animals. This was the night we pulled over and had a giant dance party in the middle of the highway. It was a blast :)
Day 4: We left for Coral Bay, which is part of the Ningaloo reef. It was nice to relax at the beach and get out of the car for a few days. it's a pretty touristy area, so I kind of felt like I was in Mexico for a bit. We ended up meeting other students from Minnesota, which was extremely ironic. Unfortunately, my credit cards got stolen at the beach which put a slight damper on the rest of the week, but thanks to good friends and a collect call home to Dad the situation ended up being ok.
Day 5: More snorkeling, diving, and coral bay shenanigans. We drove halfway to Calberry national park at night.
Day 6: Midweek RV clean, rock climbing, and more beach stuff!
Day 7: We made it to Calberry National park, and played on some sand dunes. By this time we were all ready to go home and take a shower and eat something besides peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Day 8: We woke up early to see the Pinnacles and take the RV's back to freo for a good cleaning before we returned them. The Pinnacles of Western Australia (WA) were allegedly supposed to be one of the coolest parts of the trip. Similar to Mt. Rushmore in USA, the Pinnacles are a big tourist attraction and something that you cannot go to WA and not see. However, in real life, they are really dumb, about 1/5 of the size people portray them as, and we only stopped because our friends here told us that "they're too dumb not to see". So, we stopped for 5 minutes, snapped a picture, and left.
We finally Returned to Freo in one piece, cleaned out the RVs, and brought them back. It was a week that I'll never forget!
This video is of the view from the top of the gorges at Karijini.
This is a video of us looking like bums on the side of the road!
these are some of the waves we played in at Calberry national Park (sorry for the language)
Next up is a month of straight class and studying before Thailand and Finals! I can't believe how fast the trip is going, and that I have less than two months left! What an experience it's been so far.... and I can't wait to see what the last few weeks have in store for me as well :)
If you have a few minutes to spare, check out one of the beautiful sunsets we got to watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZdykVNLpwY
If you have a few minutes to spare, check out one of the beautiful sunsets we got to watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZdykVNLpwY
PS thanks to Joe Smith for all the videos :)
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