Since I'm not doing anything tonight I figured I'd finally update the blog. The past week or so has been pretty busy with traveling and school and...well, just being in Australia.

The weekend after the Northwest Trip three friends (Virginia, Jocelyn, and Kathryn) and I flew 4 hours north to Darwin to play with some giant crocodiles. We stayed at a hostel called "Chili's Backpackers" which was pretty much in the heart of Darwin (...which isn't very large). The first night we walked around, explored a little, and had dinner at Nando's (!!), and hung out at a bar called Monsoon's for a little bit. The next morning we woke up, got some breakfast, and headed to Crocosaurus Cove to play with some 15 foot long crocodiles. We signed up for this thing called "The Cage of Death" where they put you in a glass cage with one other person (I went with Kathryn) and lower you into the crocodile's enclosures. We got to go into three enclosures and swim with Chopper, Denzel, and Will & Kate (one of the croc couples...cute, right?). I'm terrified of crocodiles so I was (figuratively) peeing my pants before we were lowered down into the first enclosure. But once we realized that, while they didn't like us, they were too old/lazy to do anything about it, it wasn't so bad. The majority of the time they just stayed in their spot and attempted to ignore our yelling and all the banging on the cage. The only croc that moved was Denzel and he ended up just sitting under our cage. Even though he wasn't scary (although he did snap at Virginia and Jocelyn when they went) it was pretty cool to be close to something so large and powerful.

Kathryn and I in the cage before our first drop

 The giant croc in the background is Chopper. He's the thrid largest croc in captivity in the world!

In with Denzel! If you look at my legs, clearly I'm trying to run away...underwater...

Apparently Bert is the grumpiest of the crocodiles they have, but we weren't able to go in his enclosure (not really sure why). But he's the crocodile that was in Crocodile Dundee!

So after our playdate with the crocodiles, we went back to our hostel and hung out on the little terrace they have and met some other people staying there. That night we went back to Monsoon's. The next morning we woke up (early) and went a tour that took us to the Adelaide River to see jumping crocodiles! The people working on the boat put meat at the end of a stick and crocodiles would propel themselves out of the water to get the meat...pretty incredible, and shows just how strong they are in order to lift all that weight out of the water.

 We noticed that real crocodiles look fake...kinda strange.

Jumping!

Woo! 

Another one jumping!

After the jumping crocs we went to Litchfield National Park and saw some termite hills... 

....and waterfalls!

Pretty pretty pretty!

So when we got back from the tour (which was 8am - 6pm thing) we got dinner at a great Thai place and explored Darwin some more. It's a pretty small place but has some really nice areas. The next morning we went down to the waterfront and laid out for a little, did some shopping, got lunch, walked around, and then caught the airport  shuttle to the airport and caught our flight home. All in all, a pretty incredible weekend.

The Darwin waterfront!

When I got back from Darwin it meant getting my butt in gear and doing some work. I spent Monday writing my progress report for my internship, Tuesday at my internship, and the rest of the week writing a paper for my policy and law class that was due on Friday. Thursday night Paul took us to see "Red Dog" a movie based on a dog (called Red Dog) from Dampier. I'd explain the whole story, but I'm too lazy. It's a pretty sad story and I almost cried in it, so that says a lot. But it's really good and I definitely recommend either watching it or reading the book (which is pretty short).

Today (Saturday) Caroline, Kenny, Mike, Virginia, and I went into Subiaco to explore a little bit. I don't have any pictures but it's a really nice area. Kind of like Fremantle in the sense that it has streets with shops on it instead of giant shopping centre, but also a little bit like Georgetown (in D.C) because it's little classier and on the artsy side.

Since I'm being lazy tonight I'll probably go to bed soon, but I think I'll watch some trashy TV first...night :)
xxx

Welcome to the Outback

3950. That's how many kilometers we drove in the past 10 days - almost 2500 miles. Needless to say, it's been a long 10 days but every mile of the trip was worth it. We slept in tents every night, hiked, swam in waterfalls, snorkeled, saw some incredible scenery, and got to experience the Outback. Prepare for a long post...



DAY 1


The first day was spent mostly driving and sleeping while driving, so not too much to say. We drove through a lot of farming areas (aka a lot of nothing) and ended up at the Northbrook Farmstay for the night.

Caroline and I shared a tent for the 10 days, this little 2-person tent was our "home" for the trip. 

This is some of the area around the campsite, other than this there were some rooms to stay in and a field - not a lot going on there.

DAY 2

Woke up early and made our way to Kalbarri National Park.

A view of the cliffs. The water was beautiful and as we walked along the path overlooking the cliffs we saw a whale jumping out of the water!

Jocelyn, Virginia, and I at the cliffs.

After the cliffs we went to the Murchison River Gorge. This is a view from the overlook...

Me in the gorge

Another view of the gorge

Our campsite for the second and third nights at Hamelin Pool which is in the Shark Bay World Heritage site. 

After we set up our tents we took a walk to the beach to watch the sunset. The beach by our campsite was full of tiny shells and not sand. 

This picture is taken from the pier at the beach.  The ground in this picture looks dirty, but those shapes (they're a little hard to see) are stromatalites - the first living organism in the world. They were formed about 3.5 billion years ago and are still at this beach. I think this is one of 3 or 4 places in the world where stromatalite colonies still exist

More stromatalites

DAY 3

We started the fourth day early so we could make the hour long drive to Monkey Mia (also in Shark Bay) and watch the dolphin feeding.  

Unfortunately, the dolphins weren't so interested in us that day, but it was still pretty incredible to be so close to wild dolphins

I forget this dolphin's name, but he's sticking his eye out of the water so he can look at us!

After the dolphin feeding, some of us went on a 2-hour catamaran ride in Monkey Mia. I forgot to take a picture of the boat, so sorry about that.  We spent the 2 hours looking for wildlife, mostly we saw dugongs (manatees). This picture isn't very good, but it's the best one I took. The dugongs don't keep their heads above the water for very long so it was hard to get a good picture. There's over 10,000 dugongs in Shark Bay which, I think, makes it the biggest population of dugongs in the world.

Then on the way back to the beach we got to ride in the boom net (pretty sure that's what it's called, but I could be wrong). It's just a net in the back of the boat that you can sit in while the boat moves.

The water was freezing, but it was soo so much fun.You have to hold on really tightly because the force of the water can almost push you out of the net (which also meant holding on to our bathing suit bottoms).

After Monkey Mia we drove back to our campsite at Hamelin Pool. On the way we stopped at a couple places. This is Eagle Bluff. Sometimes you can see tiger sharks in the water, but we weren't so lucky.

Another view at Eagle Bluff

Another stop we made was at Shell Beach

It was a huge beach, but not so comfortable because of all the shells

DAY 4

This day wasn't very eventful, we drove the entire day to Coral Bay. We stopped at Carnarvon to do some grocery shopping, but I didn't take any pictures. When we got to Coral Bay we camped in a caravan park. It was weird to see so many people in one place after staying in other places with only a few people. Coral Bay was a more resort-y area, but very nice. We spent the afternoon at the beach walking around in the water. There were stingrays everywhere which was kind of crazy. After dinner we came to the beach and watched the stars which was pretty incredible. The sky was so clear and I saw probably 5 or 6 shooting stars in that night - I wish the sky was that clear at home.

DAY 5

 This day was spent at Coral Bay. We woke up early to go snorkeling but as we walked on the beach we found a kangaroo!

We went on a 2 hour glass bottom boat snorkeling trip in the Ningaloo Reef (also a world heritage site) which was so much fun. The boat was really nice and it was so cool being able to see the reef underneath the boat. We stopped and snorkeled at two places on the reef and at one of them the snapper swam right by us, practically touching us, because they wanted to be feed so that was pretty cool. We all wanted to see a reef shark but, sadly, we couldn't find one :(

Some fish under the boat.

 After the snorkeling trip we spent the rest of the day on the beach. The weather was perfect for the beach, not too hot with a beautiful blue sky. It was also really nice to have a day where we didn't have to be on the bus driving for hours. I wish we could have stayed at Coral Bay for longer.

DAY 6

Day 6 was another day full of driving. We left Coral Bay early and made our way to Karijini National Park. On the way we stopped at a small town called Tom Price for some groceries and had lunch in the middle of nowhere (literally). 

DAY 7

This day was amazing. We woke up early, had breakfast, and went on a hike through a gorge in the national park. We stopped at a pool in the gorge to swim and then hiked again towards a waterfall where we also swam. We then hiked back to the campsite, had lunch, relaxed, and then went back out to go to another pool to take a swim before dinner.

Me sitting at the top of the gorge

Hiking down the same gorge. This first part of the hike was really steep and kind of killed my knee...but it was totally worth it.

The first pool we swam in  called the Circular Pool. The water was freezing but when you made it towards the falls at the other end it was really warm. 

Our tour guide found a dead blue tongued lizard

A waterfall in the gorge (Fortescue Falls)

View of the waterfall from the top of the gorge

Another waterfall in the gorge

DAY 8

Another day of driving. We headed towards Kumarina Roadhouse and stopped in Newman along the way. Newman is a small mining town, where BHPbilliton mines for iron ore. We were able to see some of the mining site from a hill.

Clearly we weren't happy about the mining.

 Giant mining trucks

Later in the day we stopped where the Tropic of Capricorn is! Pretty cool

DAY 9

Also another day of driving, we made our way to Wogarno Sheep Station where we would have, pretty much, the whole place to ourselves so we were able to make as much noise as we wanted :) On the way there, we stopped at an gold mine that had been closed for 6 years. Then we stopped at a town called Cue which was pretty much a ghost town. We guessed that the population was probably around 50....so strange. This night was a lot of fun, we had a campfire which we kept it going until around 2am. 

Day 10

Our last day and we just drove from Wogarno back to campus. No significant stops, just a gas station and a place to stop for lunch. We got back to campus around 4pm.  I feel like I'm missing some parts of the trip, but it's hard to re-cap such a busy trip and I'm super tired. Sorry :) But I can't imagine how this trip could have been any better. I had so much fun and I'm so glad I had the chance to go - traveling through the Outback isn't something every person gets to do and it's definitely an experience I'll remember for the rest of my life. Australia is truly an amazing place and I can't wait to see more of it!

xxx