Rock to reef safari

Before I start telling you guys all about the best three weeks of my life, I want to shout out the biggest THANK YOU to my parents who supported me along the way and made this happen. 

Because these three weeks were full of adventure and we literally did something exciting every single day, I created this seperate page just for the big trip around Australia. Here you can read all about it and look at some amazing photos, which capture the best moments of our trip. 

We really had the best time visiting some of the most spectacular sceneries of Australia and along the way I met incredible people who I can now call my friends. During this time, our group of 30 exchange students from all around the globe, grew together to one big family. I've been home now for exactly one day and I already miss them. I got used to the 10 hours bus trips, and the fact that we most likely have to share a campsite with Australia's most dangerous animals, and now I even know the lyrics of "On the road again", which Damien played every time we, well, were on the road again. These memories are kept safe in my heart. 

But before I start crying writing this, let's get started!

This is the beginning of something great. In Melbourne we picked up all the other exchange students from my district and also those ones from D9710. They came all the way from Canberra to finally join us in Melbourne and all together we started the 12 hours bus trip to Adelaide. We never met each other before, but after a few minutes the barriers were broken. Overnight we stayed at a campsite in Adelaide just to wake up the next morning at 4am and continue our trip into the Outback. And we are on the road again!

At 4 o'clock in the morning we dragged our bodies out into the bus, our minds still asleep, and continued sleeping there. As we are heading towards the absolute emptiness of the Australian Outback, we experienced the most beautiful sunrise in history. See for yourself...

Our destination was Coober Pedy, the Opal town. For those who not know what opal is: it basically is a gemstone which, over a looong period of time, contains compressed fragments of water in it. This explains the beautiful range of colours you can see in it. Anyway, we got to go to the opal museum and had the opportunity to watch an opal cutting demonstration. As you can see it was all about the opal. This night we slept underground, which was kind of really awesome, except the fact that it wasn't nice and cold down there, but bloody hot. 

Now this is Outback. Red Sand, flies everywhere and heat. We are finally at the Uluru and it looks stunning! Even though it really is just a massive red rock in the middle of nowhere, its story and especially the stories of the aboriginal people are very interesting. A woman guides us around the rock and explains the different places. For example there was one corner which was the men's cave and another one which was the kitchen. One thing that really fascinated me was the fact that the actual rock actually isn't holy to the aboriginal people, but the land around it is. I always thought, people aren't allowed to climb the rock, because of its meaning to the aboriginal people. But no! They have other reasons why they don't want people to climb Uluru. It is an incredible danger up there and the aboriginals fear tourists hurting themselves or even getting killed by climbing the steep rock. People died climbing the rock. All they do is giving advice and leaving the decision to the individual. Their past was filled with death and force. They didn't get to decide. They weren't given any choice. But they are better and therefore don't say: you are not allowed to climb the rock. I made the decision not to climb it, but a few others did and I'm so glad they all returned safe, because it is a hell of a climb, I can tell ya.

From the Uluru we already could see the outer shapes of Kata Tjuta - the Olgas. On our way to Kings Canyon, we stopped there to go for a hike and, I can tell you, it was so worth it! As always we had to cope with the immense heat of central Australia, but we all survived it and could continue our bus trip towards Kings Canyon.

When we finally arrived at our campsite and built up our tents, we first jumped into the pool which was a perfect cool down from the bloody hot weather of the Outback. 

Next day, early in the morning. Today we are conquering the big hike through Kings Canyon. The weather is forecasted to be 34 degrees, that's why we have to start walking early, before the big heat. After we mastered the steep beginning, we got rewarded with an incredible view over a massive cliff. This was the first of many photo opportunities and of course, how could it be different, everyone of us exchange students got out their flag and posed next to the edge of this cliff. Others more brave, or rather stupid, than others. I kept my distance to the deadly edge which would lead right into death. I probably describe it a bit dramatic. It was so beautiful and a couple of other nice places followed. Hidden between humongous stone walls was a water pool where we had lunch and gave our feet a rest. The time went fast and we were already out of the canyon again. At this time the sun already shone ruthlessly down at us and I personally was incredibly happy to finally stand in the shade of our bus.

But the day wasn't over yet. For the afternoon we've planned a helicopter ride over the canyon. I couldn't wait to enter the helicopter, because I've never experienced such thing and was super excited to fly. Every helicopter fitted four persons and together with my austrian friend Alex and Vivienne from Taiwan I enjoyed the 10 minutes ride (by the way, the pilot came from Melbourne and was kinda cute). I can't even describe how magnificent the view was. Everything seemed so tiny and the path, we walked earlier that day, looked absolutely harmless, but I can tell ya, these stairs up the first hill were everything but harmless. It was just great!

To break up the long bus trip from Kings Canyon to Alice Springs, we stopped by a Camel farm and everyone got a go sitting on one of the four camels. The ride was only a minute long, but is was so much fun! In contrast to that, Synthia, our cook, prepared camel burgers for lunch. Honestly, it was quite weird eating camel meat when you basically sit next to one. The Veggies under us weren't very happy.

The campsite we were staying at was really nice, it had a swimming pool and even a water slide. Unfortunately we didn't got to stay at the pool for long, because after we, all the exchange students, went down the slide at once, the lifeguard kicked us out and we weren't allowed to enter the pool again. Pretty harsh.

Very interesting was the visit at the Royal Flying Doctors and the School of the Air. We learned a lot about rural and remote Australia and how children who live in isolated communities still get education, just not by visiting a local college but by attending online courses provided by the "School of the air". It is an incredibly awesome organisation!

In Alice Springs we also went to the Desert Park and watched a bird show, where native birds flew right over our heads and in some cases missed it only by centimetres.

We officially finished our time in the Outback and are now on our way to the coast. For the night we stay at Barkly Homestead and don't even have to build up tents, because, guess what, we sleep under the stars! I was really excited, but another girl wasn't that happy. Unfortunately she rolled out her sleeping mattress on a spider nest. Well, the spider family didn't like that at all and attacked her. It was all a bit dramatic, but everyone survived the night. The question is, who actually slept and didn't stay awake in fear getting bitten by snakes, spiders or skorpions. The answer: me and annabell. We slept like babies. Our motto was: as long as we don't open our eyes, we can't see them, so they aren't there. 

Due to floodings in Queensland, we had to take a shortcut through Winton and Emerald. We've spent one day in Emerald, going out for a hike to Carnarvon Gorge, which was such a beautiful walk, and afterwards swim in one of the rock pools. The landscape actually looked like Canada. I know it probably sounds kinda weird but see for yourself:

In the evening we prepared a fancy, self cooked dinner for our cooks and everyone helped! The table got decorated and the meal prepared. We had Curry as main meal and Pancakes with apples as dessert. It was very tasty and we actually had heaps of fun cooking.

Today we need to get up very early in the morning, because we are nearly at the coast and have to take the ferry to our next destination: Great Keppel Island. After the 40 minutes ferry ride, we set foot onto this incredibly island for the first time. White sand, blue water. Paradise. And here we will spend the next three days. We put our luggage into the cabins and directly get changed into our bikinis and off we go to the beach, which is, by the way, nearly in front of our camp. This will be great!!

Picture one: Ferry over to Great Keppel Island

Picture two: Anette (Norway) and me on the ferry 

Today is a day of options. We can go out for a hike to access beautiful, isolated beaches on the other side of the island, we can spend the day relaxing at the beach, or we can sign up for a kayak-snorkelling tour with stand-up-paddling afterwards. To sum it up, we can do whatever we feel like doing. I signed up for the guided kayaking tour and so we left the camp at about 10am to get our equipment and the introduction. As soon as we sat in our kayaks, we started paddling. Surrounded by perfect blue water, our group paddled past two little bays until we arrived at monkey beach, where we got out and put on our snorkel gear. To get to the reef we got driven out by a Jetski, which was such a great experience, and right away started snorkelling. So many fishes and white corals. We even saw a massive shell, that closed itself when we got closer. How cool is that?! Unfortunately there were also whole fields of dead or dying corals, which made me realise that it is really critical with the Great Barrier Reef. The time went way too fast and we had to get back into our kayaks and back to the camp. Included in the program were 3 hours of stand up paddling. So we gave that a try as well, and would you believe it, I actually managed to stand up for quite a while, until a big wave rolled towards me and threw me off the board. But it was so much fun!

What we did today was basically the same as we did yesterday, just without kayaking. So we drove out to the reef with a boat, got an instruction, our snorkel gear and off we went into the water. We had lots of fun and even got to jump off the boat afterwards. To finish the "cruise" we got the opportunity to be draged along in a net behind the boat. I don't really know how to explain it, but you will understand when you see the photo. It was much harder than it lookes. Because the water is so strong, some of us girls had problems keeping the bikini bottoms in place. Yeah it was funny ^^

Now we are getting to my favourite part of the day: tube riding! Nina, Ana and me were the first ones and, gosh, we were so excited! A jetski pulled the tube and threw us around the curves. I'll admit we all fell of a couple of times, but it was so much fun. As you can probably imagine, after 15 minutes of desperately holding on to the handlebars, our hands were very, VERY, sore. 

In the evening we organised a sketch night, were everone got a turn and performed a funny play. My group informed the others about the so called drop bears. It's an Australian insider...Anyway, everyone had a great laugh and we really enjoyed the evening!

I think this was, for EVERYONE, one of the Highlights of Safari. Superman, Batman, incredibly rollercoasters and free, I emphasize FREE, food for lunch. Free food for exchange students is as big as winning in lottery. The day went so fast, because we just ran from one rollercoaster to the other and would you believe it the queues weren't even that long. We probably waited about 15 to 20 minutes on each attraction, which is super lucky for a popular amusement park. My favorit roller coaster was the superman "escape" one, but the Arkham Asylum was also incredibly good. It was just a really really nice day!

After a long day driving to our last destination, Sydney, we enjoy a nice evening in Chinatown. Therefore we already got a peak into Sydneys nightlife and the chinese culture as we had dinner in one of the many chinese restaurants. Ready for bed we already looked forward to the next day, which we will spend in the city.

Every day on Safari was basically a highlight, but this day was my absolute favorite! It started off with a ferry cruise around the Bay and Sydney harbour. We then decided to split up in smaller groups so that we can make the most out of our freetime in the city. Nina from denmark, Anette from norway and me went off at watson bay and firstly enjoyed a great coffee and then walked along the shore and found a nice place with an awesome view onto Sydney. We were just a nice group of three. We are so similar. We love coffee and so we took off together to explore Sydney harbour.

Hidden in a small street in "the Rocks", the old part of Sydney, we found a market, which we happily visited. Here we ate pancakes, and other delicious treats. Personally, I love markets and I can tell you we enjoyed it soo much! Afterwards we headed down to the foreshore where Dance Academy was filmed. I was really excited, because this TV show basically defined my childhood. Therefore we danced and jumped along the waterfront, totally enjoyed ourselves. It was just magical to see the Sydney Harbour Bridge out of that perspective, with the sun shining and huge smiles on our faces. 

After 24000 steps that we've walked during that day my feet were so incredibly sore as I spend the day in my sandals and it obviously wasn't a good shoe choice that I've made that morning.

This day already has been the best, but it got better! We took a taxi, since our feet were too sore to walk this distance, to Westfield Tower, where a nice dinner awaits. As this is our last day on Safari, we dine very fancy up on the tower in the restaurant and would you believe it, it spins, of course veeery slowly but we made two full turns while we were up there. The food was amazing and we had a fabulous time together. 

Sydney at night is actually more beautiful than during daylight. Until midnight we strolled through Darling Harbour and got rewarded with this view...

Driving Driving Driving 

After three hours we stop in Canberra, where half of our group has to get out. There were tears there were many many hugs and one last group count. Through Safari we got to know these incredible people and it is very sad to leave them here, but we have to keep driving towards Melbourne. Without them it is not the same. It feels so empty in the bus. Well and them we arrive in Melbourne, which means that Safari is officially over. We had such a great time and I'm sure everyone would agree with that. I will never forget these three weeks with the best dudes on the whole globe!

If you made it through all those articels and pictures, you are a champion!

Hope you enjoyed reading all about my "Rock to Reef Safari" and I could make you a little bit jealous ;)

Thanks again for supporting me!

Cheers, Lena xx