KANGAROOS AT LAST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OK, so like I said in my last blog just like I thought, I did have a great Easter with wonderful food.  This is a picture of the cake that Neil made and it was fantastic.  He did such a good job, it is so cute! (Remember to click on the pics if you want them bigger)

And even though I was not excited at all for the Outback, it turned out to be the best week here so far and one of the best experiences I have ever had in my life.   It was a two day drive out there and we took a coach bus driven by the awesome Ian.  Our plans changed a bit however when it was pouring rain for the first time in years and everything was flooded.  The roads that led to the place we were supposed to go were inaccessible so we had to change plans quickly.  We stopped in a small mining town called Cobar where luckily we found last minute accommodations.  It’s a small mining town and there is not much there.

We stopped to see this mine which was pretty impressive.  I don’t know if you can tell how big it is but it was huge!

We had to waste a couple hours while Ian found accommodations for us so we visited the tiny museum of Cobar.  Fascinating. But we made it fun…

I woke up the next morning in Cobar on my 21st birthday.  Didn’t feel much like my birthday though.  We had a bit of time to wander around town and found this party store with some entertaining 21 stuff.

Luckily Ian made quick plans to go to the old Townsend family farm (my host mom’s brothers own it)  instead of the place we originally intended to go.  It was about a 3 hour drive from Cobar and when we got there it had stopped raining but was still pretty gloomy looking. 

At first, I was not very excited to be here for my birthday.  The beds were covered with dust, I couldn’t use the bathroom because there was a humungous huntsman spider looming over the toilet so I had to pee outside, and my feet got full of burs when I walked around.  This face reflects all this that had happened so far.

It makes me laugh though because the trip definitely started to get better after this point.  We had a great dinner and my roomies had bought me a 21st birthday beer mug and some fake beer (we are not allowed to drink in the program which is totally fine).   And they re-wrote the lyrics to Take Me Out To The Ball Game and changed them to be about my birthday in the Outback and performed it before dinner. 

After that we enjoyed some time by the campfire when Ian announced that he was taking some people Roo spotting.  I was so excited; I had not yet seen a kangaroo and wanted to so badly.  The first group that went out though didn’t see any so I didn’t have very high hopes.  Ian took us in the back of a ute which is pretty much a flatbed truck with room to stand in the back and railings to hold onto.  Bouncing around in the back of the ute on muddy roads at night was one of the most fun experiences I have ever had.  Seeing kangaroos was almost secondary to riding around.  We did see one though, hopping along with intense speed in front of the truck.  I saw my first wild kangaroo on the night of my 21st birthday.  At the end of the day, it was pretty much the best birthday I have ever had. 

Here is a pic of the ute.  We were standing in the back hanging on to those rails for dear life.  I got pretty banged up and have a lot of bruises now but it was well worth it. 

The next day we went on a tour of the 40,000 acres that make up this farm.  Again, we road in the back of the utes,and it was a blast.  It was such a beautiful day and the land was gorgeous.

We actually saw a ton of kangaroos and emus when we were out on the property.  These emus look pretty small but they were kind of far away and they are actually huge (about the size of an ostrich).

We stopped halfway and climbed a beautiful hill.  The first half of the ride was pretty clean.  There were puddles in the dirt roads but we stayed pretty clean.  That was before.

This is after.

It was disgusting at first but once I learned to close my mouth, we just embraced the mud and had a great time.  We hit so many puddles and it went all the way over the truck to hit us.  It was so much fun.

There were 3 utes that took us out and one 4-wheel drive truck.  For some reason, we were the only vehicle that got this dirty.  But it was ok with us. We had the most fun.  

This is our driver Ian.  You may think I am crazy for talking about our bus driver so much, but he is amazing and we got to know him really well on this trip.  He knows more about Australia than anyone, and he loves sharing it.  We were all heart broken when we had to say goodbye to him.

This is Kimberly and she is the program director for the ASC.  She is basically the one that takes care of us and teaches our Australia classes.  I really like her.

The sunset was absolutely stunning.

I got to hold a lamb! Isn’t it soooooooooo cute?!?!?!

This is the campfire right outside the building we stayed in.  We had a fire every night complete with Australian s’mores (cookies instead of graham crackers, they don’t have graham crackers here).

We headed out sadly but in desperate need of a shower on Friday and stayed in a place called Bathurst that night before heading home on Saturday.  When we got to the place we were staying, there were 15 or so kangaroos hanging out in the field.  We got really close to them before they hopped away.  It was amazing, they are my favorite. 

This is my favorite kangaroo picture.

We stopped in the blue mountains on our way home on Saturday and it was gorgeous.  This is the 3 sisters.   Well that' concludes my incredible trip into the outback.  Sorry that was so long!