So this may potentially be the longest post of all time.. just a warning but I've had quite possibly the best 2 weeks of my life and I feel like I should adequately document to look back on whenever I'm sitting back in good ol' Illinois in frigid temperatures. The start of this glorious two week span came with the most amazing care package from my family. My mom had mentioned that she had sent one but I was beginning to think the Australian Post Office had confiscated it upon finding out that it contained the secret to happiness and all thats right in the world, aka tomato soup. But my host mum texted me during the day to inform me that in the 20 minute period that I had just left for school and she was returning from taking Hazel to kindi we had somehow missed the package. She was generous enough to drive me to the post office where there was almost a brawl when they were threatening not to give me my package since I didn't have proof of my current address. But after they saw the complete and utter dire distress from being tomato soup deprieved they gave me the package out of the kindness of their hearts. Aaron and Hazel helped me open the package when I got home which contained about 10 cans of tomato soup, crackers, homemade granola, instant coffee, french vanilla creamer, a for sale sign with Sydney-muffin's picture on it (not funny mom!), and pictures and letters from home. I wouldn't really consider myself a cryer but this brought me pretty darn close to a weeping fool, especially the card from my grandpa. But Hazel and Aaron were way too excited about all the new presents for me to bring down the mood. Within minutes the tomato soup was on the stove, Hazel and Aaron were instantly addicted to the granola which I've had to now move to a shelf in my room out of their reach, and Sydneys picture had been properly displayed in my room. Aaron and Hazel both wanted to try my soup seeing as I'd been raving about it for the past two months and at first really liked it out of the sheer excitement of the moment and then concluded they really weren't the biggest fans. But that was the best present I could ever receive and I've been averaging a few cans of tomato soup a week when I'm home. Thanks again fam, you're the best!
With tomato soup now pumping through my veins it gave me the motivation to get through all my uni work and planning for our mid-term road trip. We had all tentatively split up the work so that everyone was contributing in some way so that helped massively..sort of. Lindsey sorted out the two rental cars aka shaggin wagons that we were taking on the trip, Maria and I worked on finding petrol stations on the way up seeing as they were going to be few and far between, Will and John were placed in charge of getting walkie talkies for the cars and figuring out what poisonous things would be lurking in and around our destination spots, Ben and Emma were placed in charge of food, Alex was looking into camping gear, and Josef's one job was to stock up on goon and alcohol for the trip, which he failed epically at. Jos did however successfully come up with the name for the roadtrip one night during our pre-lash.. W.E.Y! Pronounced like "way" which stands for Wheeling Everywhere, Yeahhh! Our tentative plan was to go out to Cap S on Wednesday night, wake up Thursday, go get the cars, and head out from Claremont by 5pm latest. As expected, Wednesday turned out to be a little bit more of a night which resulted in all of us being super hungover on Thursday. So instead, we ended up just crashing at Carolyn (the Claremont guys' house) and leaving at 4am on Friday which worked out extraordinarily well.
Before this novel worthy account starts I would like to recommend just looking at the pictures, especially you Rheanna as it's lengthy. But I guess I should probably give a brief rundown of who everyone is.
Lindsey- The responsible adult of the group and quite possibly the luckiest find ever. We met on the plane over here in line for the bathroom and now we're going to be living together in the guys' living room.. who knew!
Maria- She's Welsh but don't tell her that.. apparently she doesn't agree with the sheep-shagging rep they have so she tries to deny her roots. Quite possibly one of my favorite people though, she's pretty much my drinking partner in crime.
Emma- Super chill awesome Canadian that has the best taste in music ever and has now turned me onto the magic that is hidden Canadian artists.
Ben- Oh Ben, the love of my life/the stealer of my shorts all trip. He's from Canada as well and is basically the kid that can never sit still and has to run and jump on everything.
Alex- Ben's Norwegian twin essentially when it comes to running and jumping on everything. If we couldn't find him while we were hiking all we had to do was find the most dangerous spot for any person out of their right mind to go and sure enough, there he'd be.
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| John with his birthday hat |
John- British rugby player that you would pin as being super macho but he's actually deathly afraid of spiders and locked Lindsey in the car with a Huntsman spider that had been crawling on Ben in the car. Great guy though :)
Will- Oh Will, so many fails. This poor British kid was probably one of the highlights of the trip. There was always something, his boxer button falling off, his pants ripping so he'd have to wear 3 pairs of boxers as shorts, his sleeping bag ripping, and various other things but a great lad all around.
Josef- Pronounced Yos-ef.. he get's reallllly aggravated if you say it wrong. But another Brit that has a mild obsession with goon and even used the goon bags as pillows for the trip.
Day 1
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| Lindsey packing the shaggin wagons the night before |
For the most part, Friday consisted of just driving. Lots and lots of driving. However, it was a very scenic drive and it gave us a good chance to see the actual outback. With the car rental place we found, drivers had to 21 yrs + and could only drive the car they were registered to so Lindsey and I were the sole drivers of our car which we will rename the Shaggin Wagon now that I realize how much of my family is reading my blog, and Ben and Alex were the drivers of Fiona. We were able to work out a pretty good driving system where Lindsey and Ben would drive together seeing as they were the responsible adults of the trip and Alex and I would drive together so that we could speed around and play car tag along with other shannigans. We only got lost once the first day and we'll go ahead and blame that whole ordeal on the guys' directional skills. We only went about an hour out of the way and ended up seeing fields full of wildflowers which was gorgeous. It was pretty spectacular that we got lost seeing as there are literally only 2 roads in the outback and we successfully found the other one. But other than that things went without a hitch. We were able to make it a solid 9 hours into the trip before we decided to stop and set up camp. In Australia, it is perfectly legal and socially acceptable to just pull along the side of the road and set up camp and they have places to pull over and park specifically for this reason which is extremely handy. They had a few campgrounds accessible on the way up, but we figured that we didnt really need to pay to sleep on the ground and with there being a fire ban along the coast it worked out much better to do it somewhat illegally on the side of the road for free.
The first night we camped was a great way to start the trip off. We were able to get a fire going without a problem which amazed the brits to no end seeing as everything is wet all the time in England and they're used to a ridiculously long process instead of the "throw a few rocks in a circle and break a branch off" technique. We had stocked up on copious amounts of pasta before the trip and had packed several pots, pans, and dishes as well seeing as there would be next to no civilization along the way. At first we were pretty cautious about cleaning up after dinner and would boil water that would be used with dish soap to wash up but after the first night we slowly resorted to just using regular water which by the end of the trip turned into saving the dishes until we found a beach and we'd just wash everything in the ocean and make sure to dust off the dried salt and sand before we ate off them.
After dinner, we all sat around the camp fire and just talked and drank while looking up at the stars. I'm used to seeing a lot of stars out in the country at my grandpas but absolutely nothing can compare to how amazing the sky was when we were camping. As most things about this trip, it's completely indescribable. We also made a bucket list where each of us wrote something we wanted to do over the course of the trip on a piece of paper and threw it into an empty goon cup, or in Alex's case Emma's full goon cup. The items of the bucket list included everything from climbing a mountain to mooning a truck driver (which all of us knocked out the first night, even Jos when he thought a car was a cop on a bicycle).
Day 2
After surviving the first night in the tents we headed out around 8am to continue the drive up to Karijini National Park. Upon our arrival we looked like quite the crew already seeing as it had only been one day and we were completely covered in red dust and one big dirt ball. National Parks are fairly cheap to stay at and usually have pretty decent amenities however when we went to pay we found out that all the showers were conveniently broke and out of service. After we parked the cars at our campsite we went to go explore for a little bit and found the most amazing water pool I've ever seen. Once again, it was completely indescribable. Karijini can be compared to the US equivalent of the Grand Canyon, but is a million times better. The pool was absolutely crystal clear and had a waterfall and was surrounded by the gorge and amazing trees and plants. It was literally a sight from a postcard (literally.. I bought the postcard). We immediately jumped in and swam around for a bit and sat along the rocks the waterfall was coming down while some people climbed the side of the gorge (Alex and Ben) and jumped down into the water while some of us attempted to climb but just fell in (me). The only downfall to the pool was the discovery of the leeches.. they were for the most part all small but they were everywhere which was slightly unpleasant but no one died.
After an hour or so of swimming we headed back to set up the camp site as it gets dark around 6ish here during their "winter". After getting the camp set up, we discovered where the free grills were and cooked dinner and drank some goon. This was also the night that we discovered 2 important things.. 1) the game of charades and 2) Alex had never seen a shooting star in his 23 years of life. Charades quickly shaped our whole entire trip. We played it literally every single night and then created "extreme" charades which we did while hiking in the gorge, out the car windows, underwater, pretty much everywhere that could be imagined. It kept pretty interesting seeing as we had quite the international group so there were a lot of movies most of us had never heard of, about 80% of which came from Will and that he referred to as "the classics". We also discovered that Alex had never seen a shooting star which led to a heated debate about how he doesn't believe in shooting stars and us trying to explain that it's not a religion but a scientific phenomenon.
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| Sign demonstrating the proper way to jump in the water |
Day 3
We basically woke up at about 6am every morning as the sun would always come up and the crows and birds here can be compared to nothing else of this world. We went for what turned out to be like a 6 hour hike down to the Circular Pool in the gorge which was at to be expected, absolutely breath taking. The Circular Pool also started what seemed to be a series of epic fails on Will's part, especially in the wardrobe department. Most of the guys just went swimming in their boxers but it was Will that caught up outside of the pool talking to an old man, who was wearing a speedo, for about 20 mins while the rest of us swam. After he finally jumped in he quickly realized that he had lost a button on his boxers which led to him wearing them backwards for the rest of the trip which was pretty epic. After swimming, we ate lunch on the cliff and played charades for about a solid hour. The other people doing the hike seemed to get a kick out of us seeing as we were all dressed in either our fancy dress clothes or had switched with someone else on the trip.. my shorts looked way better on Ben than his on me I might add. When we got back to the campsite we were surprised to find that the we shouldn't have taken the warning to keep our rubbish bags in the cars away from dingoes lightly as all of our trash bags were ripped open. We have raccoons.. they have dingoes.. just can't escape it. Seeing as we still hadn't found showers we decided it best to go for a swim before bed and it was then that we found another water pool in the gorge that was yet again absolutely breathtaking. We took this opportunity to knock 2 more items off the bucket list, skinny dipping and swim under a waterfall. We also forgot how clear the water actually was though and completely neglected to realize the elderly couple that was sitting a few meters out from the pool which made for some interesting looks upon exiting.. After dinner that night, we all just laid around after playing a drunken game of charades with some of our Norwegian friends that were staying at the same camp site and that was when Alex saw his very first shooting star. I have never seen so much pure and utter happiness in my life, I'm not sure exactly how it took that long seeing as the rest of us were seeing on average7-10 a night but it was quite the event nonetheless.
Day 4
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| Jos with the book everyone that climbs signs |
So this was the day we decided that we would go ahead and start the 8 hour journey over to the beach and on over to Coral Bay. But before we would leave Karijini behind us we decided to go ahead and make journey and complete the 6 hour climb to Mount Bruce, the second highest mountain in Western Australia. Things got off to a rocky start as while we were driving illegally up the unpaved road to get to the trail we saw our hub cap roll past us but overall it was yet again another amazing experience. We didn't particularly plan for the hike as well as we probably should have but no one died so I'll go ahead and just add that to the Winning List. For starters, while we were starting the hike up the mountain there were probably 3 or 4 groups that had just got done climbing and were heading down as it was approaching the hottest part of the day. We were also fairly hungover and I don't think anyone was in the appropriate attire. We were wearing our op shop (salvation army) party clothes like we had been doing for the majority of the trip and then Will had yet another wardrobe fail which led to him climbing Bruce in his boxers and him leaving his pants on top of the mountain as a way of showing who was actually boss. Once we made it to the top of the mountain there was not only just the completely breathtaking view but there was also a really cool box that contained a book that we all got to sign and even some odds and ends that people had left, a condom being the most memorable... lads. But apart from a few miss-steps everyone survived the ridiculous terrain and it made me realize how much I really need to starting running again even though it's not particularly favorable in this heat. After we conquered Mount Bruce we drove for a few hours just to get a start on the journey towards Coral Bay and did the standard pull off on the side of the road, play some football (american and rugby) and frisbee, make some dinner, drink some goon, and pass out.
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| All the guys on top of Bruce..such a lovely bunch |
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| Sweet sweet victory :) |
Day 5
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| awesome red dirt line |
So this was the day I found my first baby dread. After not showering for 5 days and not even attempting to brush my hair in the slightest I found the start of my first dreadlock which made me pretty ecstatic but also showed how much we all needed to bathe. So we started out for the beach but then fortunately, Josef had been looking at the map and discovered that there was a town called Winning which was basically written in the stars for us to visit. So we made the 40 minute detour to only find a small building with Winning Pool T.L.E. Building written on it that was surrounded by an electrical fence and phone booth containing one of the biggest spiders I've seen in my life. After a quick photo op we were on our way to Coral Bay which was the most glorious day of my life. As we pulled in we just made a full out sprint to the beach and we all jumped in as if we were modern day Baywatch. After swimming for an hour or so and exploring we finally showered. It was glorious. It was epic. It was everything I could've dreamed of and more. It also took place in a shower that was molding with all four of us girls huddled around one shower head trying to rub off 5 days worth of red dirt from us. But everything was right in the world following that. We went and made dinner and tried to look around the area to see if there were any spots open in the hostel or the campsite but everything was hell expensive so we gave up. It's about a $300 fine for camping on the side of the road by the beach since a tourist zone or something like that so we had to drive an hour out just to find a side of the road free spot and so we decided that we would just change our plans a little bit and drive more north to Exmouth the following day and see what it had to offer.
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| Maria showcasing the most magnificent shower to date |
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| The result of our hour detour to Winning, WA.. totally worth it |
Days 6-10
So it's all kind of a blur seeing as I'm super late writing this, I also dropped my camera in the cooler so there's a few undocumented days. My b.. Basically we started at Exmouth which is all the way north on the coast and just worked our way down the coast back towards Perth. We were able to hang out all day the beaches along the way and just camp on the side of the road or in one case a National Park for fairly cheap. All the places we went offered really cool excursions and stuff that you needed to sell and organ for but we got so lucky with everything as we just kinda stumbled upon the coolest stuff ever. We were driving along by Exmouth and saw this really cool lighthouse so we went to explore and from the view you could see the whales in the harbour which was amazing to see. We also stopped at some random beach because we thought we saw Alex's roomies kite surfing and ended up finding the beach completely deserted apart from the 50+ sea turtles that were all mating in the water. It was the coolest thing I've ever seen and we were so incredibly lucky just to stumble upon it. We slept on the beach a few nights (illegal) and just watched the stars and just spent the days swimming and snorkeling. For those that can actually breathe through their mouths and not panic, there was a lot of cool stuff to see snorkeling such as stingrays, jellyfish, sea urchins, and various fish. I however suck at snorkeling so I did a lot of walking along the beach and exploring. All of the beaches were so incredibly gorgeous and secluded for the most part, I think there was only one beach that we went to that had more than just the 9 of us there so we lucked out hardcore. We also lucked out that we didn't hit the stray cows, sheep, kangaroos, or emus that would just randomly be chilling in the road on the otherside of a hill. We only had one real close encounter with a kangaroo almost jumping out in front of us but some of our other international friends that went travelling weren't so lucky and there were a lot of dead roos on the side of the road. Also, at some point during those days while we were hiking in Exmouth Jos finally got back at me for the other times on the trip that I had "iced" him and it was the worst experience of my life but probably well deserved. "Icing" is the frat-tastic/moronic act of hiding a Smirnoff Ice somewhere and whoever finds it had to immediately drop to one knee and chug it on the spot, so really inconvenient in the morning when a roomie hides in the shower. But I successfully hidden some in Jos's sleeping bag, cooler, and jacket so I guess my time was overdue.
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| Please note, no harpooning allowed |
Day 10
So on our last day we had it set up so we were only a few hours out from Perth. The day before we stopped at a beach in Geraldton.. or Geral-tron and Lindsey's dyslexia likes to refer to it. It was bittersweet because we were able to find a local tav playing the rugby game and get a cold pint but it was also civilization. We had only showered once on the trip and it was about 5 days before this so we were getting a lot of questionable looks and the fact that we all hadn't changed clothes in about 4 days didn't help either. But we were able to watch the game and then we cooked our last meal together on Champion Beach (so fitting). After washing the dishes in the ocean we drove a few hours out where we thought was a free campsite. However, Will had been the one to suggest this campsite so we should've known right away. Of course the place wasn't free and there wasn't a free place within a 2 hour radius. So we did the reasonable thing and found some random beach to set up camp on and booked it early in the morning. Coincidentally we found on the map that we stayed at Kangaroo Point which was inbetween Hangover Bay and Thirsty Point.. how fitting!
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| The Last Supper :( |
Day 11
After waking up early to book it off the beach it was only a 20 min drive to The Pinnacles which was our last stop on the roadtrip. The Pinnacles are these really cool limestone rocks that formed a long time ago and are just randomly chilling in Australia and are considered something you should see while by Perth. It was roughly 6am when we got there and we didnt have time to make breakfast and we had also ran out of food so we all popped open an Emu Export (the equivalent to Keystone Light) and went for the 1km walk around The Pinnacles. Don't get me wrong, they were some cool rocks, but they all looked the same, it was 6am, and we hadn't showered in 6 days so we just stayed their briefly then started the trek back to Perth. Along the way, we stopped at one last place for petrol and all just sat out in the petrol station lawn with our coffees soaking in the last of our freedom. As great as a shower and a bed to sleep in sounded, we all weren't quite ready to be back in civilization. Fortunately we made it home safely, no one died, no roos were hit, and we made it back in time for Sunday sesh at the Claremont Hotel. We were all utterly exhausted but tradition just couldn't be broke so we ended the trip with where we started, having a few drinks with friends in Claremont. Honestly this was the best trip of my life which can definitely be attributed to the amazing people I spent it with.
Another blessing is that I have made the most amazing friends here and John, Will, and Tom offered Lindsey and I the mattress in the living room as a rent free space. Ryan and Jordan don't worry, there's nothing shady going on... Lindsey and I have exchanged cooking occasionally and cleaning for their generosity. Living in Carolyn is what I would like to call extreme indoor camping. Its quite possibly the best living situation ever as what could be better than living with all your best friends under one roof, and the house gives it a special touch. The living room, aka our bedroom, has a few leaks in it which gives it character but it also has it's own ecosystem which is pretty cool. There's little lizards running around on the windows everywhere as well as spiders. Yes there are Huntsmen spiders which are the most lethal in Australia but they aren't aggressive so as long as we don't roll over on them while we're sleeping we should be good. The only concern I have for the house is the fact that there is only one window that faces the sea which means that here in a week or so when the temp gets above 30 degrees celcius we are surely screwed. It's going to be very very hot in the house but we've already discussed the matter and have a "no judging" policy when it comes to walking around the house in swimsuits or lack of clothes 24/7. I have a feeling that most of our time will be spent on either the back or front porch with the obscenely large lizards and snakes that are lurking in the yard since they haven't mowed it at all. But all and all I'm really excited to spend my last few weeks there. It never gets old waiting to see what major life fail has happened for Will whenever we hear the patented "ah ah ahhhh" from Will's room. So far he's missed an exam or 2, found out the night before about a 3000 word essay or just the general water spills or wardrobe malfunctions. John walks around in his boxers about 80% of the time he's home and Tom is just indescribable.. he always reiterates that its "exhausting being Tom Russel" and will ask you to lift the cup for him since he can't be bothered lifting it himself to take a drink. 
Soo in other news we carved pumpkins a few weeks ago! They aren't the orange pumpkins like we have at home but Lindsey and I thought that it was time we celebrated October proper American style. We also got Simone our Italian friend to join seeing as he has never carved pumpkins before but he toootttally loved it and has promised to spread the trend when he goes home. Mission accomplished. Other events from the week include a pub quiz with a burlesque theme with Lachy and the Engineering Club which was pretty interesting even though we lost. The engineers here are a complete 180 from the engineers at home. For one, they aren't 79% Asian and two, they drink. I lucked out and met Lachy (pronounced Lock-ee, short for Lachlan) at an international student event and he couldnt resist my salvation army clothes I was rocking and I was instantly drawn in to his trash-stache he was sporting. Fortunately the mustache got shaved after he was done competing for uni games over our break. We also went to the Guild Ball later that week as well which was absolutely amazing. But more photos from the roadtrip have started to pop up so here's a few more to share!
