The Northwest Trip: Episode 1

On Sunday afternoon, I got back from my 10 day, 3,600 km Northwest trip. Making a large loop over Western Australia, I saw lots of red dirt, plains, cliffs, fish, rays, sunsets, too many sunrises, and kangas. Because I have so much to write about and a lot of studying to do, I'm going to write a few days at a time in installments until everything is up here. Please bear (rarr!) with me!

We left bright and early on Friday, March 5. By quarter of 8 we were all packed up on our 3 caravans and on our way. There were 45 of us: almost all CIEE (my group; 7 Clarkies), Wisconsin Eau Claire, and German students. Almost immediately everyone stuck to their group of friends which was extremely annoying an unsettling. Because I didn't jump up quick enough and find someone to sit with me, I got to sit up front of the caravan with Barry, the head tour guide, which turned out to be a luxury. I got to see everything much more clearly, take better pictures out the window, have better conversation (with Barry), and avoid the hotter, sticky back seats. Additionally, half our bus was the German crew who for the most part didn't speak English. They did however start speaking more English at the end of the trip, but quite frequently with Americans around did they speak German nonstop.

Once outside of Perth, we made our way up the coast. Only a little while outside of the metropolitan area did things get boring. We passed an area that is going to be a small city... from scratch. We saw the bare beginnings of it. I'm pretty sure the city doesn't even exist on the map yet, but yup, it's going up soon. For safety measures, we stopped every two to three hours during our long drives to ensure every one (especially the drivers) was awake and well. During our first pit stop I was reminded why I love being a man:

Being up in the front seat I noticed something quite noteworthy: a TON of roadkill. I'm talking 4 dead 'roos within 200 meters at some point--no joke. On average I would prolly see a dead 'roo every 5k's at various stages of decomposition.

About halfway through our drive on Friday, which was most of our trip, we hit Freeway 1 which runs 19,000 km's around the entire country. Yes, you can stay on it for 19,000 km's and end up at the same place. It's like Route 66 on steroids. Near the coast we passed by this area with intense winds such that most of its trees are severely windblown (flagged) in the same direction. Unfortunately I didn't get any good pictures of them.

Nearing the end of our drive for the day, we stopped off in a town to shop for last minute needs at a Woolworth's (a major supermarket chain). I bought a 1.5L bottle of water which ended up being the best thing I bought all trip, because it allowed me to fill up a large amount of water loads of time on a trip that was fairly hot and dehydrating.

Just up the hill was a memorial for the HMAS Sydney, an Australian battleship lost in WWII. They only found it a few years ago, but the memorial is much older than that. The memorial was quite nice and had a really nice view. We took our first group picture here which I hope to get from Barry within a little while.

We then finished our drive for the day and ended up at our accommodations for the night: a farm a few k's (kilometers) from the main road. It was actually a pretty nice set up. Every night of the trip we set up tents (with 2 to 3 people per tent) and mats provided from the tour company in a big cluster on any given spot. Later in the trip we grew to appreciate having grass to sleep on. I set up my tent with Ben, a Clarkie who I've had at least one class with. Ben is an incredibly funny kid with my sense of humor so it worked out well. The farm we stayed at had a nice patch of grass next to the main building which had a few bathrooms, a patio, a hangar-like dining area, and a kitchen.

Food duty was divided amongst everyone on the trip in groups of 5. Each group would do lunch, dinner, and the following morning's breakfast. I joined in on the first group which was a good decision since we ended up having the best facilities to work with. Every lunch consisted of salad and sandwiches, which meant lunch duty was basically cutting up vegetables. After a few days you might guess we all got sick of lunches. Dinner was much more labor intensive. The first night I helped make curried beef and vegetables over rice which I thought was an extremely bold move since people usually love or FUCKING HATE CURRY. Sorry for the vulgar language, but I HATE curry. The smell of it makes me nauseous. I. HATE. IT. SO. MUCH. It didn't end up being too bad actually, but that was probably because I was so damn hungry and covered it in (old) garlic powder. Because I was on kitchen duty I missed the first sunset, but managed to get an okay picture on a break.

I was a little disappointed to find it really hard to get into any of the groups to talk and eat dinner with because they all had already been sitting on the patio talking for the 1.5-2 hours it took us to make dinner.  I felt kinda lonely, but things got a lot better when I finally got in on the table tennis action much later in the evening. I mostly played with Ben at first, and he's really good. I'm decent at it but I never play, so it was interesting. Madelene, a 23-year-old Swedish girl came to play with me after Ben left and Justin (Clarkie) joined in. I honestly can't remember who the fourth person who ended up playing with us at the end, but it was a glorious time of slapping balls as hard as we could (I broke the last two balls) and making goofy attempts at amazing shots. I did however make one great backwards, between the legs hit after the ball went way over and past the table. I was immediately the most popular kid in a 10 yard radius for about 15 minutes. After ping pong, I was one of the very last people to go to bed, but, well, I didn't end up getting much sleep. Why? You'll have to wait until my next post to find out!

Friday, March 5th: 8