The Northwest Trip: Episodes 2 & 3

We got a 6am wake up call and within 30 seconds, everyone was up and out of there tents. Why was this? Because we were already awake. Why were we all awake you might ask? Because within 2 hours of falling asleep, the most ridiculous wind tore through our camp, making it impossible to sleep. I had my tent in my face the entire night. Needless to say, none of us got very much sleep. I was actually very tickled to see no one got any sleep and felt a lot better about it. It was a sort of bonding experience.

We had our first breakfast which was basically just cereal and toast, nothing exciting. I think we all very soon got tired of cereal, toast and bad coffee for breakfast but there's only so much you can do, ay? My last meal on kitchen duty consisted of doing dishes which took forever because people are incapable of cleaning up after themselves.

I got shotgun again and we had a really pretty morning drive. We drove through this "province" that this old bloke claims is his own country. The Australian government sorta lets him get away with it because they're hoping he dies shortly. Out in this area, a 250,000 acre farm or plot of land is rather small. Most farms are half a million acres. Quite large. Apparently several Texans on previous trips have told Barry they have several thousand acre ranches with several hundred heads of cattle. That's nothing compared to Western Australia.

Our first stop was at these really awesome cliffs over the Indian Ocean. Driving up the the stop I saw my first live wild kangas but no one else did because they were all sleeping in the back. I got some good pictures of another kanga shortly thereafter when we were taking pictures of the cliffs. This excited me.

We got back in the bus after a short while and headed to our next stop which was on the coast, where we had lunch. We saw this awesome cannon which I climbed all over like a little child, of course. We had a lot of time before lunch was going to be made and ready, so a lot of us hung out on the beach. My friend Marie and I swam out to a rock about 100 meters off the beach and same some hermit crabs. Those buggers are legit.

Back on the beach, a large pelican landed in the shallow water. Trying to coax him inward where we could take pictures of him, I found a dead fish on the beach. Wrapping his tail in seaweed, I tossed the fish to the pelican. Yup, the pelican ate him very readily. It was quite fantastic. We then three random stuff into the water to mimic food and got the pelican to come in really close. It was so cool!

After lunch and another car ride, we stopped off at a gorge which was cool enough. After seeing several impressive gorges in the States, I wasn't impressed, but I still appreciated it nonetheless. Our next stop was Hamelin where we were to stay for two nights. After setting up camp (I got to climb on top of the caravan and unload all our bags, a duty which I would keep for the remainder of the trip), a bunch of us walked along a path to the ocean, a couple hundred meters away. Hamelin is known to be home to a lot of stromatolites, which are ancient cyanobacteria. Cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae, are one of the first photosynthetic organisms which made life as we know it possible as they generate oxygen (as do all photosynthetic organisms).

We stayed at the end of the rocky beach (on a platform above the stromatolites which are extremely fragile and might only grow 1 cm over 30 years) until the sun set, battling flies. I don't know what the hell the flies want from me because they're not eating me. The flies were extremely annoying and made me want to kill someone. But in general I didn't let them bother me too much.

After the sunset we all went back and shortly had dinner. Just a few paces from the kitchen area a karoake thing was set up. Watching my friends sing was a lot of sun, especially when they sang songs I knew and liked (especially songs from Grease!). It was a good time. We ended the day with late night conversations of everything funny and interested. It was a great end to the day!

Of course Saturday was my mom's birthday. This is the second birthday in a row I've missed. Oh bother.

Speaking of bothersome things, I left my contacts case at the last camp, which meant for the rest of the trip I'd have to sleep in my contacts a few nights in order to make them last long enough for the remainder of the trip. It was only a small inconvenience, but annoying nonetheless!

Saturday, March 6th: 8

We got a 5am wake up call. This was fantastic but was something I was going to have to get used to. This early rise allowed us to get to Monkey Mia, a little bay on the Indian Ocean nice and early. Early in the morning a handful of dolphins come in to feed. This was pretty cool. I got really close to a few dolphins (a few feet away). The people who work there know the dolphins all really well and know all their names, who they hang out with, who they mated with, and who their kids are. Only the female dolphins come in to feed. I learned if you're a snotty like 5 year old who make a lot of noise and misbehaves you'll get to feed a dolphin. Apparently I was 4x too old and too well behaved to qualify. Oh well. A lot of the dolphins had shark battle scars, especially on their dorsal fins. It's a sad story. The dolphins can gang up on sharks too though, because Cetaceans are cooler than cartilaginous fish. A few very large pelicans came onto the beach behind us while we were watching the dolphins. They're so funny looking.

After the dolphins we hung out on the beach for a few hours. The water was so damn salty we could float really easily. Is saw a cute little turtle swimming   about 30 yards away, but he wasn't interested in having morning tea with me. Little shit. Emus were hanging out on the grass behind us like we weren't there. Silly little birds.

The highlight of my day came with playing volleyball. I'm not that great, but that didn't stop me from diving all around in my speedo and lime green sunglasses. It was such a blast! It was really satisfying being one of the best players there, and having several successful diving digs. So good. I hope we can get kids together to play during the rest of the semester.

After the beach we went to a town a little ways away for lunch. The town, called Denham, was pretty boring. Aside from seeing a massive emu shit on the grass (one of the girls got a good picture of it accidentally), and dressing up in my speedo with a cape (and a make shift "bow" I found on the ground from one of the palm trees) it was a pretty boring stop.

After lunch we got back in the car and started to drive back. We stopped at another cliff where we saw loads of sharks from afar. Little sharks but still it was cool. We saw more cool cliffs and HUGE manta rays. Guys must have been as big as a Mini Cooper.

On our last leg back, we visited Shell Beach. It's covered in tiny little shells. That's all I have to say about it. It was kinda boring.

We were in Hamelin again for the night and saw a great sunset. Dinner and karoake again, followed by more fun conversations. The stars were pretty good, as good as a clear night back at home in Cornish. Unfortunately these were the best stars we saw all the entire trip. Oh well! I went out on a walk with a few kids to look at the stars. One of the girls, named Sam Adams (lol) goes to UNH. Her friend, also from UNH and on the trip with us, is from Middlebury.

Sunday, March 7th: 8