8 days in the outback: perfection.

soo it's been a struggle trying to get this post written because i knew no matter what i wrote i would not be able to explain how amazing this was or what i experienced. i also knew that it would be a loooooooong post so i was kind of putting it off like it was an assignment. i finally wrote it at 1 am when i'm supposed to be getting up for my next camping trip at 7 am tomorrow. ooooops. anyways. here's the breakdown of my amazing outback trip =]


we left saturday, april 3rd at 4:45am. craazy. i was dead and somehow managed to walk out to the bus in the dark then immediately fell asleep on the bus. we drove to the brisbane airport which is about 2 and a half hours away and then took a flight from there to alice springs, which is in the northern territory. it was about a 3 hour flight. we got to alice springs, which is basically the gate way to the outback, or central australia and rented to troopees, land rover/jeep type cars where we put all our big packs on top of the car, all our food under the seats and nine of us in each car all facing each other in the back seat like one big happy family. =] it was beautiful, for the first half hour at least, then we all got sweaty, smelly, dirt flew in from the windows... perfect. (day 1) we started our journey around the outback and drove about 2 hours to basically the side of the road, where we parked, got our packs, everything we needed for dinner and hiked about thirty minutes off the road to set up camp on the side of the finke river, which was pretty much dried up. it was amazing. there were about 70 million flies everywhere, all over my face, in my mouth, in our food. sweeet. we all just threw our sleeping bags on the ground around the campfire and fell asleep. the sky was amazing. you could see the galaxy and stars everywhere. i was in love. (day 2) we woke up the next morning, packed up our camp and hiked back out to the troopees, our goal was to wake up before the flies, didn't happen. breakfast consisted of powdered milk, water, weet bix and milo. yuuuuuuum. wheat bis like frosted mini wheats without frost and milo is like nesquik powder except if you try to add it into milk for chocolate milk it stays chunky.... i legit miss it. we drove to kata tjuta, one of the major landmarks of central australia, made up of huge dome rocks that look pretty sweet. we hiked about 7.5 km through kata tjuta and then got done just in time to watch the sunset on to them and literally see the color of the rocks change. gorgeous. we drove to our campsite which was an actual campground and set up our stuff before dinner. i was surprised that we were at an actual campground but it was pretty cool because we got to go swimming that night and the next day which felt amazing. this night we actually went out for dinner. we went to pioneer tavern which was this outdoor bar type restaurant. the best way i can describe is like the place in sweet home alabama when they all go out dancing.... i hope you know what im talking about haha but anyways it was a super cool atmosphere. we ordered our food and they handed us our meat on a plate and we had to cook it ourselves! there were a bunch of bbqs all lined up and everyone was cooking their own food! it was soo cool haha i had no idea what i was doing and considering i ordered emu sausage, i had no idea what to expect. after much questioning of if my meat was done or not i ate emu sausage. so freaking good. didn't even need to dip it in ketchup, surprising i know. there was a guy just playing his guitar on stage singing whatever song we yelled out. we all got up and danced and looked really cool, in sweaty shorts and t-shirts, no socks and running shoes. best dancing ever. it was a really cool atmosphere and sooo much fun. we went back to our campground and again, threw our sleeping bags out where ever we could and fell asleep, this night not so much under the stars because we fell asleep watching storms all around us. for some reason we didn't think about the lightening happening all around us and we just stayed there until it started raining on us.... haha then we all had to get up in a panic get all our stuff together and ended up piling into the laundry room of the campsite. it was actually really funny and we were all like ahhh this is a pretty cool experience, it never rains in the outback! (day 3)the next morning we drove to uluru. uluru is probably the most recognizable feature of the outback and the huge red rock in the middle of it. known as the heart of australia. and i got to walk around it.10.4 km later i had circled the most sacred part of the indigenous culture. sweeet as. we went back to camp, swam for a while had lunch, the usual pb&j on a tortilla, some salami, cheese... the good stuff. then headed off to our next campsite about 4 hours away. we were driving down the road and basically just randomly turned off of it, drove for about 30 minutes and stopped, set up our stuff and called it our campsite. amazing. we went looking for firewood and ended getting in the troopee to look for decided to just hit a tree over and take it to the campsite for a fire. legit. made dinner, sat around the campfire and fell asleep under the stars. this night we actually did get to watch storms happen all around us but we never got rained on. it was pretty cool to just watch the lightening and see it so clearly without being in the storm. (day 4) the beautiful breakfast of weetbix and milo again, then off to our next hike, my personal favorite, kings canyon. it was a 6.5 km walk except it wasn't a walk it was straight up this mountain that pretended to have stairs and then along the edges of these crazy cliffs. it was beautiful. it lead into this waterhole that was soo cool. we swam and hungout there for about an hour and a half and played frisbee and loved life. it was amazing. we finished the hike and had lunch and prepared for the rest of our night. we packed up our backpacks with everything we needed for the night, dinner and to sleep and hiked with our packs back through kings canyon on a 7.5 km walk to where we would be sleeping. we did the first half as the sun was going down and took a break to watch the sunset. then somehow we found our way in the dark to our "campsite". pretty much the middle of these rocks where we were told we would be sleeping on top of a rock or in a cave. haha we made some sweet burritos then hiked up these honeycomb type hills to where we would be sleeping. there were about 5 of us on each little honeycomb hilltop. its hard to explain but its was complete rock, and that was my bed. sweet. we were once again rained on, even though it doesn't rain in the outback and had to climb down the honeycombs in the middle. considering there was lightening everywhere and we were all just laying on the top of these mountains that were the highest point around it was a good idea we went to the bottom of the rocks and slept there, still rock though. (day 5)the next morning was my favorite. its been a while since we've all used a bathroom... and it was pancake day. =] at the beginning of our trip, steve, our instructor and my outdoor ed teacher, explained to us how we would survive without toilets. in order for there not to be piles of poop everywhere, people have to make it so that it can easily turn into dust and blow away, maybe smash it somehow.... make it into a thing layer... he called it making pancakes. kings canyon was the perfect place for pancakes and i of course had to take advantage of that. it was a great experience that taylor, regina and i shared. we actually had toilets a lot of the other days between gas stations and the campsite we were at before so it wasn't too bad. but you can't pass up making pancakes. we had to hike back out of kings canyon, 7.5 km back down with our packs on, we all were booking it though so we could get to our next campsite in time to be able to swim so it wasn't too bad of a walk. we got down to the troopees, made our glorious lunch of pb&j, salami, cheese and tortillas again and headed out on another 4 hour drive to our next destination. our car rides consisted of this drinking game called zoomie zoomie where you do a lot of clapping and you just call out numbers to pass it to the next person, we stayed hydrated it was great. we played hangman and learned a lot of cool words that im pretty sure people started making up then if you were lucky enough to sit in the front with steve or jude you got to be in charge of the ipod or tell your life story to steve. it was great. we became a family in no time. our next campsite was the bank of the finke river again, but much further away than the first night. the river was actually flowing by this time from all the rain and we got to swim in it. not only have i walked around uluru but swam in the oldest river in the world. amazing. we played frisbee again and just hung out in the river until we made dinner that night. by this night i was happy to eat any bug that flew in our food. it pretty much just became a part of our meal. we had bought fly nets to wear over our faces so we always looked cool and didn't have to worry about the flys, mosi's we're every where and im probably slowly dying from the amount of insect spray i put on myself but im not worried about whatever made it onto my spoon right before i take a bite of pasta. it got to the point to not be worth it anymore. there were probably about 14 in each stove of pasta we were boiling so everyone was getting there fair share of protein. delicious. we made amazing beds on the sand around our campfire and we're banking on a great night sleep. but of course, since it doesn't rain in the outback, about 2 hours later it starts pouring. it was crazy we were all trying to get our backpacks somewhere dry and find somewhere to sleep. regina and i got pretty lucky and we're told there was no room in a tent buuuut we just got in the troopee and slept on the benches. it poured allllll night it was crazy. (day 6)we woke up in the morning to everyone else either soaking wet, or their stuff soaking wet. regina and i felt like we had slept at the holiday inn. all our stuff was dry, we were dry and sprawled out across the entire troopee with just the two of us. for some reason no one else got in the car with us. soo we lucked out. had some weet bix and milo again, delicious as always, hung around for a while trying to dry everyone's stuff and packed up the troopees to drive to our next hike.
sooo since it apparently doesnt rain in the ouback this was extremely unusual and the route that we had planned to get to our next hike and campsite was flooded. there was a river gushing over the streets and we had to make a detour a couple times to figure out what to do. we ended up doing a couple small hikes, walked down to another water hole where we had planned on swimming until there was a FOUL smell and then we saw the cause of that smell... the dead kangaroo in the water. siiiiick. changed our plan about swimming and hiked to the top off the lookout at serpentine gorge which was about a 3 km hike. everyone was exhausted because we basically hadn't slept in two days because of having to get out of the rain and lightening the last two nights. also due to the flooded roads we had to change our plans and find new campsites. we ended up finding this little hiking area where a family lived and ran a little shop and restaurant. they let us sleep on basically the porch of their restaurant under the overhangs so we could get a good night sleep out of the rain, because once again it poured allllll night. at one time during the night i was convinced the overhang was going to fall down. it was crazy. we all were able to stay dry and get a good night's sleep for the most part so that was really good. (day 7) we had to get up pretty early to pack up all of our stuff before the shop opened so packed up and went on a short hike through simpson gap and up through a creek. it rained on us a little all day but nothing too bad. packed up the troopees and went in search for where we would be sleeping that night. we pretty much had no plan or idea where we would be sleeping because of all the roads being flooded we had to avoid crossing certain rivers so that we wouldn't get stuck there and miss our flights back from alice springs. we ended up at a caravan park. sweet eh... hahaha we drove in with all our packs on top of the cars to a bunch of old people in motor homes. haha they had a tiny little pool there so we all went swimming and played games and then made our last dinner together. we hung out all night and leyed out a tarp on the grass and decided we would stick it out if it rained again because we wanted to spend out last night in the outback under the stars. it sprinkled a little but nothing too bad. (day 8) we woke up and made pancakes, i still had my weet bix and milo though because its too good to resist. packed up our troopees for the last time and headed off to the alice springs airport. cleaning out the cars was a disaster. there was a terrible smell in ours from who knows what, food everywhere, probably a dead animal somewhere and ridiculously dirty. somehow we cleaned it pretty well. i cant imagine what we all smelled like, we looked good, after 8 days of hiking, being in that troopee, little to no sleep and being rained on.... yum. we made it back to brisbane, not by my choice, i would have stayed in the outback for the next two months if it were up to me. steve and jude, the guys who lead us on this amazing journey, we're being picked up from the airport and sent us on our bus back to lismore. we all had a problem though, it was saturday night and we realized that by the time we would get home, all of the stores would be closed and we wouldn't be able to get alcohol for the night. we asked our bus driver to take us to liquor land on the way home, somehow he agreed. he then went straight from the airport to liquor land and then allowed us to start drinking on the bus..... best bus driver ever. our bus ride got real sloppy real quick considering none of us had a proper meal or legit night sleep in a week and were completely exhausted, but somehow we were ready to go out that night. by that time we were all in love with each other and had this great bond from the amazing experience in the outback. the next morning i woke up and all i wanted was to be back in my sleeping bag, out on a rock somewhere being rained on with everyone right next to me in their sleeping bags. i missed the outback and everyone hanging out soo much. a week later we had a dinner out on the rec deck and shared all of our pictures. about every ten pictures someone would say, "let's go back". if i could, i would in a heartbeat. it was without a doubt the most amazing experience in my life. i loved every second of it, and everyone i shared it with. when i explain what we did, all i can say is we hiked for 3 hours, drove for 3 hours, cooked dinner, tried to sleep, got rained on, woke up and did it all over again. it was the most fun and amazing thing i've ever been a part of and i want to go back to it everyday.