Sadly, things are starting to wrap up here on the GC (gold coast). Classes are over, all my big trips have been successfully completed, and I have little more than a week and a half left on campus. I finished two of my classes for which I had big papers due last week, and now I only have two exams a week apart from each other. Some of my friends are ready to leave and excited to go back home, while others of us are dreading returning to reality and leaving this fantasy world of fun and adventure. I was dreading this so much, in fact, that I decided to extend my stay over Christmas and New Years much to the dismay of my parents and sisters, who sort of jokingly threatened to disown me. I will be returning state side January 4th after travelling around with my boyfriend once exams are finished. While I love love love my family and I’m excited to see my friends back home and at school, I’m just not ready to leave yet. It’s been the best few months of my life, and I selfishly want to keep indulging in this blissful happiness for as long as possible.
Anyways, what I really want to talk about in this blog are my past two adventures. I spent four days with a tour group through Australia’s Outback, which consists of rocks, desert, rocks, desert, and more desert. Following that trip, I spent 5 days roadtripping around New Zealand’s South Island, which wasn’t nearly enough. Both trips, although so different, were so much fun! The Outback was hot, dry, infested with flies, and consisted of nothing but bush for miles and miles. New Zealand was cool, fall-like weather, with spectacular scenery and the most beautiful mountains I’ve ever seen. The Outback was an organized group tour, where as New Zealand we were completely on our own. I learned so much from both trips and I had a chance to reflect on myself and my time here, and how much I’ve grown.
I’ll start with the Outback trip. Here’s a fun fact about the Outback: only 10% of Australia’s visitors actually make it out there. Reasons why: it is further away, flights are a bit more expensive, it has a dry, harsh climate, its not tropical, why would you go all the way out there to see a bunch of rocks and shrubbery when there is a beautiful beach 5 miles away. These were the sorts of comments I was getting when I was trying to find a companion for this off the beaten track trip. Fortunately, I found my friend Cam, who’s very similar to me in that we both don’t like cities, we both like to travel and explore, and we both wanted to see a different part of Australia and learn a bit more about Aboriginal culture. Afterwards, we both agreed that this was our most significant and meaningful trip – and that is what the other 90% is missing out on. I’m so glad I went, and honestly I don’t think you can truly say you’ve been to Australia until you’ve gone to the Outback. The ‘bush’ as I’ve learned from my Australian literature class and now after experiencing it myself, is what defines Australia. It is where the term ‘mateship’ comes from, where Aboriginal ‘Dreaming’ began, and where history takes the form of spirituality.
I will discuss spirituality in a bit, but as far as history goes, the Outback is Australia’s oldest history. Parts of the Outback, also called the Red Centre because of the redness of the sand, actually contain some of the oldest rocks in the world. There is a section of these rocks which used to be underwater that have imprinted stomatalitie fossils, arguably the earliest evidence of existing life forms. For this reason, the location of this site has not been disclosed to the public, as researchers are still investigating, but it has been a recent and exciting discovery. The Outback is also the centre of Aboriginal culture and identity, and thus understanding and respecting their culture is crucial to the ‘Australian experience’, in my eyes, at least. I think it is always important to learn about a country’s indigenous population, because, after all, they were the first people there. This trip inspired me to learn more about Native Americans, as there are many parallels between the two and especially the way they were treated by white settlers. Both Native Americans and Aboriginals had a spiritual relationship to the land, and an appreciation and respect for their ancestors before them and the world currently around them.
Aboriginal Dreaming, or Dreamtime, is the aboriginal story of creation and how the world began. In the dreaming world, earth was flat, dark, and lifeless. One day, the Aboriginal ancestor beings, who were asleep below the earth’s surface, broke through the crust, bringing force and sun and light with them. These ancestor spirits created the landscape, the water holes, the animals, the bush, the mountains, the rivers, and their own descendants. Aboriginal people believe these spirits still exist in the forms of special rocks, trees, or some part of the landscape, which makes these sites ‘sacred’ or ‘secret’. Secret sites are designated only to those who have gained the power of knowledge, for in Aboriginal culture knowledge is earned, not given. They are places of ceremonial importance or burial places. ‘Sacred’ sites are also used for ceremonies and contain special powers, such as producing food. Again, Aboriginal people emphasize their important spiritual relationship with the land through their ancestors and their motto “we don’t own the land, the land owns us”.
This brings us to Uluru, also called Ayer’s Rock, which is the biggest rock in the world. It takes about 3 ½ hours to walk around (I know this from experience) and 50 people have died trying to climb it since they opened it to the public in the 1980’s. That being said, Aboriginal people discourage climbing the rock, as it goes against their tradition and culture. Uluru is a site of cultural significance and embodies ancestral spirits. Even as a simple tourist, I could understand how aboriginals believe it to be spiritual – it provides shade, water, and refuge from the dry, hot, endless bush landscape. Some people find it silly to fly to the middle of nowhere to see a big old rock. I found it to be spiritually significant and one of the greatest wonders of the world I’ve ever seen. And no, I’m not exaggerating.
I’ll give you a brief rundown of our tour. Cam and I flew in to Ayer’s rock airport (very tiny), greeted by hot, dense air and lots of flies. We were picked up by our tour guide, who was called ‘Doc’ and met the rest of our tour group. The 15 other tour members consisted of foreign couples, European backpackers, and a few Australian study abroad students such as ourselves. Doc is one of the most interesting characters I’ve ever met. He had us ‘get to know each other’ by answering a variety of questions, the most important being ‘when was your last kiss?’ Just wait till I tell you about his favourite games to play in the car and his ‘Emu Dance’ at the bar on our last night. I love this guy. Anyway, he took us to Kata Juta, where we hiked the ‘valley of the winds’ despite warnings against extreme heat. We then went to Uluru to watch the sunset. Another cool feature of Uluru is that it changes colours – as the sun got lower and lower, the rock got more and more red to the point that it was almost purple. It was pretty cool to observe. We then headed back to our campsite and had dinner, after which Doc showed us how to use our ‘swags’. Swag bags, our sleeping accommodation, are THE BEST INVENTION EVER!!! So much better than a hot stuffy tent, swag bags allow you to comfortably sleep on the ground and enjoy the beautiful night sky. They contain a mattress, which you put your sleeping bag on top and then zip all the way up. It’s like a sleeping bag for your sleeping bag. Definitely my favourite part of the trip. I’ve never ever seen such beautiful, numerous, amazing stars and it was the clearest sky I will ever see. The cool thing about the Outback is that there is literally NOTHING for miles and miles and miles – not even a gas station. People don’t live there, which is why to go out there you need to experience it via one of these tour groups so you don’t die. Doc warned us about the dingos, snakes, and drunk people that would be tramping through our campsite, so I snuggled up close next to Cam and stayed awake for hours, loving every moment of the sky and seeing tons of shooting stars.
We were rudely awakened at 3:50 am the next morning by Doc’s singing, because apparently this was normal for him. We watched the sunrise at Uluru, followed by a 10k base walk around it, where Doc told us aboriginal stories and pointed out places of ceremonial sites along the way. We then drove 5 hours, literally seeing no other car and nothing along the way, until we got to King’s Canyon. Doc told us a bit about the Canyon’s history and we set up camp close by. Another night of stargazing and some added lightening/thunder effects and we were woken again at a ridiculous hour to hike up ‘heart attack hill’ and do a 6k hike through King’s Canyon. This was also one of my favourite parts of the trip – it was so so so beautiful and looked like another planet. Mars, to be exact. The redness of everything and the way circular mounds were formed from wind and erosion gave it non earth-like features. It was different than anything I’ve ever seen. The closest thing would probably be the Grand Canyon, although without the river and water, and more red and bush-like. It was really really awesome. Anyways, then we drove another 5 hours to Alice Springs, the closest thing to a town in the Outback. Along the way we played a game sort of like mad libs where you fill things in on a sheet of paper and it was determined that Doc and I were going to get married and run an Emu farm together. Once at Alice Springs, we saw wallabies and got to feed them! We also made plans to meet up with Doc and the rest of our tour group after we put our things down in the hostel and showered.
That night at the bar was so much fun. I talked a lot with the European backpackers on our tour who had done and seen and experienced so much on their travels. In Europe, people are encouraged to take a year off and travel, and most of them do it on their own. Less and less people do this in America these days, and it made me realize that I need to take a year off and travel, even if its just me. People always say they are going to travel but its not going to happen unless you make it happen, and there’s so much I want to do and see and explore. Doc bought us all drinks and did an Emu Dance, which consisted of running around the bar with his hands on his head. If you have ever seen a grown middle age man do this, you would agree with me that it’s quite a sight and had us in hysterics for a while. After a disturbing, sketchy night at the hostel (I won’t go into details) we left for the airport the next morning. Such a great trip and I’m very glad I went. It was interesting to see something so different from the beautiful beaches along Australia’s east coast. Not that I’m complaining about the beaches at all, I just like to experience new things.
Cam and I were back at the airport 72 hours later with two of our other friends for our New Zealand roadtrip adventure! I’ll keep this brief because this blog post is getting so long. We descended into Christchurch with a spectacular backdrop of mountains the distance. As we picked up our car and started driving out of the city to Franz Joseph Glacier, about 5 hours away, I was stunned by the greenery and beauty of mountains all around us. So wonderful. Pictures or words don’t do it justice. It made me happy to be somewhere so green and pretty, and I think roadtripping around was the best way to see parts of the South Island. I definitely want to go back, especially for ski season! We didn’t have enough time there. Some fun facts about driving in New Zealand: #1 The roads are windy and there are often sharp, 90 degree turns down a mountain. #2 There is no straight shot from point A to B, often you have to go completely out of the way down and around. #3 There are not actually very many roads. This makes it hard to get lost. #4 There are also not very many people. We saw more sheep than humans. #5 When a map has a dot with the name of a town on it, this is not, in fact, a town where you can get food and gas. The ‘town’ consists of 3 abandoned buildings. Why this was even on the map, I do not know. #6 Roadtripping is way more fun when you stop to take pictures and frolic through picturesque meadows. #7 New Zealand drivers are comparable to New York/New Jersey drivers. Enough said.
Anyways, despite minor road mishaps, we made it to Franz Joseph Glacier that night. The next morning, also Thanksgiving Day, we hiked through the glacier, which was a really cool experience. We wore ‘crampons’, which attached to the bottom of our boots to make walking on the glaciers more secure. We slid down glacier tunnels and squeezed through narrow gaps. Fun but exhausting! We then got in the car again to drive to Queenstown, by far my favourite place since coming here. It was the one place I felt an overwhelming desire to return to and could see myself living for a while. IT’S SO AWESOME!!! Whoever is reading this, you have to go there. It’s beautiful and it’s also known as the ‘adventure capital of the world’. There are a ridiculous amount of things to do outdoors for all seasons. We only spent one night and day there and our adrenaline activity failed, but I loved it!!! We were supposed to go bungee jumping off the Nevis Bungee Jump, the second highest in the world. However, there were ‘extreme gale force winds’ the strongest they had seen in 3 years, so it was shut down the only day we could do it. Talk about signs from above. I was a little more than relieved at this, having seen the cable car suspended in mid -air that I would have been jumping off and the 143 meters over rocks and a rushing river I was supposed to plummet a LONG free fall of 8.5 seconds to. A bit too scary for me, I think, but I do want to go back and do the bridge jump at a modest 50 meters. Anyways, this gave us the chance to explore Queenstown more and wonder around the shops. Such a cool town. Like Burlington, Vermont, which I also love, but better and more homely.
We then drove a few more hours to Milford Sound, one of the most incredibly beautiful places I’ve ever seen. We did a cruise, which was nice and relaxing (although cold) and got the chance to see spectacular waterfalls up close and even wild seals and penguins! So awesome!!! Then we drove to Lake Takepo to stay the night en route back to Christchurch. We did a nice little loop around a small part of the south island, but it was enough for me to get the motivation to come back and explore more. New Zealand is an amazing, beautiful country and I will definitely be returning in the future. I have unfinished business with that bungee jump.
Sorry this has been so long and congrats if you are still reading! You made it. I’ll try and update once more before the end of the semester.
Cheers,
Emily
No comments:
Post a Comment