Outback!

Hey! So I'm finally getting to writing this entry. I know it's been a long time since my last blog and where I left off with what I was talking about. So here's the scoop on visiting the outback!!

First off, I want to clarify. There isn't "THE outback" like it may seem. It's a general term for the area of land that's beyond the busy and congested city/suberb life. It took a long bus ride out there--we stayed at a hotel on the way down, but we got to our destination. It took us about a day and a half to get there.

The whole ASC group went and stayed at Trillby Station, which is a sheep farm--they harvest the wool and/or the meat. The place is huge!! We're talking about tens of thousands of acres and about 800,000 sheep. They have 3 stations spread out across the land where they shear the sheep because it's so big. They use modern equipment to herd the sheep, such as helicopters/planes in the air and motorbikes on the ground. They also have chickens or "chooks" that lay eggs, goats for milk or meat (and along with chickens they eat food waste), and they have dogs (of a breed that I can't remember) to help with herding sheep. And, of course, they have native animals such as kangaroos.

The girls stayed in some shacks that they used for when they had workers, while the men stayed in a house. It was very well accomodated. However, there was always a group that slept outside for the night. I did that the first night but was very annoyed with how cold and wet it was in the morning...so I decided to sleep in a real bed the rest of the trip. We had heaps of time to venture around so we all did a good job of that. I brought my boomerangs that I bought at Vinnies and got to try them out. We figured out that it takes a little bit of wind to bring it back to you; if you have too much then it flies past you, and if you have too little it will keep flying ahead of you.

We had some great discussions around the campfire. It was like a central meeting place for someone who was stumped and didn't know where to go. It was going pretty much the whole time we were there. Each night we ended up there after the evening meal and shared "life storys." Kimberly had three rocks for us to take and share 3 events in our life that really shaped us or 3 things you want people to know about yourself, or a mixture of all that. People shared some really life changing things and we all got to know each other on a deeper level. It was a great highlight of the outback and certainly a highlight of our time in Australia.

The outback itself was pretty much like you would imagine: red and flat. However, this year it was very green. So much so that it is the greenest it has been in the last 40 years! I was partially disapointed to see life in the desert because it destroyed my visions of it. But I know now that this is a great season for the land because it is very fruitful. One thing to also note about this mysterious land is that this event may not happen for another 40 years or whatever: it's changing a lot and unpredictable.