Swags, Thorny Devils and bonfires!

HURRAH! 6am and I'm off to see the 'Real Australia'. Having a very limited knowledge of outback Australia and 'the bush' I really didn't know what to expect, but my week was beyond all I could ever imagine. It was flipping awesome!

We kicked off our seven day tour driving from Adelaide to out first destination (The middle of nowhere). I knew we would be sleeping in swags but I didn't really want to admit that I had no idea what a swag was or what it involved so I was a little nervous to say the least! The group I was with involved a few Germans, four antisocial Swiss boys, a Canadian, a guy from Litchensutein and a girl from Argentina. The rest of the group were to join us in Coober Pedey, two days away from us. Our tour guide, Dan is this crazy guy who has basically been camping in the outback since he was a toddler knows so much about the wildlife of the bush it's unreal. He would just stop randomly on the side of the road, skip off somewhere and come back with all sorts of crazy animals from bearded dragons, thorny devils, emus, to brown snakes and itchy grub (seriously cool catapillers who form a train of a few meters long to protect themselves from predators, and being run over - safety in numbers and all that!).

By this point I'm rest assured that this week is going to be AWESOME and other than being kept awake due to heavy snoring (not my own this time!!) I loved sleeping in swags under the stars after a few beers by the bonfire.

(FYI, a swag is a glorified sleeping bag, with a 'monster flap' to put over your head to stop the millions of flies eating you alive)

xxxx

Surviving the Troggs

I'm writing this 2 days after returning from the most incredible 10 day adventure of my life and it seems that I've written a bit about the kids, stupid stuff I've done and nothing about any travelling! To date, I've been to Sydney (amazing), Tasmania (amazing) and Adelaide to Alice Springs (flipping amazing).

Seeing as I've just got back from the outback I should really write about that trip specifically. I'm going to do it in a few instalments because there is SO much to write about!

Here is a little snippet about ADELAIDE!

Sunday morning, I took the 11 hour bus journey from Melbourne to Adelaide to stay in the YHA, assuming that because it's a pretty well established hostel chain, I'd be relatively comfortable and safe. Er. No. I was indeed, stuck for two nights in some sort of hellish nightmare where I was convinced my 'rooms mates' were going to knife me in my sleep. They were three troglodytes from Queensland who spent the night texting some poor girl in Brisbane threatening to 'hunt her down and teach her a lesson' for stealing one of their boyfriends. Meanwhile, I am hiding at the bottom of my sleeping bag clutching my phone, kindle and iPad for all they are worth, terrified they are going to practice their 'lesson teaching' on me. Not a great start!

Nevertheless, I survived the night and scarpered off for my Barosa Valley Wine Tour, with a tour group aptly named 'Groovy Grape'. The tour guide turned up an hour late, leaving me a little worried that my holiday will be horrible start to finish. However, I met a great group of four other girls, all travelling on their own and we had a lot of fun getting suitably sloshed tasting about a gazzilion different wines from four different wineries topped off eith a BBQ of kangaroo and sausages. After that and the outback, I think I've eaten enough kangaroo to last me a lifetime.

Out of all of the wines we sampled (and there were one heck of a lot!) my personal fave was the sparking red from Jacob's Creek. Yum! Very popular in Australia for people who like to drink red but it's too hot to here! At the end of the tour, I returned back to my hostel at 3pm, hungover and desperate for a Hungry Jacks (thats Burger King for the non-Aussie folks). Thankfully the evidence of empty beer cans assured me that the Troggs would be kept away until my early 6am pick up for the next step of my adventure!

Outback Adventures: the take off!

Hurrah! Tomorrow is the big day! Having booked and paid for everything about two months ago, I managed to pretty much forget that I am actually going on this epic adventure. I know I'm only going for 10 days, but I'm very excited to be off exploring the 'real Australia'!

Leaving the family for my holiday has made me think about when I actually leave to go back home. I'm in the really fortunate position that I've found myself another job with a wonderful sounding family in Belgium starting in August and I've got so much to look forward to, including a jolly little jaunt down the East Coast, continuing my quest to find an Aussie surfer dude to fall in love with me (and therefore offer me full residency. Well a girl can dream, can't she?) However, I'm going to find it really hard to leave them, and I know I will always look back on my year in Australia as one of the best things I ever did.

I have so much to be grateful for to my 'Australian family' who have shown nothing but kindness and generosity, and to my 'home family' for encouraging me and supporting me and putting up with the odd waterworks due to locking myself in Charlotte's room, losing a child at the park etc. etc. via Skype to which my Dad says 'God Grog you look awful! Your nose is all red, you're all snotty!' (Thanks Dad!)

Oh I'm feeling all nostalgic and I can't remember the point of this post now... Anyway, I will keep you all updated on my 950 mile trip to Alice Springs. Got the Kindle charged and I'm ready to go!

Hasta la vista baby! xxxx