Here I go on another tour, this time a whole week through the Australian Outback. I actually did not pay too much attention when booking the tour and I just found it is almost all camping... Oh lord! Please help me!

Day one- Flinders Ranges
Pick up from the hostel... 6:30am.. Brutal!
 When our guide arrived I was like "wow... those shorts are short and isn't he cold?!?!" He was wearing short shorts and a short sleeve shirt but he really looked like the Australian tour guide that one would imagine to have on such trip. I think he is really dressed up to give us the Australian experience!

It is always a little bit weird when you start a tour and don't know anybody. It takes some time to warm up to others and start conversations. I remember when I went to group therapy and a lady in the waiting room said "Today we are all quiet, in the next couple of weeks we will all be chatting up while we are waiting" and I know this will be the case for this group too, it just takes time to get used to the situation and to open up to others.

 We are in a group of 18 where all of them are European except for a Japanese girl and a Korean guy. I loved how multicultural the group is although I worry a little about the language barrier!
Today there was A LOT of driving involved! The tour guide said that we would spend 1/2 day in the bus and 1/2 day walking.

The scenery at the beginning of the drive was a lot like the one from Portland to Adelaide, lots of green, cows and sheep but that quickly changed to very dry and sandy roads with some vegetation on the side.

On the drive at least I saw some kangaroos on the side of the road (not dead ones for once!) but still haven't seen one up close!

Chief, out guide, is a one man show! He drives, he cooks, he guides... For me It's the first time I've taken a tour where only one person does everything!!!... Go Chief!

On our way to the campsite we stopped for some fire wood on the side of the road... I'm not sure I like this camping thing.





At around lunch time we reached our campsite for the night and had some lunch. We asked Chief if he needed help and he said no, that it was easier for him to do it by himself that showing us how he wanted the tomatoes cut... The only thing we are in charge is to do the dishes!... Fine with me!!

Dishwashing station... I think supervising is Danny's skill!

After lunch we all went on a beautiful hike on Flinders Ranges.






Chief is not the best communicator I've seen, in fact the whole group hardly understand his directions and sometimes we just follow him and hope for the best! Before the hike he asked if we were ready, then he mumbled something that no one understood so we followed him... To the bathroom! Haha but I think he didn't even noticed!... I hope we get more used to each other and things become a little clearer later on.
After the hike we came back to camp, Chief set up a fire and he started dinner.
The fire was a great place for the group to come together and start to get to know each other.



Dinner time....

Where we were going to sleep was all a mystery,  nobody understood where or how we were sleeping, Chief had only said that we would use a swag but no one really knew what a swag was! Some people said it was like a mini tent, most of us thought they were like hammocks and we were looking around for trees to see if they were close enough to hang the swags... our main concern was not to fall off in the middle of the night!

After dinner Chief showed us what a swag was... Pretty much a big sleeping bag with a thin mattress with zippers on both sides, and inside we put our own sleeping bag... "Exciting!"

It's a swag Slumber party!!!!!!

Day two- Williams Creek

Wake up time 5:15.
I actually woke up at 5:25 when I heard other people unzipping their swags. I woke up feeling like I was super late but still had time to take a shower.
I was actually very impressed with the showers at the camp site, the pressure was good and the water was hot!

We all had breakfast and cleaned up, we were about 15 mins later than departure time and our tour guide, Chief, said "this was a test run, we might not make it to sunrise, we will try again tomorrow."
I woke up late because I'm used to tour guides giving us a wake up call so this is what happened
Me: "Do you mind giving us a wake up call when we need to wake up?"
Chief: "Don't you have a phone?"
Me: "No, left it on the bus"
Chief: "Anyway, you were not the last one up" and he left! .... I guess we are not getting that wake up call tomorrow.

We actually made it for sunset...



After hours on the bus we stopped at an art shop from this very eccentric and unique guy who talked about the sun, the formation of countries names, man and women. To be honest I didn't understand a thing he said but his theory sounded interesting.




Apparently a lot of the towns in the outback have now disappeared and are deserted areas



Another stop was at a very interesting lot that had random sculptures.
I looked around and took pictures and then stopped to talk to the guy who was by some parked vans and started talking to him. He said that he had worked on most of them himself and that he comes every winter to escape the cold from Melbourne. I believe he said he has been coming here for the last 23 years!







Finally we got to our campsite in Williams Creek!
Chief said we should go to the local traditional Australian pub.. so we did!

I think here is where the group kind of really came together. We played a couple rounds of pool (I even played) in teams and it was a lot of great fun!



After a couple of rounds of pool we all went back to camp and sat around the fire where Mikel played his little Ukulele/ Guitar

At night after dinner a couple of us decided to work on our picture taking skills and got out the tripods and played around taking pictures of the stars.


Then it was, once again, time for a night in a swag! The sky was completely covered in stars and I was completely covered head to toes except for my eyes and the only thing I could see was the sky full of stars and I can say that it was pretty much one of the most beautiful night I have ever had!


Day three- Coober Pedy!

Sunset from my Swag

This is how I woke up... Many layers!

 Departure time... 9am!!!
It felt so good to sleep in and don't have to worry about a super early start time!

It is amazing how quickly everybody in the bus can fall asleep! I get really car sick if I'm not driving so my body copes by putting itself to sleep immediately if I'm on a bus, in a car, or at take off/ landing and this has not been an exception. I feel like I sleep all day and then like a rock all night!

Today we had a shorter drives but with the same view. We stopped by the longest fence in the world!!! Made to keep the dingos off the road... Exciting stuff here in Australia!

We reached our final destination by lunch time... Coober Pedy!!!!



Coober Pedy is a mine town in the middle of the Australian outback. The name Coober Pety came from "kupa piti", aboriginal words meaning "white man in hole." Apparently this region is the opal capital of the world.

Our luxurious accommodation (compared to our last 2 nights in swags) is in a bunker room! It is super cool!


Most houses here in Coober Pety are underground and so is our "camp site", it feels like we are in a cave!
There isn't much to do here but we did go to a kangaroo rescue shelter and we got to see full grown kangaroos as well as a 7week old Joey!








We also paid a visit to the underground church, where a lit a candle for my mom and my family.


And then, my favorite part of the day... The mine tour! It started with a nice video of how they found Cooper Pety and the history behind it and then a lady originally from here gave us a hilarious tour of the mine; she had me laughing the whole entire time!






At night Chief treated us to pizza and came back to camp and played card games with some of the people in the tour and Dani introduced a new game to play for the rest of the trip together: every time someone says "mine" the person has to do 20 push ups or sing a song to Chief!

Tomorrow... 5am wake up on the bright side, we have a 6-7 hour drive so I'll catch up on my sleep!