Week 12- Anne Hallez- Perth, Australia

Our last but not least stop is the beautiful Australia. From the blue of the Solom Islands we went to the rich gold that Australia brings. In every place that we've been to in the past, we were surrounded by hotels, all you can eat restaurants and a lot of luxury. Because we agreed to really discover new things we decided to turn things around a little. We would go to the Australian Golden Outback with nothing but tents, easy to make food and a couple of sleeping bags. For the next two days we would trade in luxury for simplicity.This way, we would really get to know the land down under.

So after arriving at the hotel after leaving the airport of Perth, we left everything electrical at home and left with the only things that were necessary to survive these few days. There's a little place east of Perth, called 'Kalgoorlie'. It actually took me until now to realize that the place wasn't called 'Kangarooly' but fortunately no one noticed. To make sure we would actually survive these two days in the wilderness, a local Australian guy accompanied us. After an hour train ride from Perth to Kalgoorie, a jeep, or what I normally call 'safari-car' was waiting for us. We drove a while trough miles and miles of sand and finally arrived at a little place where we were supposed to put our tents.

We arrived really late in the day and decided to make sure that everything was ready for a good night of sleep. We learned how to build tents, how to protect us from wild animals and how to make a fire. When our guide told us that making a fire is really important to ward of any dangerous animals, I started to get really afraid that we would suddenly be attacked by a wild minx or a lion or two. There are too many scary movies about people camping in the woods and getting attacked by scary people or giant animals. We weren't in the woods of course but that thought didn't seem to sooth me at all. Since then I knew that I probably wouldn't get my well deserved sleep tonight. 

It was starting to get dark and we decided to make a fire that was big enough to make our supper and protect us from any danger that would come our way. I was so grateful then that our guide was smart enough to bring wood to make a decent fire.While we were sitting by the fire, our 'Aussie' taught us a few typical Australian words. We learned that the word for 'afternoon' was 'arvo', a 'bloke' is a guy, a 'barbie' is a barbecue and that good day is pronounced g'day here. I immediately felt like I was in the middle of the outback version of the TV show called 'home and away'. The accents were right but the background was totally different. In a way it was nice to see a different side of what Australia has to offer.

After a cozy night by the fire it was time to head back to our tents to get a good night of sleep. As I predicted, that wasn't the case at all. I woke up by sounds of what I thought were laughing hyenas and I felt like I had to stay a awake in order to protect myself from any danger. I had been up so late that I didn't even realize I had fell asleep until I woke up by the feeling of something tickling my arm. I opened my eyes gently and what I saw then, woke me up immediately. There was a giant spider the size of my hand, crawling around in my tent. I screamed so loud that I woke up every body else. Luckily our guide was brave enough to rescue me from the spider. I was forever in his debt.

After waking up thoroughly by this wonderful surprise (sense the sarcasm)  our guide told us that we were about to go on an animal safari. I was thrilled when I heard about this because we would get the see the animals in the safe distance of our safari car. But I have to say, after having rescued me from the giant spider, I trusted the guy with my life. I can't even begin to describe what we saw at the safari. I saw birds in every color, lions that were laying around like they were more lazy than any human could every be and finally some wild kangaroo's jumping around like they didn't have a care in the world. These were animals I actually wanted to be around.
We cruised trough the outback for a while but then decided that we were too exhausted to go any further. We called it a day, packed up our bags and went back to our hotel.

I don't know about you, but I'm planning to go to sleep and dream about kangaroo's, koala's and other cute Australian animals.

G'night (I'm belive I'm already becoming a true Australian)

Love, Anne


sources:
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perth_%28Australi%C3%AB%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perth,_Western_Australia
http://www.cityofperth.wa.gov.au/
http://www.westernaustralia.com/en/Destinations/Australias_Golden_Outback/Pages/Australias_Golden_Outback.aspx
http://www.australiasgoldenoutback.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outback
http://library.thinkquest.org/28994/auswords.html