Safari part two!!

Hello everyone!

sorry that it has been so long sice my last post but i have been fairely busy and it doesn't get too quite until the middle of july.....last weekend i played soccer for tuncurry in tunners (tuncurry) and we were versing forster so it was a fair bit of rivalery....the game began quite bad for us with our goal keeper getting sent off for swering and also forster being rewarded a penalty. so with 10 men left and the score being 0-1 against us we really started playing....in the first half we were able to score once. my very good mate jack jenkins was able to “nutty” the opponents goalkeeper...so his shot went inbetween the keepers legs. second half we were dominating and scored one more and in the end we won an intense game 2-1...thanks to this we are still 4th in the league which would lead us into the semis at the end of august which is definitely what we are heading for....
later on i went to ben's house and stayed there for a bonfire where a few others came aswell and then i slept at ben's....sunday i was meant to go surfing but obviously it didn't work out because my mate jake robertson had to do his business speach...bloody hell...
anyways so ben, shannon, cody,who is the guy who got sent off for swearing, shane and i went golfing in forster and then aqua golfing in tuncurry. more about aqua golfing in an other post...
since monday i havent been up to too much but school and preparing my trips to armidale and adelaide coming up in the next 6 days. on friday i am leaving for a meeting in armidale where a few aussie exchangies leaving in january for all sorts of places and vini and i get together to catch up and meet each other..there will be another few meetings like this one.
now another episode of my safari adventures....again if u have any questiones to the places i visited or anything...go ahead and ask!

Day 7
early as always we got up and made our way from bed to the showers to breky and into our seats on the bus where we fell asleep again....we had some more than just spectacular views of the 12 apostels which are cliffs about 100 meters offshore....i have never seen anything like it so i will have to upload some pictures for you guys. in the evening we arrived in warrnambool where some people went for a 2 minute swim at the beach but the people living on the coast didn't even bother thinking “it's not that cold” because yes it was “that cold!”....in the evening we went to see a show where we were taken through a rebuilt village of the 17th century where they believe everything had been exactly like that and a boar had sunk due to hitting the cliffs of warrnambool....must be very frustrating when you come all the way from england and then as soon as you reach your destination you sink...i would have gone troppo i know that!!

Day 8
this day was so boring. just driving all day and then arriving in mildura. where there is nothing what so ever which meant self entertainment like music, bonfire and everyone singing songs from they're own country....the next day our “very capable” tour leader yvonne said that there everyone had been talking too much in their native language by the bonfire...dear yvonne....this is what happens if everyone sings native songs from their countries...she was quite upset with us and we were upset with her....suprisingly....

Day 9
another day of pure driving. we stopped in port augusta which was the closest to adelaide i have been so far until tuesday anyways....we were meant to stay there for the night but it was raining really badly so we decided to go on to coober pedy straight away. this was a great thing that the leaders arranged for us because in cooer pedy we stayed in one big room inside where it was 22° instead of rain and 5 °....we arrived in coober pedy around 11.30 at night so we didn't get up to too much that night....

Day 10
coober pedy was very different from everything else...we saw that very soon after getting up. we had a tour guide from coober pedy on our bus who told us about everything. we visited a grave yard that was more international than most others. because in coober pedy opal is found there are people from all over the world coming and trying to find the fortune they are hoping for. there was a very special grave there aswell. a cat everyone had loved had a grave with a nice and big grave stone. quite funny was that the owner of the cat had a much more plaiin grave...
then we went on to the golf course. yes there is a golf course in coober pedy. it works different than all other golf courses of the world though. because the surface is all sand in coober pedy they took very fine dirt to make the brown “greens” and then to tee off you have a patch of gras that you take with you in the beginning. after that you carry it around with you and whenever you want to hit the ball you pick it up and place it on your patch of gras...how cool is that!!
later that day we went “noodling” which is looking for your own opals in an area that was dug out so that everyone that wants to can try their luck. almost everyone found some sort of opal but nobody had any breakthrough sort of opals....a few went to an opal shop to see if they could get any money for their opals...the owner just laughed....a nice souvenir still! also we went to a museum that showed how people live underground in coober pedy and how locals dig for opals...

Day 11
next day was all driving until we reached our destination: bush camp....well actually you could get the wrong image of it so let's give it an easier name: bush!
nothing there but 3 fire places. during the day we had loaded heaps of wood on top of the trailer so we didn't have to look for too much when we got there. that night we wrote our safari song and sang lots of others aswell before sleeping only in your sleeping bag under the free sky!it gets quite cold i can tell you that!!

Day 12
after sleeping in the bush we were all quite happy to get into the comfortable bus seats and sleep some more since the night had been rather unusual and some people were keeping others awake with their rather loud snoring....in the afternoon we arrived in yulara ayers rock resort. we built up our tents and then went to see uluru/ayers rock in the sunset. it was very pretty and i will also have to upload some pictures from this.

Day 13
the day had arrived where we were going to climb ayers rock. after having seen it in the sunset we agreed it does look like a steep climb but there was nothing like it when you were standing at the bottom of uluru and looking up the track that you were supposed to go on. it was very steep and in the beginning there was a metal chain that you can grab so that you were more stable and trust me you needed it...the steepest points were almost at a 45° angle!that is steep!i am not quite sure about the exact angle but its one of the steepest things i've climbed that's for sure....uluru is also very special because it's one piece of rock. it's the second largest monolith in the world...the largest can be found somewhere in western australia. anyways the climb was fantastic and there were groups going the same pace because it was very different how people reacted not only with the exersise but also with the height. it was very scary at some points!!when i reached the top together with vini, carlos, jp and tillmann we were the first up so there was nobody other than us on the top of the rock. it was very impressive!!after about 40 minutes of enjoying the view from the rock everyone had arrived and after several group photos we climbed down again which was not less scary than goin up!

Day 14
after climbing uluru we headed for the next natural sensation which was kings creek. we stayed at kings creek resort which is a horse and camel station. yes there are camels in australia and there are more than you would think. we arrived in kings creek before lunch time and left for kings canyon after lunch. we decided to do the rim walk which took us about 3 hours but it was so worth it!!we walked on the edge of the canyon looking down through and onto the canyon. it was amazing!!again pictures will be added to the blog! that night we went to see a camel show at the resort where they told us about camels in australia and how they are caught in the wild and some other things....

Day 15
after enjoying a hot chocolate and marshmallows after the camel show we went on the next day to alice springs...this drive took us a fair while but on the way we stopped to have lunch and there we did something rather special. we had the opportunity to ride camels. just a 2 minute ride but still it was pretty cool!
arriving in alice in the evening we went to a didgeridoo concert. that was awesome! one of the best didg players in the world accompanied by a drummer and another musician, they were great! one song they invited everyone to join in and play a simple instrument like sticks or a shake instrument...it was great!


so here you go another big part of my trip!!the last part will follow before i go to adelaide i hope!