Learn the hard won (and fun) lessons students have taken away from their journey into the Outback on our Exploration Australia & Fiji program.
Mystery was the theme of our final chapter in the Outback, in the bush. No one knew what to expect and everyone wondered how they would feel. Many were uncertain, perhaps fearful of this unknown.
Mystery brought forth some moments of clarity. Consider the following lessons learned under the header, “You know you are in the Outback when…”
You stay in places called “bushcamps” and you sleep on the dirt in a “swag”.
A swag is a canvas sleeping structure with a foam sleeping pad inside. You place your sleeping bag inside, zip yourself up into both sleeping bag and swag, pull the flap over your face and hope for slumber to set in.
You drive for hours looking for kangaroos and realize you are more likely to see cows, brumbies (wild horses), and even camels in some parts of the Outback.
The Outback feels like it’s a whole bunch of nothing, for kilometers and kilometers. But its indigenous peoples remind us that there is much there to learn about and to learn from. The expanses seem to expand the spirit in unique ways. See the camel prints above, and the mythic King’s Canyon pink unicorn.
Your Outback guides would rather sleep in a swag than in a bed.
Thank you to Phoebe and Tim for sharing your humor and love of the bush with us and for efficiently showing us this wonderful place. See Phoebe and Tim above.
You get back to America and realize you have red dirt everywhere. Then you remember it was worth the filth and dust.
‘nough said.
You are forced (given the opportunity?) to learn about the “centre of the centre” of Australia.
Only in Australia !
Your parched mouth and dry lips make you pay careful attention to hydration, and convince you that water is, in fact, life.
You eat vegemite for your transgressions (and you like it?).
You gaze at the limitless night sky and are overwhelmed with gratitude.
You realize, along with the indigenous peoples, that this too is sacred ground that you tread on.
For 65,000 years the indigenous peoples, the first peoples of Australia, have held the land and its inhabitants as sacred, and their history is captured in the rocks, sands, trees and organisms, and in their stories. It is hard to not experience at least a small sense of this sacredness as you walk upon this history and imagine thousands of years of living within its provisions.
-Leaders Scott & Nicole
To learn more about our Exploration Australia & Fiji program, click here!
