Kalgoorlie

On Friday we left St. Thomas More College at 4:30AM to catch a flight to Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. The flight was only 45 minutes, and they served us breakfast! It was quite exciting and tasty too. We arrived there at like 8AM and after climbing a huge tire and playing in the playground at the camp we stayed at, we headed to Gwalia, a ghost town that used to be a mining town until the 1960s. It took about two hours to get there and a lot of it was on unpaved roads that seemed to be leading to nowhere. Once we arrived in Gwalia, we toured Hoover's House (the same guy that later became President of the United States), which was right next to the huge mining pit. We got to see a lot of old mining equipment and cars and houses and such, which was quite cool.

Next, we headed to Lake Ballard to see "Inside Australia"- an instillation of sculptures. We walked around this place for a few hours. There was many sculptures scattered about 10 kilometers of mud/dirt and hills in the salt lake area. Apparently people volunteered to have their body scanned for the sculptures, but they all looked the same to me. It was pretty interesting to see, but I'm not really into artsy stuff so I don't think I really appreciated it as much as intended. I think Lauren, Dan and I had more fun taking pictures of our shadows than looking at the sculptures. The whole area was kind of an illusion too. It looked like there was water in the distance, but then it ended up being just a reflection. And hills would look like they weren't too far, but ended up being a mile or so, so it took awhile to walk from place to place. The whole area was pretty muddy, so we left footprints in the ground. There was lots of kangaroo footprints, which was pretty awesome. Lauren and I were pretending to hop like kangaroos and I slipped and got my sweatshirt all muddy, oops. Twas pretty fun though.

On Saturday morning, I had kangaroo for breakfast, and it was delicious! Probably one of the best kinds of meat I've ever had, and it's apparently the healthiest for you. And we roasted these sandwich/panini type things on rods in the fire (I forget what they're called). They were quite good and it was fun hanging around the fire. On the bus, we got a tour of Kalgoorlie, it's a cute little town in the daytime. Apparently because of the mining, it's 2/3 men and prostitution is legal there (though not in the rest of Australia). There is pubs all over the place and a lot of them have "skimpies". So the dynamic of that city was kind of interesting. We got to go on a tour of the SuperPit, where they produce tons of gold every year. It is massive. In the afternoon, we went to the Miners Hall of Fame and got a tour of an old underground mine. That was really neat to walk around, though being that far underground scared me a bit. It was fun walking through the tunnels and seeing all the tools. There was also lots of old historical stuff that was pretty cool too, I wish was more interested in history though. I like the Australian museums places though: they don't have any do not touch signs and you get to play with all the stuff.

Today we hung out at this homestead in the outback for most of the day. It took awhile to get there, and it was on unpaved roads. We had "morning tea" and toured a worked sheep station. We also had fun climbing the tree house, playing on the swing set and jumping on the trampoline. The food was delicious too and it was really nice to just hang out and relax a bit. They had this giant fire in their backyard, which was really awesome. They also just had a sheep walking around in their driveway. We walked around the outback a bit, which was really cool. This evening we walked around outside in the Arboretum. The dirt there was really red, which was really cool, I'd never seen red dirt before.
So, it was a pretty fun trip, we had a good time. And it was really cool to see the outback and mining sites as well.

Four Weeks

It's hard to believe I've been in Australia for four weeks! I feel like I just got here; though when I look back, I feel like I've been here forever.

I'm finally starting to get some school work, though none of it is due soon so it is really hard to get the motivation to do it. Plus, it's been hard to get the motivation to do anything because the weather has been quite gross. We've had the wettest winter in the past 10 years or something, but it looks like the sun will be out for awhile now. For the next week its 60s and sunny, which is my favorite weather.

Plus, nice weather gives me motivation to go outside and do stuff. I've been pretty good about exercising the past few days and I hope to keep it up all semester. They have some good exercise classes at the gym. One is called Body Pump and everyone here is pretty obsessed with it- it's hard but they play music and it's a good work out. I joined the Outdoor Club and I went indoor rock climbing the past two Wednesdays and kayaking on the river last weekend (it's harder than it looks!). Kayaking was fun, but I had to capsize and the water was quite cold since it's winter here! But I need to practice because I hope to go on kayaking and rock climbing trips at some point.


There is a lot of amazing scenery here. Last week I saw the sunset at the beach, which was beautiful; I love sunsets over the ocean. I've gone for a few runs along the river, the view is beautiful. One night last week a few of us went for a walk along the river at night to take pictures. My pictures couldn't capture the beauty of the night view of the Perth skyline, but I did get some pretty good ones.

We've had a few events here at Tommie More. There was a formal dinner last weekend and last night we had an Informal BBQ where the Americans dressed like Australians and the Australians dressed like Americans. Most of the Australians wore either ND clothes or sweatshirts. So I've been pretty busy, there is usually something to do and lots that I still haven't seen.