Outback Trip!

This week our ASC group left for our long awaited Outback Trip!!!  The 37 of us students, 3 leaders and Ian (our Aussie bus driver) left for Mount Verathumble (at least that’s what it sounded like…).  We took off on a 12 hour bus trip to the middle of nowhere, it was so much fun!  The Outback was dry, red and so amazing.  I’ve never seen anything close to that before.  The farm we went to for our retreat was owned by a brother of one of the home stay families.  They owned 45,000 acres of land where they harvested crops, farmed sheep, cattle and horses.  We were housed in the old sheep shearers’ courters across from the “haunted” sheep shearers shack. However, a few of us never even stayed in the bunk rooms, instead we “slept” under the stars in the back of the yard.  The stars were absolutely incredible.  Never have I seen (nor will I probably ever again see) so many stars shining so brightly!  So many shooting stars, a clear view of the Milky Way and the Southern Cross bid me goodnight each night :)  Although the last night at around 3 am, Bandit and Mo (two of the farm dogs) decided to riverdance on my head for about ten minutes.  Since I couldn’t stop laughing they couldn’t get enough of it…  It was too funny yet so awkward and annoying at the same time.

Highlights of the weekend:  Kangaroo safaris on the back of Utes (Jeeps with back beds that we all stood on), Kangaroo night safaris, swimming in the freezing and nasty creek by our camp (we were going for a no-shower-week), watching Joe try to chase a bunny at night and Ronnie running after a herd of sheep, laughing so hard at stupid board games and star tripping, life stories by the campfire and jamming to acoustic worship music in front of an amazing Outback sunset. 

There really is no explanation that can do this trip justice.  It was incredible.  The red dirt was caked on each of us so thick by the end (or even the first day) I think I’ll be finding it on my for a week!  Oh, another fun aspect was that the host couple that brought us are both chefs so the food was SO GOOD! 

The coolest part, I think, was how much our group really bonded and grew together as a family.  We had the best time and even our leaders were saying that is has been such a blessing to have this group (it’s unusual for it to be going so smoothly and fun!).  We all are really great friends and love spending time with each other.  

It’s good to be back and showered and in a real bed but I will NEVER forget that experience and I would love to go back some day.  We all had a hard time leaving and thought about just turning around and driving the 12 hours right back to Mt. Verathumble but unfortunately… exams and midterm papers are due this week.  dun dun dun….