After two days at home, I found myself doing laundry and packing all over again to leave for Broken Hill. Broken Hill is a mining town in the outback in New South Wales. I am going to be blunt, the town was quite boring and pretty small. Loyola College as well as all of the DePaul students attended this field trip for a class requirement. Five days of excused class absence...count me in! The bus ride was very long. We left at around 8am and did not get to Broken Hill until about 9pm. We made a few stops along the way at gas stations in even smaller towns and cafes and bakery's for lunch and dinner. When we arrived, we were shown to our hotel, which was called The West Darling Hotel, and home to the oldest pub in Broken Hill. It was very quaint, a little creepy, and there were 3 working showers for 55 people. The next morning, we awoke bright and early to go see the Daydream Silver Mine. We were able to go inside the mine. After about 20 minutes of being hunched over under the ground, my back started to ache. I could only imagine the pain that the miners had to suffer through. After our tour, we headed over to ride some camels. Although I am already a camel riding pro from my experience in Israel, I still had a great time. I was lucky enough to ride Barley the camel. Camels, although smelly and quite ugly, still find a place in my heart. Since this was a university sponsored event, we did have to sit though the most boring lecture on the art of Broken Hill. I can't tell you what it was about, I think everyone was dosing off at this point. We then headed over to an Outback sculpture park to watch the sunset and drink some goon. There were two rainbows in the sky! The weather was terrible and it was raining pretty hard, it was one of their biggest storms in ages, but at least I got to see some rainbows. That night we went to a karaoke bar. Yes, I did participate in karaoke with the help of some liquid courage and peer pressure. I sang "Paradise City" by Guns and Roses and made a complete fool of myself. I even rocked some air guitar.
The next day we went to a memorial for the miners who have died on the job, went to see the Flying Doctors of NSW and took a tour of Broken Hill. Not much happened. The third day we were suppose to go to Mungo and go to the national park for hiking. All of the roads were close because of the storm, so we took a steam boat ride instead. It was a three hour boat ride to relax on the Murray River. That river divided NSW from Victoria. That night we went to the Mildura Brewery and tried some home brews and ate a lovely pizza and pasta dinner.
As the last day was approaching, our tutor informed us that there would be a mystery activity the following morning. That mystery activity was wine tasting at 10am. We got a tour of the winery and unlimited tastes of wine. I purchased a Psyche 2005 Vintage Shiraz and a 2005 Sweet Nicola. Both wines were made in the winery by Kim, Joan, and Janel with their 50+ years or experience at Chateau Mildura. It was a nice way to end the trip.
All in all, the trip was decent. It was a little too long and kind of uneventful, but I blame it on the rain. I also forgot to pack a lot because I waited until the last minute and forgot a pile of clothes on my bed, but I made it work. I also feel like I have a super strong back after this trip from giving my friend Devin multiple piggy back rides. I did see a lot of wildlife. Wild horses, emus, and kangaroos. They are very hard to photograph though! I finally have my own pictures to share thanks to my mom sending me my camera, which came waterlogged by Febreez. It still works though, so that's all that matters. I was happy to get some pretty cool pictures from this trip (see below).
Only two more weeks until spring break. In the meantime, I have an overwhelming amount of work to do. All my work seemed to hit at once. I can't believe I am already half done with my study abroad experience! It is going by too quickly, but I am excited to come home. I miss everyone!
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| Rob, my Australian Idol tutor. |
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