Camping in the Australia Bush

Hello All!

Well, this past weekend was one for the books, thats for sure! Me and two other girls roughed it out in the bush...and I do mean roughed it! Now I've been camping before...many times in fact! But my parent's idea of camping and the camping I did are very different. First of all, there was no big camper with air conditioning/heat. There was no TV, no gas grill, no fans, heck...there wasn't even food or fire!! I suppose I should start from the beginning...

We went to the Glenworth Valley and signed up to do 4 different activities spread throughout 2 days and camped during the night. We each got to pick an activity that we wanted to do and then we all picked the last one. On Saturday, we went abseiling (cliff repelling) and kayaking and Sunday we went horseback riding and ATV'ing.

We took the train about an hour an a half south of Newcastle and hopped into a cab. Little did we know that the cab driver realized we were "out-of-towners" and decided to take the long way to this Glenworth Valley, costing us about twice as much as it should have. After arriving, our first activity was abseiling, which is basically cliff repelling. It was the activity we all decided to do and it was pretty sweet. We went to the top of these cliffs and got to repel down 3 different spots. The first spot was easy...just going down a slant. The second one was by far the scariest!! It was a straight drop down from the top, so as you can imagine, getting yourself over the edge of the cliff was a little nerve wrecking but fun!! While going down, I got to bounce off the wall of the cliff with my feet. The third one was fun because it started off as an easy slope but then there was another drop off. So we sloped down at first and then at the next drop off, we had to hang upside down to get our heads lower than our feet. After we were positioned correctly, we let our feet drop and then we were just hanging over the cliff with no wall to bounce off of. So we basically just sat there in the harness and lowered ourselves down to the ground. Rock repelling is actually a lot of fun! I get to do it in the Blue Mountains in May!

Our next activity was kayaking. This was Kim's activity of choice, so she got her own kayak and me and Lisa shared one. Kim was really good at it, she does it all the time at home. Me and Lisa on the other hand were terrible. It looked like we were heavily under the influence...driving in zig-zags. Finally, me and Lisa gave up and started splashing each other with the paddles. We definitely failed at kayaking!

Camping was another thing we failed at. We DID have a tent...but it was a little 2 person tent for 3 of us to squeeze in. We bought some firewood from the office, but realized after that we didn't have any newspaper, kindling, or matches!! So the fire was a bust. We also didn't bring any food or water with us, so we raided the vending machines before we set up camp. M&M's and chips were dinner. We had no sleeping bags, no cots, and no mattresses...only 2 little blankets and 2 little pillows. As you can imagine...it was not a comfortable night! All three of us piled on top of each other trying to stay warm...I'm sure the people in the site next to us got a kick out of it! We looked ridiculous. But my parents sure did spoil me growing up!! Even if I had to sleep in a tent back then, I had a cot, TV, and fan or heater in there. I'd LOVE to see them camp without a camper...that would be hilarious.

We were all pretty sore when we woke up in the morning. The hard ground did us no good! So our first activity on Sunday was horseback riding! This was my activity of choice...of course! Got to ride some Bush Brumbies! My horse was Mollin, and Mollin was crazy. We all started off on a tour, but if you had enough experience, you could eventually venture off on your own. My friends encouraged me to do this since it was my activity, so I did, and I regretted it later. The trail ride was gorgeous, walking through the forest and along a river...but Mollin was so stubborn!! A couple times, I tried to stop him to let the others catch up so I could finish up with them, but he wasn't having it. Mollin had a mission to get home, which he made very obvious when we hit the meadow right before the street that lead to the stables. We hit that meadow and he TOOK OFF. Holy cow...I have a lot of riding experience...most of which occurred when I was younger. So this was a little scary...Mollin galloped right under a tree, so I had a mouth full of leaves...awesome. I was the first one from the group back, so I had to wait for Kim and Lisa to get back. But looking back, it was a blast! Another tally on the "Mindy Being Minorly But Safely Reckless in Australia" list!

The last activity for the day was ATV'ing (Lisa's choice)...which we should have done before horseback riding considering none of us could sit down comfortably! Our bums were pretty sore!! But that was fun, we got to go down to a little race track and speed around and race. The track was muddy from all the rain we've been getting down here, so we were looking pretty good when we were done!

Luckily, we pulled out the sympathy card and an employee gave us a hitch back to the train station...so we didn't get screwed by another cab driver. The train ride home was AWFUL. We smelled like horses, we had mud all over us, and none of us could move because we were so sore! Our bums hurt from horseback riding, our arms hurt from kayaking, our hips hurt from the harness from abseiling, and everything else hurt from sleeping on hard ground. But overall, it was a really fun weekend! I wouldn't change any part of it...our stupidity only made for better stories!

SARAH is going to be here on Saturday and I can't wait!! We are spending her first night in Sydney and then heading up to Cairns to check our the rainforests and Great Barrier Reef!! So I'll have some more stories to tell you guys in a couple weeks!! I hope all is well at home (heard about the snow...thats unfortunate) and I miss you all very much!!

Talk to you all soon,

Mindy