Sunday Session

Yanchep!

Well....after the adventures in Perth and getting somewhat settled into our rooms on Curtin's campus they shipped us all (21 Eloners) off to Yanchep National Park for three days and two nights. The school completely booked out the Yanchep Inn (www.yanchepinn.com.au) for the time we were there. The place was amazing, obviously a national park with all the koalas and kangeroos you can imagine. The kangeroos just kinda jumped around right out front of the Inn whenever they felt like it...they're more like deer over here but of course all us Americans were chasing them around tryin to get pictures and all.

When we first got there on Wed afternoon (7/27) we all walked around outside of the Inn checkin out the koalas....where we were lucky enough to witness a fight of sorts between a couple koalas atop a three in the park. It was quite a scene with all the noises they made (all of which I had no idea koalas could make) and the one tried to throw the other off of the tree....not really sure what was going on there so we moved on to quieter calmer koalas. We then walked down to the lake behind the Inn and just kinda took in the view (pictures of which you can see on my Webshots). They then fed us lunch and drove a group of us down to the Indian Ocean (about a 10 min drive) so that we could swim and see the sunset over the ocean. Yea so a few people changed into their suits or "bathers" as they call them and went swimming in the ocean (did I mention its Winter?) and then we all talked for about 3 hours till 5:30 or so when the suns set. They took us back for dinner then and a introduction of the Curtin Volunteers (CV) people who were with us on the trip as well. Then people started drinking and what not for the rest of the night...I on the other hand was still struggling to deal with the time changes so I headed off to bed...not to mention we had an 7am wake up call for Surfing!

The next morning after breakfast they drove us all up to Lancelin Beach where theirs a small surfing school to teach us all how to catch some waves. The school (and when I say school I mean a house with a shed outback that kept the surfboards and wetsuits) provided us with wet suits so we wouldnt feel the cold water and then taught us the 4 step method to learning to surf. Now it wasn't quite as easy as 4 steps but it really wasnt that hard to do. I got up the first time for a bout a split second but as I did it more actually got up a few times. We actually surfed for about 2 hours (a very tireing 2 hours) before walking back to the house to shower off and go back to the Inn for some lunch.

That same afternoon they had a couple native aboriginal Australians come in and teach us a few dances and how to play the digeridoo. The dances we learned were umm...interestinig to say the least but quite fun. We danced like kanergoos and lizards among other things....and then learning to play the Didg was fun as well....I wasn't really that good but then again I never could play musical instruments that well. We got a little down time after that before dinner...all of us were exhausted at that point yet some still managed to drink and all.....but like I said I was tired as hell before all that activity and sure wasn't about to get drunk on top of it....cause we had another early wake-up call the next morning.

Friday the 29th, our last day at Yanchep, we got another 7Am wake up call to eat before they drove us over the a nearby Camel Ranch where we had the pleasure of riding around the Outback on a Camel for 2 hours. They saddled us all up on the back of camels and lead us through the trails where we saw a ton of Kangeroo and smelled a number of scents coming from our humped companions. A couple Eloners were lucky enough to get the experience of being spit on by a camel.....so gald that wasn't me.

After the ride around the Outback we went back to Yanchep for lunch and then packed up our things to head back to Curtin. Once we rached campus we had about an hour or two to unpack before we had to be at a meeting with the US Consulate in Perth. He talked with us for a bit and then they provided us with some more snacks and alcohol before the International Student Quiz Night in the Main Cafe......Quiz Night turned into a bust cause the prizes sucked and we were all incredibly tired from our busy days at Yanchep. So that night turned into an early evneing as well to finally catch up on sleep since we had nothing specific to do on Saturday....

posted by Will181198 @ 10:19 PM