Out Back in the Outback

Over Easter Break Devyn and I went camping with a few other people from the International Housing. We went to a lot of gorgeous places and even got to explore a cave! It was such an incredible experience and I am so grateful that I was able to go.

Friday morning, we got up bright and early and headed out to Edith Falls. The drive was about three hours and it was sooooo long. I couldn't use my phone very much because I had to save my phone battery for three days with two portable chargers so I didn't really have anything to do. The drive was so worth it though, Edith Falls was absolutely gorgeous! When we got there, we set up a small picnic and ate lunch before we changed into our bathers (swim suits) and hiked up to the waterfall. The hike was KILLER! I had to use my inhaler about 5 minutes into it because it was so steep! The sun was so bright and it was so hot outside and I could not wait to get to the top.

When we got there, my breathe was immediately swept away, and not just because I have asthma and had just climbed a mountain. The whole thing was just absolutely beautiful and I never wanted to leave. I was a bit nervous to swim at first though because I have this weird thing with large bodies of water and, you know, there's always the possibility of a croc swimming up and chompin' on my leg...... Eventually I got over that and was able to swim around and I had a lot of fun. A few of the girls with us didn't know how to swim and one of them was in the group that I was swimming with. She almost got the hang of it and we were all cheering her on as she struggled back and forth between the rocks and one of the leaders. It was so awesome! All of the girls actually bonded so fast and we had so much fun the rest of the weekend! This was by far my favorite part of the whole weekend and I don't think I'll ever forget it. The water was so nice and swimming under the waterfall was so awesome! I was really sad to leave, but there was so much that I was still excited to do!

Once we left, we traveled down to Katherine Gorge to set up our tents. Now THAT was an... interesting situation to say the least. We handed out tents, sleeping bags, and luggage and got to work. My tent, well tents, had a few issues. My first tent had been duct taped together and couldn’t be put up, my second tent was missing a floor, and my third tent was missing the pieces that kept the poles in place. Fortunately, we were able to get the third tent up without them despite it being really sadly shaped.

Once we had finally gotten everything set up and the sun started to go down, we hiked up to the lookout point. I thought the first hike was rough… This hike was steeper, longer, and I was already tired and sore from the first one. It was actually really fun though. On the way up, I saw a HUGE spider that was bigger than my hand! I’ve never seen one that big! I saw gigantic spider webs too which was definitely a nice sight. There were these really rickety stairs that were honestly quite terrifying the majority of the way up and some awkward rocks that we had to walk through. It was all a fairly… unique hike in all.

The hike was soooo worth it, even more so than the one up to Edith Falls. The view from the lookout was unlike anything I had ever seen before. We could see the sunset over the mountains, the gorge, and even a croc sitting on the edge of the water. No words I could use or pictures I could take would ever have been able to do justice to the site. I could honestly climb that hike every sunset and never get tired of the view. I might, however, get tired of the hike. We all sat around telling stories and taking pictures while watching the sunset, it was so fun. When it finally started to get dark, we all sadly headed back to the campsite.

That night, we grilled some lamb for dinner which I had never had before and it actually ended up being pretty good. Devyn and I also played some Skip Bo and then we all went to bed. Throughout the entire night there were a lot of crazy animal noises and the dingos kept howling. It was actually crazy and I'm pretty sure that at one point some type of pig ran by my tent, I could it snorting right next to my head. Supposedly, there were sugar gliders in the area too, but I sadly didn't see any and I have no idea what they even sound like. I wouldn't be surprised if they were there though, there were a lot of sounds going on that I had never heard.

The next morning, we were up bright and early once again to pack up our campsite and eat breakfast. When we finally had everything all put together and everyone was full, we walked down to the gorge and loaded up for our boat cruise! Our cruise guide told us that the gorge is featured in the new movie Top End Wedding and another old movie that I can't remember the name of. It also happens to be connected to Edith Falls which I thought was really cool. We even got to see a few freshwater crocs during the cruise which was awesome. Apparently, freshwater crocs won't bother you, if you swim towards them they'll just swim away; it's the 'salties' that you have to worry about. That totally put my mind at ease about swimming in croc infested waters! On the cruise, we got to see a rock formation that leaks water from the pool above it, a cave with a bunch of bird nests in it, the line that the water gets up to in the wet season, a painting that was thousands of years old on the rocks, mini waterfalls, there was just a lot there and it was all so amazing. Something really interesting about the rocks, they are all split on ninety-degree angles. So, if you are looking at one crack in the rock, there is the exact same one behind you and one to the right and the left. THAT was one of the coolest things I think I've ever seen.

After the cruise was over we headed to the Bitter Springs to swim some more. Bitter Springs really wasn't that special to be honest, it was basically just a pool in the middle of the woods. The only thing that really separated it from a normal pool was the sand floor and random chunks of trees scattered around the bottom. We ended up spending more time there than we did at any other swimming spot which was unfortunate because there wasn't really anything cool about this place. There were peacocks all over the carpark though which made me feel a bit at home.

The next stop was our second campsite at the territory manor. Once we got our tents set up we were off to swim again! This swimming spot was SO cool, it was basically a swamp except the water was so clear. Some of the other girls said that they saw turtles, but the only 'animals' that I saw were giant spiders crawling around their webs up above us. Every time my foot hit a log or a bit of grass my heart stopped, thinking that I had found a snake or something else that could kill me though. The current in the water was so intense, I had to keep taking breaks because I had to swim so hard and we were even swimming with the current! I don't even want to know what it would feel like to swim against it. The only bad thing about the place was the spiders. At the end of the area that we could swim in, there was this GIGANTIC spider web with four or five equally massive spiders crawling around in it. Having to swim under them was actually my worst nightmare, I hated that so much. The first time I saw them, I was half tempted to just swim back the way I came. I ended up just sucking it up and swimming as fast as I possibly could to get past it and through to the stairs.

When we were done there, we headed back to the campsite and got ready for dinner. While everyone was getting ready, Devyn and I found a whole load of wallabies just hanging out by our tents! There were like thirty of them just chilling on the grass! We also stumbled upon a Mystery Machine (yes, the one from Scooby Doo) which made my life and a cute little puppy that belonged to the owners of the manor. For dinner that night, we ate at the little restaurant at the manor which was really cute. There were fairy lights everywhere and they had this whole little porch vibe and I really liked it. The food was seriously expensive though which sucked. Luckily, Devyn and I just split a pizza so it wasn't too bad. After dinner Devyn, a bunch of the other girls, and I all played Skip Bo which was seriously so fun. We played quite a few rounds and then all went back to our tents. Devyn couldn't sleep though so I went with her over to the kitchen to just hang out and charge our phones a bit. There were so many stars out, I had never seen so many before! I just couldn't get over how beautiful the night sky was!

The next day was my birthday!! For the sake of time, I don't want to go into too much detail about my birthday so I'm going to be leaving the birthday related things out of this post. After we ate breakfast and packed everybody's things up one last time, we headed out to Cutta Cutta Caves, which means place of many stars. It got this name basically because a lot of the formations look like they've been coated in glitter. When we got there and had walked up to the entrance of the cave with our guide, the first thing he told us was that we had to walk really slowly because if we went too fast and the frogs start jumping around, it could cause poisonous snakes and other things to start biting which was definitely what i wanted to hear. There were all kinds of snakes, spiders, and of course bats just scootin' around in there and the guide told us not to touch the rails without checking for them and/or bat droppings first. Thankfully there were only snake skins and not any crawling around, but we did see a lot of bats and spiders. The spiders that we saw throughout this trip honestly looked like the one that bit Spiderman, only about ten times bigger and with stripes on their legs. They were creepy as heck! Anyways, the caves were so awesome! There were so many unique formations and we learned a lot about the people that discovered it and the history of the cave, as well as why the rocks are shaped the way they are. There isn't actually any air circulation down in the cave because there is only one opening, so the farther you go down, the hotter, smellier, and more humid it gets. However, the further you go down, the more beautiful the formations get as well. At the very end of the cave, we got to see two or three ghost bats flying around which was really awesome. According to our guide, ghost bats are really rare and he doesn't often see them on tours. We saw a bunch of other bats as well, but they were just regular fruit bats. Outside of the caves were a TON, and I mean a TON of termites and termite mounds which really weirded me out despite the fact that they won't bite you.

After leaving the cave, we headed back to Edith Falls to get a bit more swimming in before we went home. This time, instead of going back up to the waterfall we had gone to on the first day, we went to a lower one that was only a short stroll from the car park. I know I've mentioned this about a thousand times already, but I was seriously worried I was about to get eaten by a croc this time. In order to get out to the waterfall, you have to swim across this huge span of water with an INTENSE current and the water is not clear at all and there are fish everywhere. It also didn't help that there were only about four other people in the water so it wasn't like I could just say, 'if someone was going to get eaten it would've happened already' this time. The whole way out to the waterfall I was panicking and I kept envisioning me getting eaten by a croc Soul Surfer style. You know that seen just before the shark bites her where they show underneath the board like the shark is looking at her? Yeah, that's exactly what was going through my head over and over, just with a croc. I was fully prepared to be drug under the water by some sharp teeth in that moment. Anywaaaayyyys... this waterfall, while not as big or as pretty as the other one, was gorgeous! I really enjoyed my time there and I was especially happy to not have been eaten.

After that, we just headed home! That's pretty much it for the camping trip, again the drive was pretty boring and I just ended up reading some Harry Potter the whole way back. All in all, this trip was such an amazing experience and I am so glad that I was able to share it with such an awesome group of people. I can now officially say that I've seen crocs and wallabies in the wild which I couldn't before this trip. I really hope you enjoyed this post even though it's so long!