and we're back....

Hey Friends!
So we're back from Australia and currently in New Zealand...leaving for Fiji in the morning! So crazy! Today has been a little bit chaotic...but I will start where I left off and then get to the current.

First of all here are the pictures that were supposed to be loaded last time, but didn't get on...and I'm going to try and upload new ones, but I don't have time ormoney to waste $20 this time so we'll see how far I get.



So where I left off last time. I officially LOVE Cairns Australia, it is such a fun town and we had a lot of fun there. We left for Darwin (the outback) on Tuesday (May 26th) morning. We flew out of Cairns and into Darwin, which is in the Northern Territory. That day we basically just sat around at the airport waiting for them to pick up the rental jeeps and then drove to the Hidden Valley campsite and pitched our tents for the night.

~May 27 We got up early and went grocery shopping with our cooking groups. Each of us were split up into groups of 5 for cooking because each jeep had one tent on top that slept 2 and then another tent for the ground that slept 3 and then a couple drawers with a fridge and cookery. We stuck in the same groups as far as cooking, but switched up who we slept with. I ended up being a driver for one of the jeeps and don't worry I dominated. I was not only driving on the left side of the road, but also shifting on the left side :) I'm pretty much amazing! hahahaha Anyway the first day into the outback was pretty long, we drove up to Kakadu National Park and stopped at a lookout along the way. Our first campsite was called Shady Camp or something like that and boy was it shady. In the middle of nowhere and we drove through the fires to get there....there was one other camper in site, but we never saw anybody come in our out of it. hahaha we just pulled our jeeps in and set up our tents. It was a little ways from a creek with "heaps" of crocodiles for us to see. There were TONS of wallaby's running or should I say hopping around and of course the mosquitos. This was the first time we all realized how much we were going to get eaten!! AHHH it was the worst!the lookout- Rachel, Emily, me, Melissa, Emy, Chelsea and Hayden in front
At our first camp site by the billabong with the crocs

~May 28th By the way the outback is VERY hot!!! Even at night it didn't really cool down. We drove a little further into Kakadu and looked at some aboriginal art that was really cool. It kind of reminded me of Southern Utah and looking at the hyroglyphics. After the rock art we went to a Visitor's Center and watched a movie about the wetlands and why they burn them every year. Mostly the best part about the Visitor's Center was that the room where the movie played was air conditioned :) and they had COLD water that came out of the drinking fountain. The campsite for the 2nd night was INCREDIBLE it even had flushing toilets and little showers! Mostly the pool was definitely a plus. A bunch of us cooked dinner super fast and then swam for a couple hours....also the bugs weren't quite as bad.

~May 29th We did a hike to these little pools, kind of like the Indian pools at Red Cliffs. It was really fun and refreshing to get to the top and have water since it's so hot. You'll notice in the pictures that the hairstyle of choice is the palm tree cause it keeps my hair off my neck and face :) We went to another rock art place and then drove to our campsite. Wow if we thought the first one was bad....hahaha this one had been recently burned so the ground was mostly black and it was SUPER close to the billabong. Anyway we camped and it wasn't too bad...none of us got eaten by crocs at least :)

~May 30th We woke up and did a little safari cruise thing it was amazing. Kind of like a glorified Disney Jungle Cruise haha with real animals. We saw tons of birds, crocs, and native animals to Australia. It was really cool. We then drove to Katherine, which was a couple hours away and went to a Visitor's Center (mostly for the air conditioning) The campsite we stayed at also had showers and a pool!! :) Best day ever! We were all SO DIRTY at this point it was disgusting. One of the girls was like "hey let's compare flip flop tan lines.....oh wait never mind that's just the dirt!" haha it was seriously gross.This is my dirt line...it looked way worse in real life.

Safari cruise...isn't that beautiful!!

One of the 6 crocs we saw!

~May 31st We woke up and did a hike at Edith Falls. Wow! It was incredible!! It was more of just a walk then a hike and when we got to the top it was an amazing waterfall and huge pools to swim in. So fun! After the hike we drove up to Litchfield National Park to our campsite and started to set up and then had church. Kylie and I sang "I Stand All Amazed" it was a capella since we don't have a piano, but everybody said it sounded incredible so that's always a plus :) Oh one fun thing when we were looking for a place to camp we got to do some off-roading!! Oh yeah! It was pretty much amazing! Edith Falls Hike

One of the only boys on the trip haha This is Brad

~June 1st We walked to to some falls that were right by our campsite, they were awesome. There were even some waterfall slide things which were amazing. After that hike we drove to another one, that had a huge waterfall we could swim behind. AHH it was amazing. After the hikes we drove to the termite mounds and then drove back to Darwin. We had to drop 4 of the Jeeps off in the afternoon, but our flight didn't leave until today so basically we hung out at the park the rest of the afternoon and ate dinner and then went to the airport around 9:00 and definitely slept there. hahahah we're pretty much homeless :) we were actually excited to sleep in a place with no bugs and air conditioning! you know you're in the outback when.....

The Termite mounds (Brad, Alex, Natalie, me)

A little ANTM with my Jeep...don't worry that I look like a dork mostly I just wanted you to see what our jeeps looked like.

Al and I became the professional french braiders of the trip! hahah Al doing Kristyn's hair in the airport at like midnight last night.

~June 2nd Today! Wow it has been a weird day! We had to check into our flight from Darwin to Cairns at 3:30 AM and our flight left at 5:30. Then we hung out at the Cairns airport until our flight left from Cairns to Auckland New Zealand around 2:30. When we got to Auckland it was 6:30 because of the time change. We checked into our hostel in the middle of the city and then just had a couple hours to hang out, get dinner, and pack for FIJI!!! We leave for Fiji in the morning and won't really have interent or phone access for 2 weeks, but it should be amazing! Love you all! I hope you enjoy this update! :)