he just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich

hello my beautiful people! a lot has happened since my last post. i wasn't in the best wifi zone ever because hmm... i was in the middle of the desert! haha basically the rest of my trip included a side road to uluru kata tjuta national park, back on the stuart highway to adelaide, and then the great ocean road all the way to melbourne. i had the most amazing time, met awesome people and learned a whole lot about the aboriginal cultures of the area. i spent a few days solo in melbourne, getting reacquainted with city life (aka shopping and eating a lot lol) and before i knew it, it was time to get on a plane and begin the long long journey back to canada. i flew to manila, then san fran and finally landed in toronto. i spent the weekend there with my sista jenn, her bf and their cat babies and got to see lots of friends from college. it was an all around great weekend and good adjustment back to canada :) sunday night i took the train to ottawa and headed home! it is definitely strange to be back, but it's only been a few days so i'm still loving it. my bed has never been more comfortable lol 

this past year has been such a wonderful, life changing experience for me. i feel pretty stoked that i had this dream of travelling and worked my tail off to make it happen. i couldn't have done it without the serious support of my family, friends and my travel guru bryanna ;) everyone has been so awesome, always encouraging me to try new things and make the most of every experience. from commenting on my photos, sending me christmas parcels in the mail, and good vibes through the universe. also, knowing that people are actually reading this dang thing instead of me just writing for kicks is really cool. i'm not going to go into all of the details of how i'm this totally new and improved version of myself. you will see that soon enough when we hang out, my smile tells it all.

as for right now, i'm back living at home in good old carp, enjoying some time with my fam and slowly but surely starting the job hunt once again. hoping to continue on with some travels in the new year, thinking about new zealand :) that is still a long ways away so we will see what happens! in the meantime, i'm going to be taking a break from the blog because, let's be honest, my real life is not even half as exciting as my aussie life :P 

thank you again to everyone who supported me on this journey, and to everyone who i met on my travels it has been so great to meet you all. my trip wouldn't have been what it was without all of you! loads of love to all family and friends old and new!

see ya later mate ;) signing off until the next adventure

soph xx 

Uluru - Kata Tjuta National Park

Twelve Apostles - Great Ocean Road

                            

                                          

                                         

that time i licked a green ant's bum

i've started my journey down to melbs! this trip is made up of a few smaller trips combined, so it won't be the same group the whole time like my trip in jan was. monday morning i headed out around 645 and was the second on the bus. we are travelling on a 4 wheel drive bus thingie that is similar to what we used on our fraser island tour, and believe me, we definitely needed that 4WD :) 

our group is 10 people, a driver and a guide, sean and john haha there is  a really nice couple from the isle of wight named rosie and julien who have become like our british parents over the last few days lol there is a girl clair who is also from the uk and travelling solo, a girl teja from slovenia, a girl named tomo from japan, and a family from singapore with a mom,dad and two daughters. pretty cool family vacay if you ask me! 

we headed out to litchfield which is fairly close to darwin.we first went to the buley rockpools which are little pools going down a slope with water running from one to another. seriously so beautiful! one was so deep you could jump in no problem and even dive down and have to swim so far to reach the bottom. the water was so refreshing and clear.

then we went to see some termite mounds. there are two different types, cathedral termites, who's nests look like spires on a cathedral. the one we saw was over 5m tall! it takes about 10 years to build 1m, so we can guess that particular termite mound is 50+ years old! the other type is called magnetic termite mound. they are built facing north, always within 10 degrees. they are wide but very thin, which is so they are ableto use the sun in the morning to warm up the home, and then move to the other side when it is too hot. our guide sean is so knowledgeable about NT and everything, he gave us so much info on the drive. NT has a population of only 250,000 people! its so crazy. i decided to ask him about the weird ants i saw in darwin . they had green bums, for lack of a better word haha. he's like oh ya green ants, you can touch the end to your tongue and it takes like lemon! at first i thought he was just pulling my leg, but he was serious. so we found a nest and he did it first but then i grabbed an ant by the body and touched its backside to my tongue. it was very bitter and like sour sort of, definitely comparable to a lemon. he said that aboriginal people would boil those ants including their nests in water and drink the tea when they had a cold... bush tucker cold medicine! bush tucker is an aboriginal word meaning food from nature. it is so fascinating to see how the aboriginal people use the land for everything they need. 


after the termite mounds we headed to florence falls. after climbing down 135 stairs, we went swimming in this most beautiful waterfall! the water was so refreshing and we went under the waterfall and i was just in heaven! it was so great. then we headed back up the stairs and had lunch.

we headed into kakadu national park and went to an aboriginal cultural centre where we got an aboriginal welcome to the land, and learned about some of their traditions, basket weaving, painting, spearthrowing and heard lots of stories about daily life and some dream time legends. after that, we headed to coroboree billabong for a sunset wildlife cruise. this was soooo amazing! we saw a bunch of freshwater crocodiles which are smaller and have pointy noses, and we saw a massive saltwater croc! it was sitting on the bank and when we got close it got up and jumped quickly into the water. that was the first time ive seen a croc in the wild and it was absolutely amazing. we also boated through an area called lily alley, which was full of beautiful lotus plants with gorgeous pink blooms.there were so many cool birds and the sunset was spectacular. our guide really knew her stuff so she gave us lots of info about crocodiles and was really good at spotting them! she also said a really thoughtful quote that billabongs (watering holes) are the essence of australia, beauty and terror all in one place. its so true and i think that really captures the spirit of australia because there are seriously some of the most breathtaking sights ive ever seen in my life, but you always know that there could be something dangerous and deadly right around the corner, whether that be a snake, shark or croc. thats why it is such a fascinating place to me :) after that, we went to our camp for the night and had dinner and went to bed, i was pooped!

early morning the next day,we headed to the south area of the park to another waterfall called maguk. it was magical, just as you'd expect swimming in a pool at the bottom of a waterfall to be. i was so blissed out. we spent some time there and then headed to our next camp and had lunch. somehow on this tour, i got put into a room upgrade. i really dont remember paying for it, but it basically means that ive been glamping for the last few days haha i get a real bed and sheets and everything! last night i had a double bed muahahahaaaa i slept like a starfish :P i dont know how that happened, but ill take it ;) then we headed north to ubirr to see some aboriginal rock art. this was one part of the trip i was really stoked about! we learned alot about the stories behind the rock art, and the different styles etc. it is just so amazing to be looking at something that could be 20,000 years old. i remember watching a program on tv a few years ago about rock art and being like man i hope i get to see that one day.. and yesterday i saw it! i was especially excited to see the one where they put their hand on the wall and then spit the paint around to make an imprint of their hand. i saw many big ones and on one ledge at the bottom it looked like a lot of small handprints, just like how kids today do handprints in paint. it was so cool! we headed to the top of the escarpment to watch the sunset as welooked out at kakadu, and to the left is arnhem land. arnhem land is an area 5x bigger than kakadu's 20,000 square km. it is protected land owned by the aboriginal people and you need apermit to be able to go on the land. there are tribes living there following the old traditions and living off the land. it is really amazing to see the cooperation between the traditional aboriginal landowners of kakadu national park and the australian people. after the aborigiinal people got that land back, they could have just kept it for themselves but instead opened it up to the world to come and learn about their culture and traditions. since they had no written language or books, many of their stories and traditions are only passed on through the iconic rock art and through the elders and word of mouth. sitting up there on top of the world watching this amazing sunset, i felt so connected to the land and so much respect for the people who have been living on it for thousands of years. it was such a zen peaceful place and i am so lucky to have been able to see it. 

i slept like a little baby child that night in my blankets :) got up for brekkie at 6 and by 7 we were packed up and ready to head to jim jim falls. these falls are the piece de resistance of kakadu. the journey to get there is not for the feint of heart and sean did an amazing job at getting us there in one piece! first there is about 30km of dirt road. no biggie. then you go down a rocky, sandy, water crossing four wheel drivin' 8 km of road. to say it was bumpy would be an understatement! it was quite the ride. when you get to the carpark you can already tell its going to be epic. on one side is this beautiful rockwall thats so high and has tons of different layers and colours of rock. the trail starts off  with some small ish rocks you have to climb over. and then they get bigger. and bigger! there are trail markers but its basically a climbing free for all. i felt like a mountain goat in vibrams, and i was so glad to have them! i was a bit slow at climbing and everyone went ahead but john stayed behind so i wouldnt break my leg and die lol. we ended up going waaaay off the normal trail by mistake and literally had to climb these fricken massive boulders! my legs were a bit shaky haha and we ended up on the other side of the waterfall pool than everyone else lol so we had to find our way over which we eventually did. i was SO ready for a swim by then. luckily i had my bathers on already so i jumped into the water. definitely the coldest one so far but it was absolutely amazing. the waterfall was so tall, probably about 300 feet and the pool at the bottom was so big and deep. the rock wall curved around, so that when you yell it echoed off the walls. we swam all the way across to the waterfall and climbed up to stand under it. man oh man it was freezing! the water hit your back so hard because it fell from so high! once you jumped back into the water it felt so warm :) we swam our way back and climbed back to the trail. the way back was so much easier than our detour haha i felt like a real climber on the way back :P now we are on the way to a spot for lunch and then back to darwin for one night. tomorrow, im assuming bright and early, some of us who are continuing on to alice springs will be starting out on that tour :) so far everything has been so amazing and the sights have been stunning! 

loving liffffeeeee :D

update: in alice springs, freezing my ass off! free day tomorrow, then headed to uluru!! xx