Here are some of my favorite scenic shots I've taken with my "good" camera.

~Philip

Kinchega 

Sunset at Kinchega

Sunset at Kinchega

Sunset at Kinchega

Sunset at Kinchega

Sunset over the woolshed at Kinchega

Sunrise at Kinchega

The historic woolshed at Kinchega

The road into Kinchega

A big eucalyptus tree at Chowilla

The Murray River in flood

Water tower and eucalyptus tree
at Chowilla

Chowilla sheep station in flood

More Chowilla

The dunes near Port Elliot

Sunset in Port Elliot

Emu track in the mud

Chowilla and Port Elliot

After a great last day in the quaint mining town of Broken Hill, our group boarded the bus once again to make our way to the Chowilla sheep station near the town of Renmark. Chowilla station has been in the Robertson family since 1864, before there were any other European settlements in the area. Our hosts at the station, Jock and Lis Robertson, now manage Chowilla both as a working sheep station and as a tourist destination. The station is massive, covering 94,000 hectares (232,200 acres), and is bordered on one side by the Murray River which, much like the Darling, is in flood stage for the first time in over ten years.

After our trusty (and sometimes a bit grumpy) bus driver, Tex, navigated the coach down the unpaved and still partially flooded roads of the station, we were met by Jock, who guided us over the last stretch of road to our accommodations: the sheep shearers’ quarters that now serve as a guest house in between shearing seasons. The accommodations were sparse, consisting of bunk beds, communal showers with wood-heated water, and two toilets for the group to share. We stepped off of the bus to find Jock at the grill and Lis busy in the kitchen preparing that night's dinner. Lis had prepared a feast of homemade salads and potatoes accompanied by Jock's grilled lamb, beef and chicken, followed by a lemon pudding/cake with homemade preserves for dessert. I think we all agree that the food was one of the highlights of our stay at Chowilla.

The next day Jock took us out for a bus tour of the property with stops at various points of interest. It was hard to grasp the vastness of the station until we drove around all day and never left the property. One thing we all noticed was that even though we were on a station that was home to thousands of sheep, we only saw 2 or 3, and they were off in the distance. (We also saw a flock of emus running alongside the road, a sight we never get tired of!) The reason for the lack of sheep sightings is that because the land and vegetation are so fragile, each sheep needs a large area to survive without destroying the resources, which is why grazing has been such a controversial part of Australia's history. Today the station is part of the Bookmark Regional Reserve, whose aim is to combine production with conservation through responsible and sustainable grazing.

After another great meal and a good night's sleep we were off to Port Elliot on the coast of South Australia near Adelaide. After a week in the outback sleeping in shearers' quarters, using outdoor communal toilets, and living with ants, spiders and mozzies, Port Elliot was like paradise. Nat had booked us at a YHA Hostel, but it was like no hostel we'd seen. The structure was a recently renovated, historic hotel perched above the ocean with amazing views and clean, modern facilities. As soon as we arrived most of us quickly changed into our togs (swim trunks) and headed down to the beach for a swim and a game of frisbee in the surf. It was exactly what we all needed and everyone's mood was immediately lifted.

The educational reason for our stop in Port Elliot was a boat tour of the Coorong, where the Murray river flows into the Southern Ocean. Along the way we saw scores of pelicans and other native bird species, and even a lone seal that was hanging around a fishing net looking for an easy meal. We had a terrific tour guide for the day: Matt, who gave us some history of the area and with the help of some visual aids, showed us how the area changes during times of drought and flood (a common theme during our time in Australia), and just how much work goes into managing the waterways. After a lunch that started with freshly caught cockels cooked on the beach (I ate two . . . a first for me!), Matt took us on a walk across the sand dunes to a very special Aboriginal site that few people have access to because of its sacredness to the local indigenous people. It was a beautiful site with several middens, occupation sites where Aboriginal people left the remains of their meals. At some sites substantial deposits grew over generations of use of the same area, and some middens are a few metres deep. One of the middens here was especially sacred because it contained human remains, which were visible to us, but are often covered with sand depending on the conditions of the dunes. The area is closely monitored by the local Aboriginal people who work closely with the company that set up our tour. I think we all felt honored to be able to visit this site after all we've learned about Aboriginal culture in the last few weeks.

The following morning it was off to Adelaide for a flight to Brisbane, where we are now. The students have all settled in with the homestay families that they'll be living with for the next three weeks, and Andy and I have moved into our private apartment in the New Farm suburb of Brisbane. This is the first time since arriving in Australia that we are not living with the students 24/7. I think we both agree it's nice to have some privacy, but I did feel a little emotional seeing them all depart with their families, as we've grown pretty attached to them.

That's all for now; more on Brisbane and our trip this weekend to North Stradbroke Island in a future post!

~Philip

Our sheep shearers' quarters at Chowilla 

The bus got stuck several times . . . that's what students are for!

An Aboriginal site at Chowilla

Finding some shade for lunch

Some of the students at the beach
in Port Elliot

Relaxing after a week in the desert

Port Elliot

Our kids on the Coorong boat tour

Cockel feast!

I can't believe I ate two of these . . . and they
were delicious!

Pelicans

Melanie, Delaney, Dick, Marnie, 
and Philip crossing the dunes

A little fuzzy, but a great shot none the less!

Andy on the dunes

Going down the dunes is so much more fun than
going up!

Our hotel in Port Elliot

Finding a quiet moment

Another beautiful Australian sunset

Kangaroos, emus, flies, and mozzies (mosquitoes)

After our first night at the Palace Hotel, we headed out to a park called “The Living Desert” to learn about desert flora, fauna, and Aboriginal engravings from a park ranger who happened to be the cousin of Uncle John, one of our uncles from Aboriginal camp. Uncle John was there too, to the delight of the whole group. After lunch we stopped in Silverton, an old mining town where the first three Mad Max movies were filmed. Mad Max 4 is apparently in the works, but we learned that filming in Silverton had to be postponed this summer because recent rains had made the desert too green. After we said goodbye to overly vegetated Silverton, we headed to an art gallery devoted to the popular, prolific, and stylistically eclectic Australian artist Pro Hart. Here’s a link for an amusing commercial he did back in the late 80s: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qb4n8yc2so. We then visited the Royal Flying Doctors Service, established in the 1920s to serve people living in the outback. Today the service (the only one of its kind in the world) has 53 planes ready to fly doctors and nurses thousands of kilometers at a moment’s notice. It takes a maximum of only 15 minutes to get a plane up in the air after someone calls in with an emergency—not bad.

The next morning we checked out of the Palace to spend the day learning about the management of the Darling River and the adjoining Menindee Lakes, now flooded with water due to heavy rains but in many years nearly or completely empty. It doesn’t help that cotton farmers have been diverting more and more water upstream, making the dry years even drier. But again, we’re here in a wet year, meaning lots of green—and plenty of flies and mozzies! After traveling around the lakes, and at one point having to drive along a flooded road, we arrived at Kinchega National Park, which was an enormous sheep station for much of the 20th century. We bunked in the old sheep shearers’ quarters, and on our walks found rusty shears and other equipment lying about. Best of all, the place was rife with emus and kangaroos. Another of our uncles from Aboriginal camp who’d decided to rejoin us, Uncle Rob, showed us how to track them. Seeing tame kangaroos in a petting zoo is one thing, seeing wild ones bounding through the outback quite another.

During our two days at the park, the students broke into four groups to conduct research on local plants and insects under the supervision of Derek, our visiting field biologist. Philip and I moved around from group to group to see what they were doing, which ranged from observing the highly antagonistic relations between male and female Orb Weaver spiders (the females attack males who try to steal their food and end up eating them after mating—yikes!) to measuring the girth of certain tree species at different points in the flood plain. On our second day at Kinchega, the students presented their findings in formal presentations, after which we took the bus back to Broken Hill and spent one more night at the Palace Hotel.

The following morning we paid a fascinating visit to the “School of the Air,” which was begun in the 1950s to educate children living in the outback. The school originally took advantage of the radios used by communities to contact the Flying Doctors Service, but now uses computers hooked up to a satellite relay. We were able to watch two kindergarten teachers lead about ten logged-in children through a lesson focused on the letter a. Very, very cute. The school also occasionally flies teachers to remote locations for home visits and brings children together twice a year so they can experience what it’s like to learn in a classroom. All of this is provided by the state free of charge. We left impressed.

Next we learned about the mining history of Broken Hill from Barney, a local geologist, who led us through a defunct silver mine. After donning helmets with headlights, we explored the old tunnels and learned how the mine was created and operated. The main lesson? It sucked to be a miner. If an accidental explosion didn’t kill you in an instant, the mica-filled dust would eventually destroy your lungs.

On that note, I’ll pass things off to Philip, who’ll talk about the sheep station (this one operational!) that we visited in Renmark, a 5-hour drive from Broken Hill.

~Andy

Another interior shot of the Palace Hotel

Ranger explains contemporary Aboriginal sculpture
at the Living Desert

In Silverton with the Mad Max cars

View of Broken Hill from the Living Desert

Café on rim of mine at Broken Hill

Geared up and ready to descend into
the Daydream Mine

Some of our students on the way to Kinchega
National Park

Flooded road on the way to Kinchega

Students observe the fascinating world of ants--for three hours!

Can you spot the roo?

Our sheep shearers' quarters at Kinchega

Andy's office at Kinchega

Sunset over Emu Lake at Kinchega