Rose, Bud, Thorn

After a scrumptious breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast, various fruits, and cereal, we packed up and “escaped’ prison (we will miss our lovely new home!). As a treat, we stopped at a few thrift stores on the way to the WA Maritime Museum to see what we could discover and hopefully find a green t-shirt or two for St. Patty’s day. The museum was a two-story wonder of various ships, submarines, and facts pertaining to the sea. We had to book it to the airport so that we could catch our plane to Newman which would be just a short hour and a half flight north. As I was sitting in my very comfortable window seat in the Qantas plane, I was looking out of my window in awe. I have never seen so much land that did not have a single road or highway cutting through them. Seeing the different shades of the red, desert dirt from thousands of feet in the air was absolutely breath taking. When we stepped off the plane in Newman, everyone was a little shocked with the intensity of the heat. We were told that it would be hot here but we didn’t think that it would be that hot! Before heading to the Oasis campground, we took a little detour to stand on the Tropic of Capricorn! How cool is that!? The Tropic of Cancer is located 20° north of the equator, running just below the Big Island and the Tropic of Capricorn, located 20°south of the equator, runs right through this area of land. We got to our campsite and set up all of our tents and got settled in. We enjoyed a buffet-style dinner, provided by the owners of the resort and left the dining hall full and happy and ready for another action-packed day under the Australian sun!

A game/activity that I used to play on previous camping trips, called “rose, bud, thorn”, was always a great was to sum up the day we had just experienced. The rose is the best part of your day, the bud is the thing you are looking forward to tomorrow, and the thorn is the worst part of your day. Our rose was by far the fantastic buffet-style dinner that was provided for us by Daryl and Meryl, the owners of the Oasis Resort in Newman. Everyone loved the wide selections of fruits, veggies, and meat and of course the ice cream bar! Our bud is definitely doing our service work on the Martu farm and getting to spend time with the kids from the youth center in the afternoon. Our thorn was when the group came to the realization that these next three days working in 104° has the potential to be very difficult and exhausting.

Not gonna lie, I came into this trip very skeptical about the people on the trip and the places that we would be staying but so far it is turning out to be the most amazing thing that I have done in a very long time! More to come!

Our photos are not uploading currently but they will be added very soon!