Scotch College

Year 10 Outback Trip

From June 30 to July 13, a group of eighteen students and two teachers went on the Scotch Outback Trip 2001. Being woken at 4.30 in the morning is not normally the nicest thing, but knowing that within ten hours you are going to be at the opposite end of the country makes for a different perspective. Arriving in Darwin around lunchtime, we toured around the country's smallest capital city and ended up back at the resort swimming pool.

Up early at 6.00 am we met our two guides, Evan and Tom from Wilderness Challenge.

We clambered aboard the OKAs, our comfy vehicles for the next two weeks. After less than two hours driving along the Stuart Highway we were already in the outback. We travelled six hundred kilometres on our first day to our campsite, Timber Creek.

The next few days were spent travelling on bitumen roads soaking up the atmosphere and racking up the kilometres! We saw sights like Gregory's Tree, a huge Boab tree where Augustus Charles Gregory carved the date July 2, 1856 - we saw the tree on July 2, 2001. An amazing one hundred and forty-five years later! We also saw the large towns of Katherine and Kununurra as well as the raging rapids of the Ord River at Ivanhoe Crossing, a famous stock crossing.

We eventually reached Mabel Downs Station. We spent the next two days exploring some amazing landforms such as Echidna Chasm, a huge chasm that runs a few hundred metres into the Bungle Bungles. Also, we stood at the foot of two huge dried up waterfalls,

Frog Hole and Cathedral Gorge, both of which drop approximately one hundred metres. The highlight of the trip was the helicopter flight over the Bungle Bungles, which were truly breathtaking.

Next, the famous Gibb River Road threw every thing it had at us, from bogging both OKAs to deep-water crossings and sections of road that were a foot deep in mud. Let's just say our trailers spent a lot of time travelling on one wheel! We saw the Pentecost River, Jack's Waterhole, the Cockburn Range, Little and Big Murten Falls, as well as the beautiful Mitchell Falls.

We swam with crocodiles at Winjana Gorge and saw Jason Stewart-Hesketh fall over face-first into cold water at Tunnel Creek, an underground creek system that winds its way under the Napier Range. The next day we headed for Broome.

We stopped off in Derby for lunch, and, back in civilisation, we decided to raid the lolly department at Coles Supermarket. More money was spent in that supermarket than the rest of the trip combined! We went down to the Derby pier and saw the markings that the tide had made. The difference between high tide and low tide is between eleven to fifteen metres, the largest in the Southern Hemisphere. We got into Broome at about 4.00 pm and had a well-deserved swim at the resort. We enjoyed a nice dinner and said our goodbyes to Tom and Evan. After dinner we went and saw the film 'Pearl Harbor' at the Sun Theatre, an outdoor cinema. It was great sitting in deck chairs.

The next morning we were up at 7.30 and enjoyed a day at Malcolm Douglas Crocodile Park and Cable Beach getting as many UV rays on our browned bodies as possible. This was our last full day before we went back to jeans, jumpers and central heating! We looked around China Town then had a last swim at the resort before going to bed. We were up early and made our way to the airport. We stayed three hours in the Perth airport before finally arriving at Melbourne airport at about 7.30 pm.

It was a truly remarkable trip in our country. I would also like to thank Dr Collins for his input to the trip, and Mr Watson, who organises the trip every year, and once again he has done an amazing job.

Tom Harkness, Year 10