Adventures in Alice Springs, Australia

IMG_0009After arriving safe and sound in Alice Springs, Australia, and having a few days to adjust to the time change, I started my student exchange at St. Philip’s College.

My trip to Mittagundi began at the airport in Alice Springs where I was overwhelmed to be met by many new faces (and accents), eager to learn everything about me. When we got to camp, we were split into groups. At the beginning, we were a group of 21 kids, all strangers to me, but at the end of the ten days, we turned into a family of 21 and had established a bond that can never be broken. The really adventurous part of the trip began with our three-day ski trip up in the snow, staying there for two nights. Most of the students had never seen snow and were hypnotized by the white powered substance beneath their feet. They quickly learned the down side of winter weather as the night came and the thermometer dropped to normal Montreal temperatures. We rounded out the trip with three days on the farm cooking, cleaning, woodworking, and blacksmithing.

My first exchange outing with St. Phillip’s College was to a kangaroo sanctuary where we were able to hold a joey (baby kangaroo) and walk alongside Australia’s wildlife. Not only did we see many kangaroos, but we also saw many different types of birds, such as really noisy kookaburras and parrots.

St. Philip’s has taken us on many other outings. We went to a reptile centre the other day. There are lots of reptiles in the desert. We were also taken to a Didgeridoo show.  A didgeridoo is a wind instrument developed by the Indigenous Australians in Northern Australia. We even got to play one. To end the day, we went on a camel ride.

I have been on some amazing trips and I can’t wait to see what the future holds for me here at St. Philip’s.

– Drew Hardiman ’17

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