Adventures of a 19 year old

I spent 5 eventful weeks with Genine and Robert on their beautiful, 76,000 acre cattle station "Bodalla", 1,5 hours from a small town called Charters towers. My main job was to help out Genine taking care of her 10+ horses, she taught me heaps about horsemanship, and I got to be part of the 10 day ladies' clinic (a horse training camp) she held.  Apart from riding almost everyday, feeding horses, and cleaning out paddocks, I occasionally went out with Robert and Josh, a full-time worker at Bodalla, to the yards, where the cattle is drafted, branded, castrated, dehorned etc. Having big 500+kg cows and bulls running around you was quite  intimidating at first  , but I quickly learned to love it. As dusty as it may be, it's great fun!  I tried mustering, shooting, riding (and crashing) motorbikes and four-wheelers, feeding cattle, and I saw what it's like to live on a remote outback station, like so many Australians do. They definitely managed to toughen me up q...

I flew from Darwin to Cairns, where I spent 6 days. It's a super chilled out coastal city. The lagoon, no swimming in the ocean since there's stingers, crocodiles, sharks, and all other dangerous animals you can think of :) Day trip to the great barrier reef: Day trip to the stunning Daintree rainforest: The biggest of all the crocodiles in the area, Scarface, 4,8m long. His territory in the river stretches over 6km and is inhabited by his 15 female crocs

I arrived in Darwin after the express tour without having booked a hostel and joined some of the girls that were on my tour - gotta try out the "real", and spontaneous backpacker life :)  The main thing to do in Darwin, the biggest city of the Northern Territory, is the two national parks surrounding it - Kakadu and Litchfield. So after spending two days in Darwin going out in the evening and relaxing during the day, I went on another 3 day camping trip to the above mentioned parks. The lagoon in Darwin (there's sharks and saltwater crocodiles in the oceean) Trying a crocodile spring roll at the night market  Boat cruise on the Mary river: During the one hour boat ride, we saw 10 crocodiles and lots and lots of birds and plant life. The leaves of the so called "sacred lotus", originating from India, are completely waterproof. By studying the lotus effect scientiest have for example been able to develop bullet proof vests. ...