THE OUTBACK IN MY EYES

My name is Olivia, my family and I are travelling Australia. Living in the outback is a new experience. We came to Coober Pedy because they offered work for my Dad. The first few days I was thinking I can’t wait for these two weeks to be over” but after a while, we met some of the people here. The people in small towns are so much more welcoming then in big towns. In a few weeks we were helping out in the church we were going to and joined in with the worship on Sundays.

Another reason why i started loving the outback was the breakaways. When we went to the breakaways I thought that they would be boring, but I found out they are absolutely beautiful. The breakaways in the sunset are amazing. The sun lights the hills with amazing colours. But the sunsets in town still look amazing. The hills are so strange with their steep hills and flat tops. One of the things that are cool about them is that they literally come up out of no were. Everywhere around them is flat as a pancake, then the breakaways pop out from nothing. When you stand on top of one hill you can see the tracks that the water flows down when it rains.

While we were at the breakaways we saw the dog fence, the fence that stops dingos from coming to the cattle part of Australia. It’s amazing how ling that fence is. Its lasted a long time, although I’m sure some repairs have been made to it. Now raining here in Coober Pedy is a rare thing. It is a very dry place here, so rain is a special thing. On our first day of school here it was raining and school teachers were running out with iPads, taking photos, i first thought it was weird but now that I’ve been here four months i understand.

Coober Pedy also gave me and my six siblings a chance to go to school for the first time. Dad said that we were going to stay for longer than two weeks, so if we wanted we could go to school. Now this was a surprise to us all, because we had been home schooled all our lives, everyone thinks it is weird that we are homeschooled, but the reason we are homeschooled is because my elder sister went to school for one year, and during that time, she was coming home wanting Roxy clothing. Mum didn’t like how a five year old was coming home wanting special branded clothing, so she pulled her out and homeschooled the rest of us. I loved seeing how the school is so different to schooling at home. Although i like school i much prefer homeschooling because after you’ve finished your work you still have oodles of time to do stuff, while at school when you get home there is not much time at all. Coober Pedy gave us a chance to do something we had never done before, because the school was so relaxed and much cheaper than most. Us three oldest enjoyed it so much we went back for a second term. The main reason i went back was so i could still see all the friends that i had made.

The outback also gave me the chance to ride a motorbike for the first time; this was something that would have never happened if I had never gone to Coober Pedy.

Our family is living in a dugout, an underground house. At first the smell was so annoying but we got used to it. It is so much fun living in a dugout having rocks as walls. I love the fact that we have a restaurant on our rock roof!

What i find interesting and funny about the teens here is that if they go down to Adelaide, they must shop, must. There are no shops here besides two opp shops.

I love going up onto the big lookout hill in the middle of town, because there is such a nice view. First you see the town, then it suddenly stops and becomes piles of mullock heaps and then it goes to nothing.

Another thing I have loved here is the noodling, the fun that you have when you are looking through the rocks and the exciting feeling you get when you find William creek that tiny bit of opal.

I went to William Creek and Oodnadatta. I loved the fact that in William creek the population is only ten people, and I loved Oodnadatta because the people there were so friendly. On the way to Oodnadatta we stopped to look at the Peake hill telegraph station ruins. I loved how people could live out in the desert so far away from any people.

We are leaving Coober The telegraph office Pedy in two weeks and I’ll be very sorry The main house to leave. I’ve had a great time in the outback, and I’ll miss it extremely when we go. I just hope I’ll be able to come back someday.