Juliette and Mérine's Trip in Australia

Hi everyone ! Here we are again, Mérine and Juliette for another trip ! We had a hard time chosing our new destiantion. We were struggeling between Asia and Oceania. So we made some research to find which continent was more adapted to our budget. We finally decided that we were going to travel to Autralia !

When we got off the plane, after 21 hours of flights, we were so surprised of how hot it was even in the middle of june, the temperatures ranged from 20° to 25° on the afternoon.

After picking up our suitcases, we got to our hotel where we would be staying 4 days. The next day, our journey in Australia would begin.

For our first day in Sydney, we started by visiting the famous Sydney Opera House. Considered as one of the big symbols of Australia, the Opera of Sydney has an exceptional situation at the water's edge. It was a fabulous place. It felt really weird to be in one of the most famous place in the world. It was a little bit expansive but it was absolutly worth the money. We spent the rest of the day having fun at the magnificent bondi beach.

On the next days we visited the Royal Botanic Garden. In view of the maintenance of the park and its size, we could be amazed that he is opened to the public free of charge. You will discover plants coming from everywhere in Australia.

We also went to the Blue Mountains. At only 2 hours of train from the station of Strathfield, this dumping in the nature of the Australian mountains is really worth seeing. The park of Blue Mountains is very vast. The panorama to Katoomba is particularly impressive and the visit’s paths are very well equipped.

After Townsville we took the bus to go to see Uluru. We spent three days in a camping and each day we went walking to explore every nook of the famous rock. Even if it was really tiring, it was an amazing experience. We learned so much about the aboriginals life style. It was so entertening. We got to see breath taking landscape we can never forget.

We learned a lot about how Aborigines live today. More than half of them live in town, very often in the peripheries, in horrifying conditions. Many of the others work as farm labourers in ranches settled on the lands of which they were despoiled.

Many Aborigines, particularly in north half of the continent, managed to stay on their lands by continuing to practise hunting and picking in the bush.

Today, the Aborigines are still confronted with racism and with violence, and many of them live in deplorable material conditions. Their rates of infantile mortality and suicide are very superior to the rest of the population whereas their life expectancy is much less big.

We were really touched by their history and we met incredible persons that we cannot forget. It was really hard to say good bye when we had to left to go to Melbourne.