Many of our readers are people who have support us on our travels and we would like to thank you! This was an awesome opportunity for us and we all appreciate the support we received from our family and friends. Thanks for following along with our blog, we hope you enjoyed it. It's nice to be home!
We all had a great trip and shared a great experience together, but heading back to Iowa means getting back to the real world. So we would like to end our blog by sharing what everyone is planning on doing with the remainder of the summer.
Ross will be working at his local Farm Service Coop. He said he has had all his fun for this summer but looks forward to going back to Australia some day to visit the Great Barrier Reef. Lindsay N. will be working on her family hog farm. She is looking forward to going camping with her family. Andrew R. is going to work on the family farm of mostly corn and soybeans. He is looking forward to getting back in touch with Hesston friends. Christine will be doing her Ag in the Classroom internship with Farm Bureau and helping bale hay for her family. She is looking forward to fishing and swimming. Jens will be taking classes at ISU, working at a local bar, and donating plasma to pay for our trip. He is staying in Australia an extra week to see the Great Barrier Reef. Curt will be working on his family farm and a local farm both of corn, soybeans, livestock, and hay. He looks forward to swimming in the farm ponds and going to some concerts. Megan will be working at the Floyd County Extension Office as a summer aid. She is looking forward to the county and state fair and spending time at home. Adam will be workng for John Deere as a product tester and will be graduating from ISU in August. He is looking forward to the 4th of July at either the Mississippi River or Apple River and working on his four-wheeler.
Brittney has an internship at Picket Fence Creamery in Woodward. She will be working in marketing and Public Relations. She is looking forward to BBQ's and hanging out with friends back home. Melissa will be job searching when she returns from Australia. She is currently doing some extra traveling in Australia and Hawaii. Andy will be working with show pigs back home and working on the family farms. He looks forward to spending time with his girlfriend Danielle. He says he will be living the dream!
Adair will be crop scouting at a local coop and working with her show pigs. She looks forward to hanging out with family and her bo friend Jason. Lindsey C. will be working for Remington Hybrids. She is looking forward to working with show stock, county fair, and hanging out with family and friends. Kara working at a visitor's center back home, showing and landscaping. She is looking forward to spending time at home and warm weather. McKenzie will be working at a salon in Des Moines and will be working with horses and riders. She is looking forward to mud volley, camping, softball, and playing with her dog Bentley Eric will be working with corn research extention and taking a summer class. He is looking forward to hanging out with friends. Garrett will be working at home on the family farm of row crops and livestock. He is looking forward to spending time with his girl friend and friends. Jenna will be milking cows on her family Holstein Farm and is looking forward to watching baseball. Go Cubs! Elizabeth will be working on her family Dairy Farm. She is looking forward to planning her wedding with Andrew. Courtney will be working at the Boone County Extension Office. She looks forwar to hanging out with friends. Kelsey will be doing some writing for the Coalition to Support Iowa's Farmers and taking an online class. She looks forward to hanging out with her family and Jacob and the Iowa State Fair! Helen will enjoy sipping coffee on her padio, gardening, and going to Okaboji for a week. Mike will be busy with orientation at ISU and I'm sure he is happy to be back home with his wife and kids. He will probably be plenty busy trying to keep up with his kids and their activities.
We all did a good job of sticking together today, which was nice considering it was our last day together! : ( Many of us enjoyed some more market shopping, Pancakes on the Rocks (In case you haven't heard- they serve ice cream on their pancakes-genius!), Botanical Gardens, Darling Harbour bridge, and simply strolling around the beautiful city! We dined together and experienced the light show on the opera house and surrounding buildings. The opera house it stunning the way it is- add some special lights and you have a breathtaking sight!
Tomorrow we fly for home. We leave our hostel at 10:30 am to head to the airport. Jens and Melissa are doing some more touring on their own in Australia and McKenzie, Lindsey C., Kelsey, and Andy are heading to Hawaii for a few days. Everyone is looking forward to getting home and sharing our experience with family and friends. Thanks for reading and check back in to hear about everyone's plans for the remainder of the summer.
Friday we went out to these huge sand dunes and sled down them on little boards! It was so amazingly fun! The hike up the sand dune was definately the hardest part, but sledding fast back down made it all worth it. Everyone had a really great time because it was different from most of our other tours.
Then we went dolphin watching and actually got to see many dolphins! Despite a few of the students attempting dolphin calls, we were lucky to see the amazing creatures swimming along side us. A few students even got in the freezing cold water in a net behind the boat.
Australia's landscape is divided amongst a dividing range of mountains which includes the Blue Mountains. The Blue Mountains gets its name as the Eucalypt trees that cover the sides of the mountains give off an oil that when it evaporates looks blue in the haze. Today we had the great opportunity to view them. Some of the glorious spots that we saw included beautiful scenes over looking cliffs. We also saw the 3 sisters and took a ride over the valley on a cable car overlooking waterfalls. It was a long exhausting day making climbs up and down the mountains to lookout spots but the scenery was well worth the trip.
On our last day in Wagga Wagga we visited the sheep farm for a working dog demonstration. The owner/trainer brought out one of his finest Kelpies and a pup for all of us to witness the hard work of a trained herding dog. He explained that the process for training a dog takes a small amount of time each day rather with repetition over an extended amount of time. It was amazing to see the passion for herding that the well trained dog showed.
Finally on our last stop at Charles Sturt we visited the school of veternary sciences clinic. We were showed everything from the advanced technology inside the opperating rooms to the care facilities outside. It was a great way to end our trip.
Later that afternoon we headed out on a train for Sydney our final stop in Australia.
Today we found ourselves looking at a different industry in livestock production, the Cargill Australia beef plant. The plant process 1600 head of cattle each day from start to finish. We had the opportunity to go inside the plant and see first hand the entire process from start to finish. It was interesting to see how every piece of the animal is used and how the employees worked with such efficiency.
Later we traveled to a large station just outside of Wagga Wagga. The Darling family owns aproximatley 6,700 acres and markets over 12,000 head of sheep and 1,000 head of hereford cattle. The station has a vast amount of terrain and requires many different conservation efforts by the care taker. On our tour we talked about how the station uses its resources to maximize production.
Last but not least it was time to greet the students at Charles Sturt. We had a delicious barbeque hosted by the animal science students. Both sides shared a little about each college and enjoyed a wonderful evening full chatting.
If you didn't know, the Iowa State students are becoming known for bringing rain to every part of Australia that they visit. So it didn't surprise any of us that we needed to break out the umbrellas for our stay at Charles Sturt University. After a 5 hour train ride from Melbourne we finally made our way to Charles Sturt. We hit the ground running by immediatley stepping into the classroom. We found ourselves visiting with a retired professor talking about the geography, climatic changes and struggles currently effecting Australian agriculture.
Next we visited the univeristy's winery. There we samples some of the wine and cheese that are products made by the students. We than toured the facility going over the wine making process.
Today was a great day for us to take in Melbourne on our own. Some of us broke into small groups and toured the city. We did some shopping at the Victoria market and later hit the IMAX for a movie. It's the world's 3rd largest movie screen and is seven stories tall. Needless to say I didn't have to wear my glasses to be able to see the show clearly. For the rest of the crew many spent the day napping, relaxing or catching up on their journal.
Than we headed out for some dinner hitting up the local Italian district for some wonderful pasta.
Today we went to an Australian rules football game. It is quite different from the football games we are used to watching at ISU! The field is much larger and it has more of a soccer syle to the game. The ball is shaped like our football and can bounce like a basketball. They pass it to each other by kicking it like a punt or punching the ball a short distance. There are four goal posts and receive the most points for kicking it through the two middle ones. They receive one point for kicking it through the outside posts or hiting a post. There are no touchdowns, no padding, and LOTS of contact! It was a pretty fun game to watch and of course some of us went all out and dressed up in team spirit including full face paintings!
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