The Outback: Nightlife

After a long day of hiking, we'd hit the road to our next campsite. We never stayed in the same place twice, which was great to experience new places, but meant always packing and unpacking our campsites. Again, our group worked so well together that doing work never mattered. Some people would start dinner, others would find wood for the fire, others unloaded all our sleeping gear, and some entertained.

We didn't sleep in tents; each night we unrolled our canvas swags (complete with a sleeping bag and thin foam pad) right underneath millions of stars. The strongest source of light pollution came from the moon- which eventually set in the middle of the night to yield the most amazing stars I've ever seen. After waking up to see them for the first time, I actually thought I dreamt them... until everyone else confirmed how amazing they were.

We spent majority of our nights around a campfire- talking about what we learned that day, or what we liked and didn't like. One kid, Ryan, brought his guitar and a few people played it all week. And everyone was always singing and playing along. It really created a soundtrack for the whole trip. It was great.