Collie experiences

Casey & Camille

In Collie we stayed with Olivia. When we first arrived at her house our mouths fell open. The house was really nice and big. The parents were very lovely, sweet, friendly.. just all the nicest things you can say about people. The first night was just perfect, we had a really nice self-made pizza and had a lovely chat. Then we watched the stars outside and for the first time in our lives we saw a shooting star. The queen size bed was heaven! Never slept so well like that night. The next morning we had breakfast at the motel and tried vegemite for the first time. It was horrible! The tour in their school was interesting, especially to see the difference between our and their school. Now the most exciting was still coming when  we were going to shoot with a real gun. I (Casey) was the first one to try it and I was nervous at first but when I held the gun in my hands all the stress went away. The experience was really fun and I liked it a lot so I did it 3 more times. I (Camille) was nervous too. When I shot I was so in shock, that I even didn’t got a clue I hit one, but I liked it. Than we had the barbeque, it was really cosy and the food was delicious especially the desserts. At the end of the night we had a sing battle between the Australian kids and the Belgian ones. It was a perfect day for us! To end the night perfectly we watched the stars again at Olivia’s house. The morning after it was really hard not to cry because we needed to say goodbye to everyone. We both nearly cried but we held strong. The 2 days in Collie were the best! We are never going to forget this amazing experience!

Tannia en Diana

We stayed at Miss Carmen’s house and she’s a teacher at the Collie Senior high school. We loved her and her house! She has such a lovely house and the garden full of beautiful birds. Her husband, Chris is also very friendly, and not to forget, he took us hunting for kangaroos! Not hunting with a gun, but with a big spotlight. The funny thing was, she’s vegetarian and she was laughing because we actually thought she was only giving us vegetables when we didn’t even mind it . But her husband isn’t a vegetarian so he made us make a choice between chicken (we love it!) or steak and we chose steak because we ate too much chicken this week :p . The next day we had to be with the group at 8am so we woke up at 7am to take a shower. We tasted vegemite! It was so gross, oh my god! Never again! They were all laughing at us and we wish we could bring you some so you can taste the grossness. After that we went to their school to see it. They gave us a tour of the school and taught us how to play typical Australian football!  We did had lunch at a park where they have kangaroos and we weren’t really surprised because we saw them the night before haha. After our kangooroo seeing we went on the bus and we saw the beautiful lake of Collie it was a wonderful view.  And then we headed to the gunclub where the father of John shoots and he taught us how to shoot a gun. At first we were very nervous but after all it was such a great experience and we had a lot of fun! We ate yummie lunch and Barbie and laughed so hard with our friends. When it got night all the students went go seeing bluewater’s powerstation. It was so beautiful and fun! When we got back we had a bit of a Dutch-English song contest and we won, hahaha, K3 songs are the best! We had a super great night and cried a lot because we were going to miss them a lot! The day after all the students came to the highschool and said their goodbyes. It was a bit emotional because we were very good friends and we will miss them a lot! We are one big family!

Justine en Amandine

We stayed at the Moulden’s house, David and Sharron are the parents of James who is now staying in Belgium. We loved seeing their animals, their daughter and an exchange student from Italy: Alice. They were very nice to us. They gave us a room for ourselves. The first night we ate barbecue with the family Mouldon, some friends of them and even Jarrod was there. At this barbecue we met a new friend Shaun, he is also a student at the Collie senior High school. There were sausages, bacon, lamb and even kangaroo. We tried Kangaroo and we really liked it!! But the idea that we were eating kangaroo was weird. After everybody went home we went to bed because we had a big day the next day. We woke up at 7 o’clock and at 8 we had some breakfast with the students from Collie SHS. After that we went to see their school, it was weird to see that everything was outside and there were no storeys. We have 4, so a lot more stairs, that’s not fun L. Then we went to the premier coal, it’s a mine. It was not really my thing but it was still interesting. After we had lunch we went to see kangaroos and it was the first time we saw kangaroos so we were so excited!! We went to a spot where we had an amazing view and after there we went to the gun club and we actually shot with real guns!! Me, Amandine didn’t really like it but Justine did. We had a Barbie there and at night we were doing a battle with English/Dutch songs. After that we went back at the Moulden’s house and went sleeping. Thank you again David and Sharron it was fun to stay with you!!

Liesl & Gwenllian

We stayed with the Abbott family. We met their son James on tour last year. We were really nervous to meet them but that was unnecessary because they were the nicest people in the world. We were dropped off at their house by Mr Croft because Anthea wasn’t feeling well so she couldn’t come to pick us up. There we met her and her husband Jaime. She showed us our rooms and then Jaime brought us to Brianna’s house for a party. After we swam there for a while Jaime came to pick us up with their daughter Kate, she was very sweet and has beautiful eyes. Then we went back to their house and met their oldest son Luke and his girlfriend Lizzie, along with their grandparents. We had dinner in the garden next to the pool where we talked about the differences between our school and their schools. The food was very nice. After that we went inside and talked for a while about the tour and the places we’re going and have been to. While Anthea looked up a recipe for oreo-cheesecake we talked with our friends and family on facebook. We looked at the clock and noticed it was already quite late and decided to go to bed. After a good night sleep we woke up and had a shower. Then we went to a motel for breakfast and of course we were late. They made us eat vegemite, we both didn’t like it at all. Then we went to the mine and the golfclub to see kangaroos, after that we went to the dam. Unfortunately some of the Australian kids had to leave to go to a basketball game in Perth. So we dropped them of at their homes and went to the gunclub. We all tried to shoot a gun and some people were more successful than others. We then had a lovely bbq and went to the power station to see the beautiful lights. We then sang Belgian songs while the Australians sang Australian songs, it was a lot of fun. Of course the night had to end at some point so at nine o’clock we went back to the house. Luke and Lizzie were there again and we talked for a while about all sorts of stuff. We went to bed at around 11 o’clock. In the morning we were woken up by Kate and had eggs and bacon made on the barbecue, it was very tasty. Before we left we got a lovely gift and took a picture to go in their grandma’s scrapbook. Unfortunately it was time for us to go. We said goodbye to Jaime and Anthea took us to the teacher’s cars. Then we had to say goodbye but we promised we’d keep in touch and we really hope we do.

Ayla & Prescillia

While on the road to Collie, we were  so excited to see our mates. Because we had to miss them for several months. Once we arrived in Collie at the park where the War Memorial ceremony would take place, we saw our Collie friends and literally jumped each other in the arms. Ayla was a bit nervous to read the known poem “For The Fallen”, because she was scared for making mistakes in front of everyone. But it worked out after all and got some compliments of the students and teachers. After the ceremony we all went and had some Australian treats and listened to some nice speeches which warmed our hearts.

We slept at Brianna’s place so we headed of to her house where we later that evening had a pool party with all our friends. They spoilt us with delicious Aussie treats such as Tim Tams and Fairy bread. When everyone left and the two of us together with Brianna and her family we had a yummy dinner which consisted of meat pie, peas, carrots and mash. In the evening we put on our pyjamas and we went in her garden because we were going to sleep in a tent which was awesome. In her backyard, we found a frog and we touched it for the first time, it was so slimy! We had to sleep so we put the tent on the grass and we watched a movie and ate some Australian chocolate cookies. In the morning we woke up with a delicious breaky were all the students joined us. And we ate Vegemite for the first time, and it wasn’t good. Nasty, it was just nasty! Then we went to visit their school; ‘Collie Senior High school’. We had so much fun and we were impressed by their beautiful school.

Later in the bus on the way to a coal mine we got to laugh and talk some more with the Aussies! The mine experience was interesting and when they blew up the ground for mining (which we got to see from far) we all jumped because it scared us, it was funny though. Later we went to a golf course where we had lunch and saw kangaroos. We were all so excited! We even jumped and clapped our hands like sissygirls and took a lot of pictures.

This last part made us feel weird and very badass at the same time. We went to a shooting club and all got a shot at shooting. We were full of adrenaline and had gotten hungry so we had a barbie and nice talks while eating nice food. For some reason we were all so hyper that night because we had a sing -off with the Australians with Belgian and OZ-songs. (we kind of beat them haha) Guess we had a sugar rush of all the yummy desserts. After laughing it was time for saying goodbye to most of our friends, then some of us started crying because we’ll miss them. Even though tears were shed we can look back on two marvellous days with our mates, which we’ll never forget.

We really loved it to stay at Brianna’s house, we had so much fun and her family is so nice, we really enjoyed there and we hope to see them again.