Edge Of The Outback 2013

Edge of the Outback is a three-week program run by the Mildura campus of La Trobe University, where American students go on a journey through Outback Australia to develop skills in photography. This blog is a collection of students' experiences, reflections, progress and journeys throughout the course.

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Thank you for following our blog! And thank you to all staff and students who helped to make EOTO 2013 an excellent experience.

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#Mildura has been an interesting place to say the least. I never thought that I would feel so at home living in a tiny room with three other girls and four enormous suitcases. While we have been here all the locals have been so nice. They love talking to us about our travels and all of the things that we have been doing here. Throughout this trip I have made some great friends who have been my family for the duration of the trip. I am going to miss them so much when we all go our separate ways. 

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Mildura is the place that I have called home for two of the three weeks I have been here. It is where I go to school and where I have met so many cool people that I know I will keep in touch with. The hostel we are staying at has been such a great experience; it’s really been a lot of fun. The boys are fun to hang around so I’m glad we got to meet them.  All of the shops in Mildura close very early (as in 5:00pm early) which is kind of hard since we do not normally get out of school until 4:30, but we manage. The nightlife here is a little limited as there are not many places to go but we always seem to have a good time. As much as I love it here, I cannot wait to get back to the United States where it is summer and WARM! That will be great. 

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Staying in Mildura has been a blast for me. Even though it is kind of a small town it is very cute town and everything is conveniently close and within walking distance. Due to the fact that it is a backpacker town, I have been able to meets lots of people from all over the world such as England, Germany and Ireland. Also everyone I have met here is so friendly and ask us about how our photography coarse is going and which parks we've been to visit or are going to visit. A couple of people in our group have also been interviewed by local radio stations or the newspaper. The first picture I have attach is some friends I've made on this trip hanging out in our hostel and the second one is a dock down by the river. :)

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Mildura has been our sort of "home" for the past three weeks. Aside from school and our field trips the remainder of the time as been spent at the Stop Over hostel. The hostel is full of interesting, albeit loud, people that are all about partying at night and working during the day. Aside from the Stop Over, we've seen a lot of Mildura; we visited the Mildura Homestead, saw the Murray River, went to the Mildura Brewery, and have walked around Mildura quite a bit. Mildura is definitely a small town, but it's been interesting to see the way that small towns are in Australia, since I come from a pretty small town myself.

-Emily

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On our day off, many of us decided to explore Mildura, our home away from home.  It was a beautiful winter day with temperatures in the 50’s-60’s Fahrenheit (I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that it’s so warm in winter here!).  It was really nice, getting to walk around the city and really explore it for the first time.  It has a small city feel, but it has lots of places to shop and eat.  I’ll miss Mildura when I return the States, in spite of its many round-a-bouts.

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#When we stayed at Broken Hill we had the pleasure of staying at the infamous Palace Hotel.  The Palace was made famous by the Australian film, Priscilla Queen of the Desert. Walking through the doors of The Palace was like taking a trip back in time. I definitely got the vibe that some crazy horror movie could have been filmed there. The first night we stayed there and watched Priscilla and we got to see what all these Australians were talking about. Staying at a hotel was a much appreciated change after “roughing it” in the outback and sleeping in sleeping bags for about a week. 

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When we returned to Broken Hill on the last full day of our field trip, we had some free time to spend in the city.  I decided to go to the Albert Kersten Mining and Minerals museum.  The museum was in part a tribute to Broken Hill’s proud mining history, and in part educational.  It was an adorable little place—it had four rooms, including the lobby.  I bought a garnet and galena mineral specimen mined in Broken Hill, pictured above.  It was a fun way for a geology major to spend an afternoon.  

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During our time in Broken Hill we stayed at the Palace Hotel which is well known for being the hotel that the movie Priscilla Queen of the Dessert was filmed at. We watched it while we were there the first night and it was very interesting! I highly suggest it to anyone who has not seen it before. We also had some good opportunities to take pictures there which was awesome because it’s a really cute little town. It was also a nice change of scene from all the landscape pictures we had been taking the last couple of days. Additionally, we went to a really old, tiny town in Broken Hill called Silvertown with lots of fascinating art and old buildings to photograph. We were also able to do a little bit of souvenir shopping in Broken Hill which was nice. All in all, I really enjoyed our stay in Broken Hill.

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Broken Hill was such a charismatic place, full of many different kinds of people. Broken Hill is truly the melting pot of Australia. I am glad we got to experience this little town on our field trip because it was so much different than the other places we visited. The field trip mainly consisted of remote places in the middle of nowhere, so it was nice to be around civilization for a change.

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Mildura reminds me of my hometown - Hillsborough, North Carolina. The only difference is it is way bigger than my home town and has a nice shopping mall plaza. The shopping plaza has different shops to buy clothes, books, and food. There is a nice bakery that a group of us went to called Hudak. The food was absolutely delicious. It the photo above shows the first day at La Trobe Uni getting acquainted with our cameras before our big adventure to the Outback.

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I find beauty in everything even in simple cracks on a leaf. To me the world is beautiful and life is beautiful. I usually get super philosophical at this point but today im just going to talk about the beauty of life that ive seen in this flower. It has a story, an age, a place in time and to randomly find it in mildura kind of made my day.

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Mildura is a place of bittersweetness.  It is the beginning and the end of my journey here in Australia. The first day of class everyone was chomping at the bit to start taking pictures.  It was comical because while everyone was trying to master aperture, ISO, and shutter speed on their cameras before the field trip, we were all walking into each other's pictures.  Now as my time comes to a close here I find myself remembering the days we spent in class and our adventures afterwards exploring all that Mildura had to offer.  It is a good place to begin and end my time here. 

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Broken Hill was an old mining town with a rich past.  Elegant buildings were scattered throughout the city, giving me a taste of its beginnings.  The people I encountered made me feel as though I had been a regular coming to their establishments for years.  One small town just beyond the fringe of Broken Hill was Silverton.  It appeared to be a ghost town with stunning old buildings.  This is one of the old churches that I saw there.  The old buildings let me see a glimpse of what the town was like in its prime.  

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Mildura is a sort of home away from home. The size of the town and businesses resemble the college town I live in the majority of the year. When jogging in the streets, attending La Trobe, and atmosphere remind me of my college life back home with a small twist. Neil treated us to exquisite dinning at the Mildura brewery, while later in the week we cheered on the Australian football team in a local bar with Dan. The most unusual guide we have met is an elderly man with a young heart nicknamed Brownie, who gave us tour of this town and the Weir as displayed in the photo above.

- Ty Anderson

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Broken Hill is one of the most unique towns I have ever had the opportunity to set foot in. This small town has a vast array of charms. Things as extravagant as the Palace Hotel covered from roof to ground with exquisite artwork you can view for hours, to the deserted silver mines, all the way down to the small charms of the mid city bar with their local cuisine. In Silverton, a small surrounding town, classic old cars, arts, and buildings allow my creativity to blossom. Along with challenges to capture distinctive artwork like this rusted metal above.

- Ty Anderson

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                  Night life doesn’t get crazy in Mildura but we make the best of what the town has to offer. Going out to the Sand Bar, Settlers, and Doms gave us the great opportunity to meet others that live in the town. The first night we went out we all went to the Sandbar and I actually came across a girl that was from Minnesota, how ironic.