So Bergen’s Adventure Tours looks a little different this time around eh? I’m so excited to finally share this with you guys!  This has been a project idea in the back of my mind for 8 months now, but I’ve been holding off starting it for so long.  I’m going to put together a proper post for introducing Golden Hour later this week, but I couldn’t wait to share the blog on its new home!

This week I realized I also have absolutely no photos to show for it… so enjoy some favourites from the past 12 weeks that I haven’t shared yet!

I’ll probably breeze through this week quite a bit as it mostly consisted of uni during the mornings, running errands in the afternoons, hanging with the crew at the hostel in the evenings, and splashes of homework + website work throughout the days.  As part of our training for tour guiding, it is required that all Tour Guides in the Northern Territory take an Uluru – Kata Tjuta National Park Accreditation course.  It’s a program required by the joint management of the UKTNP, to ensure that visitors of the park are receiving accurate information about the site and its Indigenous History, and ensuring that it is being shared in a respectful way.  It’s really cool actually because the park is predominantly managed by the local indigenous community - the Anangu (pronounced ar-nan-noo) – and all course material has been pre-approved by the UKTNP Management team.  I’ve been finding it so interesting and so well put together – makes me really excited to get out there and start guiding.

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Monday was a pretty uneventful day – we got set up at the uni in the morning for gaining access to our course material, and then the rest of the day was spent back at the hostel working on the blog and some work related stuff, and hanging out with Takk + Jono.

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Tuesday we had our first lecture for the course and I honestly really enjoyed it!  I haven’t felt that consistently engaged in a lecture in such a long time, and it was so interesting getting to learn so much about the history of the land we’ll be working on.  After class, I rested back at the hostel for a bit before taking Takk + Jono to a house viewing, then checking out a cool little grocery store!  I’m super stoked about this grocery store because it actually has a bulk section and tons of really awesome vegan snacks!  It’s definitely going to become my new go-to shop for majority of my groceries. Did a couple other errand runs before heading back and spending the evening working on last week’s blog post, and watching an old animated DC movie with Takk.

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Wednesday was another pretty uneventful day consisting of class, laundry and a lot of homework.  The course we’re in is self-paced and you’re not allowed to work in Uluru until it’s completed, so we’re all feeling pretty self-motivated to get it done asap.  In the evening I had my first meeting with Sea Shepherd and all the other photographers, and it’s gotten me SO excited to get out working on events.  It’s also made me think more about how much I miss the ocean and being so close to water.  Having grown up minutes from lakes and the ocean all my life, it feels incredibly strange to be so land-locked in such a big country.   It definitely makes me appreciate having grown up in Vancouver that much more.

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Thursday was pretty much a copy n paste of the day before, only I managed to get some more work done on my website – things are finally starting to come together at this point, and it’s getting me so excited!  I’m keeping it super simple to start as I get things built out and as content gets created, it’ll be really interesting to see how things evolve!

Around dinner time I made my way to the YMCA to check out their climbing wall!  It’s nothing too exciting, and they sadly don’t have any bouldering, but they have tons of auto-belay routes which I think will be really good for me building up my stamina, since I won’t be able to rely on my bilayer for holding me on the wall when I need breaks lol.  I’ll be sure to snag some photos next time to show you the wall!

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Friday was more of the same during the day, and got to have a call with my sister, Islay, for the first time in a month!  Was so lovely getting to catch up with her.  Then me, Jono, Takk, Cata and Pablo all went to one of the restaurant/bars in town for dinner and some drinks to hang out for a few hours!  Felt nice to finally get out with the group outside of the hostel/school for once, since it’s probably going to get harder to make time to hangout once we all start working.   I ended up staying up really late working on some assignments and the website.

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Saturday was a big sleep in day. I think my body is still recovering from being sick last weekend, because the fatigue has definitely been lingering pretty strongly.  I ended up spending most of the late morning/early afternoon drifting between sleeping and reading.  I finally got some energy later afternoon and went to the park across the street to do some yoga in the sun.  I realized I hadn’t done any practices in such a long time, and my mind/body has been really craving it.  The mornings here have been SO cold (like 0˚C cold…) that it’s been hard to motivate myself to get practices in before work, and I really haven’t been making time for it in the afternoons, which I’m really starting to notice take its toll. 

I spent some time afterwards working on the website – things are finally starting to wrap up!  Then Cata, Takk, Jono, Pablo, Troy and I had a fun movie night!  One of our teachers had recommended the movie ‘Australia’ w/Hugh Jackman so we got set up in the living room hostel with Jono’s projector, made the most random spread of snacks we could with whatever everyone had.  Was a really good movie and highly recommend! It’s almost 3hours, but honestly didn’t really feel like it.  After the movie + tidying up, myself, Jono, Takk, Tye and Troy stayed up for a few hours of Cards Against Humanity.  I haven’t laughed that hard in such a long time!

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Sunday I had a really lovely start to the day.  Got to spend an hour on a call with my sister, Kennedy, and then an hour call with my dad for the first time since I’ve been in Australia!

The afternoon I spent hanging out with some of the guys, got some great curry from Troy, and finally published the website!! Been working on a few posts, and spent the evening hanging out with Jono, Pablo and Takk at the hostel while getting this weeks post together.

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It’s been really nice having a sense of community again.  I’ve lucked out with a really great group of friends here in Alice Springs, but I’m definitely feeling myself missing being on the road and close to the coasts.  Having grown up in a coastal province all my life, it’s a really strange feeling that’s hard to describe suddenly being stuck in the middle of a country, with nothing but land for hundreds of kilometres in every direction, and quite literally no other city.  It’s a very foreign feeling for me, that I think is going to play a key role/lesson in my life.

It’s been a weird process of emotions the past couple weeks too – I’m finding myself really beginning to experience what it means to call many places home, and facing internal conflicts of what this means for future life directions.  I’m loving Australia and really see myself staying here, especially in Tasmania, long-term (maybe going back to school and looking into more permanent visas…), but then I find myself longing for the PNW forests and hanging out with some of my closest friends, and then the desires of moving to other countries on year-long visas creeps back in…  A traveller’s heart never really belongs to one place or group of people, and it’s the internal conflict of choosing where to spend your time that becomes the biggest challenge.  The challenge of listening to what your entire being (mind, body and soul) is needing most, and following that intuition.  It’s hard because it can change so frequently, and learning to listen to the loudest voice becomes a daily practice to ensure you are truly doing whats right for you.  I think right now, I’m still exactly where I need to be… but, I know as time moves forward, I’ll be forced to ask myself some hard questions and make some big decisions again.  

Keep an eye out for some different updates in the next few days! And as always –

Stay passionate and curious,
Hunter 💛