Senior Stephanie Carper spent the summer cuddling with koalas and kangaroos and looking at the Milky Way. She also used a boomerang for the first time and survived three weeks without her cell phone. She was able to do this because of a program called People to People which took her to Australia.

The letter she received in the mail was enough to reel Carper in.  “When I got to see the stuff we were going to be doing in Australia it sparked my interest. It was going to be a once in a lifetime experience so I thought it would be super fun,” Carper said.

The trip lasted for about three weeks, and was  filled with activities. Carper travelled to places like Cairns, Sydney, and Moreton Island. She saw rainforests, the Great Barrier Reef, the Capricorn Caves, and the outback. Carper said that her most memorable moments were traveling to the Great Barrier Reef and Sydney.

“We were at the outback and we did tons of activities. We learned how to crack a bull whip, which is a lot harder than you think,” Carper said. She went to an animal sanctuary in Airlie Beach, where she saw exotic animals such as kangaroos and koala bears. Carper  received the opportunity to throw and catch a boomerang, feed bottle nose dolphins, and eat crocodile , which tastes like chewy chicken.

Junior Bryan Doherty also went to Australia for the program. “It was great, I met a lot of great people.  Half of our delegation came from California, so I made a lot of friends from there.  We did a lot of awesome things like snorkeling, surfing.  I loved it,” Doherty said.

For three days, Carper, Doherty and the other students stayed with Australian families. These families took them bowling where the students got to interact with  the native Australians. They also took the students to a porpoise pool where they kissed dolphins and seals and played with the animals.

There were about 40 students on the trip and four chaperones. “I became more independent on the trip,” Carper said. She  travelled with a small group of people, without a cell phone, for three weeks.

“I left all my troubles at home for three weeks. With no one having a phone, all the kids on the trip were able to become that much closer,” Carper said.

Ashley Beyer is a Lifestyles Editor for The Patriot and jcpatriot.com.