Highlights of the trip

So I’m a bit behind on the blog entries so I’ll try and make this one a long one. The study tour has been such a good experience so far and I’ve learnt so much more than expected, England has such a rich history and I’ve really enjoyed immersing myself into it. Although at the same time I feel a lot more appreciative of what Australia has to offer and suddenly relies how lucky I am. I feel like that is something that Australian youth is constantly reminded of by those from other countries, teachers and parents but it is hard to truly understand until you have been away from home. Anyway that’s enough of my ‘straya pride speech, back to the study tour.

By far for me the highlight has been our trip to the Bronte parsonage, I never thought I would ever be able to stand in such an inspirational house but I did and it was amazing! My love for Victorian literature was completely re-ignited. I will admit that at the end of each day I’m feeling pretty tired because of our full on schedule but that has also given me chance to fit so much of the North into two weeks and this trip will defiantly be something I will look back on fondly.

Another great unexpected experience was the National Mining Museum tour to the pits. I was pretty sceptical at first about how good it was going to be but it completely blew my mind. Our tour guide Steve was such a great guide, you could tell he had so much passion for mining and it really showed during the tour, he was so funny! I also learnt so much about the history of mining and the poor conditions that men, women, children and even ponies had to work in for the lowest wage ever. It must have been both a physical and emotionally hard job and work environment and also had such a high danger risk, I can honestly say I would never have the strength to do a job like that and I can now see why people in the North pride themselves on their ‘hard working’ background, because its true and something to be very proud of.

Today the different courses were split into two groups, because I am an arts student but major in Planning I got to pick so I decided to visit Manchester with the Arts students (sorry Budge!). Manchester was surprisingly nice, I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did and found I liked it more that London. England seems to have such a great range of free galleries and museums that once again today we were lucky enough to experience. Tony took us on a short tour and it was great to get the perspective of a British person on historical issues, like I have said before many of the students are amazed at the amount of history that England has but as Tony put it they are almost weighed down by it. This comment defiantly made sense to me it would be hard to establish what is historically significant and what is not. At some point old buildings are going to have to make way for new development but how do you define a building built decades ago as less important than the rest? And which events would you favour, social, political or historical?

Tonight we are all back at Liberty Works and tomorrow has been set aside as another research day to get our presentations together, it will also be our last official working day until Monday. Everyone is starting to get excited about what comes next on their trips and I can hardly believe we only have four days left! The time has gone so quick but it’s been incredible!

- Alexandra Jefferies (Bachelor of Arts)