Trip of a lifetime for former students

That plan changed slightly in March this year, when Georgie and two friends from her high school days in Young - Brooke Dewar and Caitlin Green - all decided to put more emphasis on the fun side of things and so immediately on the agenda was a cheeky 35-day Contiki-style tour of Europe, Ireland and Croatia. 

The young ladies who left Australian shores in the last week of August, returned home on Friday, October 2.

Despite the short time between deciding to go and actually leaving, Georgie and her friends got busy booking a host of things from flights right through to the accommodation.

A hard worker in the true Jugiong mould, Georgie was working three jobs before going abroad and she will resume those positions before heading to Albury next year to study speech pathology at Charles Sturt University.

The main part to the trio’s voyage was a 17 day tour called the European Pathway, which took in 10 different countries and fortunately for the South West Slopes ladies, it was predominantly made up of Aussie females.

And Georgie said they’ve made good friends out of it.

Spending six days in London, Georgie and company caught up for two of those days with Cootamundra’s Mitchell Trinder, and five other school friends from Young who were travelling at the same time.

The rest of the time was spent in the Wombats hostel, which was based quite close to the iconic London Tower Bridge.

With a strong connection to Ireland through the Fitzgerald side of the family, Georgie also signed up for a four-day journey through Southern Ireland which began and ended in Dublin, but also encompassed Galway, Cliffs of Moher, Killarney, Dingle. 

Georgie fell in love with Ireland and would love to return their in her future travels.

While the whole trip was memorable on so many fronts, a number of places hold a special place in Georgie’s heart, including Switzerland’s scenery and she also singled out spending a week in Dubrovnik, Croatia as a favourite due to the clear skies and the colour of the ocean water over there.

Of course, there were a few anxious moments, namely missing out on skydiving due to the rain and low cloud in Switzerland, but that was minor compared to one really bad storm that she, Brooke and Caitlin were caught up in.

With the lightning perilously close to the plane on that occasion, it meant that the aircraft had to be turned around mid flight.

“Other highlights for all three of them included riding the Gondola through the streets of Venice in Italy, doing karaoke in Florence, going on a bike tour along the Amster River in Amsterdam and we were go go go the whole time,” she said.

As for food, Georgie missed her mother Paula’s cooking and she was extremely blessed to come back to her nan’s famous roast, but insisted that the “french crepes were simply amazing”.

Understandably at the time of the interview, she was still suffering from jet-lag after only flying in on Friday morning at 6.30am.

 She was greeted at the airport by Paula, her father Leigh and her two sisters Katie and Eliza who left Jugiong at 3am to be there when Georgie landed.

Georgie is looking forward to working before embarking on her deferred studies for next year, where she will still have some family around, with her cousin Samantha Doolan studying physiotherapy at the same university.

The Long Track Pantry, The Jugiong Motor Inn Motel and the village swimming pool, will all have her services over the summer and no doubt patrons at these establishments with global travelling aspirations, will pick her brain for ideas.

And as for any Year 12s who are toying with ideas of what to do in their gap year, then Georgie has a message for them.

“The whole trip was amazing and I recommend that anyone having a gap year who wants to travel, should do it,” she said.