The adventure commenced early Saturday morning, March 3, 2007, as a sightseeing bus collected the eighteen ETC students, three ETC faculty, and Sharon Vis, Coordinator of ETC-Australia and ';master mind' of the adventure, from in front of the ETC-Adelaide facility at 83 Currie Street in the central business district (CBD) of the city and departed for points unknown.

Like Pittsburgh, Adelaide is a thriving metropolis ringed by pristine woodlands, hills, and valleys. Within no more than fifteen minutes of departing Adelaide city proper, buildings, homes, and shopping centers, gave way to rolling hills populated by herds of cattle, sheep, and alpaca, expansive groves of delectably smelling eucalyptus trees, and pristine bright blue skies. Unfortunately, drought conditions in South Australia ("The driest state in the driest continent") turned formerly green fields into dusty, beige landscapes, though all eyes on the bus stayed peeled for wild kangaroos inhabiting the terrain. These hopes were realized quickly as wild kangaroos could be spotted lounging in the shade, lying on the ground, or hopping away from the speeding bus.

Our first stop was at McClaren Vale, one of the most fertile wine-producing regions of South Australia. The lure of wine-tasting competed with the morning desire to sit down, sip a cappuccino, and eat a heart breakfast. Students split off to visit nearby art galleries or to watch candy being made at the famous local candy factory.

The journey continued further south and east, deeper into the Fleurieu Peninsula, until the bus arrived at the coastal village of Victor Harbor. A former whaling station, Victor Harbor had been transformed over the years into an idyllic coastal village offering families a wide variety of activities and accommodation. The ETCers checked into the palatial Whaler's Inn, a magnificent hotel overlooking the expansive harbor and adjacent to the "Bluff" a massive rock outcropping that beckoned adventurers and sightseers alike.

After dinner, everyone boarded a bus for nearby Granite Island for a nighttime adventure. Granite Island is connected to the Australian mainland by a horse-drawn tram. Many ETCers traversed the causeway in this manner during the day, but when darkness descends, the horse gives way to visitors crossing on foot.

The reason for visiting Granite Island in the evening is to spy the return of penguins. These penguins spend the day fishing the cold waters of the Southern Ocean. Each evening, though, they return to their nests, small rock caves hewn out of the island's granite and sandstone. The ETC tour was fortunate to see many penguins, more than normal, as well as possums and water rats indigenous to the region. A few seals were spotted swimming in the water, but their joyful manner and attractiveness was mitigated instantly upon our learning that seals feasted upon penguins!

The next morning, the ETC Adventure Module continued on to the small coastal village of Goolwa where the group boarded a sightseeing boat under the command of Captain Jack and his first mate Allen. Our destination was the Coorong Nature Preserve.

The Coorong is where the Murray River meets the estuary of the Southern Ocean. Dams or weirs (as they are called in Australia) separate the Murray River from the Coorong so as to prevent salt water intrusion, an unfortunate circumstance caused by years of drought.

Our boat took us to various stops along the sand dunes of the Coorong, but the highlight was when we alighted on one of the larger dunes and made our way across to the beach. Waves crashed upon the shore. The seeming remains of a dead whale lay washed upon the beach, while in the distance emus and kangaroos could be seen escaping our presence.

This region of South Australia is known worldwide for the quality of its cockles. Cockles are basically clams. Each day hundreds of pounds of cockles are dug up by hand, processed at a nearby plant, and then shipped off to the finest restaurants in Europe and around the world. It was here we were taught how to dig for cockles by First Mate Allen.

This resulted in the hilarious sight of graduate students twisting their feet into the wet sand as if a massive game of Twister had been laid out on the beach. The gyrations worked though as the newly dug holes yielded scores of cockles. Smashing one cockle against the other offered up delectable morsels of fresh crustacean and the feasting continued for the better art of an hour.

Returning from that memorable and satiating expedition, the ETC group next visited the Wooden Boat Festival in Goolwa. This was a festival celebrating the long and enduring legacy of wooden-hulled vessels on the Murray River. Clearly, the Aussies of the region took great pride in their nautical heritage, for the docks were packed with elated visitors chatting with those artisans who had painstakingly restored the historic vessels.

All the ETCers got to sleep in their own beds that evening after a return journey made via harsh dirt covered back roads of the area. We returned to Adelaide achy, wet, and downright exhausted, but reveling in the memories made, the tidbits sampled, and the experiences now known to us.

Monday morning saw the ETC group assemble bright and early once again. The destination this day was a cruise on the Murray River, the main source of drinking water for the entire Adelaide metropolitan area, but a region still relatively wild and untamed.

Our tour bus took us to the port town of Mannum. There we boarded an overnight riverboat that had only arrived the previous evening from Goolwa carrying a full complement of passengers setting off on a five-day expedition to tour the Murray River watershed. The ETCers were treated to tea, coffee, and scones as the quaint vessel sailed past multi-colored rock faces, cliff sides, eucalyptus and other gum tree groves, and bushes filled with wild parrots.

As the day came to end, every ETCer knew this Adventure Module had been more than a class assignment. It had achieved the level of experiential bonding, it had become a microcosm of what is to be achieved during the rigorous and demanding ETC Immersion semester. This, though, was Boot Camp at its most glorious, and, hopefully, a harbinger of what is to be experienced during the long nights and multiple iterations of the remaining semester.