Now Playing: Mayday - Thingy
i don't know.
today stuff is confusing.
(more than normal)
we just got back from a hike around lorne (bottom of the bottom of australia) and i had a really great time. but on the bus back i sulked and glared and spent a large amount of time staring out the window. whenever i am tired i do this.
then i tend to say the wrong things. things that didn't need to be said. things that i've gotta let go of.
i know that i'm tired right now, and i wouldn't be writing this if i was awake and coherent.
hopefully that makes for dramatic reading. enjoy it. because the rest of this is devoted to the good bit of the camp. the smiley fun bits. or the whole thing
i am nuts about hiking. you wouldn't think it, but it's one of the things i really enjoy. first day we arrive at school finish packing the packs and pile onto our minibus. 'we' are the 15 or so kids who are in outdoor rec and dont currently have broken legs.
the bus trip takes foreeeeeeever. we chat. we stress about hills. we have one toilet stop. we pick up sasha, (an assistant teacher/outdoor rec guy)and then we're there. packs on-fiddle with packs. walk up a little hill and back down, get out raincoats and get lost for a short while. then the teacher points us back in the right direction and we walk the other 5 km. at the camp grounds there are two other lots of kids - a year 8 group and a year 11 group. both from melbourne.
after burning a largish circle in the dirt accidentally we start cooking - pasta for almost everyone. the guys next to us are not having much luck. i dont know the full story but the important bit is that their trangia wouldn't start, then they knocked it over when it did, then it wouldn't again and by that point there was grass all through their food. i'm pretty sure they got to eat by 8:00.
echidna walks through camp. laugh at city kids yelling 'oh my god it is a porcupine' and such stupid things. in the middle of the night a creature was walking through the camps. the melboune kids thought it was a kangaroo/wallaby/koala/wombat/wolf/kookaburra/vampire/etc and wake up everyone (except me. i'm a heavy sleeper) yelling about it.
wake up. pack up. discover that teh melbourne kids had driven here, put on packs and walked 500m then set up camp. and were now going to walk the whole 500m way back to their bus with the tinted windows and air conditioning. those utter pansies.
walk about 2k until we hit one of the steepest, and thankfully shortest, hills i've ever seen. take a break at the top. then walk again. i am thankful that i'm relatively fit, because walking when you aren't sucks. susannah and i become the group leaders! yay. easy 2k walk to lunch spot. are attacked by crazy kookaburras that steal travis' lunch and also eat two pounds of butter. we eat. susannah and i find a short cut. mr rieniets says its ok so we start leading the way there. i am so glad that we changed leaders before we hit the path. once we're about 300m away from the main road it starts to slope down. ok, no problem there. it slopes a little more. still, thats ok. a bit slippery but nothing to worry about. then it turns into a 75 degree angle mud slide with roots and logs sticking through randomly.
from the top it looked plain violent. but relatively short, due to the tree's blocking the view. the guys at the front run down it, slipping and sliding and yelling and laughing - we dont. we grasp at each other and try not to fall on our asses as we grope at tree's for support and try to use slippery roots as stairs as we descend clumsily and slowly, concious of the weight of our packs. of course, when we're at the bottom it seemed like great fun, and the sheer relief of not being dead or severely injured starts to wash over us. we decide - through a vote - to go and see the waterfall. turns out that the path to the waterfall has been blocked by storm wreckage. the same guys that ran down the hill first leap across stepping stones after spotting a path on the other side of the river. along with the other intrepid souls i clamber over the rocks and when i am about 3/4 of the way there we are asked whether we discussed crossing before leaping over here. teh guys say 'yes everyone wanted to cross' and get told of when it turns out that less than half of the class agreed to it. so we go back. waterfalless.
turns out we have to cross the river anyway.
again, the guys (james and travis in this case) are told off for crossing before the others and we go over in a line. looking suspiciously like ducklings, waddling one after another.
then another river. we are told to wait, but paul finds a way across. the rest of us take off our shoes and just splash through. paul falls in helping catherine across. he really shouldn't have worn his shoes. poor soggy paul.
the last river crossing is almost eventless... oh no wait - catherine falls in. then i run off with about 4 other people because we think we know where the caravan park we're staying at is. then chris gets a very angry catherine on the other end of his walky talkie yelluing that we've gone the wrong way. the only reason this is funny is that we were standing outside the caravan park - we can see tents and cabins and the front desk.
susannah and i cross the river and start climbing a rock face - we're joined by travis, james and some other guys. we're yelled at to come down, but we're not in trouble really.
we cook again. make hot chocolate. eat. the guys buy some firewood and we light it. then reflection time - religious schools are too keen on reflection in general. 'go and sit on your own for half an hour'. i ended up digging a hole on the beach because i was bored. then we played this game where you can only have a certain amount of contact points with the ground per group. in our groups of 5 we could only have four points of contact. we ended up with leigh on ben's shoulders and me on james' and susannah being held through both of them. it works surprisingly well until we fall over. then another group doing almost exactly the same thing overtakes us and wins. we get close second. then we manage to get only one point of contact by making ben lay on his stomach and we all stand on his back.
next day we pack up everything, then go to the beach. we are going ocean kayaking - which is not as gentle as it sounds. the group all moves together once we're in the water, holding the sides of one anothers boats together - to make a raft so the teachers can talk to us. it is about now that a huge, gigantuan wave approaches-we all push off've one another, try to seperate and paddle over it but it crashes on us, all together, all at once. i am physically pushed out of my seat and thrown into leigh, pushing him out of the boat. some people are flipped, some are hit by boats, others jump out before the wave crashes down on them.
we all wash up on shore - some later than others, poor susannah. i'm fine, though pat's boat narrowly misses my head, and their are only two serious injuries - ben has the side of his head smashed in and ashleys nose is crushed when two rogue boats collide with their heads.
ashley is streaming blood, poor guy, and he has to go and get his nose taped up. meanwhile after the sixteenth time i ask and leigh assures me he's fine we go back into the water.
i have to say it. i am absolutely crap at kayaking. my rowing is shit. everyone is good at something - and everyone is not good at something. my thing is kayaking. its quite terrible.
so, i just felt like a dead weight for most of the time. rowing halfheartedly and crappily. but its still fun.
the ride back is, as i have previously said, more endured than enjoyed. but i was cranky and tired. we stopped off and i bought a pinapple fritter and some snacks. i really should have just gone to sleep. stupid tired person logic. staying awake when i am tired only makes sense when i am tired.
we got home. and i fed the cat, unpacked then had a hour long bath. baths are the best invention of humankind ever.
what a lot of writing.
Lakey
on fire
accident prone
don't ask
crushed out