The story of the last few days needs to start the day before we even left though. Sunday was Easter Sunday, as it is everywhere. However, unlike the rest of the bloody world, every freaking store in Queensland is closed. Not just limited hours--closed all day long for good. Places that stayed open include fancy restuarants- of which I will not be frequenting- KFC- 10 dollars later and I still wasn't full- and Subway- one foot long per day is about all I can handle. 11pm rolls around and Chris and I still haven't bought any food for the next days of camping isolation. 7/11 is the only place open with grocery-type things so off we went. Chris doesn't believe me when I say we can buy food there that isn't hot dogs and is questioning my authority on their inventory of tuna. As we walk in we go down an aisle and he exclaims 'Look! There's TONS of tuna!! : D ' ......my face is blank with shock and doubt about if he realizes that he stocking his basket with cat food.
Up at 7am the next day to finish packing and get out to the parking lot for our 745am pickup. We get into a van and pick up some others who will be on the trip with us. We total 10, pairing off to share canoes and tents. I was planning on bringing all of my things on this little outing but, alas, I could not. This means that I had to unlock my backpack, on the dock, and quickly grab clothes haphazardly out of my bag. We load everything into these round plastic tubs with a lid for everything to stay dry and get in the boat. Past Richard Branson's private hotel property for the use of any of his employees and across a lake to an 'information center'. By this they mean a shack on the edge of the lake. Not on shore, mind you, in the lake still. Surrounded on all 4 sides by water. Carefully manuevering ourselves and all of our things out of the motorized boat and onto the dock we were all blissfully unaware that that was going to be one of the two best parts of the trip. (The other one being on the boat on our way back.) The guy takes off-- leaving us with the canoes still tied up under the shack.
The way to the campsite had nice weather and everyone was gung-ho about canoeing and being out on the water and off on our trip. About 20 minutes later we realized that canoeing is extremely over-rated. Or rated perfectly as I had never had an intense urge to canoe and was apprehensive when I saw the map stating our campsite to be so many kilometers away. Good thing I couldn't convert kilometers to miles or I would have made them take me back immediately.
We reached the campsite, got the gear and canoes out of the river and scouted out a good campsite to be our base.
I would like to take this time to thank Dad for making me help set up the campsites every time I didn't want to because at the very least-- I know how. Chris did not. From my vague recollections and common sense we got the poles together and strung through the tent and propped it up as best we could. I wish I could tell you that this is what our tent looked like--
Tent Perfection
But alas....its a little wompy but it did the job
Timothy the Temple
That night it rained. It was cold. I had no sweater. Being completely unprepared for the trip allowed everyone, including us, thank god, to laugh about it while I sat at the bench with my towel and sleeping bag wrapped around me for warmth and comfort. The 'No Fires' rule meant that it got dark around 6ish but considering we had been up since seven, canoeing and attempting to put a camp together we were all pretty knackered. Once the rain started pouring there was a mad dash for the tents grabbing anything you could regardless of if it was yours, at least it wouldn't get wet.
The next day we woke up with rain, ate breakfast with rain, canoed up river with rain and then started our hour long hike with rain. It was raining so hard though that even though Chris and I were the only ones without jackets, everyone was equally wet and cold.
We made it to the end of our hike, The Sandpatch, took some pictures and sat around talking. After a while we went back to our canoes to head back to camp. Lucky for everyone the rain had ceased and lucky for me Chris wanted to paddle with both oars :)
On a river cruise
Noosa River
After a while I had to paddle again but the rain had stopped for good until the next morning. This meant we could play cards and drink some goon and have a good time. The second night was much better than the first, now that we all knew each other and were drinking. The rain started in the morning again at which point I had to reapply the roof to our tent-- lesson learned, always peg down the tent, but especially always peg down the cover when its windy and rainy. Its not very fun waking up because water is leaking through the tent on to your face :)
It may have been miserable but there were some good times and I definitely walked away having built some character and (I hope) some muscle.
No comments:
Post a Comment