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Heading to "The Head"

This past weekend I took a last-minute camping trip to The Head.  It was supposed to be about a 2 and a half hour drive from Brisbane.  Yes, the name is quite funny (if you have a semi-dirty mind like myself).  Alex met a well-traveled guy in Darwin who suggested taking a trip here and boy, was it amazing!  

Friday, June 5th, 11:00 pm:  Okay, so the journey didn't start until the next morning, but at this point, we still had no idea if we were going on the trip.  The vans weren't rented, so we were banking on their availability.  Alex, determined to leave for the weekend, somehow managed to scramble together the trip.

Saturday, June 6th:  I received a text at 8 am saying that the vans were rented and that we were going to be leaving at 11.  I met Alex at the grocery store to get food while Camille, JB, Mila and Nico picked up the vans.  We rented with Wicked, a company known for its tasteful paint jobs and humourous stickers.

Van 1-If you can't tell what is going on, the woman is bending over the blowing the "Wicked" cloud out of her rear.  As I mentioned before, classy.

Van 2: The paint job sucked to be perfectly honest.  And this car was freezing but manual!

Back of Van 2.  At one point, I believe this statement was true.  The roads were incredibly bumpy and windy.

And again, as I mentioned, the stickers are entertaining.

 Unfortunately, due to some rental issues, Alex and I were stuck at the grocery store for about 2 and a half hours before we got picked up again.  As soon as we got into the van, we ran into our first problem: no gas.  (The arrow was pointing dangerously close to E)  We left the grocery store and began our first mini-adventure to find a gas station.  We drove for over 20 minutes, called 2 people and yelled at numerous people out the window before we found one. We found one 100 metres from where we had started the search, which was a bit peeving.  

It was Mila's first time driving on the wrong side of the road so things were a bit stressful.  just kidding meeks :)  Anyway, after getting gas and eating lunch, we didn't leave for The Head until 3:15.  The drive was supposed to take around 2 hours, but once again, things didn't go as planned.  We spent the first two hours driving through the countryside.  It was beautiful and I didn't mind being squeezed between Nico and Mila because I got to pick the music.  Here are some pictures from the drive: 

After two and a half hours had passed, we still hadn't arrived at our destination.  After pulling over and squatting in the bushes, we realized that we still had about 2 hours left of the drive.  Although it was dark, the dirt roads were fun to drive on.  At one point, we were forced to stop for about 15 huge cows standing in the middle of the road.  It's hard to see them in the picture below, but JB is actually running into them with the front of the car to get them to move.  After they finally cleared the way, one cow in particular was quite angry and literally charged at our car.  At this point, Mila and I had switched places so I was sitting closest to the window.  I saw the cow coming for the car as we drove by and heard/felt a huge bang as it slammed into my door.  AHH!

As we continued to drive, we lost Alex, JB and Camille, so Nico, Mila and I were on our own.  We noticed that the gas tank was getting close to E.  We looked on the map and assumed the 'towns' on the road would have a gas station. Ha. These 'towns' consisted of about 8 houses and pastures.  After turning around numerous times, waiting for the other(slower) van to catch-up (which never ended up happening because by the time we decided to wait, they had passed us, wasting about 20 more minutes of our time) and driving for an extra hour, we made our way to a real town and filled up the car.  By the time we reached our destination for the night (Bald Rock), Alex, JB and Camille had been at the site for over an hour and had already built a fire.  They found it quite entertaining that they got there before us, since they were driving about 30 km slower than us.

I expected the night to be cold, but I definitely hadn't anticipated below 40 degree weather.  I was wearing my sweatshirt, northface, a scarf and a hat. Plus, I had my huge fleece blanket.  The fire did a decent job of keeping me warm outside of the car, but that night, I was freeeeeeezing.  Even being squeezed next to Alex and Mila didn't help much.  Australia is supposed to be warm...helllo!? 

Sunday, June 7th:  This morning, Mila and I woke up early and went for a walk.  It was still freezing, so walking helped warm up my body.  Losing track of time, we ended up walking for over 2 and a half hours.  Along the way, we decided to pick up wood for the fire.  We carried the sticks for over an hour, determined to make it back to camp.  By the time we got back, we were both sweating and pretty tired.  Just our luck, we never ended  up using those stupid sticks :-/

Our next stop was Boonoo Boonoo National Park.  The drive there was incredibly bumping, but quite fun.  At the park, we were able to see this lookout (pictured below).  It was a beautiful view and we saw our first of many waterfalls of the weekend. Here are some pictures from our drive/some stops along the way:

The lookout at Boonoo Boonoo

It was cold.

One of the dirt roads we got to drive on. I tried to capture the splash, but I obviously failed. 

Many of the roads looked like this.

Awww the lighting was so pretty

I spy with my little eye, a HUGE python.  see it?

The rest of the night was fairly uneventful.  The boys cooked dinner and we played cards/hung out.  Again, the night was freeeezing, but at least I was expecting it.

Monday, June 8th:   When I woke up, I hadn't showered in 3 days, my hair was greasy, my teeth were moderately clean ( I had attempted to brush them a few times) and I definitely couldn't handle it anymore.  Despite being called crazy, I washed my hair in the faucet outside the outhouses.  The water and air were so cold that my hair started to freeze!  However, the fresh smell of my hair once I got back in the car was worth the risk of frostbite.

We woke up early this morning to start our hike down the prohibited trail (it was blocked off by a sign) It was a very steep hike and the rocks were unstable, so we had to be careful where we stepped.  Pics from the hike:

We thought we were going to eat along the trail, so Mila and I took turns hauling this around.  Of course, we didn't eat along the trail and our efforts were wasted (again).

Waterfall #1

Me on the hike

After the hike, we were on the road again to see some more waterfalls.  Our second stop of the day was to see a waterfall that was only accessible to "conditioned hikers".   The terrain was practically impossible (my clean, beautiful, brown pumas looked black by the end from the mud) and ate lunch metres away from a huge waterfall. It was beautiful!  The hike was fairly difficult but there were vines everywhere that I attempted to swing from.  My attempts failed when I practically fell backwards into the water (the vine was much longer than I had anticipated).

JB was able to walk behind the waterfall (I was too scared because the rocks were super slippery)

The Tarzan Jungle/impossible terrain

After lunch, we drove and stopped again to do a 40 minute walking tour to see another waterfall. It was beautiful as well, and the sun was starting to set so the lighting was gorgeous. 

View of the third waterfall of the day (close up)

Overhead view of third waterfall (I think...after awhile, they begin to all look the same)

As the day finished, we drove back to Brisbane and I got some amazing pictures:

The Sunset as we drove home

The moon was enormous this night-seriously.  If the moon is normall the size of a penny, it was the size of a quarter. So beautiful!

Sunset again

So, in summary, I had a lot of fun this past weekend. We threw the trip together in days and managed to see some amazing things.  It was my first "real" camping experience, as Megan would say, and I survived it! (According to my mom, Princess Lauren is coming home much different if she survived 3 days without showering)  

Tuesday, June 9th:  Mila and Alex had to come home Monday night, so JB, me, Nico and Camille took a day-trip to Springbrook National Park.  It was about an hour and a half drive from Brisbane.  Went spent the entire day walking around, looking at more waterfalls!  I was so exhausted by the end of the day, but really happy that I got to see such beautiful things.  Here are the pictures from the day.  

If you are reading this, it's probably because you know me well.  And if you know me well, you know that I love rainbows. So, in dedication to Sarah Weigandt, I, Lauren "Rainbow" Rice, took lots of rainbow pictures:

If you look closely, you can see Nico on the left side of the waterfall.  It gives you a perspective of how big it was.

Well, that's all for now.  It's finals for the next 3 weeks, so I will be at the library and taking exams.  Interpretation: no blog posts for a bit.  Hope everyone is enjoying summer, especially since it's getting colder everyday here!

g'day

Lauren

May Days

Hey Everyone,

I've been hearing some complaining (cough cough) that I haven't updated my blog enough.  The reason I haven't updated my blog is because I wanted to spend some good quality time in Brisbane after traveling so much during April.  

The stuff I am going to talk about is more about how I'm feeling right now, and less about the cool stuff I've done (since I haven't really done much).  I have about a month and a half left in Brisbane, 7 days of school, and one more big trip planned. As my time disappears, as well as all the money in my bank account, I'm starting to dread the day I have to leave.  I'm not sure why I am (un)anticipating my departure so prematurely- it probably has something to do with the fact that all my other study abroad/college friends are going home now.  Or, it might be that I've had the last month to really think about leaving/get to know some amazing people.

So, to try and ease my anxieties about going home, I'm trying to focus on living life in the present.  Like really, really, really trying hard to do it.  At times it helps, and other times, I just feel like I'm fooling myself.  But at this moment, it's a comforting state of mind to be in.

Anyway, on a more Aussie note, I've done some cool stuff in the past month.  The first was going to see a Rugby League game.  I saw the Australia Kangaroos against the New Zealand All Blacks.  It was really awesome!  The New Zealand team did an intimidation dance at the beginning called a haka (Māori traditional dance).  It was so cool to watch!  

The weekend after, my friend Deyan came to visit.  We met on my tour of The Great Ocean Road.  It was a good weekend.  One of the days we spent on Stradbroke Island with Karen and her friend-it was beautiful!

Another random side note-this spider decided to have babies on my ceiling. I was definitely way too scared to kill them but finally vacuumed them up.  Alex's sister was nice enough to empty the vacuum dirt outside of my apartment because I didn't want to!

Lastly, this past week I did some pretty cool things.  I had an all-day field trip to the Australia Zoo on Thursday.  I got to see lots of animals-dingos, crocs, tazzie devils, camels, and I got to feed an elephant!  It was a long day, but pretty cool to see all the animals.  On Saturday, I went to the Sunshine Coast with Alex, his sister and Nicolas.  It was beautiful and so nice to just lay on the beach and hear the waves.  Although it was freezing(I was wearing my Northface jacket over my swimsuit) the water was very refreshing to jump into.  The only bad part about going to the Sunshine Coast was that it was a 5 hour return trip.  Yikes!  And finally, yesterday I went to the Brisbane Botanical Gardens with Mila.  We really wanted to go to Mt Coo-tha, but it was closed for some car race.  Of course! The day I want to go it's closed :(

Anyway, I only have this last week of class left (the beginning paragraph was a little older) and then finals in 2 weeks.  I'll try and make my life more interesting so these posts get better!

g'day

Moreton Island, Day 2

In case you were wondering, here is what our campsite looked like. It was pretty big, had an entire area of cooking, and the came with a bunch of supplies.

After we woke up in the morning, we spent the next couple of hours on the beach. I just laid out for most of the time, but I also tried boggie boarding. I had been surfing before, so I knew how to catch the wave, but I was struggling much more than Megan was!

After spending time on the beach, Brett took us to the shipwreck coast to snorkel. I had been looking forward to this all day, so I was pretty pumped. Because Brett knew we wanted to see fish, he decided to bring bread chunks into the water to feed the fish. Megan and I FREAKED out when he threw the bread in the water because all these fish came swimming at our faces. Once he saw our reaction, he wouldn't stop throwing the bread right at us. Here is a picture some-what capturing the amount of fish in our faces.

Fish surrounding our faces

The Shipwreck Coast

We were the only people on the beach-it was so nice!

One of our last stops of the day was to the local store to get some ice cream. There, I met Knox-one of the only dogs I've seen since I've been here(ps. his name isn't really Knox, I just called him that). I swatted down to pet him and he went nuts! He almost bit my hand off. Wanting revenge, I kept torturing him by secretly flicking his tail and making him go off again. hehe...

Knox the devil dog!

Lastly, these pics are from the ferry ride home. The sunset was absolutely breathtaking and a fabulous way to end our awesome weekend.

If you have read up until here, I am very impressed! I know I just practically wrote a book, but I hope you enjoyed it! I'll blog about anything interesting in the next month and I miss you!

xoxo

Lauren