My Life as a John Hughes Movie: GOW: Part 2

Still Day One, but onto the hiking photos!! Our first beach destination at the end of our hike required us to wash/brush our shoes off as to not contaminate the sandy beach. Macca swiftly made Hannah his bitch and can't be bothered brushing his own shoes off!

There was a short beach between our hiking trail and these flat rocks that look out over the raging Southern Ocean. The Ocean is really crazy here, but it makes for some beautiful scenery!

Hannah petting the slimy moss

Love.

We're standing in front of a 12-20 drop (I'm guessing) and still have to stand back as the waves threaten to take us down. (Rock fishing is a popular and dangerous sport in Australia. In Sydney it seemed that every other week there was a news story about a rock fisherman getting swept away by waves).

Hannah and I turn to head back to the beach and find Macca and Dave shirtless and digging in sand like cavemen. Maybe they can discover fire! (it would come in handy later in the night)

The rain we thought we had avoided earlier in the day makes a surprising reappearance. We haven't found our campsite yet, its getting dark and thunderous, we have our packs back on our backs, and no rain gear. Crap. We grab our stuff and make a mad dash around the corner, to find a monstrous hill. In hindsight it wasn't that monstrous, but I think it was our first big hill and in a rushed situation it felt like a monster, lol.

Sidenote: I think this is where my love of barefoot hiking started! No time to put boots back on, we went barefoot, and it was sooo much better than the crappy shoes I brought!

We make it up the hill just in time for it to start pouring. We manage to get garbage bags on our packs, half way at least. Hannah and I, freezing our asses off, take cover in plastic bags (don't do try this at home kids). Until a nice tour guide who happens to be there lets us sit in his van until his passengers emerge from their hike. By the time his passengers arrive, its mostly stopped raining. Hooray :)

Hannah and I stay behind while Dave and Macca go get Macca's car from the start. Within 5 minutes of them being gone, I get stung by a bee. On the underside of my middle toe. How in the world does one get stung there?! I spend a good 15 minutes trying to pull the stinger out of my toe....youch! I don't remember the last time I got stung by a bee, but I realize that I had completely forgotten how badly it hurts! Without any tweezers, getting it out was a difficult task. About 5 minutes in Hannah asks me if I'm allergic to bees. I just start laughing, which makes her nervous. I told her no, I'm not allergic to bees, and THANK GOD, cuz I'd be dead!! In rural Australia all alone, with no cell service, both boys (our rides to safety) gone for unknown amount of time....yea, that coulda been bad. But alas, no harm done. Though it made us rethink how we'd be splitting up in the future, lol.

As fast as the rain came, it went. To walk off the bee sting pain Hannah and I find this lovely view a few feet from our campsite :)

Macca and Dave return safely, we finish setting up camp. Macca, unable to sit still starts fussing with Dave's car. Trying to fix the window. To his credit I believe he got the window up, but then kept working on it, taking the inside door cover off and removing the window crank. Later telling Dave "I fixed your window. Well, I disabled it." At the time, this was hilarious and had us cracking up. enough so that it ended up in our collection of trip quotes, though without the context its not nearly as funny as I remember it being.

It was a helluva lot colder than I think any of us anticipated...especially me. Once it got dark out and we had nothing to do and no lights and were freezing our asses off we reluctantly and nervously built a fire. Its majorly illegal, you know forest fires and all. But since it had just rained earlier in the day and wasn't forest fire season and no one else was there, we ignored that law like a group of ignorant tourists. The plan kinda backfired when a car pulled in around 9pm. We panicked and put the fire out thinking it was a ranger about to cart of us. Turns out it was some French couple pulling into to camp. And we needlessly put our fire out :(

We had two tents with us, Hannah and I were going to share one and the boys the other. But our tent was soo small, and the boys' tent was soo big and it was soooo sooo cold, we decided to share. Which turned to be a good idea when previously mentioned French couple came over after we went to bed and scared the living bejesus out of us. Hannah and I in the center of the tent were huddled together for dear life. The boys of course were pillars of rational thought (though Macca did eventually make Dave go check and see what was outside our tent--reminded me a lot of sibling dynamics that I hadn't had in a year at the time, lol). Later, after the initial panic that someone was coming with a knife to slash our tent and massacre us, I swear...swear...I saw the silhouette of the French man holding his penis! Creepy!! I freaked again, scared everyone again. Upon later reflection, I still believe that is what I saw, though he was probably just taking a piss and not being all pervy. Still freaky and gross!

Hannah and Dave in their cocoons in the morning sleeping in. Dave had his luxurious fluffy sleeping bag that I was ever so jealous of! Again regretting why I never invested in a decent sleeping bag in Australia!?! It wasn't as cold as the Red Center when I woke up with frost on my swag, but it still made me miserable and question why it is I enjoy camping? But, when I woke up and got to see the sunrise over the Southern Ocean, I remembered <3.