D-I-N-G-O.....
.......and Dingo is it's name-o!!!
This
next chapter of my trip has been a very different one, but just as
spectacular. For the majority of the time we said "good-bye" to the
beach and headed inland. Starting off with Kroombit, a tiny little "in
the middle of absolutely nowhere" kind of place. We stayed at a ranch
over night with a bunch of Aussie cowboys. Nothing rougher than an
Aussie cowboy/ girl. They are walking brillo pads. Tough as nails.
Every cowgirl there was first classified as genderless while we made
bets on what they actually were. Seriously. After our fire roasted
dinner the fun really began. As I watched, how do I say this, very
endowed girl after very endowed girl (I don't know where they all came
from!)struggle with all her might to mount the mechanical bull, then
get catapulted across the room with a shriek after the first jolt, the
absurdity of it all left me feeling less than keen to give it a try. So
I did. I held on for my dear life for 10 glorious seconds ........until
I got catapulted off with a shriek. Apparently, it's not easy. Next, to
the shooting range where we learned to target clay pigeons. The score -
10 and 0......for the clay pigeon. I got beaten down! I STILL have a
bruise on my shoulder from the jolt of the gun! What a wimp. The
beatings continued when Katie, Amy and I were thrown into a pen with
goat and told to take it down with our bare hands and "brand" it. It
started off with us three cowering in the corner watching this goat go
psycho around us. It ended with us getting fed up and turning into
complete savages out for this poor goats blood. The goat beat us good.
The pictures basically tell the story. Apparently I'm not good at ANY
sports. Actually, not true. I made up for it in the goat lassoing comp.
I got that sucker in 12 second and out of 20 people, i won the dang
competition. If I had known what my prize would be, I would have taken
my time. "Deep breath" I need a moment to compose myself before I
relive this traumatic event. I won a ride on a dirt bike with one of
the Aussie cowboys. I thought how dangerous could this be? When he
presented me with the waiver to sign, I before getting on, I started to
get nervous. Have I mentioned how many waivers I've had to sign since
being here? 130 km down dirt roads, flying around corner at 45 degrees
angles, making air over bumps in the road, with a few nearly vertical
poppa-wheelies thrown in for good measure. In a nutshell, I thought I
was going to die. I've never experienced every single emotion in such a
short time - laughing, crying, confusion, then finally shock. I
couldn't tell whether the tears running down my face were from the
stabbing wind in my eyes, or from crying out of fear. Every time I
begged him to slow down he would speed up. Yup, I pretty much spent the
whole time praying that the back of the cowboy's grimy hat wouldn't be
the last thing I'd ever see. I learned the hard way that they have no
mercy on little blond female travellers. I swear if I'd been a big
burly guy, he'd have gone half the speed. When we finally stopped it
took a good minute to unclench my fists from around his waste and half
the day for me to stop shaking. At least I'll know better the next time
I'm in a rush to lasso a goat.
Next, a quick stop into the town
of 1770. It's named that after the year James Cook discovered it. Has
anyone been there? Eerie little town. It's been compared to Hotel
California. People go there for a night and never leave and no one
knows why. There's nothing there, but there's this weird magnetic pull
to travellers. Creepy fun!
The most prominent part of the last
week was our camping trip on Fraser Island. A group of 8 of us (team
kangaroo as we were called - how original) rented a 4WD truck and took
the ferry over to the largest sand island in the world. We stood there
with our buckets and shovels not even knowing where to start! It is
also home to the purest breed of dingos and is the largest breeding
ground for tiger sharks in the world. 3 days of driving through nothing
but thick, soft sand. Sliding all over the place, getting stuck
everywhere, nearly flipping the truck every day, they were some of the
funnest (yes, that is a word) days I've had. Starting off, the beach
triples as not only the main highway on the island, but also the only
landing strip for planes. The only advice we got was "make sure you're
always checking your rear view mirrors incase a plane is about to land
on top of you". So many times it would occur to us how dangerous this
whole trip really was. It is amazing the things they will let
travellers do in Australia. All they need is a waiver. Fraser Island is
like a natural amusement park. So much to do, you just don't know where
to start. It has the most beautiful lakes on it you've ever seen. It
just doesn't make sense because you go for this long hike through a
forest into a clearing with enormous talcum power sand dunes and bright
aqua water. We would trek up to the top of these dunes in the
blistering heat, then heave ourselves down at full running force where
our feet could barely keep up, then just as we'd feel ourselves about
to wipe out, we'd fly into the awaiting lake at the bottom. These full
white sand beaches in the middle of forests were like mirages. You'd
get in the water expecting a mouth full of salt and it ends up being
the sweetest water you've ever tasted. Eli Creek was our favorite. This
slow rapid creek with water like glass on top of a white sand bottom.
We spent half our time running to the top of this creek, then getting
pushed back down by the current, while bumping the sandy edges. Very
weird that something like that is natural. Not everything is perfect
though. You do not enter this water on the shore as tempting as it is
in 35 degrees weather. We were glad we didn't risk it as Amy and I were
standing ankle deep in the water when 2 sharks swam by about knee deep,
right in front of us. Yikes! Talk about screaming!.....out of
excitement though. We couldn't believe it! We saw schools of sharks
from a look out up above and saw one the size of a landrover! Another
spectacular sight was the hundred year old Maheno shipwreck on the
shore that's been left to rot. Very huge and very eerie. It was used in
world war I and was sold to the Japanese for scrap metal when it got
caught up in a cyclone and beached. A very amazing sight. After
aaaaaaallllllll that, all we wanted to see was a dingo, which were
apparently everywhere so we had to be very careful. We weren't allowed
to walk anywhere alone. Finally the dingy little pup showed itself.
What was the big deal?! I could take this thing with one hand tied
behind my back! Okay, you don't need to mention the goat.
So
it's been great. With all our big trips out of the way things will be
calming down a bit in the weeks before Christmas. Thank goodness
because I'm not sure how long i could keep up this pace for. While
Katie has headed down to Brisbane, Amy and I have been chilling out in
Noosa, this pretty little town on the coast, and just don't want to
leave. We arrived on the day when a monsoon-like storm came in, washing
out the main road (pretty phenomenal thing to see) and forcing everyone
into captivity for two days as it was impossible to go outside. Of all
days we could have arrived there! We made the best of it though. We
bought didgeridoos and have spent the last couple days painting the
story of our trip onto them. I've already gone through twelve (lol!).
