Hold on tight

Back from another fun weekend. I’m still exhausted so I’m going to try to keep this short…but that’s always hard for me! Just like for last weekend’s trip, I had to leave at 5:20 to catch the ferry to the city etc. When I was sitting at the bus station gate Char’s 3 roommates arrived and I sat with them and I immediately began to wish that they weren’t there. (It’s hard to explain…it’s not that I dislike them, it’s just that the three of them have this impenetrable bond and they don’t want to let anyone else in on their little clique.) So when we were getting into the 2 4WD vehicles, I was getting in the one with them, but there ended up being 1 seat left in each vehicle and 2 girls who didn’t want to be separated so I volunteered to go to the other car. Little did I know, this was my best decision I could’ve ever made. The car that I left had 2 girls from Mexico, the 3 roommmates, and 2 girls also from UQ. I honestly don’t know if any of these 3 groups socialized outside of their group the entire trip…SO the vehicle I went into had 3 German/Swiss girls, a guy from London, an older Aussie woman, another guy from England, and an American doctor. It was a fun group!

Onto the actual trip.

We had to drive a long way because the southern tip of Fraser Island is just north of Rainbow Beach on the Sunny Coast. The driving was about 3 hours or so and we took a break halfway to Rainbow Beach. We spent a while at rainbow beach and had lunch which was nice but mostly we were all anxious to get over to the island. We drove about 15 more minutes north and took the ferry to the island—it was SO much smaller than the Moreton one and took 10 minutes (as opposed to the 2-hour Moreton ferry). As you can see, it’s a very short distance between the southern tip of the island and the mainland:

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The island is very large—the largest sand island on the plant—so it takes a while to get places. We went to the Maheno shipwreck which has a really cool story that I don’t feel like telling, Eli Creek, and Lake Wabby—all very interesting and fun. We got back to the campsite just before dark and took showers. Everyone fixed their dinners and ate and drank. The night in short involved 7 hours of competitive card playing with our 3 AMAZING guides, Wes Mic and John and the other cool people on the trip—meaning everyone who actually socialized with people other than the ones they came with! Everyone else just talked amongst themselves and eventually went to bed. So yea the 3 Swiss/German girls, Dave from London, Wes, Mic, John, and me stayed up until 3:30 or so playing 500 and some other game that I forget the name of that were basically spades and hearts with other complicated rules added. Despite being on a gorgeous sand island with rainforests and sparkling lakes, I say with confidence that that night was the best part of the trip. I won the first 10 games or something so Wes begged me to get a job as a tour guide with them just so they could use me to hustle people! Taking tourists around a beautiful island during the day, hustling by night? Not a bad life! I was incredibly tempted and still am! Haha. Anyway, I eventually lost my luck and had a bad losing streak for the rest of the night. (Oh and I should add that before going to bed I had brushed my teeth and was walking back to camp and witnessed Wes backing up the car into a huge sand dune. I was laughing so hard. I promised him it would be our little secret! In the morning he made up some excuse to everyone on the tour to explain why there was a huge pile of sand on the back bumper :D)

At night it POURED rain on and off so all of my stuff that I’d left out to dry was soaked in the morning! Not the most pleasant thing to wake up to at 6:30am! We cleaned up the site, had breakfast, and went to Lake McKenzie where we swam even though it was cold and raining, and then drove to and walked around the Central Station rainforest. Wes explained a lot of cool things about many of the plant species there, but it was rushed because everyone was wet and getting cold. Then we headed to one of the resorts on the island where we had lunch in a pavilion next to the beach. The weather was finally really nice and sunny. After lunch we got in the trucks and drove down the beach to the ferry to go back to rainbow beach. Once again we spent some time there and I mostly sat out/ walked on the beach with some others. The drive back to Brissie was long and tiring. Sunday late afternoon traffic into Brissie from the Sunny coast is normally bad enough, but being Mother’s Day made it even worse. We actually left earlier than normal for this trip because of that. Saying good-bye to everyone at the transit center was hard and I’m just no good at this good-bye thing as I’ve explained before. I was so sad to leave Wes especially—he is one of my favorite Aussies so far, which really does say a LOT because I’ve loved most Aussies that I’ve gotten to know! I really do wish I could just be a tour guide like that. Too bad I’m probably too weak to pack heavy coolers etc. on top of big 4WD vehicles :( and I’d be hopeless at driving the things! Anyway, I got home and unpacked my wet, dirty belongings, took a much needed shower, talked with my hallmates, called my mom to wish her a happy mother’s day, and went to bed.

Today (Monday) involved my 8am chem. lecture, participation in a psychology study (now only one more left!), and chemistry practical all afternoon. I’m still exhausted/my whole body hurts so I am not currently at my spin class. I’ll have to pay for that later in the week but right now it seems like the better option. I hate that laziness plays these tricks in convincing me that it's the better option!