Extra Pics

Daahling! Do you reeeally love it?

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!).