The Ultimate Camping Experience
May20
For the most part, life in Brisbane has been fairly normal after coming back from Cairns. If you can even consider life here normal. The week after returning from Cairns was spent catching up on sleep and uni work. It was actually very relieving to know that I would be spending the upcoming weekend in Brisbane, especially after all the adventuresome travelling I have been doing.
On Saturday, Jess and I met up with a friend and went to check out the popular West End markets. West End is an awesome area right across the Brisbane River from where we live and is a hippie/hipster/quirky place full of awesome shops, cafés, and pubs. At the markets you can find heaps of cheap fruits and veggies, locally made jewelry and accessories, hot food for takeaway, and basically anything else you could ever want. This weekend I hit the jackpot though. I had just paid for some bananas (to make my new favorite food that my roommates got me hooked on- grilled peanut butter and naner sammiches) when I turned around and found a long time favorite sitting randomly on the table—chestnuts! Yep, as in “chestnuts roasting on an open fire.” Never would I have guessed I would find these in Australia. As I sit and crack them open for post-dinner snacks, none of my roommates think that they are worth the effort…oh well, more for me!
To continue our celebration of a weekend in Brisbane, Jess and I decided to have a roomie fun day and go to the seafood and wine festival on Sunday. It was great fun! Caxton Street, a main road near the city, was shut down and lined with booths selling seafood and beverages. The seafood part of the festival lived up to expectations—I got some prawns and chips that were absolutely delicious (think British…chips are American fries). As for the wine aspect…let’s just say the Australian love of beer took over. There were many more types of beer available and only about two tents selling wine. That combined with the fact that beer was half the price made our beverage choice for the day an easy one. The icing on the cake was sitting in front of the stage, people watching, and listening to some great Aussie bands. One of the bands, Taxiride, is even on iTunes. Check them out, they are pretty solid and some of their songs have already made it onto my iPod’s “Frequently Played” playlist.
Not that Brisbane needs an excuse to have some sort of celebration, but that weekend was also Buddha’s birthday so of course there was a week-long festival. Sunday night was the last night, so what better way to celebrate than with fireworks! We decided to festival hop so we made our way down to the Brisbane River to watch the fireworks. Sitting on the riverbank with a perfect view of the city skyline as fireworks lit up the sky was a great end to our Brisbane weekend.
My task for the upcoming week was to prepare myself for my next adventure and yet another first. I was actually a bit nervous for this because I didn’t really know what to expect and everyone else I was traveling with had already participated in an adventure of this sort. Okay, so no pressure for the American traveling with a bunch of Europeans. This may or may not have been me during the week leading up to this:
I am a notorious overpacker (my dad will more than vouch for that) so I was all over the place trying to pack. I was convinced that I was shoving all the wrong things in my backpack and would end up being the laughing stock of the trip. So believe me when I say I was more than relieved when I met up with my friends and realized that I in fact packed the LEAST amount of things. Yes you heard me right. Everyone else had more stuff than me. This might have been a once in a lifetime occurrence and no, that is not the first I am supposed to be telling you about. But it is monumental nonetheless.
As with most of my other travel, I was up before the sun on Friday to start my adventure. I must have been running on adrenaline because I didn’t even need an overpriced coffee to be able to interact with people at such an early hour. Armed with a weekend’s supply of food and water, I met up with my European friends and we made our way to the MICAT ferry that would take us two hours across the bay to our weekend destination. And what better way to be welcomed onto the ferry than with some rain. Yes, we are supposed to be in the Sunshine State that boasts 300 days of sunshine each year. Good joke. But as we looked back to the mainland we saw this which we hoped would be a token of good luck:
Yep, that’s a double rainbow.
Before we knew it the ferry made it across Moreton Bay and landed on none other than Moreton Island. And when I say landed, I literally mean we hit land. The giant ferry drove straight up onto the beach with only a little sign stuck in sand to mark the fact that this was the ferry landing site.
I wish I could tell you that warm air and sunshine greeted us on the world’s third largest sand island. Well I could, but it would be a lie and I am not one to lie. But we did not let the rain stop us and we proceeded to trek through the sand with all our supplies until we came to the place we would call home for the next three days. Luckily the rain stopped and the sun came out and we were able to create this:
Yep, we were camping! Bring it on Mother Nature!
That was probably not the best thing to say because Mother Nature really did bring it. Between rain, wind, and mosquitoes who I swear hadn’t eaten in weeks, it made for an…umm…interesting first camping experience for me. In all seriousness I really did have an awesome time and this all made for some great stories and solid blog material. You all are the lucky ones who get to reap the benefits, congratulations.
Okay, so a little bit about Moreton Island. As I mentioned, it is the third largest sand island in the world. Pretty cool! One of the most iconic features of Moreton is The Wrecks. Fifteen ships were deliberately sunk off the coast of the island in order to create a breakwall for smaller ships. Our campsite was a two minute walk from The Wrecks, so this was our view for breakfast every morning:
No complaints there! The first day we spent swimming around The Wrecks and playing beach volleyball since the rain managed to stay away. Then that night was the night that forever changed my life. For those of you who don’t know me, I absolutely love dolphins. Freakishly so. So when I found out that I could feed wild dolphins while at Moreton Island I made it my mission to do so. And guess what. That mission was a big, giant success! After watching one of the most beautiful sunsets, I made my way to the dock at the nearby Tangalooma Resort that sponsors the dolphin feeding. Before I knew it, there were at least ten dolphins swimming right up to the shore. Guys, words cannot even describe my happiness and pure joy at this moment. I even teared up a little. No shame, I’ll admit it. In complete awe, I sat and watched the dolphins swim around and play with each other. The awesome thing is that these were all wild dolphins, so everything they were doing was completely natural; they had not been taught tricks or anything. These feedings have been going on for quite some time, so the dolphins know to come to the shore because they will be fed. What a wonderful motivation food is!
Finally it was time. Time for my wildest dreams to come true. Hardly able to contain myself, I went down to the beach, picked up a little dead fish with its beady eyes staring at me, and made my way into the water with the resort’s dolphin expert. I could barely believe this was real life as a huge dolphin swam up to me and took the fish right out of my hand. Pure joy. After I exited the water from feeding #1, the joy must have been apparent on my face because the lady in charge told me to get in line again to give it another go. Of course I ran back to the water and got to do it all again! Unfortunately I don’t have pictures of me feeding the dolphins, but this is probably what my face looked like:
Yes, I love Despicable Me….
Saturday we decided to take on the task of hiking across the island to the Eastern Beach. It drizzled on and off all morning, but we finally got tired of waiting around and had no desire to sit in the damp, steamy tents all day, so we decided to begin the hike and deal with whatever Mother Nature threw at us. For the first hour we walked through a pretty assertive rainfall. Finally we could catch glimpses of blue skies and heard the sound of ocean waves crashing on the Eastern Beach. We were so close! By the time we got to the beach it was pretty overcast, windy, and cold, but I can imagine the coastline would be even more beautiful on a bright sunny day. We ate lunch (which for me consisted of a peanut butter sandwich…just like every breakfast, lunch, and dinner that weekend) and turned around to hike back to our Western Beach. When it was all said and done, the hike took about four hours and we covered 18 kilometers of sandy paths. We were pretty impressed with ourselves to say the least.
We made it to the Eastern Beach!
Mother Nature was significantly nicer to us on Sunday. There were a few showers in the morning, but the afternoon was bright, warm, and sunny and made for the perfect day to lay out on the beach. By this point in the weekend I was perfectly content to lay in the sand, listen to the waves crash on the shore, and just relax. I’m pretty sure I dozed off for a while because at one point in the afternoon I swore I had actually taken a real shower. Nope, that was definitely a dream. Before we knew it, it was time to pack up the tents, board the MICAT ferry, and head back to Brisbane. Once I made it back to my apartment I sprinted for the shower and let me tell you, it was one of the hottest and best showers ever.
Now, after reading all of this you may be wondering what I actually thought about my first ever camping experience. This is what my European friends were asking me all weekend. I actually did have a wonderful time and would definitely camp again! Maybe with warmer temperatures, less rain, and less bloodthirsty mosquitoes though, but hey, a girl can only ask for so much. This ultimate camping adventure would not have been nearly as great if it wasn’t for the company, so here’s a shout out to all my friends who were there! You all are great!
Moral of the story: a rainy camping experience gives you a newfound appreciation for your warm, cozy bed.
Cheers!
