Our next instalment of “I’M VERY EXCITED” was our trip to Moreton Island with the gang from the hostel – Amy “oooo-ooooh, eeeeee-ooooh”, Nicole “I just farted”, Gemma “I’m going to marry this box of goon”, Em “I’m not a !@#$ing donkey”, Jonny the idiot, Saul “I hate having my picture taken”, “Deadly” James and moi. It was an early start and we were all gathered at 7am – a little too loud and hyper for the early hour and (I assume) all the other hostel guests. When our pickup was 30 seconds late we started panicking…
Side Story…
Saul and Jamie work at the hostel and have been playing Handy Andy for the last week or so – painting etc. They took the initiative one day to remove the skanky old cabinet in the men’s bathroom and put it in the skip. Christine – the owner thought this was hilarious…since the cabinet was actually an antique (in a men’s bathroom?!) - A ‘Shabby Chic’ don’t you know! They managed to save the cabinet from the skip and returned it to its home. Then James decided to paint the antique since it was looking a bit worn (as antiques are supposed to, no?!) So we were planning to do a runner for the day before Christine got the chance to berate Jamie for un-antiquing her antique! Luckily, she thinks everything Saul and Jamie do is priceless so she didn’t say anything (maybe she realised that after years in a men’s bathroom no doubt being ‘sprinkled’ on and half a day in a skip really wasn’t the best care package for a Shabby Chic so at the end of the day it really doesn’t matter if the bottom half is sanded blue and the top half is Dulux bright white glossy acrylic)
Day packs and goon in hand the only thing that was missing was our trusty Ghetto Blaster. Eventually the 4x4 showed up with our chauffeur for the day, Justin, for the purposes of this exercise we will call him Hungover Justin! I’m not sure who was more pleased we were all on this trip together – us, the overly excitable A Team, or Justin who had to do very little schmoozing/commentary/tour guide like activities all day since we pretty much entertained ourselves…although I am guessing our incessant noise, laughing and occasional screaming wouldn’t have gone unnoticed by a sore head! The ride to the ferry (said in a bizarre pikey Leicester accent) was not as smooth as we would have liked and Em had trouble staying upright for this part of the journey – it didn’t bode well for the day-trip-to-the-world’s-second-largest-sand-island-including-a-lot-of-bumpy-driving part of the day. Not to worry Amy’s general upper body area was on hand for Em to steady herself with every time we went over a hump and much to everyone’s surprise it was in fact Saul that almost lost his head through the roof when we was doing an energetic impression of Em bouncing around the car and we hit a bump! Free drinks and biscuits on the trip over really perked us up (some more) and after Nicole’s 2.5 sugars kicked in she joined Em’s “talk as loudly as you can” campaign! And her own “let’s shake people who aren’t being as loud/excited as me!” campaign.
Our first activity was Sand Tobogganing. The idea of which sounded very appealing when you are looking at photos of people elegantly sliding down sand dunes with an awesome view to take in on the way…in reality you walk to the top of a sand dune – no mean feat with a piece of ply wood (or part of a wardrobe) under your arm, then stand contemplating all the things that could go wrong and wonder how anyone in the photos ever made it look that easy. Maybe it was just that none of us were particularly good at it, but no-one got to the bottom of the hill and stood up jumping for joy and ran to the top of the dune to rush down one more time – in fact one by one we subjected ourselves to a face full of sand with comedy results (my only regret is that we were all too considerate of each others pain at this point to take any photos :) Dare devil Nicole went first and survived mostly unscathed. Then Jonny, then somehow I got roped into going – I never knew your eyes could fill with anything other than tears…somehow I managed to fit a desert of sand in there as well…
You can’t do anything once you get to the bottom - you can’t get up because you can’t see to go anywhere, you can’t open your eyes for fear the avalanche of sand sat on your eyebrows will come cascading down into them, you can’t wipe the sand away because your hands and clothes are also covered in sand and since sand tobogganing with a rucksack full of useful goodies (like water, towel, insurance certificate, goggles, cotton buds, ear plugs…) to help you out you are stuck improvising with the small square of material on your person that maybe didn’t get hit with sand and hope that the sand monster which has escaped from inside you will miraculously disappear. We were a right mess - mascara down our faces (AMY YOU’VE GOT SOME MAKEUP UNDER YOUR EYES!), cuts and scrapes, sore eyes, spitting sand…it is safe to say we all looked like Jiggin’ Schnitzels and we all could have been used as human sandpaper (maybe to help sort out the Shabby Chic cabinet were it required!)
The other unfortunate thing that happened at this point was that Jonny lost his wallet and his phone, which had been safely (?) tucked away in his pocket whilst he was ripping up the sand. The wallet was recovered however the phone has been lain to rest in the cemetery of sand, never to be seen again.
Another bumpy ride later and we made it to the Fountain of Youth (according to our tour guide) – a cove on the Island with a wall of rock acting as a barricade against the huge breaking waves. Good job it was there since the wash from the waves had enough force enough to push you around the rock pool and your bikini bottoms round your ankles J Either way we were all incredibly grateful to be able to wash some of the sand and sweat and blood off from the mornings tobogganing.
Then what we had all been waiting for – lunch! The first time all morning we shut up for longer than a minute.
After soaking up some more of the fountain of youth (mostly in the form of sand collecting in our pants) we headed off to the North Headland and a stroll around the lighthouse. We saw some turtles…from a distant…well, from the top of the cliff…not even the cameras maximum zoom could pick those babies up very well J
Next we headed to the Blue Lagoon and another much needed soak – the lake here is full of tea tree and is supposedly very good for your skin, so we frolicked around in it for a while…playing a rather violent game of Piggy in the Middle with a Frisbee (and very extensive rule book!) in which Emma actually hit Amy in the face and made her bleed whilst trying to drown her so as to regain possession. Oh, and Saul got another wack to the head too! We are expecting to blossom into glowing specimens of our former selves in the next few days with all the youthfulness and tea tree…we’ll let you know.
And that was us – the ferry ride home seemed to take forever and we were fading fast it has to be said…even the free afternoon tea couldn’t liven us up at this point. Shame since the plan for the evening wasn’t to go back to the hostel and go to bed but to head out to wish Nicole a proper farewell with some drunken memories attached! Needless to say out came the goon and we were soon all back on it and being utterly ridiculous…Bye Nicole – you are an absolute darling and thank you for making Brisbane sooo much fun J We’ll catch you in your Wolverhampton village sometime soon chicken – enjoy the party xx
