Speckled Green

101, it’s post 101. Lol, 101…. get it?
sad, I know

Anyhows, DoE Hike was great!!! Time for a recap! Now, for those of you who are EXTREMELY BORED, you can read this. For the rest, don’t bother.

If you’re reading this, you’re extremely bored, or willing to read my post. Thank you!

Thursday: I wake up at 5:40 am. Earlier than a normal Thursday for me (6:30 is a nice time to wake up). Have a shower. Yada yada. I frantically try to make sure I have all the stuff I need, pack the food into my bag, and off I go to school.

We eventually all turn-up at school before 8, and we get checked off and go to our buses. The 3rd bus took the longest to arrive, so some of us had to wait. Eventually, we were all on a bus, and off to Colo and Somerset. The bus trip was good, taking just as long as last time, and with everyone still being as noisy as ever.

Arrive, Unload, Meet up with Leader. Our leader this time was Tully!!  Yayz! Anywhos, we had a group talk, came up with a team name (Team Dandelions FTW!!) which was really random, and there’s a background story to it, but I won’t tell it. Ask Sandra. We packed our bags in ’10′ minutes (more like 20). And we planned our route. We deposited our bags in our bay, and OFF WE WENT…. 1 1/2 days of hiking.

Making our way along the track that runs parallel to the river, Deva and Anthony led us to the site called ‘Peach Tree’. From there, we made our way up the abseiling ‘hill’ and to the Gee’s Arm North Trail, with Stuart and Nicole leading the way. We decided to have lunch when we were just about at the top. Most of us had some sort of flat bread (Peta, Leb, you know) and tuna or ham or something. After that It was an easy walk along a trail till we got to a junction where the Gee’s Arm North Trail really started, and for that leg Jasmin and I ‘lead’ (following a trail, we didn’t have to do much). The next leg of the Gee’s Arm North Trail had us going along almost as fast as we could, with about 4 of us leading (I can’t remember who was SUPPOSED to be leading us for that). Drink breaks were nearly every half an hour.

Eventually we got to the next junction, where we moved onto the Ferrari Track. Going along here, we passed ‘Circumcision point’, down the mountain side again, and began the long trek along the road to the campsite ‘Reserve’ (a public camp site, with toilets….). Finally, by about 5:50, we got to our destination. Earlier, before we had left, Tully had got us to try and guess when we would arrive there, and many of us came up with times around 5:30 to 6 pm. In the end, it turned out that Jasmin was the closest (with 5:46:30). The next closest was 5:45 and 5:55, so she only just got it. The prize for the guess was a lollipop, and a flower Tully had found.

Setting up our tents, we got ready for dinner with group 10. They were extremely impatient with us, as they had left/arrived earlier than us, and were ‘starving’. All of us had our dinners, be it noodles, Continental packs, pasta, or something else.

Now is the point where I stop and give praise to Jasmin and her cooking skills (which neither Kapilan, Stuart or I could possibly ever match). She cooked the spagetti and the sausages in the tiny camping stove (renamed the ‘Trantular’ because none of us could remember it’s actual name), and then let Kappi, Sticky and I eat before her. How kind of her…. and she lived through everyone else bugging her for sausages, which we eventually gave them, cause we couldn’t be bothered eating them all.

Back to the camp… cleaning up was after that, and we feel that we did a pretty good job. Then we had some fun around the camp fire. Once again, Bryan and friends went crazy. Typical. Roasted marshmellows (normally called S’mores in the USA), Snakes and laughter filled the night, till we all had to go to bed. Our time to leave tomorrow morning was decided to be 7:45, so that by the time we actually left, it would be around 8.

Next day, we packed up, had breakfast, got ready, and made our way for Rikki’s gate. Along the road, looking for the certain gully to bush bash along, up the steep slope of the large hill, along the long long ridge with several 2 minute stops to find out where we were, and then, A TRACK!! Yay, slightly easier walking. We had found the fire trail. I have no idea who was, or was supposed to lead us for that leg, because I was at the back of the group with Mr Forsyth who had joined us.

For a while along the trail we went, untill we found the next trail we were looking for. Along this, for approx 20 minutes, and there it was, Rikki’s Gate!! We had made it, and intime for our 11 am pick-up. We talked as a group for a little while, a kind of Debrief, and then played a small game, before we loaded ourselves onto the mini-buses, and off to Somerset we went.

Back at somerset, some of us changed out of our sweaty clothes, and we unpacked our gear, aired out the tents, and cleaned out our rubbish. After that, we had lunch with the remains of our food. Finished at last, we packed our tents and then played games. Eventually our bus arrived, and we were the first group to get on, just as we were about to leave, the other 2 busses turned up. We went on our trip, with a loud game of Mafia going on up the back. Some of us were tired and rested, while others talked.

Stuart, through the trip, was filling up on ‘Cocaine’, which was actually Home Brand Icing Mixture. He thought he’d bring it, and it became a kinda joke in our group. He renamed the bag with ‘Cocaine’ and then added a price tag, ‘$5k / g’, meaning $5000 per gram. As the bag is about 500g, we owe him around…. 2.5 – 3 million for what we took?

Anyways, after that, our bus got to school at around 2:30, and all of us got out, and we had to wait for school to end (and the other buses to arrive). Mafia once again started, with the rest of the people talking or leaving.

Those of us in Concert Band had to stay to accompany Jess (in yr 12, the Tuba player) for one of her HSC pieces. It sounded good. I was tired. Just about all of us had left our school uniform and instrument at school, so we could change when we got back.

And after that, I finally went home.

Oh, and I finally finished the PD Assignment on Saturday! It is exactly 30 seconds long, and a copy of it can be downloaded from:
http://www.pressing-on.net/movies/PD_Drugs_large.avi – 42.8MB
or
http://www.pressing-on.net/movies/PD_Drugs_small.avi – 15.2MB

Hope the people in my group like it, cause that’s what it’s going to be on Monday unless they tell me otherwise.