camping at girraween!

our second outdoor ed trip was last week. we basically planned it ourselves and have been prepping for it for the last month in class. we left sunday morning and got to the national park around 10am. packed up our backpacks, which could barely fit all my food, clothes, the 10 liters of water we had to carry with us, tents and our stoves, all on my back for the next four days. sweet. we hiked to our first campsite which was about 7ks and made it just in time to hike up south bald rock to watch the sunset. after the sunset we all went back down to set up our tents. tara and i shared a tent that was just big enough for the two of us to lay next to each other/on top of each other. we made our gourmet dinners of pasta and sauce in the dark and then a few of us went back over to the rack slabs where we had hiked up for sunset and watched the stars. we saw five shooting stars and listened to the rest of our group play a great game of who would you rather from the tents... solid evening and we were prob asleep by 9:30. the next morning we woke up for the sunrise, hiked back up the rock which took a little longer considering we were all half asleep. we explored the top of the rock and these sick caves. we all had to use our headlamps and squeeze through these ridiculously small spaces but then it opened up into this really pretty lush green area inside the rocks where sunlight was able to hit. it was amazing. and apparently i love caving now. or spalunking =] after the caves we went back down the mountain packed up our camp and started our next hike. we pretty much just walked for about 6 hours straight, took breaks for lunch and kept ourselves occupied on the walks. got to our next campsite set everything up and were exhausted. tara and i, again, struggled with our tent but it stayed up so thats all the matters. we ventured out with dinner this night and made grilled cheese with english muffins, it was alright, took a while but it was good. we made our own campfire by lighting all the stoves and putting them together and made jello, but instead of letting it sit and get cold we just drank it warm and it was delicious and amazing because it was freaking freezing outside. i had on a beanie, gloves, a sweatshirt, a fleece, a long sleeve t-shirt and a short sleeve, leggings and warm up pants aaaaaand two pairs of socks. and i wore that to bed. crazytalk. i survived the cold though it wasn't too bad. we sat outside our tents that night and watched the stars, only saw three shooting stars that night but still amazing. im obsessed with the stars here. nothing compares to the outback though. we slept in a little the next morning and it took us a while to pack up our camp. we finally started our next hike which we had to navigate through the freakin bush with no trail. apparently our group went the hard way and ended up on the side of a hill walking through these ridiculous thorn and prickly bushes, it was retarded. for some reason i couldn't stop laughing, it didn't seem like real life that we were legit trekking through the forest in these ridiculous bushes. our legs and arms were all extremely jacked after that with cuts everywhere. we finally got to the bottom of it and met up with the other group who said... where have you guys been, we've been on the trail the whole time.... sweet. hahaha it was a great adventure though actually some of our group was legit mad but we all laughed about it after. until we had to walk off trail again, climb up a ridiculous rock, find a trail that we had no idea which trail it was, went the wrong way on it, went an hour and a half in the wrong direction, we're out of radio signal and couldn't contact anyone, and storm clouds were moving in and all we heard was thunder. that was right about when our whole group got crazy. i couldn't stop laughing, the boys were mad because they were NOT lost... thought the girls insisted we were, we left our backpacks on the trail and just started walking the other way hoping to find something. we then just sat down and were like weeeell. we're screwed haha. one girl jsut sat down and blew her whistle repeatedly, the boys we're legit getting mad and we're basically all delirious and just wanted to get to the water hole we were supposed to meet the rest of our group at. we got to the water hole and the other group had been waiting for about 2 hours there for us. oops. hahaha our group was pretty frustrated with other and we were all getting and giving the silent treatment. tara and i jumped in the freeeeeeeezing water hole just for a quick refresher then started back up the trail to get our packs and go on to our next campsite. on our hike we saw about 70 kangaroos. it was amazing. they were all just in the wild sittin around and then would just start hoppin away. we saw a huge one go right in front of us on the trail and they look pretty scary that close. not so cute when its running full speed at you then hops a fence. we made it to our next campsite againg just in time to hike up mt norman to watch the sunset. only four of us went up and it was soo pretty. the hike up for the sunset was 6ks and somehow jenny and i ran so we could get up to the top on time. saw the sunset and went back down. i never thought i would do so much work everyday to watch the sun rise and set, but theres just something soo amazing about it and even though it happens every morning and every night i still want to see it as if i've never seen it before. made some quality dinner in the dark again, and our group was all happy with each other again and just laughed about how retarded we all were that whole day. the boys were still never lost though. the next morning we got up at 4:30am and hiked up mt norman in the dark with our sleeping bags and stuff to make breakfast so we could get up there while it was still dark, lay out our sleeping bags and be able watch the sunrise from our sleeping bags and then be able to sleep up there after and make brekky when we woke up. that was literally the coolest thing i have ever done. it was amazing. being able to lay there and watch thy sky go from pitch black and slowly see the red and orange rays come up and see the entire transformation, its indescribable. it made a rainbow on the horizon just from the glow of the sun before it actually came up. probably one of the most beautiful things ive ever seen. it was freeeezing up there though because we were on the top of the mountain with nothing to stop the wind so we were all legit bundled up in our sleeping bags and you couldnt even see our faces. we tried to sleep a little after the sunrise but i just layed there freeeezing from the wind tara, todd, kirsten and i probably could not have been closer to each other trying to keep each other warm. we did some more caving which was super cool and got to explore and find our own way out of these bigger caves, saw some rats crawling in some of them, which was a little gross but not too bad and then had to shimmy out of this tiny little hole between the dirt ground and this huuuuge boulder, it was crazy. but sooo much fun. we hiked back down mt. norman and had to pack camp up to hike back to the bus. overall i think we walked about 25ks which is insane considering i had probably 25 pounds on my back the entire time. i loved every second of it though. we all just got to hang out the entire time which was so much fun. not really sure what we did just hiked and hung out. but im really going to miss all these people and camping trips. its been amazing and outdoor ed has been one of the most fun experiences i have had. i love this place and wish i could do it all over again. after we got back from camping a group of us ordered pizzas. there were 7 of us and we got 13 pizzas... we all had two pizzas except for one person which definitely wasn't me. we looked really cool sitting at our kitchen table just eating out of the box with another box underneath. amazing. wish we could camp like this every weekend.