August 6-8
On Friday morning, I mean early morning, Chris, Brendan, Katherine and I waited in the rain for a taxi that wasn't coming. We found another and were soon on our way to the airport. As I sat half asleep in the back seat, I noticed the driver was enclosed in a cocoon of plexi-glass. Now either he was in a mobile quarantine with swine or thought that one or both of the people in Victoria who carry guns was after him. A quick flight (which seemed deathly long because of the baby behind me and couple that couldn't stop touching and making out beside me) to the Gold Coast brought us to beautiful weather and sandy beaches lined with opal water. We traversed the beach of Kirra and had lunch at a local cafe, all with this view of the Gold Coast city.
The Arcadia bus picked up us and a large group of other study abroad students and made its way to the ferry across to North Stradbroke Island, or Straddie, where we would stay for the weekend. Straddie is no walk in the park vacation land, however. It has 8 of the top 10 most venomous snakes, the most venomous octopus, jellyfish, spider, shellfish, and probably more. Anyway, that night we had dinner at a local restaurant and listened to an old aboriginal man tell the story and history of the aboriginies on Straddie. His people had a special connection with the dolphins, who some of the elders could actually call (a phenomenon he had seen with his grandfather). He told a story of how they would fish the mullet run each year, calling the dolphins who would push the enormous schools of fish into shore where the people would net them. They would make piles of fish 8 feet high on the beach, then give back exactly half to the dolphins. I wish I had a dolphin to make fishing easier.
In the morning we went out sea kayaking and saw a whale (either gray or humpback I think) within five minutes. While playing closer into shore, Hughesy and I flipped our kayak a few times (mostly intentionally). Well, one of the times he came up with a purplish tentacle thing on his arm that gave him a bit of a sting. He lived, it wasn't a box jellyfish (which would have killed him in minutes) but he also didn't have the balls to pee on it, which you're suppose to. After that, we were driven off road up to some sand dunes overlooking the ocean (where we saw more whales) to do some sandboarding. We all figured this would be as easy as it sounded, like snowboarding but in the sun. The difference is you cannot control a sandboard. There's no carving, no cutting, just going down, which is where we went the first couple tries. My first fall sent me falling backwards down the hill and taking a mouthful of sand that sprayed up from my legs. We eventually got the hang of it and had some sick runs on the slopes...dunes...Here's Hughesy being the man.
After sandboarding and dinner we set out on a koala search. We patrolled up and down a eucalyptus filled road until giving up by a beach where we knew we would find dolphins. We found them, and it so happened that the koalas were in the trees right above them.
That night we wandered over to the local bar that turned out to be a masonic club. We stuck out. Bad. All of the locals there were already hammered and we could hear them talking and laughing about us. Turned out it was a birthday party for some local, and soon after we sat down a three man band started jamming out American country songs and Kings of Leon. Sweet. On the way back, a group of tourists passed us. Andy exclaimed, "Guys there's an animal following them!" Me: "Yeah Andy it's a dog. In fact it's a lab."
The next morning we woke up early and hit the surf. The adventure company set us up on goofy long foam boards as we were mostly beginners and set us loose on the waves. The sets were totally gnarly and the beach was shoobie free. Life was great except that most of us only got up on a wave a couple times and fell off shortly after.
After surfing and lunch, we went on a nature walk that took us to these spots overlooking the ocean. There's not much to say, other than that I couldn't count the number of dolphins cruising by and whales playing out on the horizon.
Our last destination was Brown Lake, a lake that sits on top of the saturated sand island. The water is clear but brown because tea tree leaves fall in and soak, staining the water brown. The aboriginies believed this was a spiritual lake with healing powers. The tea tree oil does actually heal and clean the skin, and after swimming in the lake I felt like after a snake sheds its skin.
A quick ferry took us back to the mainland, but we will definitely be going back to the Gold Coast.
Here's some more cool stuff.
