Weekend "Camping" - Day 1

     So the ciee leaders said that we were going to go camping up at Merry Beach. We would be staying in a cabin for 2 nights. We would be given money for groceries that would provide us breakfast and lunch for those two day. Dinner would be provided for us at camp. The bus would arrive outside Weerona (where I live) at 9:10. We would pick everyone up and then head out. It would be a 4 hour drive and we would stop at the grocery store on the way to get our food.
     When the "bus" arrived, it was a van. I guess they call them mini buses. We drove for a while and stopped at a grocery store. We bought eggs, bacon, juice, milk, cereal, bread, cheese, turkey meat, Sprite, chips, grapes, granola bars, frozen pizzas... and... champagne. We stopped at a lookout point with a giant blow hole right before this but only for a little while. It was cool the signs just said there was potential for injury, not that you couldn't go out onto them. So I did. We drove a little further and stopped again for gas I think. The drive didn't feel too long which was nice.
     As we pulled up our driver, Scott (Australia), told us that we would start to see kangaroos on the side of the road soon. WE DID! They were little ones. It was exciting. As we rolled up to the campground we could see the beach. We were pretty excited to be staying so close. There were lots of people camping on the side close to the beach and then on the other side... there were houses. So "staying in a cabin" actually meant "staying in a beach house!' It was a super awesome surprise. We had split up into two groups of four students for our eating and living arrangements. Since there were four of us coming from Weerona, Ashley (Wisconsin), Laura (Connecticut), Victoria (South Carolina) and me, we became a group.  We got our key for our "cabin" and walked in. We could see the beach from our porch... There were two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen/dining room area, and the bathroom was split with the sink and jacuzzi tub/shower in one room and the toilet in another. Ashley and I took the room with the bunk beds and Laura and Victoria took the room with the queen ish sized bed. We unpacked and then headed over to Tonia's (ciee leader, Australia) "cabin." While we were waiting for everyone to get ready we saw a Monitor Lizard outside. Most of us went out and took pictures of it. The body was about a meter long and with the tail it was close to two. It was climbing a tree... kinda strange, but whatever. We went back inside and Tonia's friend Rhona (Australia) talked to us about her beliefs.
     There was some stuff about it that I agreed with with. The main one was that we need to look for more reasons that a person may have done something like cut us off or say something that was mean. It sometimes has nothing to do with you and there is something going on in their life at that point that gives a reason for what they did. It's kind of a complicated matter, and when she went further into it is when I started disagreeing. She was saying that we all have our own history books (our past experiences), and our history books make up what we know and think. There are no wrong decisions and though we don't condone what rapist and other bad people do, they were only making the decision that they thought was right. Her explanation was complicated and confusing. She didn't give us a chance to rebuttal which I find amusing, because I could tell she knew we had some things to say. She diverted away from all the right and wrong type stuff, and that's when I stopped listening... I was falling asleep. oops.
     When she was finishing up we saw some kangaroos outside and were given permission to leave and go take pictures. The kangaroos were all different sizes and were EVERYWHERE! They just kinda came out of the bush (woods) and walked right into the camping area. We took a ton of pictures while keeping our distance. After taking way too many pictures of kangaroos, we went back to our rooms for... something. I don't remember what. On our way back to Tonia's we heard a ton of noise from over by the road. When we went over there there were about 50 bright green birds in a clump. There were 3 or 4 little girls screaming along with the birds. The girls had birds on their heads, arms, and hands. It was crazy. They said that they had put out a box with a bunch of old bread in it and the birds had gone crazy for it. We were able to grab little bits of the bread and then lure the birds to us with it. Once there was one bird on you, the others lost all fear and joined in. At one point I had 3 birds on my arm and another one on my shoulder. The girls all got to hold a bunch as well. It was really cool. And only Ashley got pooped on... twice.
     When we made it to Tonia's the others had already left for the walk to Pretty Beach. On the way we got a little more brave and inched in closer to the kangaroos. A couple of the girls were able to feed one some grass out of their hand. We saw a Wallaby on our way back. It was more orange than a kangaroo and way more shy. When we got back we were given like an hour before dinner. I wanted to go to the beach even though by the time we were ready we only had like 20 minutes and it was almost dark... The girls went down with me and drank wine on the beach and I played in the water. There was no one else on the beach it was crazy! The waves were decently sized, I was just a little to creeped out by being the only one in the water to get out to where the big ones were. After about half an hour we all headed back in for dinner. Dinner was not quite finished by the time we got there so everyone sat in the living room and talked. I was participating in the conversation until I made the mistake of laying down on the floor... I fell asleep in a matter of minutes. Supposedly there were things thrown at me while I was out, but I didn't notice. I was woken up when the food was finished and we were able to serve ourselves salad, corn on the cob, and coleslaw stuff.  We were each given a piece of steak and a chicken breast as well. Oh my goodness, it was sooo good! Some of the girls were unable to finish their meals, but don't worry the food did not go to waste. I ate it. We all talked and hung out for a while and then went back to our own places to relax before bed with a little bit of chocolate for dessert. Ashley, Laura, Victoria and I stayed up until about 12 talking and getting to know each other a little better. It was a great day, but we needed to get some sleep for our giant hike the next day...