So getting up early in the morning was awful, as always. The girls had already started on breakfast. Laura was making scrambled eggs and Victoria was makin some bacon. Ashley was starting on our lunches and I did the boy job, cutting cheese... for our sandwiches that is. We sat out on the porch and enjoyed the beautiful morning. After cleaning up we headed over Tonia's to leave for our hike. We all piled into the van and began our trip to Gulaga. We were not sure what to expect. Tonia had said that we were not going to be able to talk for the entire hike up the mountain, and it was at least a 2 hour hike... that would be rough. We also weren't sure how long it would take to get there. One guess was 45 minutes. It was 2 hours! What ever this gave me and Ashley lots of time to ramble on about sleep, dreams, random places we have slept, and how good we are at sleeping. Laura was quite impressed with our ability to talk about nothing for such an incredibly long time. It was a fun trip and all the rambling helped the drive go quickly.
When we got out of the van, we were in at a small gas station/convenient store kind of place. It had one gas pump outside and a porch out front. It was a nice little place, but we had to start our hike right away. We were introduced to our guide, Lynn (aboriginal Australian), who's family was some of the leaders in a group of aboriginals who had lived there in the past. The walk began on a dirt road and then slowly transitioned into an overgrown trail, but was steep the whole time. Before the brush started to get to thick we stopped and looked out over the valley. Lynn started to tell us what the aboriginals had believed about the land and creation. We were hiking the mother mountain and one of her sons had gone off into the see and become an island just off the coast, and the younger son had split off and moved a few kilometers away. We walked up further and Lynn would talk to us all the way up. (Yay, we didn't have to do the whole hike in silence!) Where ever the ground was moist we had to keep an eye out for tiny leaches that would get on our legs. They weren't dangerous or anything, just annoying.
For the majority of the hike we were unable to see much of the mountain. There was a rock that showed us that we were half way up the mountain, but we basically just had to keep going with no idea of our progress. I'm assuming Lynn could tell our general progress, but for the rest of us it was just blind hiking. It was kind of fun, but even when we got to our stopping point (a picnic kind of area in a saddle near the top of the mountain) we couldn't really see where we were. This was kinda disappointing because there was no satisfaction of seeing how high you had gone. Maybe that's just me though. Once we had all made it, we sat down at the table and ate our lunches. Most of us were out of water since the hike too so long. That wasn't too big a deal though. It was nice and cool in the shade. Lynn mixed some special clay stuff with water and made a sort of paint with it. She gave each of us a spot on our chin, forehead and each of our temples. One for our eyes to see, our mind to be open, our mouth to talk and our mind's eye to put them all together.
We started walking down a trail that went off into the bushes and Lynn was telling us about the aboriginal culture. We had to let the forest know that we were all coming by clapping two sticks together once for each person. That was my job. We went a little further in until we were at a few giant rocks. One of them had a ring around it and it was what the elders had used to communicate with the earth and meditate. There was a rock that represented females and a rock for males. We went a little further and there were three giant rocks stacked up. They represented body, mind, and spirit. They showed how the three needed to be balanced with each other. Further in and there was Noah's Ark. I found it interesting that they used a Biblical story to name one of their totems (what they called the rock formations). We went up onto a giant rock that was flat on top. It was the teaching rock. When the boys were about 13 and becoming men, they were taken there to learn about themselves and their beliefs. There was a rocks that looked like whales, dolphins, sharks, giant snakes, and all sorts of other things. It was amazing, because that really did look like those things. Then there was the ladies area....
We walked back and saw a birthing rock and a pregnant lady rock. It was a pretty interesting experience. The hike down was pretty fun. The girls I was staying with and I walked together and each one of them rolled an ankle at least three times... I didn't even one time. Booya. No one was seriously injured and we only got leaches on our shoes and socks. When we got down we were dying of thirst so we went into the little shop and bought some bottles and some ice cream bars. SO GOOD! Most of us hadn't had anything to drink since the top of the mountain. We sat on the porch of the store for a bit relaxing. When we got back into the van for the trip back, the inevitable happened... we ALL fell asleep.
We made it back to our "cabins" around 5 ish. We had wanted to go to the beach since like 10 minutes into the hike, so that was our first move. The water felt amazing, and the waves were fun to play in. This time the girls came into the water as well, so I was brave enough to venture out to the big waves. It was lots of fun. We were down there for maybe 40 minutes, then went up to the pool... it was a little chilly cuz it was getting late, but the water felt very nice. We dried off, got dressed and went to dinner. Tonight we had pumpkin keish stuff. It was pretty dang good. Right before dinner we pet some kangaroos. No big deal. Just average stuff. After eating, the roommates and I went back to our place. Victoria, who shall from now on be called Baby Bone, sat on the couch and wrote in her journal while Laura, Ashley and I went to walk on the beach. The stars were beautiful and the air was warm. I was expecting to see different constellations while here since we are in different hemispheres but we could see Orion. He was upside down though... We made our way back to the house and just chilled there for the night. We were going to go into the pool, but it closed at like 8. Boo. We... sat around and drank the champagne while getting to know each other a little better. It was a fun night. I really had a good time getting to know everyone from the program a little better.
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