Australia Diary 30 May 2002
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I was one of the few that made it up for dawn (or close enough anyway). There were a couple of others wandering around at this bizzarely early time of the day. It was eerily quiet, especially after the party noise of the night before. The early morning is the best time to see the mirriad of sharks that inhabit this area of the coast. It's yet another beautiful section of the coastline that you can't swim for fear of dying some horrible death! Unfortunately I didn't see any Jaws like fins jutting out of the water, to be honest though, the shark that I saw in the Whitsundays was enough for me!

After breakfast (lunch, brunch, whatever), we drove up to the 'Champagne Pools' further up the coast. You really do need to put your imagination into overdrive in order to force these rockpools to live up to their impressive sounding name. We started the journey back down the coast after a little dip (god it was cold), a little rescuing (one of the other groups had run completely out of water, so we donated 3 litres of our supply) and a top up of water and chocolate at the next petrol station up the coast. This time we stopped off at the Pinnicles, a multi-coloured sand cliff on the coast on the way down, as we'd powered past them yesterday on the way up. We were aiming for Mckensie Lake, which is one of the main lakes that the tour buses stop off at. We were actually advised against going there because it can be very busy, and there are, "equally good lakes", to go and see further south. Pah, rubbish, Mckensie is simply beautiful. We arrived at around four in the afternoon, thanks mainly to some cross country rally style-E driving from Famous Pete (from Noah's, don't you know, it's the biggest backpackers in Bondi...). The campsite was virtually deserted. The lake is serene, beautiful. We went for a quick dip after setting up the tents for the night. I forgot my swimmers, couldn't be bothered to go back to camp to get them, so went swimming in my shorts - brrrr. Dinner was cooked up by yours truly - a Italian tomato sauce cum vegetable stew affair. Now I sware I cooked enough for about a dozen people and yet every damn scapeful went out of the pan as the hungry gannets of the group descended upon it.

The night was fairly quiet. there's a strict nine pm curfew at the caampsite that's enforced by Debbie, the ranger. We were all pretty tired after the late night and early morning (well I was) anyway, so we were more or less in bed by half past. The evening's fun was augmented by John and TomandElla's Funnel Web spider teasing. This involved

  • a) finding a funnel web hole;
  • b) finding a long stick;
  • c) whilst hiding behind a big log (important step, these guys bite); and
  • d) inserting long stick into funnel web spider's home to entice it out.

Great fun for all the family!

Look, don't be stupid. These guys will bite you if you piss them off. You are around 4-5 hours from any sort of medical assistance (which will involve being air-lifted from the island). The funnel web spider venom is deadly, it can kill you. So don't go playing with them.
It can be fun though.

To tomorrow

Created by Dan Leigh1/06/02