May 23, 2009
We wanted to go to Fraser Island today but they had to close it due to the storms happening. Crazy ass winds blowing the beaches apart and giving it a going over meant we needed to avoid it. Instead we went shopping for our last pieces. We ran into Waity at Supercheap – a truckdriver, recent father, and good friend of my good friend Dirk. He helped us put on some straps we had just bought and showed me the recovery points on the vehicle in case we get bogged in the desert. Thanks Waity! This other guy helped too and laughed at our daftness. Fair enough. After shopping all day (Haesh saying “We stay in houses or we shop. This is not camping.”) we gunned it to Hervey Bay to play guitar, eat ramen and attempt beach cricket. Haesh and Yoshi went nuts on a fallen tree with my hatchet cos they both brought knives and want to make statues by whittling wood. Watching them go for it gave me a chuckle, this real energetic attempt at dissection, a violent flurry against the small trunk.
After nightfall we returned to Ben and Libby’s. They had other guests over, more highschool friends of mine, two sweethearts who got married last year (great wedding), Mel and Jay. We shared a few good laughs over dinner (dirty jokes always seem the funniest) and boy did we ever get to eat again like champs! Put Mexican on the menu and me on the map – I ate half a kilo of beans on tortillas and tacos, with scores of avocado pieces, tomato and lettuce. The 5 of us ate 44 units altogether. Not too shabby. The rest of the night I showed Jay and Mel the map of our travels, realising we might need a bit more preparation for the desert. We’ll see. Other than that, we chilled out, took it easy, and hoped that by tomorrow night we would get to see a camp site by the beach – our first date with the ground and its pillows.
