Wednesday 11th April

Journal entry brought to you by (a very sandy) Tami

Happy Birthday Cam!

Well, after that pleasant start, Sophie and I were most peeved as Jeff managed to NOT wake us up to watch the sunrise behind the Moheno wreck as discussed the night before.He did however, manage to get himself there to see it. Not impressed. Anyway, we made him feel suitably guilty about it and then set about the routine tasks (that already feel ritualistic even though it was only our second time doing them). These were, of course, preparing as sand-free breakfast as is humanely possible while on the world's largest sand island, dismantling the tents, packing everything up onto the roof of Sandy, and squashing all ten of us into the 4WD to go on our next adventure. We headed to a campsite to use their facilities, wash up and get clean teeth and the like, and then headed up to Indian Head. This is a volcanic stub at one end of the island which is one of the most northern parts that the public are allowed to drive to. We began the trek upwards, which, compared to Lion's Head and Table Mountain, was literally a walk in the park. We saw a dingo on the way up which was pretty cool! Didn't try to attack us or anything.

When we eventually got to the top of the Head, the views were pretty amazing. The beach stretched for miles down either side and the sea was just so clear and beautiful. Jono and I were looking out in vain for sharks but we didn't see any.

After walking back down to Sandy, we decided to have lunch there before moving on, which was cheese sandwiches for us and ham for the carnivores, with fruit and crisps for afterwards. Then Sophie, Jeff and I decided we wanted to go to the Champagne Pools which were meant to be about a 25 minute walk from the beach. No one else expressed any interest in accompanying us, so the three of us prepared ourselves for a nice long walk,only to find out that the map lied and we were actually about 5 minutes from the pools. They were quite pretty. A bit browny, which is I guess where they get their name from. We then drove on to find a campsite, and after Mariosa braved a turn at the wheel and didn't get slandered alive by the English Quattro, I decided to have a go as well. Driving on sand is a bit like driving on snow, it's hard to control in soft sand, but on hard sand it was okay. I accidentally went through a creek a little too fast and apparently people got wet and bumped around, which I didn't really care about anyway. Ha. Anyway it was a lot of fun driving, until I got stuck in soft sand. Luckily Jeff managed to save me by reversing out of the rut I had so dutifully created, and I drove some more when the sand got harder again, right up to our campsite for the evening, which was really just a patch of sand at the back of the beach. However Sophie and Jeffmeister, in their sheer mode of genius, went a little further inland and found an amazing little plot of land which made a perfect campsite. We set up the tents and windbreaker, and then Jono, Nick, Dan, Cam and I played baseball with the shovel as a bat and a random tennis ball that someone had brought along. SO much fun! A bit later we began preparing dinner, Sophie and I were privileged to get ours first as the meal theme was barbeque and so the veggie sausages were cooked first. Then everyone else got loaded up with burgers and sausages, and then we all toasted marshmallows over the cooking fire. Was so much fun! Nick and I perfected the technique of toasting a mallow, and then we all played cards as a big group. Everyone got a bit drunk, especially Nick, who amongst other activites managed to jump onto M2's tent and collapse it, and put 12 marshmallows in his mouth in one go. We had a really good night overall though, with good music, good company, and the most beautiful sky of stars you have ever seen. There was no light pollution and the sky was completely devoid of clouds, so they were the brightest sharpest stars and moon you've ever seen. Was pretty cool.

The rest of the evening is a bit of a blur. Like most of the group, I went to bed at around 11, intending to get up the next morning to watch the sunrise. Sophie stayed up quite a bit later I think. She is clearly more hardcore than me. To defend my honour here though, because on the island it gets dark at about 6pm we had dinner by 6.30pm and we'd been up since 7 so I think I did pretty well for someone who, as we all know, is a bit of an old soul at heart and likes to be tucked up early with a book and a cup of tea.

Ha. Anyhoo. A good day. But seriously, I have sand EVERYWHERE. Let the imagination wander.