My
neck hurts.
Clemens
is passed out in the corner. Tom is uncomfortably close beside me. The tent is stuffy
and sunlight squeezes through the mesh, illuminating it in a dull dirty-green.
I
sit up just as Rango starts banging on some kitchenware gong outside,
screaming—quarter past seven, time to get up!
He
enjoys this, you can tell.
Everybody’s
head hurts. Aleksandra looks a bit pale standing outside her tent. Josefine
looks fresh enough, brushing her teeth. Clemens stumbles out of the tent beside
me. His sunglasses are already on and so is his sun-hat—the one he’d purchased in Asia somewhere—he mumbles something and
tromps through the sand toward our Jeep. Tom is still in the tent rummaging
through his bag.
Slowly
but surly everybody emerges and yawns and eats breakfast—the guy with the
pierced nipples and the tank top cracks his first beer—and we load into our
vehicles. A group of people—Swedish and Canadian, mostly—steal our specific
Jeep so we end up in the leader-car with Rango, facing each other.
He
climbs behind the wheel and adjusts his heavy-billed, odd-ball, neck-protect
hat and starts the engine. His teeth are a perfect line beneath his lip. He reminds me of a lizard with his sun-marred skin, eyes flashing in the shadow of
his brow.
He
extracts a small blue Ipod from his shirt pocket—his personal jukebox—and puts
on the single most refined and diverse collection of R&B I’ve heard outside
of my own shabby Ipod. The guy is a Player—an O.G. of the highest degree, with
his R&B classics and khaki shorts and false teeth and hiking boots. Not to
mention his constant and highly inappropriate jokes.
Our
first stop was Eli Creek, a neat little thing with nice current and cool clean water.
Aleksandra and I ran along the beach, looking like Baywatch models, and I
climbed into a tree for the group photo.
After
that we drove along the ocean toward Indian Head, a famous peninsula that juts
into the sea, where—according to legend—the Aboriginal people first witnessed
the passing of Captain Cook upon his discovery of Fraser Island.
Yadda-yadda.
ANYWAYS.
I
made some wisecrack about “only getting Indian head on reservations”, but
nobody got it. We started the climb and Tom and I and Aleksandra and Josefine
did it without shoes. The view was great, the ocean was vast and blue and we
could see stingrays from the cliff edge.
Later
on we drove to a famous shipwreck, a shored, rusting skeleton, and took some
photos, then moved on to the “Champagne Pools”, a portion of the shore where
the rocks form small craters and the ocean spills within, creating foamy salt-water
baths and two medium-sized natural swimming pools.
This
took up most of the day. We ate lunch and laughed, and Tom and I talked,
etcetera.
On
the way back to camp we stopped again at Eli Creek for an hour or so—freshwater at last—and splashed around
and washed the salt from our skins. It was relaxing.
That
night we would drink.
And
drink we did.
Night
came fast—like an excited whore, she was upon us with her starry tits and her
Milky Way mammary, bathing us in her moonlight and shadows. We are all crowded
beneath the canopy, finishing off our meals, complaining and drinking.
Not
much happened actually.
I
got bored and returned to the arms of the beach to consult with the stars.
Tom
joined me for a while, left, and
then Josefine came—we discussed “back home” and confidence and strength and goodness
and such, also Danish movies and the Shakespearian Star Wars she’d purchased.
We
spent our last day at Lake McKenzie before going back. A group of us built a
pyramid out of our bodies and did chicken fights (ouch), and Becka, Katie and I
traded wit.
We
returned to Hervey Bay on the ferry and that was that, it was awesome—only I had a certain Brazilian on my mind,
limited funds, and a one-way ticket in the wrong direction…
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