Well, recently I got back from Tasmania. Names omitted where appropriate.
Getting up at 5AM I got ready to leave to our meeting place. My bags packed the night before by my Mum. Most of the ~60 other kids, most friends, were already there by the time I arrived at 20 past 5. At about 5 30 we got on the bus and left for Sydney Domestic Airport, a little longer than 2 hours the drive had an air of apprehension about it. We arrived at the airport and quickly got our luggage, we checked in and got through security before finally being herded onto the plane. My first time flying I had pretty much no problems, albeit I didn't like feeling like I was dropping at times. I was pretty lucky to sit next to two girls who had no fear of flying.
A little under 2 hours later we arrived in Launceston were we got our bags and boarded the bus, we went to a nearby little village where we went to a beautiful bakery and had pies and sausage rolls, along with things like milkshakes and the like. After lunch we wandered around the village and boarded the bus again, next we went to Woolmers Estate. There we were given a tour of the historic estate, after the tour we wandered around the grounds, including the rose garden. After this we went to cataract gorge were most of us took the chairlift across, the longest single span one at 308m. At the other side I saw a couple of animals, a lot of peacocks and a couple of wallabies. We left and went to were we were staying, we stayed at a motel. The girls and boys were separated into different groups of rooms and 4 shared a room. At 6:30 we had dinner, we all chose one of two main courses and one of two desserts; chicken and beef, or cheesecake and fruit salad. I had beef and cheesecake. We had to be in our rooms by 9:30. Obviously almost none of us followed that.
The next day we had breakfast, a large buffet of cereal, bacon, eggs and the like. I had a plate of scrambled eggs and a plate of bacon, along with 2 glasses of orange juice and tea. Dilmah, black – no sugar. We left the motel at about 8:30 and drove to Sheffield via Deloraine. Sheffield was a rural town with fantastic cafes and bakeries, covering the walls of towns buildings were murals depicting the history of the area. We left Sheffield and traveled for hours until we got to Cradle Mountain Visitor Center. Where we walked around the national park and walked around Dove Lake. We were showed why the mountain is called 'Cradle' Mountain. The guides showed us an amazing stump, an average sized stump that was 1000 years old – it had no growths marks because the tree was a King Billy, they grow so slow you can't see them. We went on the bus and traveled to our next accommodations, Tullah Lakeside Chalets. The rooms were divided into 4 'wings', 3 of which our group stayed in. I stayed in the worst wing, however we had the largest room. We had a bench, 3 bunk beds, a toilet, shower and a sink. We had started with 3 people in the room, ended with 'officially' 5 people. At one point there was about 30-40 people packed into the room and by the time we fell asleep we had 11 in there. We had a dinner of chicken schnitzel with chips and vegies along with a dessert of icecream on applepie with fruit salad.
The next day we only had a choice of bread and cereal for breakfast before we headed of again. The third day was the longest day with hours of boring bus rides. We passed through Queenstown where it had one of two gravel football fields in Australia – the other in Coober Pedy. Queens town had sparse vegetation around because of the mining that went on there. We passed through before we came to see “The Wall of Wilderness” along with other sculptures by Greg Duncan. They were all of fantastic wooden carvings, the clothing looked like you could take it off the rack and put it on. The wall was a currently 100m wall that depicted the history of the area, the wall was about 10m high. It was planned to be 300m long. We continued on to Lake St Claire where we had a packed lunch and walked around the lake and the area before we drove to Mt Field National Park where we walked through the forest to a pretty large waterfall called Russell Falls. We travelled onward to just outside Hobart where we stayed at riverfront villas. Most of use stayed in rooms that 4 people could go in each, however there was a Coach House and a Mansion where people stayed, 8 and 11 respectively. That night was probably the scariest of the whole trip.
As was usual every night people came to our villa, where 3 other guys stayed with me. We hung out with a couple girls until 9:30 where they went back to their own cabin. We talked until about 11:30-12, before then some drunk 20 year olds started trying to freak out the girls, knocking on windows and the like. Eventually the police came and they stopped. After that two girls came back into our room and we hung out. I was laying on the lounge and passed out at about 2. I woked up at 3 with one of the girls tapping me with fear in her voice telling me that “There's something wrong with [NAME], she won't wake up.” I got up quickly and went into the bedroom where she was asleep, the others were trying to get her to wake up. She was obviously breathing, so the other girl called the teachers on the rooms phone. She came quickly and we were shooed out of the room (apart from the other girl). Eventually the ambulance was called and arrived. One teacher asked us to tell them what happened while two others were in the room with the girl. I was asleep so I couldn't help, however I found out what happened. About 15minutes after I passed out the girl fell asleep, so the others sat around talking until a couple minutes later, one of them claim, that the door opened and a black figure ran out.
A few more minutes later the girl ran outside, eyes closed, across the road before running back, opening the door and back into the room she fell asleep in. They went in and checked and she was sleeping peacefully. So they went back into the lounge room and discussed what happened. They went in and checked her again however she wasn't sleeping peacefully. She was breathing erratically, her fists were clenched and you couldn't open them, her eyes were shut tight and you could not open them. She was in the fetal position shaking and whimpering. The others kept comforting her and every few minutes she started resting peacefully before shaking and whimpering again. Eventually they decided to get help, they woke me up and rang our teachers, who then rang the ambulance who came and checked on her. An hour later she woke up in the hands of our teacher. She says she has no memory of what happened, she was as scared as we all were. They stayed and checked on her for another our before they took them to their own rooms to get some sleep. The people I stayed with tried to get some sleeping but I only got 2 hours before I woke up for breakfast. Remember that one person that thought he saw the black figure? At breakfast his story changed to it being a little girl. After someone else asked if it was. :|
Next: SHAWPING!