Big Weekend

Well, it was on Saturday.

I hung out with my 10 year old friend. We had a fun day.

She took me to Lone Pine... and lost me. She insists that I lost her, but I told her that, as she's a regular at Lone Pine she knows where everything is and what time everything is and so she wasn't lost, I was. She found me at the loos (toilet), she told me that she knew I'd have to go there sometime. Then we arranged that if we became separated we'd meet at the front entry.

I also asked her what she'd have done if I had gone off with a stranger! She said that was what she was supposed to be concerned about. I pointed out again to her that I was the lost one, and she was much too smart to go off with any strange man. We had a laugh about that.

Sometimes yaks can be a pain in the bum. ESL ones are worst, they don't understand the rules. There were a few very polite Americans there, young men. Some Malays, lots of Japanese tourists. There are times when you can feed the animals and there are times when you can see them being fed, and you can hold chicks and guinea pigs. Touch sheep. Watch koalas...

It's such a hard life for a koala...

After Miss 10 walked my legs off (and I didn't know it), we went to Indooroopilly shopping centre. We drove around two carparks and I said to her "We may not be going shopping today if I can't find a park." She suggested that we go this way and that way and suddenly we were out of the carpark. Then we went back in again. Down the bottom, right in the dungeon where I usually park. Under Target. Sorta. And there was someone backing out. I let them out and got their spot. Woohoo! It was crazy!

We looked at lots of stuff and Miss 10 spent all her remaining allowance for the day - she shouted me brekkie and I shouted lunch.

On the way home, late, I called in to see MDFD, I'd found mangos cheap on the side of the road, and she loves mangos, so I bought some to give to her and decided to deliver them. She was home so I suggested we have a Chinese feed at the local take away shop she's told me about. The local Chinese shops where I live have changed hands or closed down and you can't get a decent Chinese feed here these days. The food was yum. And I had it for lunch and tea the next day!

When I woke up on Sunday I had trouble walking. My calves were so sore! All that walking. My back is fine (I have a slippery disc), but I was prepared as I wore some thong things like crocs which are very soft to walk on and so absorb the shock.

Explaining to mum that my legs were killing me she said "You've been 'Colonged'!" The Colong Caves are an area where you must walk down a mountain to get there. Usually a long-weekend trip, leaving Friday night/very early Saturday morning and arriving in time to walk in and set up camp. The walk in is very, very steep. You have to aim for a tree and sort of catch it to stop you losing your footing - or you just slide down on your bum so you don't fall. Coming out is really the bad bit. Your legs feel like they're going to fall off! And the next few days are torture. The funniest thing about that trip I did there with Dad was that some of the crowd were cave diving and distributed their belt weights in amongst unsuspecting people's packs. You must carry everything in and everything, including your rubbish, out. The divers waited until people's packs were unattended and then popped their weights into the side pockets of the packs.

Oh, I just remembered the other funny thing. The trips were usually made in late autumn or early winter. It sometimes snowed in these places so it was very cold at times. Dad stopped on the way and asked what grog I'd like to take for around the campfire. He'd have Cinzano and some other poison. I had two cans of UDL (premixed), one for each night. All you could get then in UDL was Rum and Coke, and Vodka and Orange. They were shocking. But I was sixteen and very grown up! Except when, at lunchtime on Saturday I had opened my can of tuna to eat and tossed the old fashioned can opener in the pack. The blunt end with the bottle top lifter speared right into one of my UDL cans.

I'm sooooo lucky!

Glossary:
yak = tourist (old cavers' nickname, because they follow along in a line around the ridges and mountains, all in a row, just like yaks)
ESL = English second language

And this is the old bachelor...