Stradbroke Island (02.10.08)

(Correctly) assuming the bus would be late as usual, we took an earlier bus whose assumed lateness would bring us in perfect time to catch the bus at the Cultural Forecourt at South Bank. Our assuming was as mentioned correct, and we got to the bus in time. We were on our own, as Leah Burns would be meeting us at the ferry. The very nice busdriver did the compulsory headcount before driving us to Cleveland and we met up with Leah, her baby and her sister. Leah had a baby just before we came, so he is never far away. We took the ferry to Stradbroke Island, which took about 40 minutes. It was a nice ferry, you could sit up on a deck in the sun. We arrived at Dunwich on Stradbroke Island and drove about 20 minutes to Point Lookout which is a small town on the northeastern side of the island. We spent some time on the very nice Cylinder Beach, and had a barbecue. We got back on the bus and drove back to a field in Dunwich, where we met up with an Aboriginal guy called Matt, who were going to show us various parts of Aboriginal culture. He showed us some Aboriginal weapons, threw some spears, and played the didgeridoo for us, which was quite cool.


He painted us in the face and on our arms, and taught us Aboriginal dances, which tell stories. I cheated and didn't dance all the time, because I wanted to film it. Some of the moves looked so funny, I just had to.




After some dancing, we each got a boomerang which we got to paint using Aboriginal patterns and symbols. I think mine is quite cool:It was too windy for us to try the boomerangs. so we drove to a less windy spot and tried throwing boomerangs. It didn't go as well for all of us, but there were some really cool returns. The boomerangs actually came back.
We then headed back to the ferry, and we had to wait for some time before we could board it. Most of us fell asleep. When we drove onto the ferry, I felt really ill. It just got worse when we were driving home, and I threw up (which is not that fun, really). We were dropped off at Garden City, and as I didn't feel well enough to take the bus home and walk all those hills back home, I paid for a taxi home. We got back home and I spent the evening throwing up and sleeping, so I really don't know what Hanne did. It was still a great day though, and I had a lot of fun :)