Litters of Leeches at Lamington Nat'l Park

On Friday, March 19 Arcadia provided the Brisbane/Gold Coast kids with an affordable opportunity to go to Lamington National Park, a gorgeous rainforest on the border of Queensland and New South Wales.


Hailey & I left Griffith at 7:42AM in order to get to Robina Train Station and be picked up by Mazz & Cat (Program Coordinators for QLD). Well, the bus ride was an adventure- there was one bus transfer, and we saw a totally different side of the Gold Coast. And Bond University too. We met up with a bunch of Arcadians at the train station, and waited patiently for the bus to arrive. It was a little late, but soon enough we were on our way! There were 24 of us, I believe, and the trip took about an hour and a half. Most everyone slept the whole way, which is understandable, it was pretty early.

Part of the trip included Mazz winding the bus up this terrifying, mostly one-lane mountain to O'Reilly's, our starting point.

Food for lunch was separated and put into peoples' bookbags, and soon enough we were applying bug spray to our ankles so that we wouldn't get leeches. Yes, leeches. Glorious. We started walking down this incredibly muddy (mind you, it was a rainy day) hillside. Erica only fell four times, and Devon only face-planted. We saw a BLUE crawfish. BLUE. It was super cool. Too bad I couldn't get a picture of it. Apparently they hiss at you too. We also saw a bunch of colorful birds, and a bunch of tiny leeches. One such tiny leech decided to attach itself to my leg, and while I screamed and panicked and could hardly keep still, Devon saved my life by pulling that little bugger off. I was/am traumatized.

Sooner or later we got to a point near a creek where we put together our lunch: chopped veggies, chicken, ham, tortillas, and condiments. It was quite delicious.

Now it was time to hike back UP the hillside. Keep in mind, this was a BIG hillside. And a muddy and slippery one, at that. We really sped up it, because we were running a little late and didn't want to cut anything out of the program. Basically, I now have buns of steel. Just letting you know. After we got back up the hill we did a tree-top bridge walk thing. It was fantastic. It wasn't as high as I thought it was going to be, which is good for someone such as myself. After the tree-top walk we saw some wallabies (adorable!) and got back on the bus.

Next stop? O'Reilly's winery. We got to taste 5 wines for only $3, so it was a fairly good deal. I did it. And I didn't really like it. After the wine tasting I went down by the creek, and checked my feet for leeches (more like, I took my shoes & socks off and Devon checked my feet because I was too scared).

After the winery we drove back to Robina, and saw some kangaroos on the way. Hailey and I dropped by Nando's after we got back, then walked around Surfer's all kinds of muddy and sweaty and smelly for a while, we mostly watched a rugby game at Circle on Cavill. Good times.

That's it for now. The next adventure is looking to be next weekend in Brissie with Erica!

♥ caitlin

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1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Still not sure if rugby is the gayest or the most manly sport there is. It's pretty contradictory, yes, but that's rugby.

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