Mount Warning

Friday was a bum day for me. No classes or homework, so pretty much nothing going on. Later that night we went over to Mark’s at 21C to watch Terminator 2. There is an ongoing argument over who is better…Arnie or Sylvester. Lisa is most definitely in love with Rambo, especially cause he ripped out someone’s trachea. Movie Night was a good choice cause the next day we had to be up bright & early to go on a Rainforest Walk. However, the walk was cancelled due to the flood damage earlier in May, so instead we were going to go to Mount Warning. We should have known what we were getting into just by the name of the “walk.” Mount Warning is a beast! It once was a volcano that had lava flows all the way to Lismore (it took about 1 hour 45 min to drive there). We started out hiking thinking that it wouldn’t be that bad…we were all in pretty decent shape…how bad could it be right? Wrong! A sign told us it would take about 4-5 hours to reach the summit and return to the bottom. Kelly, Lisa, & I made it to the top in about 45 minutes, we were booking it. Just before you reach the summit, you have a vertical wall of rock you have to climb while holding onto a small chain rope to help you up. This was the most rigorous part of the climb. But it was definitely worth it! From the summit you could see the coast, starting with the city of Brisbane, Gold Coast, and down to Byron Bay. It was amazing how far you could see…you could see the tops of other mountains in the area. I would love to camp at the summit and watch the sunrise the next morning…I heard it is breathtaking!

We were going to grill out on the Rec Dec for the Fourth of July, but the hiking took a bit longer than we thought. We also didn’t leave Lismore until 9:15 when we were supposed to leave at 8:00 so that pushed us back a little. After everyone returned from the summit, we had a barbie. We grilled chicken, beef, kangaroo, mushrooms, & cheese. Everything was really good. The kangaroo tastes like a mix of steak and lamb. It was a little tough, (probably cause roos are all muscle) but overall pretty good. It is just disturbing to think that about what you are actually eating…it seems as if roos are endangered and you are not supposed to eat them…but in reality it is pretty normal to grill. Weird.

Once we got back to Orion College everyone took hot showers to warm up (it was freezing out! You could see your breath!). Though everyone was pretty tired from the walk we still had to celebrate the Fourth of July! We ended up hanging out and playing card games. We even lit off some sparklers…inside the house…to celebrate. Later we went downtown to The Standard and Mary Gilhooleys. It was loads of fun!