Outdoor Ed Trip #1 Meebunn-bia: Day One

Outdoor Education is one of the units I am enrolled in here at SCU. During the semester there are two field trips that we go on…one to Meebunn-bia and another to Girraween. We go to Meebunn-bia for 3 days/2 nights and Girraween for 4 days/3 nights. The first one is not too bad…the whole group stays together and we spend each night cooking & sleeping at the same site. For the second trip, most of the time will be spent in separate groups. We will also be doing most of the navigating, cooking, and sleeping on our own…haha…finding the actual site and putting up the tents that is. Monday to Wednesday, July 20-22 was the trip to Meebunn-bia. It is about 2 hours away from Lismore, in the state of Queensland to try to give you a better picture. I am not sure how much land Meebunn-bia is on, but it is a lot…I am hoping to ask Steve, our instructor this week in class.

We formed groups to cook in…mine was Team Rambo: Lisa, Kelly, & Jess. We did the shopping on the Friday before so all we had to do Sunday night was throw everything in our packs and be good to go! Oh yeah…we also had a creation to make. We bought some white tanks that we turned into “Team RAMBO gear.” The fronts had our name as well as a picture of Rambo’s huge knife, and a sketch of his abs (which would hopefully line up with our own belly buttons to help us look real tough). On the back was a Kill Count, which equaled 3 for the number of days on the trip as well as “Live for Nothing or Die for Something.” Pretty bad ass.

The plan was to stay the night at Lisa’s (again) since she had the closest apartment to the hill down to campus [we had to be down there by 6:30 the next morning]. However, I ended up calling the Rents around 12:30 and talked for ages, so I ended up heading back to my apartment so I wouldn’t wake those girls up. My sleep was terrible though…I kept waking up, afraid I would oversleep and not hear my alarm. But I was up & ready at 5:45…lucky me.

Day One

At last we were on our way to Meebunn-bia! Once we got there we were introduced to Tobin, who would be our guide for the next three days. We began the day off with a hike up the face of a cliff…with our backpacks on. I’m not sure, but I think they weighed about 30 pounds? Maybe? When we reached the top we stopped for a quick lunch break. Our lunch consisted of flatbread with cold pizza sauce and cheese with an apple/orange. It was a good place to stop…we were able to see our surroundings pretty well and took some cool pictures.

Lunch was done quite fast and we were on to our next stop. We hiked for about a mile until we came up to a high ropes course…in the middle of the bush…strange. Once we got harnessed up and learned how to properly latch onto the yellow “safety” spots, we were up & climbing. There were 3 different “courses” to choose from, with 3 being the hardest. Since we were Team Rambo [and Rambo isn’t scared of anything] we decided to start with 3…not one of the best ideas we’ve had. We probably spent about 2 hours on all of the courses before heading to our last site of the day…our campsite. Throughout our hikes, we also saw a lot of wallabies hopping through the bush.

The campsite wasn’t far from the High Ropes course…just up the hill. Once we got to the top, we spread out the tarps, put up the poles, and threw the second tarp over the top of the poles and that was our tent. Then we got out our stove, put some lighter fluid in the cup, and lit it up. The menu for the night was penne pasta with sauce & cheese.

After we had cleaned up for the night, we started playing campfire games. One was called “Honey, I Love You, Would You Give Me a Smile?...Honey, I Love You, But I Just Can’t Smile.” Here’s how it goes: one person is in the middle of the circle and says the first line to someone in the circle, trying to get them to smile, and you keep going to different people in the circle until someone smiles. Another game was for each person to pick a fruit and had to say it 3 times then pick someone else’s fruit and say it 3 times as well, all while trying not to show any teeth, then as the game went on your tongue had to be out, etc…kinda hard to explain, but it was fun.

While we were playing games, there were all kinds of possums that were trying to steal our food from the table. They are gross little creatures…real ugly. Finally it was time to hit the hay…but instead of sleeping in our little tent we created, everyone decided to sleep outside under the stars. Since we were literally in the middle of nowhere, there was not any light from a city or cars that affected the sky. The stars were amazing! I don’t think I have ever seen that many stars out at night…and they were all so bright! It wasn’t too chilly sleeping outside…I had a lot of layers on…a tank, t-shirt, thermal, sweatshirt, and my fleece. Kelly & Lisa ended up sleeping together in the same sleeping bag because Kelly couldn’t get hers zippered up…I’m sure they stayed warm that night!