Jan 1, 2010

2009 was great to me. I'd say it was the best year of my life to date. Highlights were NYC, my nape piercing, Europe, Vegas, the Jetta, the multiple concerts and shows, the PLove family reunion, and clearly moving to Australia. Awesome times this past year, but I'm really thinking 2010 will take the cake... I'm hopeful anyway. So far, we're off to an awesome start. We'd been told of a waterfall not too far away but it's about 50 minutes away so getting to it with all of us was always a bit of a challenge. Well, Peta was amazing and had us only work a half day today giving us the rest of the day off. They put on a BBQ at the hostel for lunch with sausages, salads and chips. After that they offered to take everyone to Murray Falls! We were thrilled! Tom had been a few times and he talked it up pretty good. It's a freaking huge waterfall that we can swim around. Well, actually, we weren't supposed to swim there. There are signs all over saying not to swim and not to get off the boardwalk but we did both. We agreed (after a few shots) the night before that we'd all do the highest jump. As soon as we saw how big it was I think we all changed our mind haha. Immediately Tom jumped in since he was pretty familiar with the place. We all kind of waited for his instructions and all went down the little slide. The water was actually cold! The pool at the hostel and even the ocean have been sooooo warm that it was so perfect to have cold water! It would have been perfect if it was hotter out, much more refreshing, but we got used to it pretty quick. It had been raining all night so it was the perfect time to do! There's the big fall, which goes to the bottom pool, then over a bunch of rocks to another pool, then more rocks to a stream that curves around and down. The rocks that go to the stream are pretty flat and you can go down it like a slide! We did that a few times, then swam around to the side and climbed up a bunch of rocks until we were on the side of the waterfall. Right below is a little cove that had calm water and was, as Tom told us, very deep. We had to jump! So exciting. I think I jumped four times. I think they guessed that it was like a 20ft jump. After each time I jumped I was more excited to jump, but as I'd go to jump the next time I was more and more nervous! There's a pic of me terrified because I didn't want to jump! Everyone was at the bottom screaming at me to do it and I was horrified! The last few jumps I didn't plug my nose good so I had a lot of water up my nose. Something happened with my ears and they don't feel like they equalized very good. After we did that for an hour or so we dried off a bit, then decided to actually take photos. We went up to the higher lookout and Cheryl and I climbed out to get to a bigger rock to take photos. It was just her and I and I slipped on a wet rock, landed on my ass and hit my head on the rock. Pretty shitty but I was thrilled I didn't start bleeding or slide down into the rapids below! Everyone still on the lookout were a bit concerned as I was laughing my ass off at how ridiculous I must have looked. We took heaps of photos. On the way back we stopped in Tully so I could see the boot. Not sure why, but I have been so hyped up to see this stupid oversized boot in Tully, but no one ever wanted to go. They kept saying that it was just silly and stupid... exactly why I wanted to see it! Who makes a huge boot? No one, it's silly! Anyway, you can normally take some stairs to get to the top but I think because of the holiday it was locked. I was pissed! I'm satisfied with my pictures of me sitting and standing on it though. If I don't make it back, I'll be okay with that. It was a pretty perfect day.

Last night, New Years Eve, we headed up to The Shrub. Basically in the small town of Mission Beach, there's not much in ways of parties, so 'the thing to do' for the night was to go to the bar. It was raining pretty hard so we had to stay inside. There were bands playing all night, so entertainment. We had drinks and found a seat in the restaurant corner, ordered some fries and hung out there most of the night. I was the ONLY person in our group without a date (until Vinny got off work) so I was pretty much the 7th wheel all night. No biggie. We didn't do a whole lot... just sat around and drank. The owner/DJ knows our hostel really well so we got hooked up with some free drinks and food, awesome. All of a sudden the music stopped and the countdown started, and whoo hoo, happy new year. The rain stopped so we went outside and hung out there for a bit. At about 2am we decided to head back. We drunkenly walked 45-50 minutes along the beach back to the hostel. It was a nice walk. The rain had stopped so it was cool and breezy. It was a bit cloudy, but a full moon through that so the sky was fairly bright. We got back, I made a grilled cheese, then went to bed. Relaxing New Year, but I wouldn't have asked for anything more. I prefer that to a big night out any day!