Over the horizon

We slept at the town hall again, where Meegan decided not to battle the elements and crashed in their car. One thing you don’t think about when its dark out, though, is the direction that the sun comes up. Apparently they parked facing sunrise, so they got a nice wake up call and a bit of a burn before they even knew what was happening. We went back to the beach at Wilson’s Prom, I took a nice cat nap while everyone explored the giant rocks. I kept thinking how. directly out from the beach we were standing on, is Antarctica. So unreal!

The water was freezing here, but that didn't stop Martin!

Our plan was to drive to Phillip Island to see the penguins that come up on the beach at night, but then we found out it cost $20 and no pictures were allowed. We chose to take a fraction of that cost and buy goon for a fun night of drinking. Goon, or boxed wine, is known amoung travellers as the cheapest, quickest, nastiest drunk you can experience. $10 for four litres, goon is not even allowed to be labeled as wine because it contains everything but. We taught Meegan and Martin the game of King’s Cup, and the night was made.

The first tent I ever set up all by myself!

We drove to Mornington Peninsula in the morning and spent a few hours beachin for our first day above 30ºC. We had learned our lesson not to test the power of the sun (I wonder if the Egyptians thought a sunburn was Ra, the sun god, smiting them), so we lathered up in gooey sunscreen. After just thirty minutes, I was sweating so much, my towel was essentially soaked and I hadn’t even touched the ocean! The water was absolutely gorgeous though, perfect temperature, and you could see straight down to the floor and pick out every detail. It was a nice reprieve from the heat, especially because the sand literally burned your skin after a few seconds. I have such calloused runners feet so I had never felt anything like that, but just taking three steps barefoot was more than I could handle and had to sprint to the ocean.

We gave up sunbathing not long after, I think Matt went through three applications of 50 spf sunscreen in an hour and still got burned! We grabbed lunch and I got a milkshake for dessert. Come to find out, Australians take that term literally, as I think they just shook milk with some flavoring and call it dessert. Man I’ve never craved Chick-fil-a Icedream more than I did after that disappointment.

We ended the day watching the sunset on the beach, a perfect way to end the week of new friends, new sights, and new experiences