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| I had THE BEST time of my life on the WhitSunday's Trip. Even the travelling was fun, just hanging with the guys that went. It was two days and two nights of travel on the train right up to Proserpine train station in Queensland where we arrived at 4:30am the morning on the 4th January. There were 17 of us travelling together and we were all rather tired by then. Amazingly tho, we were all very patient with each other and things happened rather smoothly and without any hassles. |
| When we arrived at the church at that unearthly hour everyone hit the pillow pretty quickly. 2 nights of sleep on the train doesn't amount to much. But then, another sleep on a very hard floor didn't do a whole lot either! When we all woke about 5 hours later everyone decided they REALLY needed a shower. Alls we had was the hose tho, so swimmers on and soap out, we had a communal shower under the hose in the backyard of the church grounds where we were staying. |
| The following morning (5th Jan), the 17 of us headed off for Shute Harbour in a mini bus. We arrived at 8:30am and realised there was a mix up with the Ferry Times. That meant we would be waiting 2 hours at the harbour for our ferry. I don't think anyone really minded cause we'd already done a lot of waiting and travelling to get there and 2 hours on the scale was nothing. |
| At about 10am the other church group from Sydney way arrived at the harbour and we were able to meet the people we'd spend the next week with on the island. We really didn't have a whole lot of time to talk tho! We had to all pitch in and get the luggage and food onto the ferry. Now that both groups were there and we totalled 41 all up, there was anxiety in the air to get to the island and enjoy our week. |
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| Arriving at the island about lunchtime, Ken (the leader of the other group) got us meeting people from the opposite group and intermingling so that we weren't two separate groups but one for the trip. After 5 mins of nudging us along things just took their course and we made some great friends. Everyday we were able to spend time with each person on the island doing something constructive or very unconstructive (been as tho it was a holiday!) and enjoy every minute of it. |
| Our basic day on the island was breakfast together at 9am followed by a whole morning of free time. Lunch around 12:30/1pm followed by a whole group talk called 'Stupid Human Tricks'. Some people could do the strangest things too! Tyler for instance could hang 3 or 4 pairs of glasses off his nipple ring and someone else had the weirdest double joint I'd ever seen. Shiltz could make his throat look like it belonged to a frog. It was a very funny time. Then it was another afternoon of free time and mingling with both groups. |
| 6:30pm was the beginning of the 'night activities' and this is where everyone was together. We would all head over to Backbeach with our Bibles and sit on the rocks. Backbeach was in a kind of cove that looked out over the water and was very peaceful. Ken would set us up with a passage to read and send us out to read, think, pray and watch the sun set alone (we called it quiet time) and after about half an hour called us back so that we could comment or ask questions on the passage we read. This time usually started a lot of discussion. Ken would follow up by giving a talk and when the sun was set completely at about 8:30-9pm we would head back over to the resort for dinner. |
| Dinner was followed by 'Favourite Childhood Memories'. One of the funniest times of the entire camp! Each night a few people would share a memory, whether it be embarrassing, funny, sad, or a lesson learnt for the rest of the group. I don't think I'll ever forget the one where a mouse got bitten by a dog and two people tried to revive it by blowing in it's face and doing heart massage! Haha... crazy people!! :o) |
| After dinner there would be some singing (cause Tyler had his guitar), more sharing, whole group discussions and a message from either Kenny or Micky.D. Everyone was tired by about midnight and trudged off to bed about then. |
| Going back to all this free time we had, some of the things we did were play pool, walk over to Pebble Beach for snorkelling, play cards, swim in the water that was right out the front of the resort, go looking for crabs on the rocks and basically just get to know everyone much better. Sometimes we'd swim in the pool at the resort and play silly games like 'piggy in the middle' or have competitions like 'how many laps can you do under water with one breath?'. |
| The entirety of the trip I mainly spent with a close friend, also named Jen. We travelled together and always did something together in the day. Even if it was a simple walk on the beach or rocks or laying out on the sand at night watching the stars and talking. We were even inseparatable in our travels on the train. I would sleep leaning on the window and Jen would lean on me. The one night out of four that we did it the other way round was a disaster and we were so uncomfortable that we had to change back! By the end of the trip we were known as "The Jen's". |
Ok, there's still one very special day on the island I have to mention and that is Monday 8th January. It was our Whitehaven Beach Cruise Day. The 41 of us left the resort at 8:30am on the cruise boat "The Reality" and lapped up the water trip for two hours before we arrived at Whitehaven Beach. The sand there is 98% silicon and pure white. Hence it's name Whitehaven! We spent two hours there getting burnt by the sun and enjoying the crystal clear water, playing games like frisbee and watching Scott try to kill an attacking wasp with sand. It was a great time. The only bad part was I was the only one to get stung by something in the water. Probably a loose tentacle from a jellyfish but it certainly did a good job on wrapping itself around my upper leg and creating a nasty welt that lasted about 2 weeks. It was quite painful and hell itchy when it started to heal.
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| After Whitehaven beach we were ferried back to the cruise boat and ate lunch on our way over to a very nice snorkelling spot. I didn't go in for a snorkel tho. Call me chicken but I'd just been stung by a jellyfish (and had it been a box jellyfish I would have stopped breathing in 3 to 4 minutes and then could have probably died!). I wasn't risking another sting. Plus it was also Stinger Season while we were there and knowing me, I'd be the one to come across a stingray and get stung too. I was happy just watching everyone do their own thing and taking jumps off the roof of the cruise boat into the water. That was heaps of fun. |
| The day after the cruise was our last entire day on the island and that night, our last to be a whole group and not two separate ones. We had our normal kinda day on the island and after dinner an extra long time together with singing, talking and sharing of ideas and fun times. Ken asked us what the 'funniest thing we saw on camp' was and then asked some people to mime them out. Micky.D mimed Scott trying to kill the wasp with sand on Whitehaven. Johnny mimed Scott walking in and out, in and out of the water at the resort with the snorkelling gear and flippers on. Duncan mentioned Jen and Ben dancing. Jen was trying to teach Ben how to do the Waltz but they didn't realise how many people thought they looked funny so Ben and Jen had to get up in front of everyone and show how it was done. They were very embarrassed. |
| The following day after lunch everyone pitched in to load the luggage for the ferry ride home and then loaded ourselves on the ferry and went back to Shute Harbour. People were still in high spirits, singing, laughing and having fun together but it was easily told that most people weren't looking forward to going home. From Shute harbour we were to split into two groups and go our separate ways home. The surprise when we arrived at the harbour was Ken planned to bring their group back to Proserpine where our group was staying just for a couple of hours to wind down and say our goodbyes. We had a test match of cricket, danced around under the hose and made the most of our last couple of hours together back at Proserpine church grounds. We ended up with prayer and goodbyes all round, laughing and crying and waving goodbye to our newfound friends. |
| The 17 of us seemed a little lost when the other group left. We bummed around, ate and slept the night. Spent the next day at the Proserpine local pool and then prepared for our two day and night trip home on the train. After all this time we were still quite patient with each other. We knew everyone much better. We did get a bit edgy at one point near the end of the trip, only cause we were all tired but you can only expect as much after 35 hours on trains and nearing the end of the best holiday you could have every had. |
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Our trip ended on the 13th of January when we arrived home at 3pm and went home for a comfy nights sleep. Not necessarily a good one but a comfy one. Our holiday was over. We had a fantastic time and met some amazing friends.
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