Teepee adventure

I really don't know how I got talked into sleeping in a teepee along the Great Ocean road. It was just in a campground and we arrived there right as it was getting dark so it was a bit difficult to see. It was advertised that lights would be provided, but when we went in all we saw were one tiny strand of lights and a candle that could be lit in the center, but no matches. It also had space to to sleep about 8 so we thought there would be others with us, but it was just us.

So we left pretty quickly and went to town to get dinner, matches, and water since we were out of that, too. We went into Apollo Bay and ate dinner at one of the only places that was still open, since it was almost 9pm. It was a seafood place so I got fish and chips, which was pretty good. It had free wifi, which is where I wrote and published yesterday's post. We popped into the grocery store to get our other necessities, then we went back to our teepee.

No one else had shown up in our absence, so it looked like it would just be the three of us for the night. There were 8 different cots set up with pillows, sleeping bags, and blankets already provided. There was also a hammock, which I think I would have enjoyed under different circumstances. But I was already on edge about bugs and spiders and the fact that I could hardly see anything didn't help. Even with the candle we didn't have much light, so we were using our phones and Jack's flashlight. I really didn't like the idea of sleeping in those sleeping bags that had been there for who knows how long, and had who knows what living in them. So I decided to open mine up and take a look before crawling into it. I took a quick look and didn't see anything, told myself I didn't really want to look that hard. So I was just about to climb in when Matt stopped me and pointed to a reasonably sized spider crawling around in the foot of my bag. Aaaahhhh! We killed it, but that was it for me; there was no relaxing after that. I was seconds away from climbing in with that thing! We checked the other sleeping bags and didn't find anything but that did not put my mind at ease. The guys climbed into their sleeping bags but I sat perched on my pillow, not wanting to climb in or touch more than absolutely necessary. As I was sitting there I saw another spider crawling on a stump in between our beds, so that didn't help either. Luckily, Jack carries his own sleeping bag and he's a gentleman so he offered me his and promised it didn't have any spiders; and actually it had never even been used outside, he's only used it to sleep in airports. I felt a little better about that so we got that out. I climbed in but was still creeped out. I mean, I was still laying on the provided cot and pillow so who knows what else was in there.

Jack's sleeping bag gets much narrower towards the feet so I was claustrophobic and I was also burning up but I was too scared to unzip it at all for fear of letting the bugs get in. 

I should add here that I camp reasonably often, so it's not like I'm unfamiliar with the outdoors and what all that entails. My parents took me camping every year, and Matt and I have gone together many times in recent years. But there were a couple of things about this situation that had me freaked out. First- not using my own equipment but needing to sleep in stuff that I didn't know how clean/what state it was in. Also, the second thing is that I've never camped in Australia before. All I kept hearing before coming here is how big and venomous all of the bugs and stuff are here. I can recognize some of the more common venomous spiders/bugs/plants in the US, but I have no idea here. For all I know that spider could have killed me! I realize I'm being a little dramatic, so mom- please don't worry. We all survived. But still. I feel like my freak out was justified.

Anyways, I was relieved when morning came and happy for once to get up early. We were outta there shortly after 7:30 and on the road back towards Melbourne. Since we got up so early we had some time to kill s our first stop of the morning was to see the koalas again. Yay! I lost track of how many we saw this morning, 4 or 5. We also got to see our friends the birds this morning. This time they all flocked upon us at once and we all had a couple land on us. We have a video on Jack's phone which I'm sure is entertaining, since I'm recording and I'm mostly screeching and flailing around trying to prevent them from landing on me again.

We drove on and stopped at a beach, Bells Beach. It's famous for surfing around here and we saw a couple of surfers out there this morning, although the waves weren't very big when we were there. Another unique thing about this beach is that it had black sand in some areas. It was really interesting and felt a little different underfoot as well. We just hung out there for half an hour before heading back to Melbourne, since we had to return our rental car by noon.

After returning the car we hung out at a mall that was right by there for awhile since we still had time to kill before our flight. We stopped at the food court and enjoyed food and the free wifi while we had it. I went back to a wool shop I had seen on our way in to check out the wool sweaters and bought one! It's made of merino wool, possum fur, and silk. It feels really nice and fits well. It seemed reasonably priced so I hope I got a good deal. I tossed another sweater I brought to make room for it, but it was a cheap sweater that wasn't really that warm. I'm a big sufferer of buyer's remorse which is why I don't usually buy things, but I'm hoping this was a good purchase that I can use for many years.

We took an Uber to the airport to catch our late afternoon flight. We are now in Tasmania! Which is still a state of Australia but it's on its own island. I'm bummed we never saw a kangaroo along the Great Ocean road, but hopefully we'll still see one in the other parts of Australia that we're visiting. And hopefully we see a Tasmanian devil while we're here in Tasmania!

I'm always surprised about the security on domestic, non US flights. Security was hardly anything; we didn't have to take our shoes off or remove anything from our bags. They didn't care how much liquid we had or if it was in ziploc baggies. They never even checked my ID to make sure I was who I said I was! You don't even need a boarding pass to get through security. This was the same way when we flew from the North to South Islands in New Zealand as well, so I'm starting to gather that the US is the unusual one.

We came to our airbnb first and met our host. She was very nice. We got settled and then decided to check out Hobart for dinner. We went down by the wharf and found a place to eat which had a Wednesday night special of chicken parmigiana for only $5! Which is under $4 US dollars! So we were pretty excited about that.

We're going to try to find a place to snorkel tomorrow!