Roughin' it up.

Edited: It was 3am when I blogged, spotted alot of errors... Did some editing and added some stuff. :)



Jungle girl is here to report her transformation into a goddess of the wilderness.


Beware. Kangaroos and copious amounts of pictures ahead.




Day 1


Our campsite, Grampians Retreat.


I absolutely loved loved loved the quaint and cosy cabins! It's exactly like a scene of the Sweet Valley Twins (my favourite books when I was younger!).




The dining hall. See the bell over there? The cook will ring the bell at mealtimes, and everyone will scurry to the dining hall.
So old school!




Yes, I am guilty of wearing make up to camp.
At least it was minimal!




Mealtime!



I love the food that they served us! Huge servings of homecooked food. And they were super accomodating-- on occasions that the food they served was insufficient, the chefs actually marched back into the kitchen to whip up something else for us!




Homemade pizza.
Move along, Pizza Hut!


And they seriously spoiled us with good food. Every meal comes with fresh fruits and desserts, and we also had tea and refreshments, and as leftovers are left in the fridge, basically, you could gorge anytime of the day!

A list of the food that we had:
Day 1: Homemade pizza (3 flavors) and carrot cake (dessert), lasagne and chocolate pudding with ice cream (dessert).
Day 2: Toasts with different spreads, cereal and muesli, tortilla wrap with fried chicken and chocolate brownie with biscuit crumbs in it (dessert), barbeque (steak, chicken wings, sausages) and chocolate with peppermint icing and fruit salad with ice cream.
Day 3: Breakast as the day before.

And the crazy thing is, the desserts are absolutely smashing! I am talking equivalent to Ms. Read or better! :)


Which explains the growing belly and waistline. *sigh*



On the first day, we had some ice-breaker games...
Ooops, I forgot to mention that I followed the trip with the Malaysian student union! ;)


And we had an Amazing Race-like game, whereby there were 6 stations, and we, after being separated into groups, had to complete certain tasks at the different stations.


One of the challenges:


I had to draw some Muscle Man poses from some photos given within a timeframe, and my group members had to act out the poses based on my sketches!



AND I SAW KANGAROOS!!!





If you have read my older posts, you would know that I was extremely geram that I didn't see any kangaroos AT ALL despite being in Australia for almost half a year, and in addition to that, visiting a zoo in Sydney.


But at the camp site, I saw many, many of them! Around the campsite, in the woods, near our cabins, on the hilltops nearby...


Until I sien already. ;)



Kangaroo doing toe-touch.





This is the hilltop, which the campsite owner told us that during sunrise, you could see up to 200 kangaroos congrerating there.


My first thought was: "Hah? Like the Fernleaf commercial, with all those black and white cows on the green meadows!!!?"

Hee.


But needless to say, waking up by sunrise was too much to ask from me.




One last kangaroo picture.


Spot the kangaroo(s)!
Actually it's just 'cause this picture turned out blur, teehee.


In our room, or rather cabin.
There was 9 of us sharing one cabin-- 8 girls, and 1 guy.
And 1 toilet.
CRAZY AR???




Bunk mates.
The small one slept on top, and I had fun poking at her mattress with my toes.




Roomies.
Left: Kit Mey, Pei Lin, Nichola, me.
Right: June, Han Ting, Ada, Smalls.




Roomies plus the odd one out.
Edward, who felt akward with all girls! Haha, I so witty!




Us, with the club's president (Woo Hsian, guy in gray) and the vice president (Benjamin, guy in black and thick frames).




Guy in thick frames poses with me! :P




Our act-cute poses.
The guys are much better at it than us! What a sacrilege!




Raymond shows us how it is done.




Edward getting too comfortable with the bed frame.



And thus, turning on the other guys. o_O


And later that night, we went on a night trail!


FUCKING SCARY CAN.
We felt as if we were in the Blair Witch Project!

Walking into the forest, it was so dark, we couldn't see anything. And the fact that the campsite owners warned us about snakes with lethal bites didn't help. :(

And there were these idiots who kept on shining their torchlights into the top of trees... CANNOT DO THAT WAN! What if we see something on top!!??

And we kept on scaring ourselves... Warning each other to not call each other by our names, wondering what if someone disappeared without us realising...

Smalls, Kit Mey and I walked crossed-armed during the entire journey... And of course, being the obvious scaredy cats we were, we were easy targets for boys, who kept on coming up and going "BOO!" and making "woo..woo...wooo" noises in the background.

o_O


But we survived, and we ended up at the campfire. :)



My first campfire. :)


And we had marshmallows!
My first time barbeque-ing marshmallows too.



But obviously my barbeque-ing skills left much to be desired. -_-




This is us doing the mexican wave around the campfire. ;)
I don't know why are the more people sitting still than people actually doing the wave. -_-




We sang songs (Hokey Pokey, When You Said Nothing At All, Taxi Taxi...)... We danced (Sexyback)...

Though the only ones who atually did the singing and dancing was a very selected few.
Malaysians are seriously lacking in the sporting department.
Pffft.





And we had sparklers! :D :D :D

After fireworks, the thing I love the most are sparklers!!
So pwetty!






Everyone lit up their sparklers together.








A beautiful moment. :)





And a beautiful girl wtf. :P




Day 2

The next day had alot of challenging activities in store for us.

First, the low rope course.
It's basically a course of different rope routes, which is physically and mentally challenging!
The idea is that if you fail on one route, you have to go to the beginning and start again. And you're supposed to do everything one shot, and besides that, your feet is not supposed to touch the ground until the end.

Bollocks, I say! :P




First up, balancing on a wire with two ropes for balance.




Secondly, wooden steps.
This is relatively easy, though it was pretty shaky.




Third, a similar course to the first one, but with only one rope for balancing purposes.




Fourth: You're supposed to place your feet one rope, and your hands on the other one to move yourself along; and once you reach the middle criss-crossed part, you have to switch hands and feet to either rope.
I had to re-do this so many times, 'cause I kept on falling down! :(




Fifth: You place your feet on one rope, and your hands on the other, and slowly inch yourself across. It feels very much like a push-up exercise. -_-




Sixth: Swing yourself across, by moving from rope to rope, and securing your foot into the metal triangle. I couldn't complete this one, it was really, really difficult. =(




Seventh: Balancing on a wire, and holding on to dangling ropes for support.




Eigth: Balancing on a wire again, but this time, you hold on to a rope which is only tied to one tree (meaning that there is a free end), and you have to slowly adjust the rope while holding on to it and inching yourself across. This is virtually impossible! I had help-- my group mates helped pulled the rope tightly, while I held on to it.




Ninth: Wire and single rope, but this time, the rope is right on top of the wire. Hence, there is a different technique altogether in crossing.




Tenth: TADA! Route to...





... VICTORY! :D





And the pair of clowns, Marvin and Chun Yih, who wanted to switched positions, but got stuck on the thin plank instead.




Marvin is afraid of heights. ;)




And after they finished the course, the jokers tried to do the course backwards. -_-




Pei Ryn having fun with ropes! ;)






After that, we went on the Great Swing.




Basically, one person gets hung on a harness, and the rest of the group pulls the rope so that the person can go up high (I like this team effort element). Once the person is high enough, he or she will be released, and will be swung to and fro, really high up. We are talking 2, 3 stories high!


But I didn't get any pictures of me on the Giant Swing. My friend was supposed to video the entire thing, and she thought she did but she didn't. :(




This is Chun Yih, erm, stretching his man jewels.


All the guys were just yapping on and on about their painful balls, 'cause apparently, the harness hurt them. -_-


We also went on the flying fox! No pictures, 'cause it was such bore compared to the Great Swing, which was exhilirating and thrilling!

But after every guy is done with his turn with the flying fox (and the harness), he will come back to the group with the proud announcement: "Can still celebrate Father's Day!"

-___________-




However, we did get another dose of excitement-- Maree, one of the campsite owners, and also the supervisor for the flying fox, agreed to fetch us on her truck!




All the buruh haram.


It felt like a roller coaster ride! No kidding. 'Cause the trails were bumpy, and we were'nt strapped on to anything. We felt like we would drop out any moment! THRILLIIIING.





The afternoon was spent getting acquainted with old high school games...



It's extremely stressful to play with Jenga with a bunch of engineers k!


The tower crashed the moment I snapped this pic! =p



And we also played Pictionary, one of my favourite board games. I joined the (losing) team half-way, but in the end, the underdogs appeared thriumphant! :D

Though Joel's sketch of polka dot underwear damn fail. ;)




Later that night, each group peformed a skit. Each skit is based on a Disney tale, and each group was supposed to incorporate 4 randomly selected characters into the skit, which does not have the main roles in it. With roles like Michael Jackson, Charlie Chaplin, The Ring ghost, Jay Chou and many more superbly random characters, it was fun to see how creative we could get! :P


I was Lara Croft in Cinderella. My group mates insisted that I would be perfect for the role.
I am trying to see it as a compliment. -_-




Sailormoon aka Beauty (Beauty and the Beast), The Terminator aka Genie (Aladdin), and Lara Croft (Cinderella).

The patch on Jian Cai's chest was supposed to be chest hair! Drawn on with eye liner. -_-




See you in Hollywood!
Lara Croft, Xena the Warrior Princess (Aladdin), Sailormoon, Abu the Monkey (Aladdin).



I might post up more pictures and videos of the skits, if I manage to get my hands on some.
Provided I was not too humiliating.
Seeing Sailormoon Smalls is too big a chance to let up! ;)




We played Pictionary again till 2am, and seriously, who would have thought that the game could be so nerve-wrecking and exciting! My heart was pounding everytime it was my turn to draw, and WHEN WE WON, we were shrieking like we just bagged the gold medal in Olympics, and I was just hugging my team mates (Benjamin, Kit Mey and Smalls) while jumping up and down.

I am beginning to think that I should have pursued a career as Pablo Picasso instead. ;)






Day 3


Before leaving the campsite for some sightseeing prior to going home...


Group 3, with Dennis and Maree, the campsite owners, of the cooks, and Peter, our bus driver.
Left to right: Pang Wu, Rayner, Wenji, Melissa, Edward, me, Pei Ryn, Chun Yih.




Our act-cool Terminator look, courtesy of Jian Cai.




Flatmates, I love!




In the bus on the way to the sights: drooling Benjamin.






Sightseeing...

I have no idea what the places were, and the history behind them, 'cause I was just busy sleeping in the bus while the driver gibbered on. When he reached a particular spot, I would jolt out of my sleep, run down, snap pictures and camwhore profusely, and run up the bus to sleep again. ;)


Spot me.




Marvin who acted as Gollum in his skit the night before, and my ring. :D




The light at the end of the tunnel.



At some cliff thingy...
And yes, I acknowledge that I won't be hosting Travel Planet anytime soon.



Raymond and I.




Ain't no mountain high enough...




Emo Benjamin, me, and Edward.


Han Min and I.
Han Min was one of the gus who trailed us and protected us during the night trail. Our hero! :P




Rose amongst thorns. ;)





And don't ever ask Joel to be your photographer.




'Cause this is what he'll snap instead...







...before taking the picture.






McKenzie waterfalls.







Beautiful, beautiful falls.
But unfortunately, we had to walk more steps than the Batu Caves to get down to the falls.
Needless to say, going back up was a bitch.




I feel like shooting a music video or something. :P





Marvin, Joleen, Chun Yih, Smalls, me, Sandar, and Rayner.




Ada and I. Ada was in the same cabin as me, and she's such a sweet girl!
She was Marilyn Monroe in her skit, rawwrr!




Smalls, Woo Hsian, Benjamin, and me.




Yo yo yo!




I like big toys. ;)






That about marks the end of my fun-filled 3 days outdoors trip. :)