So last weekend I'm pretty sure I got Dengue. At least the odds are astronomically high. I'll explain. Since the week after New Years, Lindsay and I have been training for our upcoming 4 day backpack trip at Milford Sound in New Zealand. We had simillarly prepared for our summit of Kilimanjaro, the infamous Paria Canyon/Grand Canyon/Zion trip and the death march of Torres del Paine. We recognized that between the trips to Tasmania/Fraser Island and the holidays, we were woefully out of shape. Clearly our slow relaxing jogs along the ocean weren't cutting it. So, we upped the ante a little and started with walks up the trails on our personal backyard mountain, Castle Hill. Soon we were running up the road to Castle Hill. It's a tough run. About halfway into our training program I suggested we do some workouts where we fill our backpacks with books, clothes, cans of tuna and soup, and bottles of water, and then hike up the hill to simulate a real backpacking experience. Initially Lindsay was less than enthusiastic. But once I reminded her of how badly her calves felt stuggling up Indian Garden Trail out of the Grand Canyon, she was on board. So over the last three or so weeks we have been either hiking, swimming, lifting, or running, five days a week. So when we got to a free weekend, I figured we could mix business with pleasure.
Saturday morning the alarm went off at 5:30 and after a bit of wifely groaning, we were up and ready to go. We drove 45 minutes south to Alligator Creek National Park. We arrived early enough to see about 20 kangaroos/wallabys haging out. Many of them had the smallest joeys we have ever seen. I had to pry Lindsay away from them so we could get going on the big hike. Eventually we got on the trail about 6:30 and for the next five miles we trudged through forest and grassland, creatively forded a plurality of streams, and sweated profusely, all the while being followed by massive swarms of mosquitos. I do not know which was higher, the percentage of humidity in the air or the percentage of my body covered in mosquito bites. They were everywhere and aggressive as hell. Finally after a couple of hours we heard the crash of water on rocks and we knew we were close. What we saw when we arrived made us completely forget about the bazillion bites we had endured. Alligator Falls was spectacular with mutiple idilic swimming holes, and we had it all to ourselves. We hung out on the rocks and in the water for a while before venturing back to the car. We made the brilliant decision to try and run back along portions of the trail to avoid the entomological onslaught. About 2/3 of the way back, the multiple weeks worth of constant training caught up with us and we hit the wall. By the time we returned to the car we were POOPED!
On the way back home, we stopped at Global Burgers and picked up a Gold Coast and a Bangkok Burger for "take-away," then retreated to the cool confines of our bedroom. There we watched the first Lord of the Rings movie on my computer immersed ourselves in burger bliss. Then, without warning, something happed that has not happened in years, we took a well deserved nap.
Later that evening we cleaned up and headed to Chris and Sara's house for poker night. We had a great time sampling the astronomically hot, gluten-free jalapeno poppers Chris made from scratch and drinking wine. Once we were done with the "nibblies" we moved downstairs and played a little Texas Hold 'Em, before heading home.
The following day we packed the car up again and went back to Paluma (see prior blog) with Chris and Sara. This time we made our way to Big Crystal Creek. Our first stop was at "Paradise Swimming Hole." It was a scorcher of a day, so we were excited about the prospect of jumping into something called Paradise. We quickly figured out that about two thirds of all of Northern Queensland had the same idea. We spashed around in what I had renamed "Bogan Swamp," for a bit and had lunch. Unfortunately for us Sara had brought goggles. One look under the sufarce revealed what a cesspool this place really was - it was arguably 50% water and 50% algae. So, we packed up and drove up the road to another spot. We followed the other locals down a short path, and boy were we happy we did. We wound up at a beautiful tropical canyon with natural rock water slides. We had a blast sliding, jumping and swimming. Later in the day we made the obiligatory stop to the Frosty Mango and went home. Another nice weekend.
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