Gumleaves

We have spent this longweekend at Gumleaves on the east coast. According to the ad it is 'a family bush retreat, just an hour out of hobart'. It took an hour and a quarter to get there - but that might be because Mum was driving the corrola and the falcon was pulling Dad's new boat.

Ok, so you are probably wondering why we took two cars. And no, its not bacause we had too much gear for only one. We took three extra kids with us! (brave Mum) We took the Morleys to gumleaves with us for the weekend!

For those of you who have forgotten, the morleys are Sam (Samantha), James and Ollie; and they are our friends from the shack.

We had a lot of fun. There are lots of flying foxes, tyre swings and other outdoor activities. There is mini golf, tennis and little dingies to row. If I described the whole weekend to you, it would take too long and you would get too bored, so I'm just going to tell you a few of the highlights and lowlights of our time.

Highlight no1

On Friday it rained a lot. In fact, it rained a lot all weekend. And no, the rain is not a highlight. But the rain was necessary for this particular highlight.

There are two big flying foxes (and lots of smaller ones) at Gumleaves. There is the big one over the lake that needs parental supervision. That one is right next to the office/reception, so they actually check to make sure you DO have an adult there.

The other big one also says it needs parental supervision, but its right at the other end of the place, so no-one checks on you.

Bored yet?

Here's the highlight...

This particular flying fox is very hard to get onto. You have to shuffle across a very long wire with only another wire to hang onto. This is very scary, cause only half of the way has safety nets underneath, and those safety nets are full of holes. Here is a photo of James shuffling across those wires.

And when you're finnished climbing along about 100m of wire - you get to have some fun! You strap yourself onto a plank of wood then zoom fast through the trees to till the tires stop you at the other end. James went on this before me on Friday afrternoon after we got there.

I was scared when I was watching him from underneath. He wouldn't do the seat belt up, he just st on the board and held on tight. I was so sure it wasn't safe. Do you know what? I was nearly as scared when James was on it as I was when I was up the top about to go myself.

So James is flying towards the tyres. He hits them, and guess what??? They were full of water! So all this water cascaded down on James and then we were both laughing our heads of. He was soaked!

I went up and concured that particular flying fox after that.

Lowlight no1

Sam and I were on the big flying fox over the lake. Mum was there watching, cause Dad was out fishin with Rachel and James and Ollie. It was my second turn, so I was getting confident on it. Here is a photo of me sweeping over the lake on this flying fox.

Anyway... So I hit the tyres at the end; not hard enough to be much fun. And then I started trying to get out. I pushed myself forward in the seat and slipped out. But the seat belt was still done up tightly round my waste!!!

You can probably guess what happened then. The seat belt was done up too tightly to alow me to slip free, so it rose up my body. It pulled its way up to my boobs - taking my tops with it! I was standing there with a bare stomach, my tops up round my boobs and neither Sam or Mum came to help me! They were both too busy laughing at me.

It's funny now I look back on it, but I was pretty mad at the time.

I was really lucky James was out fishing, cause he'll never let me forget it as it is - and he wasn't even there to see it! So his teasing would have been imbarable if he'd actually been there!

Highlight no2

On Saturday James managed to convince me to go fishing with him and Ray and Dad. I don't really like fishing . . . normally. I find fishing very boring . . . normally. I don't even get a bite . . . normally.

But this was no normal fishing trip!

I got two fish; both flat head and both too small, but that wasn't what made it so fun.

I was the only one who got any fish; making me better than James, but that wasn't what made it so fun.

Curious yet???

The waves!!! They were so high and so scary and I was so freaked out and it was SO TOTALLY AWSOME!!!

Heres some more details...Dad has a boat. Its new and its got a good motor and its biggger that the one at lake leake. He'll take three kids out to fish in it at a time and he'll take it out into the sea when its fairly ruff. But last Saturday he didn't realise quiet how ruff it actually was.

Dad sais it was so ruff and the waves were so big because of a combination of the tide, the wind and the swell. But I don't really care WHY it was so ruff, all I care about is that it was SO COOL!

We were heading out; making it easily over the small waves in close to shore. Then the waves started getting bigger. I wasn't really paying much attention to them - so it came as a huge shock to me when we zoomed over an almost vertical one and into the air!

I was freaked. James was more freaked. Dad was even freaked. I wasn't ready for it, so I wasn't holding on very tightly. I flew up of my seat and landed back down on it really hard when we hit the water again. It nocked the breath out of me and I only had time to get a good grip on the boat before we were in the air again - but not as high this time.

We went over another basicly vertical wave on our way out; it was just starting to break and it looked VERY dangerous. It was the last wave we had to go over before we reached calmer water. We were all glad it was the last wave in the group. We were thrown into the air for long enough that if there had been another wave as big coming after it, we would have been thrown into the middle of it.

That was the first time I've seen James actually scared. He cam do about anything on the land and be fine with it. But he told me later that the water scares him. We both thought Ray would be crying if we were both very scared - but she wasn't! THAT came as a shock. And all four of us were so glad Ollie hadn't come out with us. That would have been a disaster.

And this is a highlight why, you ask? It was fun. It was scary. It was dangerous. It was completely AWSOME.

Lowlight no2

This one won't take very long to right about. As you have probably figured by now, James and I are good friends. I'm friends with Sam too, but she's not as much fun to just muck around with. She's too serious. And around our families James is my friend too. He chooses to spend time with me over any of our siblings.

Then Fin showed up on Saturday night.

Fin goes to James' school. They're friends, pretty good friends, I reckon. When Fin turned up, James started spending a LOT of time with him. Rachel followed them around for a bit, but I didn't want to stoop to her level of pest-ish-ness so I hung out with Sam for the morning.

Time spent with Sam isn't half as much fun as time spend with James; so Fin turning up is mst definately the biggest low point in my weekend.

Highlight no3

Mini Golf. And beating bith James and Fin at it.

After lunch an Sunday, the rest of us (me, Sam, Rachel, Kez, Beck and Ollie) ended up rowing on the lake at the same time as James and Fin. I was in a boat with Sam and she was rowing. Which is a good thing, seeing as I can't row. The other people on the lake with us were James and Fin - with James rowing; Kez and Beck - with Kez rowing; and Ray in a boat all by herself.

Sam decided it was my turn to row. We swapped seats and I started trying to row us somewhere. We ended up going in circles, because apparently one of my arms os better at rowing than the other. It didn't take James long to realise that I was finally trying to row. He yelled out to the other two rowers and all three of them started heading over to me. The all ran into me and then I had no hope of getting anywhere. We were surrounded by the three other boats and Sam was yelling at me and James was laughing at me and Beck was looking bewildered cause she couldn't work out what was going on.

Sam had to take the oars back and get us away from them.

I know this paragraph started by talking about mini golf, but this trip on the lake counts as a highlight too. Mini golf can be highlight no4.

Highlight no4

I was playing mini golf with James and Fin later on Sunday. Its a really easy corse and they are both guys, neather of them are unco, and Fin being weak doesn't matter in mini golf. So I expected thewm both to thrash me. But they didn't!!!

Winning against James is a big thing to me, because it doesn't happen very often. We are both really compeditive, which makes winning better and losing worse.

At the end of the game the scores were...

• Me on 22
• James on 25 (he tryed the whole game cause he really didn't want to be beaten by an unco girl who would never let him forget it if he lost)
• Fin on 36 (he stopped trying when I was five infront of him)

So that was fun, and btw, me and James were gonna play with his Dad as the third person but then Fin came and played instead. Fin's kinda wierd, but not too psycho for a grade six guy.

I have no idea if this is a highlight or a lowlight cause it was both fun and hard.

That was a long title. And this is a long section.

After we (Me, James, Fin) had finnished our game of mini golf, we went over to the big flying fox where the rest of Fin's group was.

By that end of the trip we were all bored of just using the flying foxes as basic flying foxes. So on this one we started pulling people back over the lake sitting on the flying fox. This is lots of fun if you are the person sitting on the flying fox getting tugged. But it is not so much fun if you are the person struggling through the mud as you tug some one else over the lake.

Any guesses as what I had to do for most of the time we were using the flying fox?

Fin, his little sister, his little sister's fat friend and James were all up the top. The plan had been that Fin came down, I pulled him back across. Then his sister's friend came down and he pulled her across. Then his sister came down and we both pulled her across. Then James cames down and Fin pulled him across while I climbed up onto the starting platform. Then I was supposed to go down and both Fin and James would pull me across. That was the plan.

But the plan became useless after the first stage. Fin came down and I pulled him across the lake. He's not too heavy and he was first and I at least sorta knew him, so that was OK. Then our plan because useless.

Fin is weak. James had said that, but i hadn't guessed he'd be quiet as weak as he was. He was very weak. He started pulling his little sister's friend across and started struggling very quickly. I was going over to help him the rest of the way but he couldn't even hold onto the rope long enough for me to get there! So I had to start from scratch and pull Fin's little sister's friend over the lake, cause he couldn't. Then I had too pull his little sister across aswell, then James.

I don't mind pulling James across the lake cause he's my friend, and he pulled me across the lake aswell. And I didn't mind pulling Fin across the lake cause I knew him a bit by then. But pulling my friend's friend's little sister's friend across the lake aswell??? Not good.

But I couldn't say no to them after I'd pulled Fin across and knowing I was gonna pull James across. I couldn't let them miss out cause Fin is so weak. So I pulled them across the lake anyway.

Then James pulled me across the lake. Being pulled across the lake is fun because

1. It feels so wierd to be going across the lake so slowly
2. It's scary cause you're high up and you actually have time to think about where you areThe view is pretty specky
3. It felt good to make James groan about having to get me all the way across; he knew that if he let go I'd just make him start all over again
   

I haven't got many photo's in this post yet; so lets finish with a...

PHOTO GALLERY!

Ollie rowing on the lake.

Ray rowing on the lake.

Kez flying over the lake.

Climbing up to the flying fox over the lake.

Left to right; Beck and Sam on th ground, James climbing onto the first bridge.

Waiting up the top of the flying fox. Left to right; James, Kez, me, Fin's little sister's friend.

Sam on the flying fox.

Rebekah on a tyre swing.

Keziah swinging on a tyre swing.

Me on the flying fox.

James on the flying fox.