Anzac camping weekend (Day 1)

As the title suggests, we went camping during the long Anzac weekend. There were 10 of us in total: Justin, Xin Wen, Michael, Jona, Nic, Audrey, Shaun, Miow, Lucas and I. I figured that it would be a good fun, as I've never camped out before. In fact, I nearly backed out due to my sprained ankle. Thankfully, I did not because it was, like I said, good fun.

First stop: Shaun's place. We had to transfer things from Justin's car, from Shaun's house, to all the cars, including Jona's car. And trust me, there were HEAPS of stuff. Just take a look at the car we were in:

And that was only one of the three cars. It felt like moving house in a way.

Next stop was a makan stop at McD's. Due to some 'timing issues', we missed the McD's breakfast and had to settle for the normal stuff. Hm, as long as I get to eat the fries, I'm happy.

It did not take us long to reach the jetty at a town called:

And yes, we take ferries there. Wiseman's Ferry is a cable ferry that goes across the Hawkesbury River, helping to connect one side to the other. Like the ferries in Penang, they ferry not only passengers but also vehicles. The crossing has remained in use on its current site since 1829, making it the oldest ferry crossing still in operation in New South Wales, and possibly in Australia. How cool is that?!

Having swerved off the main road onto the gravel road, Michael was the first one to exclaim that we are totally cut off from civilisation: Ha?! No reception one here?!?!??!

Our campsites were right at the end, tucked in a corner. On the map, it said there was a creek next to us but when we got there, it looked more like a longkang. Hm.......

While we were all busy putting up the tents, or more like, they were all busy putting up the tents, one fellow was happily dragging one loaf of our bread away.... That prompted Jona to go full throttle using his parang.

This is a brush turkey and there were three of them, not just one! Okay, understood la, we are intruding your land but hey, bread is not meant for turkey consumption!

We had tents of three sizes: S, M and L. The small tent was meant for Audrey and I until we found out that it gets flooded inside when it rains! The medium tent was for the two couples and the large tent, was well, for the rest of us (was initially boys only until we two girls had nowhere else to hide from the rain). Yes, it RAINED, just like the weather forecast said it would. And boy, did it rain!

Luckily, before it poured, we managed to build ourselves a decent fire and had some marshmallows.

We even managed to cook dinner in the nick of time and when we felt the rain drops, it was SAVE THE FOOD! BRING THE LAMPS INTO THE TENT! Mayhem! We had to all go into the large tent to have dinner. Wasn't too bad considering that there were 10 of us in a 6-man tent with food and stuff.

It was only 10-ish when we decided to sleep, as there was nothing else to do to pass time. The ghost story session was a flop - no one had good stories to tell and we were all too annoyed by the rain to listen and to get engrossed anyway. We reminded each other to keep an eye out for creep crawlies, especially leeches (Xin Wen had one crawling up her leg just as she was reminding all of us: Check your legs for leeches ar..... *SCREAM*).

And look at how well-organised we were to ensure that everyone was comfy:

We dozed off into dreamland accompanied by the pitter patter of rain and leaves dropping onto our tent.