D-I-N-G-O and Dingo was his name-o

The plan for the day was to drive as far north as Indian Head and park the truck to hike to the Champagne Pools, about 40 minutes north. We'd have the morning to wait for the tide to be conduicive to beach driving and we would visit Eli Creek on our way to go find a campsite for the night.



At 6am, it was a warm day, the sun was shining and we hadn't been eaten by dingoes, yet. We packed up our tents and piled back into our cramped quarter and set off with great ease compared to yesterday, except for the fact that we had no water and had being drinking the night before. Super. We filtered some water through the bottle to brush our teeth, but after that we were pretty much screwed. Until we remembered that the someone had told us the little streams that ran down the beach was some of the freshest water on earth. Apparently the massive sand dunes act as a filter when the rainwater up top and hundreds of years later it has trickled down through the inner workings of the sand dune and emerges as a pure fresh water stream. Whether this is true or not, I am not sure, but it was our best option & no one died, so all and all a good day, but quite a sight.

When we arrived at Indian Head, at 9am, it was hot and only going to get hotter & their were heaps of other backpacker groups camped out there. The tour operators advise you not to go in the water in this area because it is a tiger shark breeding group. Fabulous. As we are sitting their weighing out the pros and cons of risking a shark attack to get momentary relief from the heat, a couple dingos appear around the trucks. Poor little guys look like they are starving; I know they are supposed to be skinnier than domesticated dogs, but these guys look gaunt compared to the dingoes we have seen in documentaries & the zoo. Fortunately, we never had to use our dingo defense training.



We climbed up to the top of Indian Head, which is a pretty impressive sight, since it is made entirely of sand. These formations that appear to be boulder-like, but when you scratch at them they crumble like sand. It's pretty amazing. Once at the top, I have to say I was a little disappointed, the trip we had done with Terry a few months ago, had just as many beautiful sights & it was half the dramas to get there and back. We did see some sharks swimming in the waters below and decided we would definitely wait to go swimming until we reached the Champagne Pools.

To get to the Champagne Pools, it was a 40 minute walk up the beach and by the looks of it, it would be crowded. Heaps and heaps of people were trekking up the beach in search of some relief from the heat. When we arrived, the pools are actually just depressions in the rock where water pools after the waves crash. In most places, it's only knee deep until a really big wave comes and then it's like being in a washing machine. In a few places, it's too deep to stand. The general consensus was we were not impressed. It was so crowded and for such a long walk, we really did expect more. We jumped in and out of the freezing cold water in all of five minutes and headed back in a crazy sunshower to the van to make sandwiches and start the trek down to "Happy Valley" campground's campstore to get water, ice cream & meat pies. It truly would be the happiest place on Earth.



We got water, hot crossed buns for Easter, soda, meat pies & ice cream. A gross combination for lunch, yes, but a meal has never tasted so good. We heard from other groups that had just come through Eli Creek that it was freezing & crowded as well and not worth the hassle. I figured, I'll be back with Jon, so I really didn't care if we skipped spots, so we went ahead to find a campsite early before we lost daylight. After much searching for a spot, we found the place were all of the backpacker groups were congregating and in the nick of time we got the tents pitched and it started to rain, and rain, and rain. We were all huddled in the leaky, pink SUV for 2 hours drinking goon until the weather finally broke around 10pm. We were all wandering from campsite to campsite having a really good time. I ran into one of my RBC schoolmate's little brother, who is studying abroad over here. Very random. I decided it was time to go to bed when the boys decided to bury one of the Candians that passed out in the sand and were pulling tent stakes out and being the Godzillas of our tent city. Yes, that's definitely my cue to get to bed.