Monitors, Roos, and a comet... oh my!

This weekend I went camping with my roommate Jen and 2 of her friends from Sydney, M and R. We met up at the North Head campsite at South Durras Beach, which is north of Bateman's Bay. It's about 2.5 hours from Canberra. Jen and I left around 9:30 on Saturday morning, and were soon in a line of traffic - everyone was leaving Canberra, headed for the coast. It seems to be the thing to do in Canberra. Especially in the summer.

Jen and I got to the campsite before the guys (it's a 4 hour drive from Sydney) and attempted to put up the tent we borrowed from her brother. It was a 4 person tent - 2 domes with a vestibule - definitely a car-camping and family tent...and neither of us had seen it put together before. Right as the guys pulled up, we figured it out and proceeded to construct the tent as the guys looked a bit helpless. Jen and I had already decided that collectively, we had the advantage when it came to camping. Although - most of my camping is car based camping, which somehow seems to be inferior to back-country, hike-in camping. I realize it's 2 different sets of skills, equipment and mentality, but hey - I think sleeping in a tent is sleeping in a tent, no matter what it took to get you there that night.



On our drive up, Jen had warned me about the 2 large monitors (goanas, lizards) that resided in the campsite. It's a good thing she had warned me, because within minutes of our arrival this monster ambled through our campsite. Yikes. And these suckers can move! If you reacted at all to their arrival they were apt to chase after you. Good times. Apparently if you stood still they would climb up you like a tree. I didnt stay still long enough to find that out.



We spent most of our time on this beach, and we were pretty much alone. It was a small campsite - 6 free spots, so not that many people were even there. It was retty freaking cool. Within hours I felt like I'd been on vacation for at least 4 days. Nice!







On Saturday night we had a bonfire on the beach (despite the total fire ban - we decided that since it was R that really wanted the fire, and R is a policeman in Sydney, we'd let him take the blame if the ranger showed up). When we went down to the beach to collect the wood for the fire, there were 2 kangaroos on the the beach, just hanging out. I will never tire of seeing roos in real life - they are awesome! I don't have pics of the roos, M was taking those pictures.



There was a comet in the sky Saturday night, Comet McNaught - it's apparently in the visible in the western sky for a month. Being as far out as we were, there was no ambient light (this was before the fire was lit) and it was amazing. I saw the southern cross for the first time, and Orion (called Swordsman down here) is upside down! The comet though, was awesome. I wish I could have taken a picture to share with you, it was the coolest thing I've ever seen in the sky. According to this articel, it has a head bigger than Mount Everest and a tail that is 30 million km long. Crazy!
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21098724-30417,00.html

All in all, it was a great weekend... even though Jen's car was a little worse for wear on the way out - we ran over a rock that we shouldn't have on the dirt road out and punctured the oil pan (oil sump over here) and lost all the oil in the car. We had to leave the car about an hour out of Canberra while Jen's dad came and picked us up to take us back to Canberra. The car has been towed to Canberra and will be just fine in a couple of weeks... a hazard of taking an Audi off the road...but what are you going to do? As Jen said, she's not going to have a car that 'won't' go off road. Gotta love that attitude!