Watching Whales (except not really)

Yay I went whale watching!

...Except we didn't see any whales...

Oh well, they have a "See a Whale Guarantee" where if you don't see a whale, you can just reschedule and go again another time for free. Since this was the last whale watching cruise for the season, we couldn't reschedule this year, but they said we could go next year and just quote the same booking number as we had on Thursday (last week that is), and they will organise it for us for free! So it's all good in the end.

It was still a really great experience even without seeing the whales though, because we went on this amazing tall ship, The Soren Larsen.

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It was made in 1948 and it's done quite a few rounds around the world since it was made, so it's definitely seaworthy. The ship started in northern Denmark and it was even part of the 1988 Bicentennial Re-enactment voyage, and it returned back to Britain shortly after.

It's really cool to be on it, especially when you see all the deck hands working the sails and the rigging; definitely really cool.

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So apparently the ship is 44.2m long with a 19th century brigantine rig and over 20,000 square feet of canvas. It's quite big and can fit around 100 people but I think they limit it to about 50 people for safety reasons. Our group was only about 15 or so people not including the crew, so it was quite spacious.

So it's usually $249 per adult, but we got it for $99 each because of a deal on Adrenalin. I think there are always deals like that on Adrenalin or Groupon, so it's pretty good.

We made the rookie mistake of showing up at 8:30am (since it said arrive at 8:30am for a 9am start), but lucky I brought stuff to study and read. It departs at around 9:20am after everyone boards it and stuff, then it quickly sails through the harbour, and after passing the Harbour Bridge you get a shot at climbing the mast.

You get given a harness that attaches you to it and it works like a seatbelt, so if you fall quickly, it'll lock itself.

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It's pretty safe and it's unlikely you'll slip and fall, but I guess it was still pretty scary because it rocked quite a bit even in the calm waters of the harbour.

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My parents didn't want to climb it at first, so I went up with this family of three. It's pretty high up and it's a great view, but since it's high up, all the movements of the ship are extremely exaggerated. It's not that scary though; I was quite worried before I went up but it was quite a lot of fun!

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The guy I was standing next to was really nice and offered to take this picture of me climbing down. Unfortunately there was a shadow from a rope that he didn't warn me of, so I now have a line across my face. But I still think it was a pretty good shot.

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Once I came down from the mast, they served morning tea, which was yummy hot home-made pumpkin soup with a bread roll. All the food is included in the fees as well, so it was pretty good.

After morning tea we got to rocky waters, so a few people got a bit sea sick. Everyone was sitting down, some guy threw up, my dad had to lie down because he was getting sick, and I was getting quite a bit of headache (didn't help that I was reading).

After some time it got calmer though, and so we watched out for whales, but as I said we didn't see any.

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Dat amazing water.
We did see this one seal chillin' on it's back though, with all its flippers stuck up in the air. It looked like it was having a lot of fun, and when the ship started getting closer it started swimming around, occasionally sticking up its tail for us. It was pretty cute.

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We also saw some dolphins in the distance, but alas, no whales.

I got a chance to talk to the captain, who's a really friendly guy with quite a lot of stories to tell.

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He was saying how you know, this is all about nature and you never know when the whales are going to pop up for us, but we were sailing along East-West, since the whales migrant North-South, so by going perpendicular, we should be able to catch them. There was a group of three boats in one area and he said that they probably found whales, but the rule is that you can't have more than 3 boats around a whale, so we couldn't go and follow.

Actually part of the crew have specific jobs of trying to spot whales. They kind of just looked like they were just sleeping or sitting down since they didn't help with the rigging or anything, but yeah, that was their job.

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And most of the crew are actually international and on holidays working and earning a bit of money for their travels. I thought that was pretty interesting because I can't imagine working while I was on holidays, but I guess that's actually quite a smart thing to do. A lot of the cruise is just nothingness, so you get to spend a lot of time sitting and admiring the (constant and hardly-changing) view, reading (in my case; sleeping for others) or talking to the captain/crew about themselves and their stories.

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For lunch we had beef lasagna, another bread roll and some salad. For afternoon tea we had muffins. There are also soft drinks, tea and coffee to help yourself to and they even have a bar but of course you have to pay extra for that.

So after some time, we started heading back into the harbour. The engine was turned off and this was when they started hoisting up the sails. Quite a few of us helped with the rigging, since it takes 16 people to hoist the main sail.

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If you look closely, you can see me at the top of the mast head! That was my second time climbing the mast.

On the way back, my mum wanted to climb the mast, since after seeing me do it she wanted to do it as well. My dad at first wanted to do it, but by this time he was feeling too sea sick to do anything so it was just me and my mum. I went up first, but my mum pulled out after going up about 5 rungs. The first 5 rungs are solid wood, but the rest are rope and she's had bad experiences with rope bridges so she stopped and went back down again. So at least I had shots of me on the mast by myself.

Too bad you can't really get a good angle with the mast because the ship isn't long enough, so that pic above with the whole sail will have to do for now.

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And on the way back we saw their other tall ship, The Southern Swan, which was built in 1922 and looked even bigger (and probably was since it had 3 masts).

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You get back by 4pm, so it's a pretty long day, but it was really good. It didn't feel that boring or long, and was pretty fun actually.

Although when I got home and was sitting at my desk, I kept feeling like I was still constantly rocking up and down, but I think that's just because I usually have problems with my balance anyway.

So overall it was pretty fun, and it was a good deal for $100 (thanks to Adrenalin) seeing as if you don't see a whale you do the whole thing again until you see one, so it's good value for money. The ship makes it so much better than a typical whale-watching cruise, since they're all modern, plain and boring (and probably since I have this weird fascination with old ships).

If you're into that stuff, I suggest you might as well pay that little bit extra (if you can find a deal on Adrenalin or Groupon) and go on the tall ship, because it's a really good and unique experience to have.

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The view of the Harbour Bridge was also truly amazing; I looked at it and just thought, "Wow, I can't believe I climbed it!" It definitely looks much more foreboding and terrifying looking at it from afar, so it's still hard to believe how easy the actual climb was!

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Speaking of which (awesome segue), I forgot to mention that with each BridgeClimb you get a printed group photo shot (but you still get that on the usb/cd of photos that you purchase extra). You also get free entry into the Pylon Lookout that expires in one month, as well as a BridgeClimb Certificate!

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So fancy...

Climbing the Harbour Bridge

Yay I climbed the Harbour Bridge!

This has been something that I've wanted to do for so long - it's been on my bucket list and now I can finally tick off something big!

I'm quite scared of heights so I wanted to do this just to see how well I could take it and kind of overcome this fear that I have, but I realised that in between the time when I first put this on my bucket list to now, my fear of heights isn't as terrible as it used to be.

I'm still scared of falling and stuff, but it's mainly confined to when I can see through my feet, so when you stand on glass floors or metal grating that you can see through. I think that's why this bridge climbing wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be.

Of course it was still a bit frightening; even going up like 3 metres of stairs at the BridgeClimb office was like ehhhh for me because there was metal grating, so I don't think my fear is really of heights, it's just falling in general, even if it's like 3 metres down. But I think also because you get quite used to walking on the metal grating even before your climb starts, so by the time the climb started and even though the metal grating was like quite high up (we were just underneath the bridge), I wasn't that worried. Obviously the safety harness helps so you feel safer and the fact that the instructor and the rest of the group is walking safely and not falling off helps too.

Prepping
So you get called up to go in to this little room, where they give you declaration forms to sign as well as your uniforms to wear. You then head to the change rooms and put the jumpsuits on, which are extremely large and ugly. Exhibit A:

You absolutely cannot bring anything except glasses/sunglasses and medication if you need it, and even with these you have to attach these securely to yourself. So you can't bring cameras or even watches with you and you have to put everything into a locker. Then you put on your harness plus other stuff they give you, like hats and fleece jackets in case you get cold. The weather was great that day so we didn't need any rain jackets (which they would have provided if you did need it).

Then you do a little simulator of ladder climbing so you get used to it. It's not that scary, but our instructor said that once a woman got to this stage and just said, "I can't do this" and turned around and walked out. Pretty crazy, but it really wasn't that bad. It's not tiresome, it's not too scary even though the platforms have the see-through metal grating, and that part is only for a small section of the climb.

You also get given a headset so you can hear the instructor during the climb and then you start the climb.

Climbing
You start off the climb just underneath the bridge, as you can see from the diagram on the BridgeClimb website:

Since it's still a bit high up from the ground it can be a bit scary because the whole stretch is either metal grating or wooden planks (that don't seem sturdy enough but whatever). But as I said, it's not that bad and not as scary as I thought it would be. But as we were walking, there was another instructor that had to escort one of the men in his groups back because he got too frightened, so it still can be quite intimidating. There's also instructors who literally just wait at the end of the first section to take people back if they get too scared of the height.

Even on this first section where it's completely flat and not exhausting we had to stop a few times because climbers depart every ten minutes (to really squeeze out the money of tourists) and we need to wait for the group ahead of us to reach a certain point before we continue.

The headsets at this stage are really handy, because you can hear your instructor saying all these cool facts about the bridge and how it was built and even facts about Sydney and Australia in general.

Fun Fact
The BridgeClimb revenue actually goes towards keeping the Harbour Bridge maintained. There's lots of maintenance going on because they have to replace rusting rivets or remove the lead paint from the bridge, which is difficult to do because they obviously don't want the lead going into the environment. The bridge was originally estimated to last something like 72 years, but with all this maintenance this is the 88th or so year it's been up and it's not estimated to go for about 150 years.
Apparently the Discovery Climb (as opposed to the Bridge Climb) goes along the inner arch before going up to the top arch and you get to discover (hence the name) more about the bridge and it's architecture and how it was built. But it's a lot scarier because there's a lot more of the metal grating that you're walking on so you could see right below you all the time.

So anyway, when we finish the first section, we get to the ladders, right underneath the train tracks on the Harbour Bridge. This train approaching us honked right above us and it was sooo loud, but apparently the train drivers know we're here so they'll troll us and scare us with the honking.

The ladders here are the same as in the ones in the simulation; they're not tiring or very scary at all because you're concentrating so much on just trying to climb it without hitting your shins on the ladder. And then in less than 5 minutes you get to the bottom of the outer arch of the Harbour Bridge.

As you can see in the picture, it was kinda cold so I put on the fleece jacket. But then it got sunny again and I took it off but shortly after I regretted it because it got really windy and really cold but it was too much of a hassle for me to put it on again. I suggest you just leave the fleece jacket on, or wear a long-sleeve shirt under the jumpsuit for that in-between sort of weather.

The rest of it is just making your way up to the top of the Bridge. Even though it's higher up, it's not as scary as the first section because the steps that you are climbing up are really wide and it's solid metal underneath you, so you can't really lean over and look at how high you are at.

Our group was really small (we only had five people except the instructor and two of the five were meant to do the climb on Wednesday but had to reschedule due to the thunderstorm), so taking photos didn't take up too much time, so we spent more time just chillaxing and admiring the view.

Each person/group of people within the group also get to film a video (for free and it gets emailed to you) to their friends and family back home. But since my mum and I are local we didn't know what to say so the instructor just told us to say that we climbed the Harbour Bridge (the video is pretty bad quality on blogger):

Then we head up to the top and take some more photos.

Fun Fact
From the top of the Harbour Bridge, not accounting for wind resistance, etc., it's a 5 second free fall and you can't survive the fall.
The best part of the climb for me crossing from one side to the others, because you get to see the internal structure of the bridge, which is such a great view but unfortunately you can't really take a picture of it with you included because the platform isn't that wide. You can only take the standard shot, which is the very first picture in this blog post.

Also apparently someone vomitted when they got to the top yeesh. I can't even begin to imagine how much splatter there was.

Anyway once we get to the other side there's still quite a lot of stops as we continue down, and we get in one last photo.

Then we head back to the BridgeClimb office through pretty much the same way we came except that we go on the opposite side.

Fun Fact
One of the construction workers of the bridge once fell into the water from around the height of the first section of the climb. But he survived because he was into the sport of high-diving and in those three seconds of falling he resolved that he would need to either go in feet first or head first. He decided feet first, and he survived but suffered broken ribs, a few head concussions and his boots were split at the soles and driven up to his thighs.
Overall
I really enjoyed this, I think it was a great experience. I think it's quite fair in terms of value for money. It's quite hefty (with the day climbs costing $248 and photos costing up to $50) and prices are only going to rise from now on. In saying that, I wouldn't mind climbing it again later in life and maybe even in a different time, like twilight or night or even dawn. My mum wants to go again during twilight but obviously because she knows either me or my brother will pay for it (I paid for this one).

I also wouldn't mind working here; it seems like great fun and it'll obviously be a unique, refreshing and healthy job. Apparently they hire something like at least 100 climb leaders during the summer season because of the high demand for it, not surprising as well that they have climbers departing every ten minutes...

But yes, definitely a must-see I think. If you aren't too keen on spending too much, just go for the day time, since twilight climbs cost $308 and dawn climbs cost $348.

300 Movies and Counting

300: Rise of an Empire

6.4/10 on IMDb
42% on Rotten Tomatoes
Let me just say: I love Eva Green.

I love her already. Just looking at her I love her. She's perfect.

But WAIT! She's a VILLAINESS?!

I didn't even know it was possible to love her more.

Honestly, she stole the show. The whole time I was just focusing on her. I love her as a cold-hearted villainess; whoever did the casting needs an Oscar.

Okay so back to the movie.

I don't know why it got such bad ratings; I really loved the movie. I mean even if Eva Green wasn't in it the whole concept of it is still amazing. I get that it didn't have as many cool one-liners (à la "This. Is. SPARTA!"), and this may just be my love for ancient history, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

It serves as both a prequel and a sequel to the first 300, as well as a separate movie that runs in parallel to those events at the Hot Gates.

It focuses on Themistocles and his attempts to create a united Greece to go up against the Persian army, which is led by Artemisia, a hateful woman with the sole desire of seeing Greece burn.

The majority of the film is set in a battle at sea, so I loved that about it. The visuals and the directing were just amazing. Sure there's a lot of violence and a lot of cover-your-eyes-and-cringe moments, but I guess that's the essence of it. Back in those times, people fought. They didn't just stand there shooting each other, they actually fought with little armour and a lot of very sharp blades. People got beheaded. People had their limbs chopped off. Such was the brutality of Ancient Greece! And that's what makes the film so amazing.

It just doesn't hold back.

Also Lena Headey's voice is so amazing in this. She narrates quite a bit of it and it totally sets the scene. You forget that she's Queen Cersei and you totally buy into this idea of her telling this epic legend as a heroine (and not as some crazy incestual mother with a spoiled king-son).

Sullivan Stapleton, not a very famous actor, is also good as Themistocles, but Gerard Butler in 300 is obviously unbeatable. The powerplay between Themistocles and Artemisia was fantastic, and I loved how little of Xerxes was actually in here (since his throbbingly deep voice and god-like skin are really creepy). The movie was different to the first in that there wasn't much, if any, of that magical stuff that was in the first film. It was quite realistic in that sense, where you just saw people fighting and planning their strategies.

I also really loved the back story they gave Artemisia. I read that in reality, no one really knows the back story of Artemisia or how she made her way to the top of the ladder, befriending Xerxes himself. Not to mention that drawings of her make her seem so lovely, it's even harder to think of what her back story was.

But nonetheless, Eva Green was amazing.

IMDb even states:

"Eva Green was the only actress considered for the role of Artemisia and luckily for the film-makers she agreed to do it as they had no No. 2 choice."

Good spot, guys.

So overall, this film is an absolute MUST SEE! I'm definitely considering buying it on Blu-ray.


Saving Mr Banks

7.6/10 on IMDb
80% on Rotten Tomatoes
I've been pretty hyped up to see this movie; it's about Walt Disney and his efforts to convince Pamela Travers, author of Mary Poppins, to hand over the rights to the novel so he could make a movie out of it. Seems easy enough, but this Pamela Travers is an extremely difficult person, and she's very protective with her story, making it very clear that she doesn't want Walt Disney to turn her story into some weird animation filmed with sparkles and happy endings. It's pretty funny knowing how the actual Mary Poppins film turned out though, since it seems like it became everything Travers hated.

So if you've seen Mary Poppins (and if you haven't I don't know why you're watching this), then it's a pretty funny film. You get all the references and all the songs and you see why Travers resents the idea of it but also how she slowly warms up to them making the film. Some of the lines made me laugh, quite a lot actually, since I read that in real life, Travers hated the film Mary Poppins so much that she was crying in anger during the premiere and she never let Disney touch her stories ever again.

Having said that, I guess I was a bit disappointed with how the film was done. I mean obviously, it was a film about Walt Disney, so Disney would have to produce it, so they would probably want it to seem all happy and stuff. But on the other hand, it really wasn't that great. Disney is known for turning terrible endings into happy endings, and in this case they obviously can't include an author crying because of her regret of letting Disney turn her novel into a whimsical film. It was just a bit upsetting because this was supposed to be based on a true story but they still make it more flowery and heart-warming. Even something like not letting Tom Hanks smoke a cigarette because they didn't want to show a cigarette on a family-friendly movie is just SO DISNEY!

But apart from that, I did like the character development and seeing it slowly unravel to shape Travers' personality now. Honestly, Emma Thompson is a genius; she is so amazing in this role as a snobby, bitchy and very disagreeable woman that it actually makes you uncomfortable listening to her speak! But on the other hand there's Tom Hanks as Walt Disney, who, to be honest, made me feel a bit weird. It just didn't seem right to me that he would be Walt Disney; he seemed so fake (but then again, as I was saying before, Disney fakes a lot of things so maybe this was deliberate? - Although I doubt it).

Another thing was that this film is classified as a drama, but I didn't really feel like I was very impacted by it. It wasn't super touching or anything; I don't think I cried and that's saying something because I cry in everything. I'm not saying I'm completely heartless, because some things from her childhood made me very sad, but it just wasn't as touching as I thought it would be or as the trailer made it out to be. Maybe it was Travers being so annoying that made me not sympathise for anything... But at least it had its funny moments.

So overall, I didn't really find this amazing. It was very hyped up but in the end it just didn't satisfy. I doubt I would ever buy the DVD or watch it any time soon.


Paranoia

5.6/10 on IMDb
5% on Rotten Tomatoes
To end, here's a random movie that my mum picked up from the library. Actually if you look at the cast, it has Gary Oldman and Harrison Ford in it, so you'd think it'd be quite good, but it really wasn't amazing. Even a quick trip to Wikipedia shows that it's classified as a box-office bomb.

Well, to be honest, I knew this before watching it so my expectations were not very high at all. I mainly watched it because I wanted to see Liam Hemsworth act in something other than The Hunger Games.

The film's got an okay storyline; it's about Liam Hemsworth's character being blackmailed into spying on one of his boss' main competitors. Gary Oldman and Harrison Ford act as the two telecom giants that have a very strong rivalry, and eventually Liam Hemsworth's character gets into quite a pickle trying to do this spy work.

As I said, I had low expectations, but this film kind of exceeded these low expectations of mine, so I didn't think it was TERRIBLE. I mean, it definitely was not very clever, but at times it was a bit intense. It definitely was not very thrilling, and I did not really see anyone show signs of paranoia.

I don't suggest watching this, no matter how good and scary Gary Oldman is at being a bad guy.

Fearing For My Life

Jokes I'm not going to die.

But here are two instances where I feared for my life!

(*Note: Feel free to skip down to my review of Gone Girl if you ceebs reading my rant on my camping trip)

Hiking through Hell at Newnes Camp Ground
AHHHH okay, so me and a group of friends from high school went camping overnight on Sunday!

It was really good seeing everyone after such a loooong time, but man oh man it almost killed us! Like, literally (except not actually literally).

So what happened was, we got to Newnes Campground at around 2pm and by the time we set up our tents and everything, it was around 3pm. We didn't want to just sit around doing nothing, so we decided to head to the Glow Worm Cave Tunnel, which was in the park and we thought only required a short hike.

So we drove up to the area, went to the information desk and grabbed a map (which I had to pay a dollar for). The man said that we shouldn't do the hike though, since it was a 3 hour 9km hike, and since it was already past 3pm, it would get dark by the time we came back, so we should do it in the morning.

So after a bit of debate, we decided to hike anyway. Diwan's saying that it's only 9km and we could smash it out in 2 hours, and quite a lot of people are agreeing. I definitely thought that it wouldn't take 3 hours, and I really did not want to come back in the morning, because I wouldn't be bothered and I reckon a lot of others would have wanted to go home.

So we get to the start and it says from that point the hike is about 4 hours. So a few of us jogged the first bit and were like, "Yeah, we got this." Unfortunately, we got tired really quickly because it was all uphill, but after like 15 minutes we get to a sign that says "Glow Worm Cave 3 hours return". So Diwan's all happy, saying, "We're making good progress; we just shaved off one hour of the hike". So it was pretty good, we were all quite keen to get this thing smashed out in another 2 hours.

Anyway, after about an hour we get to the glow worm tunnel and to be honest I'm pretty disappointed because there aren't that many glow worms. Like yes, it looked cool (they were green), but it just wasn't that exciting. Especially because the place was fully dark and I was using my dodgy phone torch and kept accidentally stepping in puddles of water when I was looking around.

Then we meet this couple who said that they came from a car park about a 10 minutes walk from the glow worm tunnel, and we're like, "Wow, that's convenient! How come we weren't told about this car park!?"

Then when we get out and continue along the track, we get to an intersection where one side says Old Pagoda Track, and the other says Glow Worm Car Park.

At this point we don't have the map with us because we're ahead of the rest of the people and Robin has the map I paid a dollar for, and we stupidly forget that the couple said they parked 10 minutes away from here, so we think, "Oh cool, WE came from the Glow Worm Car Park!" So we head there.

Well, we get there and we realise that no, this is definitely not where we came from, so we head back to the intersection, where we meet the rest of the group who were behind us.

We then continue the rest of the track until we get to another intersection. The stupid thing here was that there were only signs pointing to where we already came from (Glow Worm Cave Tunnel) and to the road on the right (1.5km [or something like that] to Old Coach Rd). We check the map (that I paid a dollar for) and it says to go along Old Coach Rd to get back to the start, so we're like yeah, we'll go right.

At the top of this hill is a gate, and while some people are thinking that it means that we shouldn't be going that way, a few of us (including me) were like, "Nah, we need to get to the Old Coach Rd," so of course we head that way. There's a huge rock formation there that we climb up, take, pictures, then head off again, to get to Old Coach Rd.

Unfortunately this ENTIRE PATH is ALL UPHILL. Like it was sooo tiring. It seemed like it would never end, and honestly, a few of us felt like we were dying. It just didn't make sense. We went uphill when we came here, so why are we going uphill for so long now?! At this stage, the sun was about to set and I was just like, "Let the wolves come. I'm ready to die. I'm ready."

But we somehow make it to the top, where it meets up to the sealed part of Old Coach Rd, and what do we find? WELL WE WENT THE WRONG WAY AGAIN.

Obviously at this point I am extremely pissed off because I paid a dollar for a map that has been of no use to us, that there was an intersection where the part we were meant to go to didn't even have a sign, and that there was a car park like TEN MINUTES AWAY FROM THE CAVE and that THE CAVE WASN'T EVEN THAT AMAZING.

Everyone's in low spirits, the sun is setting, no one wants to die.

So we head back as quick as we can, but it's all downhill so we try jogging it but I got super dizzy and nauseous; I think I was really dehydrated or something (I've had a headache ever since Sunday so yeah maybe I was dehydrated), so I was not having a good time.

When we all rendezvous back at the intersection, we have to make a decision. Do we go through the other side of Old Coach Rd to the way we think is the right way back and is the shorter path, or do we go back through the glow worm tunnel which is longer, but guaranteed to get us home?

At this stage we've also got two other worries:
1. Sid and a group of guys legged it down Old Coach Rd when we realised we made a wrong turn, so we have no idea where they are and whether they're safe or not (since there's no reception anywhere near here).
2. Dulan and his car planned on coming up to the campsite arriving between 5pm and 8pm and there's no reception and it's already nearly 6pm and we're worried that when they didn't see us they then turned back (or even just died going up that windy dangerous road at night).

Anyway we're all a bit stressed and just want to go back as quickly as possible and we don't want to take another wrong path, so we go back through the glow worm tunnel.

It's now night time and we've got 2 proper torches and my phone torch between us, and phone torches aren't all that great, so we're all very thankful that Justin and Luke bought those two torches the morning of (because we'd be dead without).

Since it's night time and a slip or a misstep might land you in heaven (which honestly at this time is looking really good), everyone's going really slowly, so we take a super long time getting back even to the glow worm tunnel.

Ironically though, the glow worm tunnel looks amazing at night. It was beautiful. It was like a constellation of green stars all around us. Too bad that no one can actually hike there at night because it's too dangerous!

But anyway, we're hiking back, worrying about Sid's group, worrying about Dulan's car group, worrying for our lives, and it seems like the hike never ends. Like yeah, there are some markers where you're like "Oh hey, I remember that!" but it still just drags on and on and on.

And since we jogged the first uphill bit, when we reached the decline we were like YAY WE'RE NEARLY THERE! But it was all downhill and hard to walk down without sliding through, and it felt like it lasted forever, since we jogged it and it passed by quicker on the way up.

But finally, we hear gushing water (there was an ankle-deep river we had to wade across at the start of the trek) and we're like OH MY GOODNESS WE ACTUALLY MADE IT! And, best of all, we see Sid and his group across the river and we're like OH MY GOODNESS THEY MADE IT! WE'RE ALL ALIVE! (Now we just have to wait for Dulan's group)

Thankfully, Dulan's group came like an hour later, but honestly, that stressing out was so bad.

From that, I was so sore even until Tuesday, because I did leg pilates on Saturday that were so tiring I couldn't even do ab pilates Sunday morning because my legs were so sore! And to go through that, where we walked like 12km or so hiking with uncertainty of our lives; that was so stressful.

So the hike was meant to be 3-4 hours, we all agreed to smash it out in 2 hours, and 5 hours later we were hiking at night time.

Moral of the story:
1. Trust the old man that gives you advice.
But since the old man's map was terrible and he didn't tell us about that other car park ten minutes away from the glow worm tunnel, here's another:

2. Go back the way you came; it'll save you from hiking at night and taking two wrong turns.

Gone Girl

8.9/10 on IMDb
86% on Rotten Tomatoes
SPEAKING OF BEING SCARED FOR MY LIFE! This movie is insane and I walked out of it honestly scared for my safety and my friends' safety. Leaving the city at night in the middle of the week when you just watched this movie is so terrifying.

So anyway, I watched this at Chicks at the Flicks! It was so fun going to this sort of event (which I've never been to before) mainly because of the load of FREEBIES! We actually got so many things. Like the event was $28 but it was in Vmax and I think the freebies actually made up for the cost of it. There's freebies for pretty much anything, from food, coffee/tea, to lotions, face masks and make-up.

But I also had no idea how big this event would be. They had this whole section at the front of the cinema for us, with a little table of mini glasses of wine, a candy bar thing, and a bunch of tables with sponsors like Lorna Jane, The Body Shop, Alannah Hill, and others. They all had these door prizes that you could enter and were also giving out goodie bags.

Anyway, I fully thought that we were getting a little meal with this as well, so I didn't eat much beforehand, but while Josie and I were sitting down, wondering when the food would come, the realisation hit me that maybe the food was for the GOLD CLASS people (which would make sense because I checked and the Gold Class tickets were $65)! Anyway we were super hungry so we ran down to get some fries at Hungry Jacks and popcorn at the candy bar, and legit that was our dinner.

But back to the movie.

I really loved this movie; it was so intense and crazy!

I mean I know it was directed by David Fincher but I really wasn't expecting this story's twists and turns and just general on-edge vibe about it. I think since it was at Chicks at the Flicks, I just thought it'd be a chick flick, but it was so much more than that. It was like psychological horror/thriller. It was so crazy.

The trailer for the movie was intense itself, but the movie just completely stepped it up. The whole idea of the film is that Ben Affleck plays a husband whose wife goes missing, but despite him maintaining his innocence, all the evidence points to him being his wife's murderer. The film starts off with their perfect relationship, then you realise that it wasn't so perfect after all, and even just like 30 minutes in you feel like you don't even know who to trust. Everything starts getting suspicious and it just does your head in!

Like I said, David Fincher directed it and it was truly awesome. The whole thing was eerie and made you question all you ever knew about marriage and love.

To be honest I watched this film because of Ben Affleck, who looks perfect here by the way, but Rosamund Pike really stole the show. With the Academy Awards' political reasonings behind handing out their Oscars, I don't know if this film would be Oscar-worthy but if it was, I'm really rooting for Rosamund Pike to get it, because she was insanely good in this.

I mean I know she was Jane Bennet in Pride and Prejudice and even one of the Bond girls with Pierce Brosnan, so she definitely can act in a variety of roles, but her acting here really surprised me.

Also, Neil Patrick Harris is in this and it was pretty hard to take him seriously, but his character is definitely very different from Barney Stinson's.

One interesting thing I found was that I really did not think Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike had much chemistry when they showed their flashback scenes (like when they first met, etc.). I mean not just the fact that it's very hard to hear what they're saying conversationally, but they looked weird together. I thought this might be deliberate though, seeing as how Ben Affleck's character is being accused of his wife's murder.

All in all, I really enjoyed this film, albeit being terrified for my life while watching and even while leaving the cinemas.