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)
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.
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:
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.
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