Gone Houseboatin'

Another weekend, another adventure.

As the title of this blog suggests, this weekend involved house boating. Also, this weekend involved getting my lease signed so I am officially moving in on May 16th. It's such a relief to have that out of the way. It's also such a relief to know that absolutely nothing is sacred in Australia. When walking out of my soon-to-be new home, I noticed the elevator in the building is created by a company called 'Schindler's lifts.' To add to the irony of this situation, the apartment is also right next to the Jewish History museum.



Anyway, the real adventure of the weekend began Saturday when 7 of us decided to rent a house boat. You can houseboat on the Hawkesbury river which is an hour train ride north of the city. I met up with the rest of the group at Central Station at a Krispy Kreme where I immediately proceeded to drop my things in a giant pile of pigeon shit. I know it is supposed to be good luck if a bird shits on you. Still no word on if that applies when you throw your stuff directly into bird shit. The weekend was off to a good start.

We piled onto the train, though sadly one member of our group apparently had some difficulty locating the Krispy Kreme or the trains and he was left behind to catch the next train an hour later. We arrived at the Hawkesbury River station and as soon as we deboarded the train, we were once again reminded that NOTHING is sacred in this country...




We got to the docks, were introduced to our boat, and were given 15 minutes worth of instructions on how to operate this 15 ton piece of machinery. Frankly, I think a group of baboons high on PCP would have been more qualified to drive this thing than any of us were. At one point, Abbey even asked the guy 'Have you ever had a more unqualified group of people take one of these things out?' He didn't say yes.

A few beers later and once our tardy comrade arrived, we were ready to set sail. Driving the boat proved to be easier than expected. I say that despite the fact that I did not once operate the boat, so truly I'm in no way qualified to make such a statement, but it didn't seem too bad. We headed to an area that our guide had told us had a waterfall and a little beach. To get there, first we had to park the boat (an effort that required 3 tries to get right) and then paddle our dingy to shore. I definitely am qualified to say paddling the dingy was much harder than one would expect. It didn't help that one of our dingy paddles was missing a half so our first few attempts at paddling the dingy resulted in us going in small circles to the left.

We finally got to shore, and got a few pictures with the 'waterfall'. I use the term 'waterfall' very loosely cause it was really only a small trickle. It was the equivalent of if someone had left a hose on at the top of the cliff and the water was running over. Even though the 'waterfall' was not quite Victoria Falls, our trip to shore was made completely worth it by this guy:



In case you can't see it in the picture, his shirt says "FBI: Female Body Inspector" He let us know he had one at home that had PHD on it. I'll let you figure out what that stood for yourself.

Here are a few more pictures of our adventure to land.






Once we got back to the boat, it started to get dark and we realized there is actually very little to do on a boat when it's not daylight out. Really, the only options left were eat and drink. So we did both, in excess. Dinner was fantastic, probably partially due to the fact that I had no part in putting it together. Here is our group shot taken with the self timer:



At some point in the evening, all of the girls ended up on the top deck talking and all of the boys were down in the cabin, 5th grade dance style. Once we realized this on the top deck, we made a few jokes about 'who do you think is the cutest?' and other things girls generally talk about when grouped together without boys. A short time later the boys came up and joined us. We inquired what their 'girl-free' conversation had consisted of. "Flame throwers." The difference between the two sexes had never seemed so apparent.

The next day was absolutely gorgeous. We boated around for the day, we managed to somehow ruin a boat race by being directly in the race track and I got a tan, which made the whole trip wildly successful by my standards I was reminded of how much I really love being on the water and how much I love boating. Particularly when I'm in no way responsible for doing any of the actual 'boating' part.

So not only was the weekend super fun, it also was educational for me. I learned more about the differences between men and women, I reaffirmed that the happiest place in the world for me is on a boat and I also learned that boxes/bags of wine can prove quite functional, even after you are done drinking them.



See? It doubles as a pillow!