ok i'm back..i didn't finish earlier as i was a bit dispondent on losing ALL of my photos. i'm currently in the middle of a plan to get them back. i should know in about 20 minutes (i hope). where was i? oh yeah, day 5...

after the beach we headed back to the hostel and a supper of sphegetti bolognese? i have no clue how to spell it. anyways they basically threw a bunch of stuff in a pot and cooked it up with the pasta. little did i know it was the last night of being clean and being able to sleep that i would have for the next 5 days.

6 days in found us saying goodbye to the german (only with us until exmouth) while driving north to the karijini (woohoo!). unfortunatly it was an all drive day with a brief stop at a mining town called tom price. mr. guide advised us that crappy homes can go up to $500- $700 000 smackers. for shacks. crazy eh? i would have liked a mine tour but there was no time..we had to get to the karijini asap. oh, did i mention how as we were drivng down the road earlier a snake was almost hit? a BIG snake. what do they do? open the doors and everyone piled out to see it. apparently it was all ready to attack. i got out but headed in the opposate direction. damned if i was going anywhere near that thing. so let me brief you on tlhe iving condtions while in the karijini. knowing it was going to be rough (the brochure described it as bush camping with no inemitys-thats bathrooms/showers), i was suprised to see 2 sheds with what looked like a toilet and shower. one shed was split in 2..one half had the shower, the other the toilet. another shed (i like to refer to it as the luxery shack) not only had the shower/toilet combined but also a working LOCK. meaning you didn't have to worry about someone barging in. the 12 person tents were fine except the zips on the doors were broken thus no way to close off the cold air at night (sniff this reminds me of the cat pee tent. R.I.P.). supper that night was steak/sausage again. not haven eaten since the night before i would have to say it was the best meal on the trip. then off to bed as sitting on your ass all day can be a tiring affair.

day 7/8. oh s*** i thought as i woke. a runny nose and sore cheeks. not a good sign. but who cared..i was about to embark in the activity i had been waiting 6 months (and the main reason for booking the tour) to do. hiking in the karijini! a quick visit to the tour center and then we hit the first gorge. of course i don't remember which one it was but i have pictures(haha maybe). it was beautiful. cool and shady the colors contrasted beautifully. got to the first pool where the other canadian met a fellow edmontonian. dude lives on the west side..no wonder he left. anyways then we hitched it back over to the other side of the gorge where the most beautiful pool of water known to man was located. mostly everybody took a dip. i just dipped my feet. i've realized/accepted i'm not much of a swim enthisuiast. then it was back to camp for lunch and then down to joffries gorge (10 minutes from the camp site). i went down about half way before i stayed behind. it wasn't the physical exertion (my body felt fine..thank you bootcamp!) but the heat (generally on these hikes i stayed in the far back. good way to get pictures without people in it/have long conversations with the resident grandpa and enjoy the quiet. hahaha the guide thought i was lagging from the hike itself. silly guide, i have 6 weeks of bootcamp under my belt, those hikes were cake). the average temp while we were there was about 33 degrees. just sucks your soul out. my other motive for staying behind was to get a head start on the group so i could get a shower..you'd be suprised how challanging a menial task like this is when your battling 16 other woman. unfortunatly due to my excellent packing skills(it took me 10 minutes to find everything) someone beat me to it. so i hightailed it to the shower by reception..which was awesome! same layout but clean. too bad there was no way to get clean. you see most of western oz is bush. and the dirt is red. think of it like baseball dirt. hard as hell to get off. i've scrubbed for days now and i'm still not having any luck. it looks like i have a bad fake tan. anyways again bd time came early as we had massive hiking planned for the next day.

dawn comes and with it a raging infection of my gums and a extremely runny nose. the nose i can deal with but its hard to open your mouth when it feels like your tearing your flesh. with two difficult hikes and the heat quickly becoming unbearable i thought the day was going to suck. but only somewhat. to sum up the hikes themselves..think of people scrambling on the sides of cliffs(not kidding..some of these hikes were class 5's) with footholds the size of memory cards. worth it though. ok i'm almost out of pc time and i think i've recovered my pictures. i had to resave on the same card and it's asking me to reformat again. i'm going to wait until i get home before i touch the card again.