On Tuesday 10 November, we left for our second and last expo. We got dropped off near the top of Mount Raymond and it was extremely hot. We hiked to the top where we saw an amazing view of Marlo. We then made our way down through the bush to Lake Curlip where our canoes were waiting for us. Then we paddled to our campsite and set up camp amongst the cows in the paddock.

The second day was beautiful. The day started off very early. We had all packed up and were on the water by 8am. It started off with a splash for me as I had to swap places in the canoe and in the process of getting onto the bank I fell in the water, which ended up being a lot deeper than I thought. However, it gave everyone a lot of amusement seeing us round the corner soaking wet and very muddy. We had a really beautiful paddle all along the Brodribb River until we got near the campsite. The tide was going strongly against us, but we all managed to get there in the end. Since we got there by about 1:30pm we had lunch at the campsite and had plenty of time for a swim. It was so lovely and refreshing and some of us swam to the other side and had a mud fight. Then we had an early dinner and played foxholes on the beach, hiding in trenches we dug in the sand. We had review on the beach and watched the sunset. It was so beautiful with the bright red sun and the sky was all pink, purple and orange. We had a good sleep and even had a drop toilet, as it was a proper campsite that we were staying at.

On the third day we set off early again. It was a bit harder as a lot of us in 1A had injuries, so we had to help them out. We all worked together and everyone was fine in the end. We paddled along to French’s Narrows, luckily having the wind going the same way as us this time. We then hiked along the beach passing 1B, stopped for lunch and found some cool wildlife like the puffer fish and a giant Nautilus shell. We had to climb a giant sand dune nearly 30m high. It was really hard and extremely steep, but we all managed it. From the top we could see the telegraph poles at the top of Mount Raymond far away in the distance, which was so amazing. Then on the way down the sand dune I fell over, so that I was sitting and I couldn’t get up with my heavy pack on. In the end Sharni had to pull the pack up while I tried to pull myself out of the sand at the same time. It was pretty hard especially as we couldn’t stop laughing, but we managed.

When we finally got back we packed everything up and had our first shower in three days. It was so nice to be clean and dry and have proper cooked food! Overall it was an amazing expo and we all loved it, especially the canoeing, swimming and sunset on the beach.