This weekend was the Port Augusta volleyball tournament. I was so excited about it- and what's not to love? I had been explained that it's pretty much volleyball and drinking with everyone, so I was in. But, whenever I told other people we were going to Port Augusta for a volleyball tournament, they said, "oh, Port 'A'gutter?'" which I guess means they have a low opinion of the area, so I was kind of expecting us to be playing in a scary ghetto or trashy town or something. But I really wasn't expecting to be doing much touristy sightseeing anyway, so I didn't care.
Marie and Sam picked me up mid-day on Friday for us to drive up to Gawler to meet up with the rest of our caravan. I packed light- mostly just clothes, a few snacks, and of course some beverages. We packed the van we would be traveling in, all 7 of us- Geoff, Marie, and tall Sam crammed in the back, Hannah and Sara in the middle, and me riding shotgun with James driving. I was surprised to be pushed into shotgun, which is a very comfy seat, but I soon realized it was because that seat missed out on some of the socializing going on in the back. That's ok, James and I had full control of their temperature and could use that as revenge when we felt we were being ignored.
It took a little over 3 hours to get from Gawler to Port Augusta. We stopped twice, once for a dinner break and once for a toilet break. Port Augusta is nothing like I was expecting. It was very nice, at least the area we were in was. I didn't see anyone hanging out on corners looking sketchy, I never once felt unsafe, and it was clean. What was the deal? It makes me wonder if the people who say "Port A'gutter" have ever even been there or if they are just saying what they've heard other people say. I asked James and he says it used to be worse. They outlawed drinking on the streets, which solved a lot of the problems apparently.
We arrived around 8 o'clock and unpacked the van into our cabins. The cabins were nicer than I was expecting also- a double bed and a room with two bunk beds, a fridge, a microwave, a stove, a sink, a television, and a bathroom. I stayed on one of the bottom bunks in the cabin with Rocky, Marie, and Sam. We joined the other groups who had arrived earlier and drank and talked and laughed. We had a snack later on of some crusty bread and cheese and dips and cured meat, then people started drifting off to bed. I ended up staying up with 3 of the guys until around 2:30 in the morning. I don't know why, I guess I just don't want to miss anything, especially since I am not going to be here forever. So I ended up only getting about 4 hours of sleep, which I had thought would maybe affect my volleyball the next day.
Both men and women's teams had 9 am games, so I woke up around 6:15, mostly because I for some reason couldn't sleep any longer, took a shower to help wake me up, then got ready. I had half jokingly said the night before that we should all wear pigtails as a team because Sara had braided pigtails on Friday when we were driving up. Hannah had gone around to each cabin and told everyone we were wearing pigtails and that it was my fault and my idea, so everyone had pigtails and hated me all day, haha. At first I wasn't too excited about the idea of having to wear pigtails, mostly because it made me look like a 12 year old girl, but then I decided that it might make other teams underestimate us, plus I was held down and Hannah did my hair, so I had to work with what I had.
I'm sorry to say I don't have photographic evidence of this pigtailed team. I had my camera with me all weekend, but I have gotten really bad about taking pictures. I used to take hundreds at a time, but now, it seems like I am slacking off.
Anyway, we hauled our pigtailed selves up to the gym and got ready for the games. We ended up playing four games total for that Saturday, which is pretty intense. We had a break between each game, so it wasn't continuous play, but it was still tiring. We also had duty during several games, which means we were in charge of ref-ing the game, score keeping, and line duty. I did lines on the games we had duty, mostly because I felt it was the more low-pressure duty. We spent all day there, watching the boys in the gym next door occasionally, and grabbing lunch from the kiosk upstairs. I had a pretty good day. I played back row and served, and then would sub out to let Sara play front row. I only missed 3 serves the whole day- one into the net and one out of bounds and one foot fall on the line. This is pretty good for me, as my biggest problem with serving is getting the toss right. The foot fall only happened because the gym we were playing in had maybe 3 feet outside of the lines for you to stand and serve. It took a little while to get used to the gym. There were way too many lines all over the floor, initially causing some confusion over in bounds and out of bound, but we got it figured out eventually. Also, the floor was one of those rubbery floor that you cannot slide on and causes mean floor rash if you do end up sliding across. I have a nice scrape below one of my knees from a dive I took this weekend.
We ended up winning all four of our games (I think the pigtails were good luck), which meant we would not have to play until 11 am on Sunday. After the long day, we went back to our cabins and took showers. The girls decided to walk up to a football club where the other teams from the tournament would also be having dinner. We had an 8 pm reservation for dinner at the pub nearby, but we went down to the football club for a drink before. It was very windy on the walk, but like I said already, it wasn't a scary ghetto like I had expected. We only stayed in the pub for one drink before we had to walk on to dinner. On the way I saw a completely flattened lizard on the road (like literally just a lizard outline). Not sure why I mention it, I guess I had never seen such flat, yet still prefectly formed that you could tell exactly what it was, roadkill before. Like something out of a roadrunner cartoon.
Anyway, we got to the pub and realized we could not all sit together with the men's team, so we got a table ourselves and ordered. I got crispy skin salmon over roasted potatoes and a salad, and I know I was starving, but it was as good as it sounds. We ate then hung out with the boys in the pokies room for a while before walking back to the caravan park together. At dinner, I had requests from serveral of the girls to teach them to play circle of death, a card drinking game any college aged American is probably familiar with. We gathered most everyone, except a few people who went to bed when we got back, into one cabin, borrowing chairs from all of our cabins to fit everyone. After several attempts to explain the rules to the rather large group, I decided to begin the game and explain as we drew cards. That went pretty well, then we played an Australian version, which was similar, but changed a couple of the cards. Anyway, this is the only part of the weekend I actually photographed, and its not great pictures, but here are a few:
The card games ended up with vikings and medusas, rubbing bellies to the right and faces to the left, avoiding names, the word "drink," and cuss words. Eventually, people started to trickle to bed. I ended up staying up late again, this time with Rocky and two of the guys, talking volleyball. Rocky and I went back to the cabin and tried to sneak into bed, but ended up waking Marie again (to be fair, their bed was at the door and she's a light sleeper). I slept until about 7:30, then got ready and packed up. Rocky made some sausages for breakfast and we went over to the gym after checking out of the caravan park. The boys had had a game at 9 am, which they won. We won our game at 11 am, but it was a weird one. A girl on the other team broke her ankle during the game. I wanted to pass out from the screams of pain she was making. It took some time to get her off the court and continue the game. The other team only had 5 players, which would have meant they needed to forfit and lose the game, but we allowed them to continue playing with just 5 players. I felt so sorry for the girl. She sat on the sidelines, clearly in immense pain, until we won 2 sets. Then some of the men's team from their club helped her out on her one leg, hopefully to take her to a hospital.
Our win meant we were in the finals. We found out the guys had also made it to the finals as well. We played at 1 pm and they played theirs at 2 pm, so they came to support us for part of our game. The finals is best out of 5 sets, unlike the other games in the tournament, which were best out of 3. We ended up winning the first 3 sets, and as a result, winning the tournament!
We were given glasses as a trophy in a small ceremony, then we went over to the other gym to watch the boys. They won a set as we arrived, making it 1 to 1. But they ended up losing in the end to Tea Tree Gully, which is nearby to where we play and they all knew lots of the team. We watched the men's ceremony, then packed up the van and stopped at KFC on our way out of Port Augusta. I didn't realize how hungry I was, but it was 4:30 and I had played 2 games of volleyball and hadn't eaten since the 9:30 sausage english muffin I had that morning. Sara whispered to me to watch James stays awake, since he had been up late both nights like I had, and I told her I planned to since I was in the front seat. We all devoured our food in relative silence for the first 30 minutes of the trip or so.
At the first pit stop, I suggested to James to drink some energy drinks, as I had seen a lot of shifting in his seat and sighing coming from him on the way. He agreed, saying he was the "mayor of struggletown right now," which I include simply because I thought it was funny. Sam got attacked by a mag pie before we got back in the car, then we set off again. We only stopped once more before getting back to Gawler. We dropped Geoff, then Hannah off at their houses, then went back to James and Sara's to unpack the car and repack into Marie's car. We told them goodbye, then talked volleyball most of the way home. I got inside, showered, and crazily called my parents and ended up talking to them until the credit ran out on my card. I was so tired, but I had trouble going to sleep. I think I was running on adrenaline or something all weekend, because I hadn't really had any pain or soreness all weekend, and despite getting very little sleep, played well and stayed awake until late, but I woke up this morning with everything hurting.
I had a really great time this weekend, and it made me realize how much I am going to miss these people. I know I have until April to keep hanging out with them, but it just made me realize that eventually I will leave, and probably not see a lot of them ever again. Geez, that is a sad way to end this blog post...
