Well this isn't your typical lovey dovey engagement. this is a total comedy of errors.

It started off, with us going camping up on Double Island Point, near Noosa. We got up there fine, set up camp and I set hte fire going. I heated the camp oven up to make some damper, and everything was going great. We were getting relaxed and into the swing of beach living.

I checked on the oven, its was way to hot, and turned out I had left some fat in it, so i tipped it out. But as i tried to tip it into the fire place, i slipped and it tipped into the sand. No major problem, or so i thought.

I went back over to put the damper in, then BAM, a searing pain up my right foot, then as i jump and cursed, BEM searing pain in my left foot, i dropped, but as my hand hit the ground BAM searing pain in my hand. I'd stood on the bloody oil on the sand.

So here I am rolling around on the ground, in agony, and my darling partner looks up and calmly ask "what on earth are u doing you fool"

So instinctively we fill a tub with water and soak the injured limbs, adding ice every so often as we had no running water. In this time we decide to pull the entire camp down and go home, incase i need hospitalisation. So my hero of a girl, packed the entire camp, loaded the car and we set off. IT took us 3 hours to set up, but a mere 45mins to pack up.

Now i tell her she has to drive the car, which by the way is a Rav4, not the beefiest of 4wd's, but generally good enough. The beach is super soft this day, and coming into high tide. So we head for an inland track to escape the water. We get there and get totally bogged. but this time she's stressed and almost in tears. Luckily we get out, and decide to screw it, and head out the way we came in.

Things are going great, the tides not super high, so we are staying out of most of the soft stuff. Then we get the the entrance to the beach. A good 200m soft, very churned up strip of loose sand. I tell her to stop. Tell her to find a line someone has made and just gun it, peddle down the entire way. She's going, its motoring along, but about half way up, we get stuck.

Thankfully some nice (albeit half pissed) teens help us out, and we try again. but again we are stuck.
This time i jump out and waddle in extreme pain over to the drivers seat. I back the car up, and take it about 500m back down the beach. I hit the soft stuff at about 60km/h and its goign great, its revvign its ring out, but its still moving. 20m to go, still moving, 10m to go, moving slow, 5m to the bitument road, BOGGED.

By this time a few other 4wds had pulled up, and thankfully just strapped on and pulled us up the last little bit. I couldnt thank them enough.

So we hobbled the car up to the barge, and across the river for our long drive home, with a large peice of plastic hanging off the underside of the car, but i didn't car, I was glad to be off that damn beach.

So driving down the road, Jodie is complaining how it was a crap weekend, and we didn't get to celebrate our anniversary. So to cheer her up, i fart arsed around for a few minutes reaching in the back till i found the box. Then i said "well i was planning on giving you this tonight" as she's driving down the road.
She welled up, and called me every name under the sun, for doing while she is driving, and not actually asking her the question.

But she said yes.

So thats that. My story of how i got engaged and the painful experience that preceded.