Girls in the Great Southern!

Summer Diary 2013. Week Three.

Friday 12^th

Sally and Barry’s house is a disaster area! The lads seem to have spread their junk out everywhere which made it feel very cluttered. We were outside for most of the night as they have an enormous covered patio area round the back of their house. It must have been the size of my front and back gardens put together – all under a steel roof! This meant we avoided most of the mess.

We had a huge amount of food, all cooked on the Barbie, prawns, snapper, mackerel, steaks, chops. The pile of food that the boys and Barry consumed was mind-boggling! For all their rufti-tuftiness they couldn’t cook my steak properly! I gave both ones they did for me to Jill and Annabelle. Finally, in exasperation I think, Barry asked, “Well how do you like it cooked?” I had to explain when I had said ‘blue’ I meant very, very rare – I did it myself in the end. This seemed to make Sally twitchy as if I had broken some huge taboo. Pervy Connor told me that it wasn’t even cooked! I had to explain that was the way I liked it, just seared on both sides. He was unimpressed I could tell.

Suze said afterwards that I shouldn’t really have cooked my own steak on Barry’s barbeque as it was a man thing! God, this society at times is so bloody stupidly macho! It makes me want to scream! I had a long chat with S & B’s daughter, Phoebe,  about life at Uni. She is planning to go to Curtin in February. I told her about Dad being approached by Curtin which got Suze’s ears buzzing. I then had to go into all the Upsalla, Curtin saga and how I thought Dad had only done it to get extended tenure at his current post.

Sally was gobsmacked that Dad was a senior lecturer and Mum an Assistant Head Teacher. Suze hadn’t even mentioned that to her in all the years they’d worked together! How strange is that? I put a major foot in my mouth though when we got onto siblings as I told them my our brother was in training to be the biggest boring old fart ever – because he is an accountant. Guess what Barry does? I felt about 6 inches tall and a complete pillock as well.

I only needed to have told them I was a rampant lesbian who was going to have passionate sex with their daughter to make the evening complete. [Joke!]

I bet I am not invited back there again in a hurry. Never mind, eh?

 

Saturday 13^th

The swim session is on Saturdays and Sundays too! One thing I have discovered is the showers in this pool seem to remove the chlorine smell better than the ones in my pool. Plus the pool has a sauna room and steam room. They are brilliant. We have been going in them after our length swimming and waiting for Suze’s aquarobics to stop – their sessions are an hour long!

Because we get there so early we often have the rooms to ourselves. It is like it is our own personal space. This morning I was chatting in the sauna with Jeff - teasing him about tomorrow’s AFL game in Subi when this really deep voice answered me. A guy had come into the sauna so quietly I hadn’t heard him! He gave me a hell of a fright. He was probably about the same age as Phil and had the most nut brown tan I have ever seen on anyone. He was amused by me jumping at his voice, so I called him a “Dozy drongo”. This confused him, “You speak like a Pom but use Okker slang, how come?”

Naturally I explained some of the history of our clan in Western Australia to him. He was amazed that I had toured the whole country by myself and rather ashamed that I knew more about his own country than he did! He was quite fit bodied and not exactly unpleasant to the eye. In a previous existence I could have given him a good seeing to – maybe even there and then in the sauna. Turned out his wife was in aquarobics and they knew Suze and Pete quite well too. You’ll never guess what he does for a living? He’s a bloody vet! I keep meeting attractive vets. Sadly he has the stereotypical Australian name – Bruce! I am afraid I fell into a swift recitation of the Monty Python “Bruces” sketch! [OK. I admit it! I was flirting with him a little!]

I was really pleased when, after we’d got changed, Suze introduced me properly to Bruce and his wife, Tania, telling them I was the kid sister she’d mentioned in the past, and I was the one with all the brains out of us three siblings. She told them I was about to start a doctorate which would take me three years. She deserves a really big hug. I tried to be modest but Jill, who’s quite sharp herself, said “Does that mean you’ll be a Doctor in three years then?” We then had a confused few minutes as everyone tried to explain to Annabelle and Jeff that I wouldn’t be doing operations and prescribing medicine to people who are ill. I guess Doctor of Philosophy isn’t on the radar of the average 11 and 12 year old child.

We spent some of the morning down at Rocky beach, which was quite deserted really, compared to midsummer. I met some of Jill’s class mates who were off up to Freo with her on the bus. Annabelle and Jeff gave me the puppy dog eyes, so of course I got persuaded to join Jill on the bus to Freo, with them.

We had a good time at Freo Market and in the food hall next door. Jill and her crew went off by themselves, wanting to avoid the little kiddies as much as possible. We went across to e-sheds market and I bought Laura a pair of Ugg boots. She had asked me to get her some if I could. They were bought at about 2pm, boxed and labelled by 2.30 and posted off to England. That’ll be a surprise for little Loll! They are the same kind that I have myself [Rousabout] and cost a mere $75. Back in the UK they’d be double that amount and in pounds sterling too! 

Jill and her chums rolled back ages after Annabelle & Jeff and I got home. Luckily she is a good girl and kept her mum informed of what they were doing by text, so Suze wasn’t overly worried. [I bet she was really but didn’t show it.]

Sunday 14^th.

OMG. You have heard of Sunday drivers? Well Warnbro has Sunday swimmers! The pool was bursting – OK that is an exaggeration – but compared to the week days it was! That has to be good news for the council who own the pool, it was bad news for the other (younger) swimmers as the majority of the Sunday Swimmers were hardly fine physical specimens. I know I shouldn’t criticise but why do over weight men and women try to squeeze themselves into bathers that are obviously way too small? There were some sights that would have positively put me off my breakfast. The sprawling flesh on display in the sauna was repulsive. If I ever get that size I will quite happily pay someone to shoot me. Urgghh! I am not going to say anymore as it was dreadful. 

The local derby match! Well, they renamed the Subi Oval The Paterson’s Oval in 2010. I wonder if the sponsors actually realise that the fans don’t use their name for the place, they still call it Subi? 

I have never been to a live AFL game. I’ve watched on TV with the family but this was my first live match. [I may have said this already.] We parked at E-sheds carpark in Freo and caught the train into Subi station. It was packed! They were expecting over 40,000 people to turn out to watch the match, that is quite a lot descending on a small suburb of Perth all at once. We were all dressed in our partisan colours, the girls (and me) in Dockers’ gear and Pete and Jeff in Eagles’ gear. 

The game is a bit complicated to follow and explain and TBH, I don’t know all the rules. I tried to be a dispassionate, detached observer of this primal tribal behaviour, but that lasted all of two minutes as Freo scored first and I was swept up in the emotion of the thing. It is quite a brutal game, much tougher, even, than Rugby – which knocks wimpy American football into a cocked hat! The guys playing must be amazingly fit, some of them looked absolutely gorgeous. 

The first quarter was Freo’s but in the second the wheels came off the cart a bit and by half time the Dockers were trailing by one point [41/40]. I can’t get over how emotional everybody seems in the crowd. I don’t think there can be many that were doing what I tried to do at the start of the game. I haven’t been in a group like this before and I can see the attraction it must have. Everyone feeling the same emotions at the same time. People feeling free to vent what they are feeling out loud when ever they want. It is quite a release. 

I have attended cricket matches quite a lot and the behaviour of the spectators there is quite different to what was going on inside the Oval. Maybe that’s part of the attraction for these people? It allows them a few minutes each match day to be someone they know they can’t be in their normal, everyday lives. Even Annabelle and Jeff were totally caught up in the emotion of the crowd. Which I thought was surprising, but then I realised I shouldn’t have been surprised at all. 

The third quarter was a disaster for Freo we just kept losing possession and then conceding goals. Although by the end of the quarter we were only 2 points down. It was the last quarter where we shone. The strength of the team showed through as we not only clawed back the deficit but ended up streaking ahead to win by 28 points. As you can imagine our little group of girls were ecstatic whilst the pair of guys were miserable as sin. Freo just outplayed and outscored them in the final quarter of the game. 

I will be the first to admit it was exciting and thrilling and all those other adjectives you’d care to throw at it. It was very, very physical [almost brutal] and extremely compelling. I am not sure I enjoyed the emotions it stirred in me, they felt wrong and totally un-lady like. There is no doubting the passion created in this game, though. It was so different from being a more dispassionate TV viewer of the game, that’s for sure. 

Getting out took forever and the train back to Freo was packed as well, even more so than the one we caught coming in. Annabelle and I forced our way on to the train and the doors closed behind us; leaving the rest of the family on the platform. She was momentarily stressed but calmed when I told her there was no need to worry, they’d get the next train, we’d keep going to Freo and wait for them there. At Freo we had  about a 15 minute wait so we got ourselves outside two very large Ice Creams. I told her she mustn’t tell the others as they’d all want one and I would be skint. She said, “Really? How can you afford to take us to Albany, then?” I had to explain I was joking. I then had the ‘I wish you were my Mum’ routine again. This time I asked her why? What was wrong with her Mum?  Apparently, compared to me, Suze and Pete are just boring. They don’t let her take risks and don’t mess about and tease and play the fool like I do. She knows they love her and want the best for her but they always seem tired during the week and too ready to just flop into a chair of an evening rather than do exciting things. She accused them both of not listening to her because she was only 12. 

I explained that I flop into my chair after a day’s work [or at Uni] and I only do exciting things with her and her siblings because I make a special effort for them when I’m here. I am getting the best out of being with them because I am not having to go through the daily routine with them all the time. I said that if I was their Mum I’d probably be equally as tired – I didn’t mention the fact that Pete sits around a hell of a lot, leaving Suze to do much of the home stuff by herself. I thought that would be unfair. I tried to convince her that she’d find my life style pretty boring too, but she recited a whole list of things I’d talked about doing in the six weeks before I came out to Aus. I hadn’t thought she had taken much noticed of what I did. She remembered the climbing and the sailing and the theatre and the concerts and all sorts of stuff I had mentioned during our skype times. I tried to explain that I only mentioned those because the rest of my life was as dull and routine as she thinks her Mum & Dad’s is, and I didn’t want to bore her with the boring bits. I think she started to understand. I tried to explain the trade off her folks had made by having a family, and being a parent meant you had to give up a lot of things because you put your children first. I got the “Well, in that case, I’m going to be like you and not have any children!”  

I gave her a huge hug. I told her it was too soon to start making decisions like that and I had only done it because of Richard’s death. She remembers lots about him too. This kid has an amazing memory [perhaps all kids do, but we adults don’t give them the time]. I said I wasn’t sure if she’d understand but that until I lost Richard I sort of felt I was doing what the world wanted me to do because I was a girl. She said she got it, because it was the same at home Jeff got away with murder and being a really lazy Galah because he was a boy, yet she and Jill got ‘dumped on’ with stuff that Jeff wouldn’t do. At school the teachers treated the girls quite differently to the boys too. 

Oh shite! What have I said? I hope I am not going to be the cause of family feud and division because I tried to listen to my niece and treat her as though she is mature. 

When the others turned up I bought them all ice creams too. Jeff and Pete just looked so fed up. Until the last quarter it looked the Eagles were going to win and the Freo just took it away from them. I made Pete stop at Seaways on the way home and I bought a Dhufish to have for tea. I know they like that and I haven’t had any since Christmas. As I got back into the car [van] Annabelle’s little voice piped up, “You’ll be skint!” Oh, I do love her. She reminds me of me. I could quite easily be her Mummy. 

Monday 15^th. 

 

Up with the larks. We were off by 7.30. Jeff still didn’t want to come so we didn’t press him any more.

We had packed the van last night, checked the gas bottles and the water tank. Made sure we had all the sundries we needed so that this morning all we had to do was roll out of bed, have a shower, have breakfast and go. 

It’s about 400Km to Albany which should have averaged about four hours in the UK, out here there is a tendency to drive slower for some reason. I went out via Armadale and down the Highway 30 all the way there. We had a pit stop in Kojonup to refuel ourselves at a pleasant looking diner. We could have stopped and made a brew but I quite fancied a little walk to stretch my legs. These places are like something you’d see in films about the old west in America. A few houses and shops strung out along the road and then back into bush again. It seemed pretty ordinary and a bit run down but it got us refreshed and raring to go again. 

In what seemed like no time at all we were driving down York Street with the Southern Ocean spread out before us. The girls went “Wow!” and I had to agree with them. On my circumnavigation I found Albany to be one of the nicest places I had stopped in. We parked up on the sea front on Princess Royal Drive and headed for the tourist info. 

We booked a winter special here: http://www.holidayalbany.com.au/  the special being four nights for the price of three. Plus  Middleton Beach isn’t too far from the jetty where the Whale boat sails from, so we could leave the camper there and just walk round the foot of Mount Clarence to the boat. Less hassle and good exercise too. We are booked on the morning sailing, weather permitting. The company for this is:  http://www.whales.com.au 

We drove into town proper and got some provisions and had a look at Dog Rock, which does look remarkably like a dog’s head. {There’s a rock called Cat’s Head on the road round Arran at Sannox, so now I have the pair!} The campsite is brilliant. Loads of facilities, I have told the girls we’ll use their showers etc and just use the camper’s toilet. Seems daft to steam up our shower when they have one included in the price. There’s an outdoor pool too, but I think it may not be open in the winter. The place is huge, it must get really busy in the summer but we have it almost to ourselves. There are about five other units in the camper / caravan section – I don’t know how many people are staying in the chalets.  

After a bite of lunch – chicken satay and salad in wraps. We strolled off round the foreshore of Mount Clarence to the new Jetty. It was actually longer than it looks in my street atlas, so I think we’ll be driving round tomorrow morning and parking up. I just can’t get over how beautiful the two bays look and how clear and sparklingly clean the sea is. 

As it was still quite early when we got back, I placed our site taken marker in our pitch and we drove on round Princess Royal Harbour to Torndirrup National Park to where the Gap [a blow hole] and the Natural Bridge are. They are truly spectacular and the girls were just thrilled to be there and see them.

I drove on round to Salmon Holes and then to the end of the road at the top of the cliffs where I cooked us tea. [Fasta Pasta]. We sat outside and watched the sun go down and we shared a bottle of wine, theirs was watered down [I had one glassful] saving the rest for back at the camp site.

It was the perfect end to a longish day.

The girls wanted to know why we couldn’t just camp out here instead of at the site. I told them we weren’t allowed to; the rangers can come round and move you on and in some cases give you a fixed penalty fine for being there. Plus I had paid for the campsite. They seemed a bit reluctant to want to leave but at about 8pm I drove us back, which in the dark is tricky as there are no signposts to point your way. Luckily I didn’t get us lost. They have discovered that the centre complex at the site has free wifi, so that’s where we all are, each on our tablets, surfing for free. I think I may go and use the Jacuzzi before turning in for the night. 

As we strolled across to the centre, a niece on each arm I felt so happy. The girls are really excited and Jill earlier said, “Thanks, Vicki. I’ve had a mega day. We’d never have come down here with Mum and Dad. They just think about their bloody boat all the time, and where we can go in it. It is so nice to see some of our country from the land instead of the sea.” Out of the mouths of babes, eh? 

OMG. It is things like that which really do make me broody!  Kids – meh!

On a boat tomorrow though, for whale watching. Rah rah rah! 

Tuesday 16^th. 

Phew. What a day! What weather! What whales!

First off, a denim shorts romper is not the thing to wear on a 60’ Catamaran out in the Southern Ocean, when the wind is getting up and the temperature is dropping. What the bloody hell was I thinking? Luckily I had a fleece on and a waterproof in my rucksack! [The extra jumper came in handy too!] 

It was a bit blowy overnight and quite chilled. The Min Max thermometer in the van recorded 6.2 degrees overnight. That’s bloody cold for Australia, mate. The sky was a bit dull and cloudy and there was a fairly good breeze coming round Mount Clarence. I was hoping it was from the North as that would give us the better conditions for whales. I had read somewhere that they stay closer to land when the wind is driving them away from it.

 

We had a fry up breakfast actually outside the new jetty area. Aren’t campers wonderful? I just drove round, parked up and got cooking. The girls weren’t keen at first but I insisted we have a hearty meal inside us as we could be out for a while. We were the first vehicle in the car park but as it drew nearer to zero hour a few more pulled up. You could tell there wouldn’t be all that many people going out today, though by the small number of cars and people milling about.

The Cat was riding at anchor, on a buoy in Princess Royal harbour and we knew things were afoot when a 4x4 arrived with a tender on a trailer, which was launched into the harbour and headed straight for the Cat. 

Soon the skipper, Paul, was welcoming us aboard and a woman was taking our money. Jill remarked that the sea looked a bit choppy out in the sound and the swell looked like it could be getting to three metres [too technical for me]. The woman went “Oooh, we have a proper sailor on board, do we?”

Jill came back with, “Actually Mum and Dad have a 16 metre Buizen Pilot Yacht which we sail around Perth and up the top end, too. We were there at Christmas, weren’t we?” The question was addressed to me.

Paul had tagged on by now, helping collect the dollars, he joined in with, “Bloody hell, you don’t look old enough to be these girls’ Mum!”

I had to explain that I wasn’t; I was their aunt. Their Mum’s kid sister.

“So why have you got a Bloody Pom accent whilst these darlings sound like true Okkers?”

We then had the potted life history but they seemed satisfied that I was an honorary Okker as I had an Australian Passport – which I brandished to prove the point. 

I guess if the boat had been busier we wouldn’t have stood around gassing like this. 

Paul told everyone that every trip he had taken in the last three weeks had seen whales so we should be in luck today so long as the wind didn’t veer any further to the south. The long range had a storm coming through overnight but the leading edge wouldn’t hit land until after tea time, so we should be OK. The little blondie [that was Jill] he went on, has said the swell looked about three metres which was about right, but if we had to go over to Two People’s Bay it may get rougher. He promised we’d be back on the jetty by about 12.30. 

One old guy asked if these whale tours sink very often in high swells. He replied “Only the once, Mate!” Which made the old guy go red and the rest of us have a good laugh. He then went up to the bridge and played a recorded safety message, as we cast off and set out into the harbour. 

Princess Royal is almost a complete oval, with a narrow opening leading into King George Sound. It is really beautiful but today was a bit grey really. On passing through the narrows we could feel the waves of the open sea far more pronounced than they were in the harbour. As we got to about the middle of the sound Paul told us there was a whale ahead, moving towards a freighter that was at anchor. We weren’t going to investigate that one though because he could see multiple blows a little further out. 

The multiple blows turned out to be a Humpbacked Cow and a very young calf. He said if the dorsal fin was bent over that meant the calf was less than 10 days old. The calf had a very bent dorsal fin. We switched off the motors and the pair cruised around investigating us for a while and we were given a mug of tea. We were shocked to discover it was 10am already! 

Really, words can’t describe the feeling you get being so close to these enormous creatures. Their eyes look so wise and knowing. There are barnacles growing along their fins, which is pretty unusual when you stop to consider it. The mum kept the baby away from the boat but we were sprayed by both of them as they made several sweeps round us. I know I have done this before but it is still a totally unbelievable thought that you are so close to this creature which spends its whole life simply travelling the oceans, minding its own business. 

While we were having these thoughts to ourselves, or out loud [Annabelle & Jill] Paul came over the tannoy to say he had seen some smaller blows over towards Two People’s Bay. Smaller blows could mean Southern Rights. So we turned tail and headed in that direction. We caught up with the single humpbacked we’d seen earlier and then found that the Southern Rights were a group [pod?] of about six humpbacked just swimming around each other as though they were playing a game in the water. Paul was of the opinion they may have sensed the impending storm and were having a pow-pow about whether to stay inshore or head out to open water. Well, it sounded convincing when he said it! 

At about 11.30 we had to turn back to Albany as it would take us about an hour into the head wind. He was right. He got the children on board to help get us docked, which was quite funny as Jill wasn’t sure if she wanted to be considered a child but she did want to help moor the Cat. 

We had a mash [tea] and a sit in the camper and watched the clouds roll over and eventually a squall came along. You could actually watch the leading edge of the rain make its way across the harbour and then hit land. It looked like it had set in for the day, so we decided to head back to the campsite and make use of their Jacuzzi and other facilities. 

It was, despite the weather and the cold out on the water, a marvellous day. I know I haven’t done it justice here in my narrative but it is something you need to go and see if you get the chance then you’ll understand why words have failed me. The best way to describe it is humbling. It makes you [well me anyway] feel an insignificant parasite, part of an infestation of the planet whilst those magnificent creatures are at one with the world completely. 

I tried to put that feeling into words to the girls, I am not sure Annabelle really got what I was on about but Jill certainly did. She asked, “Is that why Greenpeace use whales as their logo?” Smart girl, my niece. I told her they weren’t just any old whales, they were humpbackeds, like we’d seen today.  

The forecast is for thunderstorms overnight! I hope not. Annabelle doesn’t really like them, They can be quite terrifying out here, TBH. But tomorrow is set to be dry but grey. Let’s hope so. 

Wednesday 17^th.

Well, you come thousands of miles for a holiday and what happens? You bring your country’s weather with you [there’s a song about always bringing the weather I seem to remember]. We have had cold, wind and rain. Typical WA winter weather to be honest so mustn’t really grumble, but in the UK they are having a heatwave! Laura was full of how hot it was at work and even in sleepy old Tallentire it’s been scorchio! So far today, we’ve dodged the spots; shopped out in town and even visited the Whale Museum. I do not recommend you ever go there more than once it has to be one of the most depressing places on the planet. It is built in an old whaling station which puts it on a downhill slope in my eyes immediately. Whilst it doesn’t glorify the senseless and completely wanton slaughter of these beautiful creatures, it does bring home just how many were killed during the “boom” years.

I am afraid all three of us wanted another boom year, where the boom was made by us, as we blew the place up. I suppose realistically you have to have places showing you what went on in the past or you could get a situation like in Spain where almost none of the under thirty year olds in country know anything at all about the Spanish Civil War! So although it is a place that makes you [us] cry it is serving a purpose if it keeps the idea alive in people’s minds that killing cetaceans is WRONG!

Tricky skype moment as Laura signed off with “I Love You”. Both Jill and Annabelle were sitting next to me at the time. I didn’t draw attention to the words and neither did they. I bet it will surface sometime in the future. I just blithely said, “Love ya, too!” as though it was a normal, innocuous valediction. We’ll have to see what happens.

Dad e-mailed to tell me he has had to treat all the dogs for fleas! Apparently they found a hedgehog in his garden and tried to play with it for quite a while. The next thing he knows they are jumping with the little blighters. He’s given them all a long swim in Crummockwater. Then he’s put “Spot On” just underneath all their collars. They have had a pump spray on them too and the house has had two cans of flea spray in the doggy bits – their beds, the utility room etc. He can get a bee in his bonnet about stuff when he wants to. I guess fleas in Australian houses can be a bigger problem than in the UK and he grew up with that worry. I hope Callie is coping without me. She should be having a whale of a time, if a bit itchy. [Whale of a time! Sorry!]

I have discovered that he Cat didn’t go out today and it looks like it won’t tomorrow either, so we were very fortunate to find a window in the weather. If we’d arrived a day later it looks like we wouldn’t have been able to spot anything at all. Albany is nice but as a stranger, you don’t know all the things to do, even if there are good websites about. Plus, most of the attractions are outdoor and you need good weather for that.

Thursday 18^th.

We were all up and showered by 9am, using their showers not ours, so we decided to drive round to the jetty where the whale boat sailed from and have our breakfast in the car park. There were police everywhere. We parked up and I got a mash going. While we ate our breakfast and watched the boats bobbing on the water as a woman police officer came and knocked on the van and asked us what we were doing.

I asked her what they were doing and she said she couldn’t tell us that exactly but she did want to know about us. [They had found something in the harbour.] We asked her in and gave her a cup of tea. Then we proceeded to give her the low-down on who we were and what we were doing. I gave her proof of identity [my UK driving licence and both passports] I also showed her the receipts from the campsite round the headland. She made a couple of notes in her notebook and then we had a good old gossip while she drank her tea.

She is called Yvonne and has been a police officer for about 15 years. She had trained to be a nurse but change career paths. She said the incident was quite rare in the South West and she couldn’t remember the last one there’d been. The girls told her how their Mum was a nurse and that I was going to be a University Professor! I explained some more and it turns out she is from Fremantle; just south of the town heading towards Kwinana and the huge port complex there. She and her hubby moved to Albany a few years back as they loved the place. Always coming down for holidays, so they decided to sell up and settle. I think she was glad of a sit and a few minutes’ rest, TBH.

When she’d gone we all speculated on what the incident was and had a good old time speculating. We arrived at a consensus that it was probably a body washed ashore by the storm! Gruesome family, aren’t we? The girls then wandered off into quite amazing flights of fantasy as to who it was and why. It’s quite revealing what they pick up from the news and other people’s attitudes at times.

Jill thought it was an illegal immigrant [the newspapers here are full of stories about them at the moment] who had stowed away on the huge freighter we'd passed on our whale trip. They had slipped over the side in the dead of night and headed for the shore, only to drown on the way as it was farther out than they had thought.

Annabelle thought it was probably a wrinkly old dog walker who had been playing with their dog at the water’s edge, had a heart attack and fallen into the sea. [This happened in Rockingham a few months ago, and the guy had been on one of the jetties at the time. He’d slipped and fallen in. Not being able to swim – according to his widow – he’d drowned.]

I told them he was an ex-boyfriend of mine who was heart broken when I had dumped him. So he’d been stalking me from England and had tracked us down to the campsite last night. I crept out to meet him at midnight and he’d threatened me and the girls with violence if I didn’t go back to him. So using the self defence skills I had learned, I had kicked him where it hurts and he’d stumbled around in pain and fallen into the sea. I waded out to where he was floundering about in the shallows and held his head under water until he died. The last I’d seen of him his body was floating gently away on the surface of the harbour, never to be a threat to anyone again.

They thought I read too much crime fiction! It did provide a good distraction on the drive to Esperance making up a whole story about this guy. Although they thought my ex-lover story was too feeble and so they turned me into a hit woman and the guy had been a major criminal not an ex-lover at all. I was using the girls as a cover story to get to him and in Esperance I was going to kill his boss who had a huge yacht, riding at anchor, waiting for news of the guy’s activities. According to them I use the cover of a dotty Archaeology Professor, who travels the world looking at newly discovered artefacts but I am secretly working for a shady pan-governmental organisation ridding the world serious crime.

There could be the basis of a book in our silliness!

We have driven to Esperance.

The weather is still not playing ball, so we zoomed along the coastal highway to the town I had first visited when I was about 5. In those days I used to have long nails. I suppose I hadn’t really begun to climb anything yet and I was copying my Mum’s manicure. In Esperance all those years ago I broke a nail. I fussed and fussed about it for ages until Dad grumbled “Right, we’ll buy you some nail clippers” We then searched the place for a chemist or other store that might sell them. Eventually we tracked down a pharmacist’s and I was presented with a folding pair of nail clippers with an attached nail file. I remember being so disappointed that they were stamped “Made in the USA”. I clearly recall clipping the one nail, then deciding it made the rest look silly so I clipped all the rest. What I hadn’t known was that nail clippers can cut the nails too short and I made my fingers ache for a day or so afterwards.

I was able to recount this story and tell them that if they looked in my toilet bag they’d fine the very same nail clippers. [How sad am I?]

The pharmacy wasn’t there anymore but there was a newish looking shopping mall. You do find these springing up all over Australia – a bit like an infection! We found the campsite on the road out to Norseman. It’s called Bather’s Paradise and it is in spitting distance of the beach. Compared to the place we stayed in Albany it is no paradise though. OK, that’s not fair. It is very pleasant, clean and well presented, it just hasn’t gone over the top like the Albany one.

We strolled into town, found the tourist info office and decided what we would do tomorrow. A trip out into the Bay of Isles looked the best option. We then did the grand tour of the town. 5 minutes later we had done the tour and realised, yet again, there are downsides to a somewhere having a small population. [OK, it did take longer than five minutes, but Esperance is such a modern town – relatively – there is almost nothing here but homes and businesses.]

I cooked tea back at the van and we went to the beach afterwards to watch the sunset across the bay and look for interesting aquatic fauna. We caught the tail end of the weather which had plagued the Great Aussie Bight through the night and the van was bounced around for a bit by a strong onshore breeze.

It is strange how your memory plays tricks. I could have sworn Esperance was much larger and more had bustle than it does. Perhaps it’s a sign of aging. The girls found my nail clippers but decided not to trim their nails: very wise.