Friday 15th August.
I woke up this morning from a shocking dream where I was involved
with three guys. The guys were Alan, Christopher and Michael. [Alan the vet who
I dated, Christopher from work who wants to date me and Michael – Dad’s
colleague - who I seriously snogged when drunk at Dad’s wedding reception.] I
will not go into details but it involved bodily fluids being ingested. I awoke
as wet as anything and turned on beyond belief. I haven’t had a dream like this
in years, not since the days when I was an undergraduate little miss cum
bucket. I pulled Laura’s hand down between my legs and she needed no further
encouragement. When she had performed her magic I reciprocated and we ended up
in a sexed-out, tired and loving huddle.
A peek through the blinds revealed the fact that we had
British weather outside, overcast, cold, rainy. Just like home. The islands
tour had to take a back seat today; we hoped for better weather tomorrow. We
lay snuggled up for a while just stroking each other gently. We decided that
getting a couple of bikes for the next two days would be a good idea so we went
to the site shop and asked about bike hire. We were directed to Laquo bike
hire. So we drove down in the camper and hired a pair of bikes for two days. We
fitted them into the camper and headed back to the site.
We spent the day dodging the rain spots and everywhere we
went told us there hadn’t been any rain for ages until today! We cycled down to
the Municipal Museum and looked at the exhibits in more detail than I did with
the girls last year. Teenage girls and museums aren’t the most likely
companions, so we had a whistle stop look. This time we had a good look round,
had a bite to eat, and talk to the curator about the Skylab exhibit. I
surprised the curator by telling them that the majority of the debris came down
on Balladonia. I knew this because my Dad had a T-Shirt from 1979 which had a
map of the area on it and the wording “Western Australia, the State of
Excitement”. It was a horrible brown colour. Dad still has it somewhere, being
rather OCD about his clothing. The curator showed me an exact copy of Dad’s
T-shirt from the archive, it is obviously one of the same batch. He sounded
very excited about his old shirt.
Owing to the fact the night is still falling pretty early
out here (about 5.45pm) we spent the rest of the afternoon cycling round
Esperance and out to Pink Lake. It wasn’t all that Pink to be honest but
usually that only occurs in summer when the temperature is higher and the algae
absorbs their (its?) beta carotene. It is only a few clicks out of the town and
quite a pleasant bike ride. We can get really close to the lake along one side
and there is a view point at one end too. It is really salty and used to be a
source of local salt production. I think it may still be so. We went to Lake
Warden and then round to the Leda Nature reserve. It is full of small lakes and
tracks and is quite pretty.
We whizzed back into town and headed to the jetty. It is a
bit like Busselton’s jetty sans train. It’s great for cycling down and there
were masses of old men fishing from it. We stopped at the end for ages and
watched out for sea life appearing. One of the guys said you could sometimes
see the occasional seal around the structure. Unfortunately we didn’t see any
but we had a great view of the Recherche Archipelago. We contacted the Woody
Island tour company and booked ourselves on a full day tour for Monday. (The
girls and I did the half day tour last year.) We have to hope that there will
be twelve people booked onto the tour otherwise it doesn’t go ahead. Fingers
and toes crossed then. This will take us through the islands for the first part
of the tour, when we get onto the island and are given a snack. This is followed
by a bush walk with a guide and eventually a barbeque meal before heading back
to Esperance at about 3.30pm.
At the site we had our evening meal, which in traditional
Aussie fashion included large slabs of meat being grilled and served with a
huge salad and oven chips. We went and sat in the site’s communal verandah
things after the meal and were joined by a handful of other people who were
touring around the state (and one couple who were doing the whole circuit). We
shared stories and potted histories and several bottles of wine. I had stocked
up on Happs Fuchsia from the bottle shop in town but once everyone discovered
how delicious it was they drank me out! Four bottles gone! Boo Hoo. As most of
them were staying for a few days too we agreed to rendezvous tomorrow and do it
again and this time I was promised they would bring their own Happs to the
feast.
Saturday 16th August.
The site has free wifi, which is pretty useful so I called
Warnbro this morning to see how everyone was. The girls we glad to hear from me
and jealous as hell that they weren’t with us. I promised them a trip up
through the Pinnacles to Geraldton before we left, if Suze OK’d it. She did.
Jeff was out somewhere for footy practice prior to a game tomorrow. Suze had
heard from Mum and Gran seemed to be none the worse for her little spill. Mum
had teased her that next time she goes on the whisky she has to cut out the
gardening or vice versa. Gran didn’t think this was funny. I suppose she
wouldn’t, I told Suze it was another example of where we got our sense of
humour from. Mum was just as bad as Dad. She said she had forgotten how funny
Mum & Dad could be, most of what she remembered was their nasty bickering
that led up to them splitting up and then getting divorced. I was far too young
to notice the bickering. All I knew was that Dad had gone to a job in Sheffield
and we ended up stuck in Norwich without him.
Today we had an attempt at cycling a large circuit which
takes you due west out of the town and ends up on Twilight Beach Road; out past
Pink Lake again (still not pink) and more climbing than I remembered. I had
driven out here in the camper van the last time so I wasn’t paying much
attention to the topography of the route. Twilight Beach Road is beautiful and
is even more so for taking our time along it on our bikes rather than whizzing
across in a motor. We took several detours off the road to various headlands
and also had our lunch at one spot where there was not another soul in sight.
This is often nothing new I have found, out here. There are loads of pull off
points and car parks (even a toilet and shower block in one of them). The feel
is like being on Rottnest but with real vehicles included too. There is more coastal
scrub than on Rotto too.
Back in the town we had lunch at a deli and then headed out
eastwards past the campsite to get to Brandy Creek. It looked quite interesting
and of course we could cycle most of the way there right along the coast. It is
a little harbour development just south of the racecourse. There is still a lot
of bush around it but it does look like a prime site to be developed. There are
plots on the way there already cleared with their services installed, ready to
be built on once the new owner has decided upon a house design they like. If I
thought Norwich was a city out on a limb then Esperance is like Norwich in
spades. It is so far on a limb that I do bet the only culture they have this
far out (apart from the brilliant museums) really is yogurt. It also got us
wondering what the hell a town this far away from anywhere else can do to
support its growing population. They can’t all be old retired codgers, surely?
Back at the site we had more cooked meat for our evening
meal and then rendez-voused with the fellow travellers again for more snacking,
guzzling and craic. Two couples had bought Happs Fuchsia with them, I am afraid
I trumped that with some really nice Verdelho which was from Margaret River
itself. We only brought two bottles but once again Maia’s choice proved a wow.
One of the couples was amused by the fact we had hired bikes to explore the
town and its locality in greater detail than you can on foot or in a vehicle. I
explained how I used my sister’s bike in Warnbro to get about when I came to
stay and that if you’ve been to Rotto you realise that a bike is a brilliant
way to get around and see so much that you might otherwise miss.
One of the women asked if we got hit on a lot, being two
skinny blonde women out travelling. I dismissed the idea but Laura did mention
the incident at Northam where we had freeloaded off three guys who thought
their luck was in if they bought us drinks. She said she was embarrassed by my
brazenness in accepting the drinks and leading the guys on. I said that as a
feminist it was my honour bound duty to disappoint as many men as possible if
they thought the easiest way to a quick shag was to ply any new woman in the
area with drinks. I had thought this might lead us down into areas I didn’t
want to go but virtually all of the other women agreed that this subtle way of
scoring points for our gender was totally justified, given the almost totally
sexist agenda followed by most males in the country. This sounded like stirring
a hornet’s nest to me, but most of the men around the tables agreed with their
partners. I had to tell them that they were a refreshing change to the guys I
had met when I lived here and they were probably an endangered species!
We moved on to excursions and activities and I think we
surprised them by saying we were going to the cinema tomorrow to see “Lucy” the
new Scarlett Johansson film about enhanced intelligence. I think the film’s
title may be a reference to either the Chimpanzee of the famous experiments, in
the last century about intelligence, or even the ‘first woman’ of the Human
species found in central Africa. A couple of them had booked for the Woody
Island tour on Monday for which I gave a hearty cheer, explaining that they
cancelled if they had fewer than 12 people booked on it. One or two of the
others baulked at the expense of the day, but I thought it was reasonable if
you considered it included two “meals” in the deal, plus a guide for the island
section.
Once again, Laura’s chosen area of study was a revelation to
the assembled crew. It is as if they look at her and can’t believe that this
gorgeous, slim, Aphrodite of a girl could be a wizard at maths. I sang her
praises about how she works out the unit price of things we buy in the
supermarket in her head, to see if the bigger sized package is actually better
value. She blushed so prettily I wanted to kiss her there and then. She got her
own back by telling everyone I was busy working on translating a series on
Mediaeval documents from Latin and Old French as part of my PhD. I am sure I
blushed as deeply as she did; especially as they all agreed that they had
judged the book of us two by the cover, not realising how so unlike their
assessment of us we had been! [I am not sure of this was an insult or a
compliment.] I explained that I was merely following a precedent set by my
mother and father as they were an Assistant Head Teacher and a Senior Lecturer
respectively. (I do brag about my folks a lot, because I am so proud of them
and what they do – or did, as Mum retired last year.)
This led on to how we knew each other, inevitable I guess.
Laura told them the history of the Thomases and Jays in our little Cumbrian
village which seemed enough to satisfy their curiosity. If any of them
discerned our deeper relationship it wasn’t alluded to. I asked Laura, as we
were lying in a post coital glow later, why she hadn’t told them our secret and
she replied that she didn’t want to tempt fate. Beautiful, sexy as hell and
sensible as well; what more could a girl want in a partner?
Sunday 17th August.
With a wind coming down from the desert, today was a shorts
day for both of us. I had my sensible shorts on but Laura wore a pair which
were totally unsuited to anything except rousing my libido at the sight of her
soft buttocks protruding from them. I asked if she realised that she was in
imminent danger if she continued with the idea of wearing such provocative
clothing. She asked, “What danger?” and I replied by fondling the said buttock
area and discovering that the fondling had given rise to an excess of feminine
lubrication in an adjacent area. This, naturally, necessitated the removal of
the offending item of clothing and inserting my digits below her flimsy
underwear. We set off out about 45 minutes later, with much faster heart rates
and deeply flushed countenances!
The bikes had to be back by 1pm so we spent the rest of the
morning having another good cycle round the town, our concentration was on the
sea front areas, which are much better explored on a bike than on foot. In the
hot weather (well hot for us at 23 degrees) masses of locals had come out to
avail themselves of a sunny Sunday, too. I didn’t begrudge them their pleasure.
There were a lot more cyclists about than I had anticipated, the majority were like
us two, just pottering about, but there was a group of Keen-Types in lycra and
pro-jerseys looking like they were enjoying sweating rivers and knackering
themselves out in the heat. Apart from, as a young girl, watching Linford
Christie’s package moving when he was running in lycra, men in lycra generally
have done nothing for me at all. I guess it was the size of Linford’s package
which attracted this young girl’s attention without knowing exactly why at the
time. It was only when I got older I discovered the size of the bulge in their
trousers sometimes meant the size of the pleasure it could give you was
increased.
We returned the bikes and sauntered back to the campsite to
freshen up and have a meal prior to hitting the cinema to see ‘Lucy’. It was
good but I thought it ended up being two films instead of one. Or even three.
It starts off going in one direction and then wanders away into a different
route. I am impressed by Scarlett Johansson’s recent films, “Under the Skin”
especially. This was sort of science fiction too but totally different. I
wonder if this liking for SJ films is an indicator of my recent change of proclivities
– I remember her in Ghost World and Girl with a Pearl Earring as well as many
of the others she has done – perhaps there was a latent tendency for lesbianism
lurking under my rampantly heterosexual past?
There were quite a lot of films on show at the Fenwick, from
the rather good Lucy to the crappiness of Mrs Brown’s Boys. We would have gone
to see Calvary but we hadn’t seen the previous film in the series so we went
for Lucy. It would have been How to Train Your Dragon 2 but it was on in about
1pm, far too early to be in the cinema.
After Lucy we went hunting for a place for an evening meal.
We settled on Ocean Blues Restaurant and as a change from red meat we both went
for fish / sea food. It was delicious. As a BYO we went there via bottle shop and
brought a couple of interesting bottles: Capel Vale Sauvignon Blanc and a
Houghton HWB. One of the couples from
the site came in before we got served so we invited them over to our table and
they joined us for a snackerooni. They had seafood too. We enjoyed the meal,
the wine and the company.
Sheila (yes she really was called Sheila) and Tony were
dining companions, as we sort of knew from the previous evenings at the caravan
site. They were taking accumulated long service leave from Commonwealth Bank.
They had saved up three lots each and combined with their annual leave of this
year had almost a full 12 months to tour their home continent. They were
probably about 10 years younger than my Mum & Dad and quite young in
outlook. They jokingly said they were busy spending their kids’ inheritance. I
thought this was a wonderful attitude to have.
Laura picked their brains quite a bit about the role of
graduate employment in the banking sector. She is thinking of going into
banking or insurance in some way and these two were ideal candidates to have
their brains picked. They had plenty of advice but thought it may be different,
in a way, in the UK as the pool of talent is much wider. They asked if she’d
consider moving out to Australia to work. [I held my breath in anticipation of
her answer.] She was quite diplomatic in her answer saying
she hadn’t seen enough of the place to know if she’d like to live here
permanently yet. She did say she thought I would like it but would miss my
mountains, whereas she hadn’t really anything she would miss in the same way –
apart from me. I wasn’t sure if they’d picked up on that reference as the
conversation wandered around to things we would miss if we left our home
country. For the two of them it was definitely the weather. I had to agree that
the British weather wasn’t something that I would miss. It is too unpredictable
and not really over warm.
They asked me the same question, if I would come out here to
work. I ran the same answer by them that I always use, I would like a job which
would keep me six months in each place. Tony, being a lot sharper than he looks,
told me off for that answer, telling me it was a cop out. I had to agree that I
was being ingenuous. I explained I had worked out here twice for periods of
over a year each. The second one was for almost 18 months and would have been
for longer if my Dad hadn’t found me a job in Sheffield. I told them I was
happily living my life in Warnbro with my sister and family, filling my spare
time as their unpaid baby-sitter, with a guy in tow from Fremantle. My job in
the department store was mindless and easy enough to cope with. It was Dad’s
imput which had changed my life in such a huge way.
They were pretty sharp, these two bankers. Sheila came out
with, “So you weren’t gay when you were here, then?” She then bit back the
remark and told me to forget she had asked such an impertinent question. Laura
jumped in and told her, “She wasn’t when I told her I loved her but she has
become my dearest love now.” We then embarked on a longish description of how
this straight half-ocker became a confirmed rug muncher. We seem to be doing
this quite a lot to complete strangers. Still if it flies the flag for same sex
relationships, we are quite willing to do so.
We moved on to less contentious issues and had a pleasant
after dinner gossip. Then we drove them back to the campsite in our van. (They
had walked down to the restaurant.) Any early night was hit on the head by
being invited over to the verandahs for a “final swig before hitting the hay”.
The final swig turned out to be two 2 litre Yalumba casks shared between seven
of us. Hic!
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