More West Australian Phallic symbols and no naked dancing!

Friday September 5^th

Went for a swim at Aqua Jetty as usual. Over breakfast discussed whether to drive to Cervantes this evening or set off early tomorrow morning. The general consensus was go tonight and be fresh for tomorrow in Cervantes. It’s about 270 Km from Warnbro but a goodly part of that is on the Kwinana / Mitchell Freeway all the way to Joondalup. From there it’s a short hop east to The Indian Ocean Drive which takes us all the way up to Cervantes, we will actually pass the Pinnacles at night as we zoom past to the Cervantes Caravan park.

It took some great logistics but the girl packed their clothes in the camper and took a change into school with them. Pete followed Laura and me down to school at 3pm to collect the rugrats and he took their school uniforms back home along with Jeff who, once again, eschewed a girly outing.

Mid-morning I phoned the campsite and explained we’d be coming up from south of Perth once I had picked the kids up from school and we expected to arrive at about 8pm if that was OK? We did plan to stop at a roadhouse on the way for an unhealthy meal to tide us over until breakfast. The site manager / owner was fine with our late arrival time and told us how to get to the entrance, as though it might be difficult in a tiny place like Cervantes!

The pick-up was excellent and we hit Kwinana Freeway hardly ten minutes later, it hadn’t forseen how congested it might become. Once we crossed the Swan it started to thin out again and at Joondalup we had lost almost all the commuter traffic. The Route 60 is called the Indian Ocean Drive as it borders the said Ocean but at times it is so far away from the coast as to make the name a nonsense. Later on it does track it quite faithfully for a while and then it lives up to its title. By about 5.00 out posse was getting a bit peckish so we decided to stop at the next roadhouse we hit and scoff. By 6.00 it was becoming increasingly apparent that this wasn’t going to happen so we pulled off the highway at a designated spot and raided the fridge. We found enough in there for the construction of a huge plate of ham and chicken salad sangers and the equipment for a brew up too. Thus refreshed we hit Cervantes at about 7.30pm.

Once pitched we walked into town to find a hot food establishment, the Sea Breeze Café was still open (it closed at 8) and they had dhufish on the fish and chips menu! Sold to the tall blonde lady with the rainbow dress. We all had a parcel of chips and some kind of fish and I have to say that they were easily the best I have ever eaten. I do say this a lot though. LOL

We charp hit pretty soon afterwards but not before strolling along the foreshore and down to the point at the end of Rosnard Reserve. It was just like lots of the west coast settlements, a vast expanse of watery nothingness stretching away to the horizon and beyond. It doesn’t have anything to break the eye, like at Esperance or Albany, which makes it less appealing, in my eyes at least.

Saturday 6^th September.

I have visited the Pinnacles Desert in the Nambung National Park once before. I was about five and I don’t really remember the limestone formations but instead a huge argument between Mum and Dad when Dad got the car stuck in the sand and we had to be rescued from it. I was really scared by the shouting and the open hostility between them both. I obviously had no inkling of the deeper root causes of the enmity but I do recall how they looked really frightening to this little girl, snarling and snappy and thoroughly like evil characters from one of my story books. They were all sweetness and light afterwards and I thought I had forgotten it but as we drove down to the visitor centre it all came flooding back.

Of course the visitor centre and car park were nothing like I remembered them at all, it was over twenty years since I had been here but the stones themselves were still as mesmerizingly weird, even a cynical 16 year old (Jill) was amazed by them. We didn’t do a Billy Connolly though and strip naked to dance through them, although if we had been here without the nieces I can easily imagine there would have been two naked women somewhere in among the rocks making love with each other.

The drive round would probably take minutes but we kept stopping and looking, then driving on a little further before another stop and exploration. There really is nothing like this place at all in anywhere else I have been on the planet. (I have been to quite a few places, too.) We found one bit where lots of vehicles were parked so we pulled on there and had a longer walk about through the structures (probably for about an hour I suppose).

Back in the car park we made a brew and then descended on the visitor centre like ravening locusts in need of a feed. The feed being some retail therapy (getting more stuff for my Aussie Goody Bags) and looking at the displays which tried to explain how these amazing things were formed. It seems no one knows for sure at all! Typical really.

We drove into Cervantes again and pitched up before heading back to the wonderful Sea Breeze Café for lunch. After another round of seafood each we decided to go and look at the Stromatolites at Lake Thetis. There was a walk trail described in a leaflet from the visitor centre on Cadiz Street so we decided to follow that. It was a bit longer than anticipated and I think the girls were rather underwhelmed by the stromatolites. They are a bit of a boring life form, to be honest. They just sit there and release oxygen into the atmosphere. They don’t have parties or do really wild things at all. The wildest thing they probably did, over a stretch of about a billion or so years was to create the atmosphere on the planet. It is quite possible these little beauties (!) are responsible for life on earth. When I explained that Jill decided, that to make them more interesting, she was going to call them the God Rocks! Good for her.

The stroll took us right round Lake Thetis, sadly the stromatolites weren’t all the way round the lake. It continued back into Cervantes and to the other point on the coast line, which is probably the real point the lady in the Sea Breeze meant last night, Thirsty Point. This encloses the top end of Hansen Bay and would really benefit from an island or two dotted about in its waters. The walk continued around the shoreline (in a fashion) and eventually took us back to Talavera Road and the campsite.

After a shower each we all felt suitably refreshed enough to wander round to the shops in the town. We wanted to buy something for our evening meal. Eventually we decided that I would do one of my chicken, pea and spring onion risottos and the girls bought the biggest chocolate cake I have seen for ages as dessert. I promised them some watered down Happs Fuchsia (white or pink) with their meal which caused a mini revolt as they tried to convince me that they had the real undiluted stuff at home, so I threatened to call their Mum to check. They admitted it had happened only once! We had to buy a miniature bottle of wine for the risotto and Jill asked why I didn’t simply use the Fuchsia instead, so I let her taste the Semillon I bought and she almost gagged. She now understands.

After our meal we planned our leisurely drive back to Warnbro, in the morning, stopping off at Hillary’s aquarium on the way. We checked their web page on my tablet and Jill went, “Oh no we can’t go…”

We fell for it, after asking why not she replied, “It says here children under 15 must be accompanied by a responsible adult. That means Annabelle won’t be allowed in!” I threw a cushion at her and we had a mini cushion fight, which in the confines of a VW camper (OK it is a largish one) is not a good idea. Before it degenerated any further the three of us ganged up on Jill, carried her out of the van and then sat on her while Annabelle tickled her into retracting her comments. Her squeals attracted the attentions of the site manageress who came running over to see if murder was being committed.

A hastily released Jill explained what was going on and why and the manageress said, “Well, seems they can’t take the truth, doesn’t it?” She thought we were all quite mad, especially when she learnt that I had taken the girls round the southern tip in the camper last year, by myself. “That explains it girls, you tipped her over the edge last year!” She helped us finish off one of the bottles of Happs and then went back to her own place.

We trooped back down to the false point we found last night as a pre-sleep strollette and then after a mug of drinking chocolate each we hit the charp once more.

Sunday 7^th August.

I woke up in the middle of the night to the strange sensation of being kissed. Without thinking, knowing it was Laura being affectionate, I kissed her back. This continued for a few minutes and we had a severe bout of tonsil tennis with our tongues when I suddenly realised I was sleeping right alongside Annabelle. Laura obviously was oblivious to this! I muttered, “Best go to sleep, Loll, we’ll wake the girls…” and my kissing partner just went “Mmm, OK…” and moved away.  At the moment I heard a wee voice say, “Erm, I am awake, Vic…” Oh My Fucking God! I lay there for ages wondering what the hell I should do. In the end I decided that I would say absolutely nothing about it at all and pretend it hadn’t happened. I’d bluff out the consequences if any occurred.

Next morning I continued as though nothing had happened. We descended on the shower block after our breakfast and it seemed to work out that Annabelle and I went on the first shift while Laura and Jill tidied up the breakfast mess and made the bunk back into two long seats.

Sure enough once we were in the shower block she began with, “I heard you kissing last night.!”

“Oh. I am sorry if you were upset by us.”

“No. I have seen you kiss before anyway. Remember?” (This was true. At Suze’s request we had not stopped being affectionate to each other around the house and discretely in public.) “What’s it like kissing another girl? I have kissed boys but I haven’t kissed a girl.”

I explained that until I met Laura I hadn’t either, the thought had never entered my head. I asked her why she wanted to know. She wasn’t to be deflected, she told me she’d answer my question when I had answered hers. (The trouble with smart relatives, I suppose… LOL) So I told her it was just the same really except the expectations when you were doing it were different. When I dated guys, they used to think that kissing was just the start of something more. She nodded as though she understood. (Thirteen going on thirty?)

She said, “That’s just it. I have kissed a boy from school and he has thought that it was a sign that I wanted him to fondle my breasts!”

“What did you do?”

She had kicked him really hard in the shins. I told her some guys never learn that lesson no matter how many times they get kicked. We laughed at this. She then came out with, “Was it the same when you kissed Richard, compared to Laura?” That was a much trickier one to answer.

I explained that when we first kissed he needed his shins kicking a few times, even though I wanted something more when we kissed, too. With Laura there was a feeling of excitement and wonder as I had no idea what was going to happen and what anything else might feel like.

I told her it was her turn to answer and she said that she was intrigued to know if it was a nice as we seemed to make it look. It was obvious that we were really in love with each other but was what we felt the same as if it was between a girl and a boy. She had thought about kissing Stefania, her best friend, because she felt that they just understood each other beyond words and she wondered if she would like it more than kissing Robin.

I had to say that I didn’t know. I guessed it would be different for everyone. I had been kissed by Laura, which was a huge gamble on her part, as I might have rejected her there and then and that could have been heart breaking for her. The difference between Laura and her was that Laura knew well before she was Annabelle’s age that she was definitely a lesbian.

“But I think I might be too!”

“Maybe all you have done is project what Laura and I have on to yourself because we seem so happy together. If you had met Richard and me together, maybe that would have confirmed you as a heterosexual. Who can say?”

I decided I had to change the subject as we were heading towards dangerous ground here. I asked her if she had spoken to her Mum about all this. She replied that she couldn’t talk to her. Not because Suze would be angry or outraged or anything but because she was, you know, her Mum. I understood completely. I was a bit scared of my Mum when I was growing up. She was a figure with massive authority at my school and that was a bit intimidating to a little girl. It’s probably why Dad and I are so close really. I used to use him as a Mum substitute.

This only took a couple of minutes but I could tell it was going to dwell in my mind (maybe hers too) for quite a while. After showering we swapped batons with Jill and Laura and made us all a fresh pot of tea for when they reappeared scrubbed and sparkling.

Our day continued with a steady drive back down the Indian Ocean Drive towards the sprawl of Perth and Hillary’s Boat Harbour. The home of the largest aquarium complex in the whole of Australia: Aqwa. We arrived at about 12.30 and had a swift snackerooni in their café before embarking on our underwater pilgrimage. The girls and I have actually scuba-dived among real wild fish etc in the tropics of Australia, so the variety and colours of the fish were nothing new, it was the fact that they didn’t just swim away or hide like they did in the wild which made it so interesting.

We were stunned. I think that would be no exaggeration. It really is a wonderful place to visit, especially for kids. They even have a touch pool where you can gently touch some of the fish. I had recounted to Laura my tale of Scuba lesson among grey nurse sharks, and discovering how rough their skin was; there were some tiny sharks in the touch pool and Laura was able to see, first-hand, exactly what I meant about their skin being like glass paper.

I have been here before, when I was a little girl. I think it was on the trip to the Pinnacles or maybe when we went to Geraldton. It is just as awe-inspiring as it was all those years ago. I wondered how many budding marine biologists had their first glimpse of life under the waves at places like this? Laura said that the idea of working with aquatic creatures might have taken the gloss of maths, if she’d been here aged seven. Sceptical Jill asked, “Really?”

Laura’s answer made us laugh as she said she could see so many applications in which to use maths in the research and conservation of these creatures! This made Jill repeat her question, at which we laughed again. Laura explained how some of the probability and statistical analysis work she was doing could easily be used in a practical conservation way with marine life. She is very convincing once she gets her maths hat on!

The Mitchell / Kwinana Freeways were much less busy on a Sunday arvo than they had been on Friday and we arrived home in time for a full Sunday Lunch, with all the trimmings, at tea-time. Good old Suze, say I. A double surprise was that Alex and Chris were there for dinner, too. They were intrigued by our weekend exploits and re-invited us to their place for a meal before we left. That brought a note of sadness to the proceedings as I announced we had just over a week of our stay left.

A good note to finish on though, was after our meal (and dessert) while we were chatting, I happened to just casually check my e-mails. My supervisor had send one saying they had reviewed their decision to not give me some teaching last year and I was going to be doing some lecturing in the coming semester. Celebrations all round! Rah rah rah!