Adelaide, Australia

I was given a quandary last night. Dropped at the airport by Carmella in the afternoon, I’d had the luxury of being able to lounge around the house in the morning, wander down the road to get some cash out, print a couple of tickets and have lunch. All of which marked the end of a fantastically comfortable stay, before I return to hostel life. After so long away from hostels I really wasn’t sure if I could be bothered – here we go again with travelling conversations, I couldn’t imagine being up for that.

It didn’t last long. A French girl and I both got on the wrong bus and were directed to the right one, right behind. In our defence, it’s a J1 or J2 to Adelaide, but the same bus numbers also go down to the docks. I couldn’t tell it was the wrong bus from the front. She got the (right) bus driver onside, and it turned out we were both heading to the YHA. A few minutes of conversation later and it turned out she was driving to Melbourne in the morning and fancied company – I was bang up for the chat, it turned out.

So. To travel early, see the coast road in the day, have a bit more space but have to bin a coach ticket and find somewhere to stay tonight, or to stick with the coach journey through the night I’d booked. I liked the idea of the known, of ‘saying yes’ to a newly presented option and of continuing our conversation, but the coach trip seemed more of an adventure. I slept on it, figuring if I woke at 6 raring to go, then I’d go.

I didn’t. I felt a slight tinge of regret through the day, but it was a tinge accompanied by lunch and a book by the river, in the sun, for hours, from where it was hard to regret anything too much, especially knowing it was stormy back home. Adelaide was nicely busy-not manic, but with a busker every 100 yards and shops trying to entice people in, this felt Christmassy. But with the sun – I’m still not used to that. I passed a key cutting place that invited us all to

“Watch batteries while you wait”.

I tried it for a moment but it was dull even while not waiting. Not much of an idea.

A lovely day in Adelaide and I was back at the hostel to pick up my bags before heading to the coach. Christmas Eve and the place was buzzing with people arriving and leaving. I grinned at an Indian man who rested briefly and then paced. He came over and was unsurprised to learn I was English – he’s not the first to say I look typically so. I had to dash for my bus, which was a pity-fascinating man, who had come to England to do his PhD in high speed photography and stayed, but is now travelling Australia ahead of a Latin America tour next year. He doesn’t need to work, probably invented something fascinating in photography. With just a little more time we’d have been out to dinner and I could have asked.

The coach. A nice buzz here, too. I thought there would be, but couldn’t picture it, which made the Gallic drive initially more appealing. The driver gave us a lengthy spiel; if you have drink, drugs and food on board

“You will terminate your ride. I don’t mess about, ladies and gentlemen.”

Settle back and enjoy the ride. Fingers crossed for an arrival on time or near to it to allow me to get to Westerfolds parkrun for 8.

Reading: The Hard Way, Lee Child; A Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood.

Yanchep, Australia

Sunday, and Andrew’s one day off of the week. Also my last full day in Perth, so we celebrated with a trip to Tai Chi in the morning and a visit to a park in the afternoon.

The Tai Chi group could not have been more welcoming. I think Andrew, Carmella and I lowered the average age a fair bit, but not the level of competency. Our guide, William, w apparently gives the money to charity, just generous with his time, and has travelled so we could swap notes. A bit different to talking to a 20something, an actual two-way conversation rather than him talking about his travels and ignoring anyone else’s. The tai chi itself was interesting. I was in the middle so as to always have someone to watch, even when we turned, but still occasionally had the ‘learning the dance move’ feeling where I’d finish 180 degrees opposed to everyone else. I enjoyed it and what with cycling there and back along the river in the sunshine and a ice cream afterwards, it was a treat.

Afterwards we headed North to the park. It’s about an hour away and offers a lake, koalas, kangaroos and kookaburras. There were five of us now, as Amelia and Luca joined in, chasing ducks round the park while we picnicked in a bid to mimic Andrew-he had caught and removed one that had got a bit too close to the food. We’d spotted kangaroos as soon as we’d got out of the car; it took me a month here before I saw one, which is a poor effort.

We reported the lake to the trades descriptions people before we left as it was half empty and a little disappointing. We picked up tickets to the crystal cave tour and left straight away-the lady at the ticket desk said it was a 5 minute drive, or 20-30 minute walk. 1.2km. We did it in 10, unsure as to how you could spin it out to 30. Perhaps other people are unluckier with spotting snakes and have to stop to scare them off.

The caves are a living environment, albeit a changing one as the water that used to pool there has disappeared since man started exploring them. The crystal rock formations are stunning though. Unless stalactite forming, they look opaque in dull light, but put a torch to them and you can see their translucence. The tiny shrimp things that used to live in the water are unusual, having evolved with no eyes-to Pegs, they looked the same as those 200 miles away at Margaret River, which is remarkable. As he put it, one of three reasons: either they’re super-adapted to the environment and that’s the natural evolution for creatures there, or those two cave areas were once joined and had the same population. Or they caught the bus.

Probably no charge for a prawn and its wider family. Speaking of which, many people in Australia have a wider family, just like the UK. I don’t feel like a midget here, but looking for underwear in Target I realised on doing the conversion that I needed their smallest size, 75-80, and they didn’t have any t-shirts my size since I needed an XS. XS!

I ask you. After our tour we spotted a koala talk at 3:15. More accurately, it was now 3.05, and we spotted that there was a koala talk at 3.15. The koala boardwalk is there to take us a little closer to their habitat up in the trees and we got the gen from their keeper. Something along the lines of ‘we had some old koalas from the zoo in 1938, then they died in 1940. We got some more in 1944, eventually they died. And now we have some more.

“Will they die, too?” we refrained from asking. Sharp claws, apparently-take your arms off. Pegs decided this was as near as he was going to get me to something deadly, letting me off having to swim out to sea in search of sharks or jellyfish, or stand quietly on bush paths waiting for a snake. The koalas were all asleep up in the trees, looking cute, furry and far away.

“Does anyone know why the Americans called them koala bears?”
“Ooh, something to do with Teddy Roosevelt?” one of our party asked, spotting the trick question.
“No, it’s because from behind when walking along they looked like little bears.”

A pretty straight up and down, no tricks kind of a man, our keeper.

On the walk we’d also seen Kooakburras, sitting patiently in a tree for a photo call. We had a final photo in front of a rusty red tree that was providing some of the park’s colour and headed back. At just an hour’s drive it was a lovely park with plenty to offer for a day trip.

Rockingham, Australia

“Here, have some hand cream sir, all ready for Christmas – how many women are there in your life?”

“None”

“Um”

“I’m travelling, a long way from home”

“Ah, we have the man cosmetics too. How do you treat your skin?”

“Badly”

“I rub this on you” [ooh, free skin rub, inner arm to avoid the scrapes from the bike fall.

There follows some spiel about layers of skin, exfoliating and Dead Sea crystals. It seems odd that evolution missed out the importance of exfoliation, but then see also detoxing and colonic irrigation, I suppose.] “put your arms together-see the difference in colour.”

We chat for a while about our countries of origin. He is obviously not Australian. Israeli, it seems. I am eternally grateful to man-on-a-platform (railway station) who told me how beautiful Israel is, as I can now always pull that out and avoid anything contentious. I am offered a deal, but the aftershave for $90, get the skin cream for $45.

“Ha! Remember that thing about me being the worst customer in the world?” (I told him this at the beginning, when we were discussing the women in my life) “I’m on a backpacker budget.”

We move to talk of travel. As I am to be his last customer of the day, he – fumble for piece of paper, gosh I’m lucky to have got the manager – can sell one for $40. That really does seem cheap after the first offer.

“Well, going back to the worst customer bit, I’m not working for a year. That’s still near my daily budget.”

“Happy travels – here, have another hand cream.”

Nice man. My inner sucker really liked his patter, I’m going to have to watch it when I’m earning again. I feel like I’m so far outside consumer society that occasionally it’s nice to join in and just give money to something frivolous. I’m going to get conned somewhere.

I learnt that rubbing white cream on skin makes that skin whiter than other skin. And that, even knowing that people in Australia (I started to write consumers – kill me now) ask for discounts, you’ll be surprised how far down the price comes if you wait around protesting your poverty. Incidentally, given that Americans (and idiot English now) ‘protest a verdict’, how would they phrase the above? Where we ‘protest against’ and ‘protest’, do they ‘protest’ and ‘protest in favour’?

The temperature has plummeted. From 39 (and hotter in the sun) to 29 (and cooler in the wind). Waiting for the train home after 9, I was a little cool, almost cold, though only in shorts and a t shirt. I had headed down the coast to Rockingham. It’s a fair way, but only 5 stops on the train. That then drops passengers in the middle of nowhere. Okay, in the suburbs. I couldn’t work out which way town was so had to catch a bus, though I walked back later. The city centre is away from the nice bit, and holds a big shopping centre. The nice bit is the seafront, where there are enough shops to get by but not a full on centre. But it does have the beach. The beach is lovely, white sands and two tone sea, much gentler than the rushing beach at Scarborough we’d seen on Sunday.

I had a slightly odd experience, in that I bought lunch in a supermarket, walked along the front and stopped at a quiet spot on the beach, where I stayed for some time, reading, paddling, watching the world go by. Not much of the world actually went by, so I could keep up with it whilst managing the reading and podcast listening, worry you not. The odd bit came as I walked back; it was a good way to town. I had no recollection of really going for a walk after I’d picked up lunch. Wow, I’ve now started to forget the morning, never mind the previous day. There’s also a pretty park (Rotary Park) with a pond-looks like a nature reserve being allowed to develop – and a lake (Richmond). I walked to it but not round – it’d be an okay run, but looked a dull walk.

I strolled back along the front, through suburban Australia to the shopping centre, cinema and ultimately the train. I don’t have much to say about that-low, flat houses, built mostly to the edge of their plots with little space for gardens. In a sense, that is right up my street-I’ve always thought the ‘taming nature. Repeatedly, because it will always prevail over our order’ side of some gardening pointless, but I would want some space to enjoy. But not having much to say about it does not mean it isn’t interesting-waking through the suburbs is one of the most authentic (ugh) ways to soak up what constitutes Australian life, so I walk through taking it all in, enjoying the sunshine. I know what date it is, but if I stop to think about it, parts of my brain are saying ‘you what?’ December in the sun and heat doesn’t feel like December at all to me, I’m just enjoying my longest summer.

Reading: Conan Doyle, The Man with the Twisted lip, Weiner, Long for this World, The Strange Science of Immortality.

Kalamunda, Australia

Ouch, everybody, Pegs is trying to kill me!

I did warn you there might be exaggeration ahead (but while there’s moonlight…). For any 26.2 friends reading who haven’t noticed on Facebook, I’m lucky enough to be staying with our departed friends, the Pengellys. Or Pegellys, as Aimee used to call them, though the nickname predates that charming mispronunciation by many years. Andrew’s gentle yet firm imprecations once he realised I was heading for Australia made it clear I would be welcome, overcoming my natural reticence to freeload (much). And how I have overcome them – I’ve stayed for a week and am here for another one. Long enough to make sure they’ll be glad to be shot of visitors in time for Christmas.

Perth is a ‘doing things’ kind of a place, so come the weekend, come the things. Saturday was parkrun day, of course, with another at Claisebrook Coves to come next weekend. Maybe my nemesis Fordyce will be there – he didn’t run this weekend, too busy with the cricket, presumably. At least England’s meltdown has created plenty of demand for articles for the press pack. On Sunday the three Pengelly males (Andrew, Matthew and Luca) and I went mountain biking in the Kalamunda hills. The tracks criss cross the hills, with plenty of trails to draw people in, as well as the 1,000km long Mulla Bindi (spelling is wrong) trail that heads down to the south. Plenty of room for groups of bikers, and we paused to let several pass.

I was the novice, though Luca was relatively new to it. He’s also significantly younger, so has the disadvantage of having several years fewer muscle growth. My advice to you, should you have nerves about heading out on an activity, take a youngster with you; if they pause at any point you get a rest without having to ask for one. We climbed a trail, which was probably my favourite activity of the day. A challenge, without the “this thing will go faster if I take my hands off the brakes, but…” feeling I had descending.

But the point of climbing is to descend. Carmela had suggested skiing as the nearest analogous sport, with a climb leading to a relatively effort-free descent, where concentration and control are needed. I’ve certainly no better comparison, but I much prefer the biking. My problem with skiing has always been that the bit you want to do-descend – is punctuated by transportation. A bit like going for a run but being forced to get on a bus for a ride every few minutes. The bus is stopping me doing what I actually want to. Though there have been runs where a bus ride would have been very welcome. Descend we did. Down Judderbars first, with jumps (optional) and bumps (not so much), my arms knew I’d been on something other than a flat track. That segued straight into Albany, which needed concentration but not so much that I could prevent my head from going “Albany, do-be-do, I’m in love with you” all the way down. All. The. Way. Down.

One more trek and then we were onto the Scorpion descent; “The Real McCoy”, Pegs said, with swooping u-shaped boardwalks on which you need some speed, the more speed, the more you can lean the bike. We whizzed down, I made it round the boardwalks (bottled one, rode off the bottom onto the flat) and opted out of the log crossing. I’m kind of glad I had, as the trail went off to the left, while the log continued straight on, as would I had I not been off to the right, I’m sure. After crossing one more track, letting everyone close up again and acknowledging other riders’ “how ya going?” as they flew past, we were onto the last descent, which was dusty and excellently tree lined. Luca had taken a tumble but bravely made it down without complaint, so Pegs took him back to The Dell (all these names seem sensible when you’re there) while Matthew and I went up ‘Lube Me Up’ and back to the top of the Scorpion. This was not quite the high octane thrill it might usually be for Matthew, but he didn’t seem to mind waiting for me to check I’d made it through sections in one piece. Seeing him there made me think too hard about the log, and I got halfway across before deciding ‘no’. Better, at least. This time I made it round all the boardwalks, though not at great speed, and onto that final section. I’m sure someone, possibly several, have said it to me before, but here I was really seeing it for myself-a mountain bike on a dusty track is just like the view from a speeder bike on Endor (would be). Wonderful.

Filled with those thoughts I was grinning now, and onto the last gravelly section. Not that quick, but quicker than I could hack, and I came off. Not quite sure how, hitting a bump and letting the front wheel turn, probably, but I managed to graze parts of both legs and arms. I protected the vulnerable/shock absorbing because that’s the point palms of my hands, in favour of sliding on my right arm for a while before making the split-second decision to arrest momentum with my chin.

Inspired. Ow. Slightly shocked, I reached Matthew, who did an excellent job of not reacting to my appearance at all, which helped. We went back to find my water bottle which was lucky, as only then did we spot my watch had come off. The Garmin’s strap had broken off, but was intact – I’ve repaired one before, though with a tool.

Speaking of tools. Pegs looked a little more concerned than Matthew had, and I was bleeding a bit, but once we’d all recovered from the disappointment of there being no frozen cokes I was able to clean up to find that underneath all the grime, no injury was that serious. I still don’t recommend the chin brake, it can be disfiguring.

In the afternoon, Pegs and I took a trip out to see the beaches. We drove past several of them, with Andrew impressing me with his knowledge of the happening pubs – we were later to visit the Leftbank, which might have been more trendy than either of us has been. We stopped at Scarborough beach-the place to be seen, I am told. The sea is fairly fierce, not up to surfing standards perhaps, but it fair crashes in to the shore. Throwing a ball back to someone in the sea needs a bit of accuracy or it will come straight back onto the beach, for instance. We bounced around in the waves for a while, free from the responsibility of looking after anyone. Which is just a normal day for me, of course, but not for everyone. Always good to see a different perspective.

Ice cream on the way to the pub, which is a good deal. We paused to avoid being in the line of a photo, and Pegs offered to take it for them, showing all his creative composition. I tried to look impatient, so mum could have a ‘such a nice gay couple helped us with this photo’ story.

Australia really is a country for getting up and out, but a 5.00 start made for a pretty wiped out evening and surely would for most of even an early rising society. I’d earned a good night’s sleep.

Reading: Gary Gibson, Empire of Light. Which it see now continues from Nova War. Which I have. But have not read. My thing, then; series, read in the wrong order