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Published: March 27th 2013
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Doors off.
Doors off and ready for lift off. The past few days had been tainted with that only too familiar sense of apprehension that accompanies the long trek back to the northern hemisphere. It was the long weekend, yet another public holiday and I was to be treated to lunch down at the Hayshed Hill Winery near Margaret River. Twenty or so miles south of Busselton we pulled off the road and Lara informed Charley and myself that she had organised a 60
th birthday surprise helicopter ride down the coast to Cape Leeuwin. The chopper landed and the pilot still in short trousers and surely far too young to be in charge of such a machine asked us if we would like the doors off. We were to be three passengers and as only boys can we all gave a resounding “ah yeeeh, wicked mate” and nodding our enthusiastic approval to fly by the seat of our pants, real men don’t need doors. Charley was beside himself with excitement and I cool, calm and with that sudden need to visit the toilet. Before I had time for the reality to sink in we were up over the sea following the rugged south west coastline, heading down to Cape Leeuwin
In the air
Heading for the cape and the lighthouse, with headphones and seat-belts on while the wind tried its best to dislodge us. Today there are few who travel without their digital camera taking in every possible opportunity but here at 1200 feet there seemed good reason to be happy snappers with another unforgettable experience to tick off the bucket list.
After a pizza lunch we returned home via the coast road managing to run over a tiger snake and so it was about turn and we were in time to see the car following completing the job. I jumped out made absolutely sure it was dead and bagged the snake to be skinned that evening. Being caught with native reptile skins is a serious matter but I can’t bare the wastage of seeing such a beautiful skin being pounded into the bitumen. Now I had a racehorse goanna, bobtail lizard and tiger snake tucked away in my rucksack, plus shells and a large bag of feathers, all in all a good haul. The following day I said my emotional goodbyes at Bunbury station and headed back up to Perth. The city on Sunday late afternoon is a strange place walking through fountain filled streets,
Snake skin
Tiger snake skin shoppers, drinkers and tourists, what an odd lot they are. Has fashion taken a sad turn for the worse I wondered or has unattractive tattoos, drainpipe trousers, piercings and partially pink hair come into vogue once again? Central high-rise Perth is plunged into a shadow-land world during the late afternoon when sunglasses become black tiara fashion accessories revealing the white skinned stripe between ears and eyes. The bus fills with young Orientals as we speed over the causeway towards Victoria Park, turning into Berwick Street my turbaned bus driver drops me only 150 yards from my overnight destination.
There is no shortage of generosity in WA and ever since I started to visit back in the 1990’s it has seemed a land of plenty where people are willing to share their good fortune. One major side effect of this generosity and plenty, even in those few short years has been the increase in population and its girth along with gastric banding as a now common-place surgical intervention.
During a short food shopping trip to Woolworths in Esperance I noted that the cucumbers had been stored or transported badly too close to the refrigeration and now defrosted had turned
to mush. Pointing this out to a shop assistant who was sorting through damaged vegetables and fruit she said they would all have to go. “Why not cut them in half” I asked “Oh we don’t have the staff to do that” came the reply. Looking in her almost full bin I saw enough food to feed a family for a week so asked if I could help myself for the chucks but no it all had to be thrown. I took a bag full anyway and headed to the check out, paid for what I had bought but was not allowed to pass with my mixed bag of veg. I made up my mind that when I next come across this behaviour I will simply stand there and eat directly from their bins on the premises. It is criminal in this day and age to demonstrate such an attitude to waste, supermarkets already in trouble with the way they treat the producers are in danger of treating their customers in the same heavy handed way. Growing most of my own fruit and vegetables in Brittany has meant I have to a great extent remained isolated from this culture of
Doha airport
Half way point waste.
Dropped off with brief goodbyes at the airport the long-hall flight begins Qatar Airlines, Perth to Heathrow via Doha where the change over is swift and no time for a nap. Fitful dozing can never be regarded as sleep but it helps to dissipate that intense heavy eye-lidded exhaustion. Somewhere in transit I loose my reading glasses, never mind they were only cheap plastic but the old metal case had been with me for the past forty year and I briefly greave its loss. Heathrow skies are clear and sunny but the dull cold blue still imparts a look of winter and a chill I haven’t felt in months. Hurtled across middle England to the West Country, its leafless hedges softly silvered in the low afternoon sun, familiar places flash by, vernacular architecture changes with the landscape from brick and thatch to limestone, pan-tiles and slate. Fields of multicoloured willow in the Somerset levels, canals replaced by drainage ditches and waterlogged fields. Cider orchards and the red Devon soil contrast with last year’s bleached dead maize presumably now useless in feed value. White swans graze on green meadows as we slow into Exeter St David where youths huddle intent on their I-phones, gone are the unhealthy days of smoking on platforms. No takers on the giant WSG weighing machine that stands ignored by all, like some great obese lolly-pop below the information sign. I dose once more missing the red sandstone sculpted cliff of Teignmouth and Dawlish. The familiarity and warmth of a west-country accent floods over me, I’m nearly there as she announces “St Austell is the next stop please make sure to take all your luggage.”
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