Advertisement
Published: November 16th 2011
Edit Blog Post
Family
The three of us head smiling into the third leg of this year’s adventures. Eight in-flight movies and a stopover in Hong Kong take us to Perth, Western Australia, and a taxi zips through warm, midnight air towards our backpacker hostel. The hostel’s reception is littered with red-eyed, slurring revelers who are reaching the end of an all-dayer to celebrate the Rugby World Cup final. After we check-in, we navigate through the mass of bodies which are propping themselves up against walls, banisters, and each other, and head to our room. We crash out with the aid of the first episodes from a DVD boxset on the laptop. Having the laptop with us is a luxury, and from it we pre-booked the Hong Kong hotel, this hostel, and the hire car being delivered to the hostel doorstep tomorrow morning.
The car arrives on time and we head South, down the coast. There we spend three days visiting Iv's Uncle Glyn, a childhood hero of his, who is growing old with wonderful grace and humility. He takes us for long walks in the shrub and along his local beach, during which he whistles the same tune that he
has whistled for the past 50 years. We bring him cakes and other goodies to supplement his diet of muesli, salad, and vegemite. In return, he gives us snippets into the past – hazy recollections of growing up in India, and of later adventures in Australia and the UK. He’s delighted at the news of a mini-Rees on the way – “a little babe, what fun!”, and enjoys our South American photos. But he eschews all offers of joining us on any explorations of Western Australia – he is content with his local walks, his sunshine and his books.
Our heartstrings tighten as we reverse, waving goodbyes, down his narrow drive for the final time of our visit. We worry about Glyn growing lonely and wish we lived nearer so we could spend more time with him. But as he waves us off with his bucket hat and heads back indoors, no doubt whistling his old favourite and contemplating where his evening walk will take him, we’re conscious that he’s content living the simple life that he’s chosen for himself. He’s still our hero!
A red-eye flight and second hire car take us to the other side of
Australia and the other side of the family. The Aussie arm of Kate's maternal Davies side of the family are as welcoming as ever, and good company. They all express their sadness at the recent loss of Kate’s very dear Grampa, who was always fascinated by the progress of the farming clan on the other side of the world. The family all share their own individual memories of Grampa, tales which invariably include reflections on his qualities of hard work, humour and story-telling.
We’re quickly co-opted into the various gatherings which members of the family are attending whilst we’re staying with them – the hosts of which all seem very happy to pull up a couple of extra chairs for the Welsh rellies. We visit The Prom (Wilson's Promotory), Australia’s most Southerly point, and spend a couple of days at the coast at Warratah before heading North.
It’s been fantastic to spend time with family – we were last here nearly six years ago. As we say our farewells until the next time, we reflect on how lucky our little bubby will be if it inherits the sense of adventure, generosity, humour, and wisdom that we've found in
the rest of the family.
Snakes and Sharks
We each have a phobia: Kate – sharks: Iv – snakes. Australia’s most notorious predators had clearly not received our memo instructing them to make themselves scarce for the duration of our visit.
Perth is plastered with signs for the mysteriously named ‘CHOGM’, which sounds like someone choking on the word choke. We later learn that it stands for ‘Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting’, so the city itself is choka-block with snakes and sharks of the political variety. We escape to the South, but our relief is short-lived. The coast of Western Australia has seen three deadly shark-attacks in the past two months, a statistic that is keeping the locals out of the water and the search helicopters in the sky. The State has issued its first ever ‘shoot to kill’ directive on a sighting of a species that is normally protected. We don’t need to be told twice to keep to the safety of the land.
However, the land here is not a safe place. On day 1, Glyn takes us for a walk through the shrub. As Iv stomps his feet to remind any snakes of
our memo, Kate spots a metre-long reptile slither into the undergrowth a couple of metres away. She calmly warns, “Snake!”. Iv feigns equal calm in responding, “Where!”, but is betrayed by the word being emitted two octaves higher than he intended. He bravely lets the other two lead the way for the rest of the walk, dodging suspicious looking twigs and silently rebuking himself for wondering whether the 93 year old Glyn or pregnant Kate could bear a 14 stone weight on their backs.
Day 3 brings equal misery to Iv as we spot another snake sleeping curled up in a tree, plotting, surely, its next unprovoked attack of vicious evil. We have a strange compulsion to discover the species of our would-be attackers, so enter their distinctive markings into Google. We soon wish we hadn’t – a brown snake and a death adder. Both highly venomous, and filthy, malicious beasts.
Having shared our scary encounters, it seems only fair to stress that we have also seen lots of beautiful wildlife here too. Indeed, had we been playing Aussie Wild Animal Bingo we would nearly have had a full house by now. On various walks and drives, we
have so far encountered a wombat (our favourite), an echidna, loads of kangaroos, a possum, two wedge-tailed eagles (each the size of an A380), gallahs, kookaburras, a bob-tailed lizard, an alpaca, and loads of other things we don’t know the names of! Hurrah!
Friends
The final element which made our Oz experience fantastic was times spent with old friends. So Louise & Louis, Chelle & Dan, Sugs and Beans, Yoki & Mu, and all the little ones - thanks for being such great hosts and for the good times. Hope to see you in Blighty, or on some snowy mountains somewhere, sometime soon.
We pack up our rucksacks again, say our goodbyes, and make for the next airport, from where we will head South to NZ – our last destination before home – and to where we are looking forward to five weeks on the open road.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.111s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 7; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0527s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb