Down South

The most magical thing happened last weekend: I had NO WORK OBLIGATIONS! I had both Saturday and Sunday off, so Wiebke and I decided the best thing to do was to rent a car and go on a road trip! We headed out Saturday morning with Margaret River in mind as a possible destination but no clear plan other than: wine tastings, maybe explore a cave, wing it. Y'all, we totally did the plan!

We routed ourselves directly to the first winery, Cape Mentelle, did some tasting, bought an amazing Petit Verdot, and then headed on to grab lunch at Olio Bello. It was billed as an Italian restaurant, but it was more like an olive grove with a tasting room and amazing food. We both had some lovely pastas and were just sitting around chatting when I noticed a guy walk in wearing a Drexel tee shirt. Obviously I asked him if he's from Philly and, duh, he was! Grew up in Kensington, not terribly far from my old apartment, and went to Drexel to help him change careers. I mentioned growing up in Delco and he asked where and, turns out, his mother spent her final years living one block away from my parents in Havertown. ONE BLOCK y'all! I wish I could have seen my own face when he said "well, do you know the old bubblegum factory? Well there's a park just up the street from it..." The world is so small!

At Cape Mentelle

Driftwood Estate winery

After lunch and Philly chats we migrated to two more wineries: Robert Oatley and Driftwood Estate. They were lovely, but the day was getting towards 5pm and we had booked an Airbnb up in Bussleton which was going to be a 45 min drive and we wanted to catch the sunset from the Busselton Jetty. So off we went. Except I was driving and I'm easily distracted so we detoured a few times. Because turns out there's an exceedingly beautiful national park along that stretch of Australia's coast called Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park that has a walking trail called the Cape to Cape trail. We reached a fork in the road and Google maps wanted us to go right so I obviously did not because I don't follow directions very well and we ended up with views like these:

Near Torpedo Rocks

Near Yallingup Beach

Yallingup Beach in the background

Wiebke in her natural habitat

We still had this idea in mind that we might make it to Busselton for sunset, so we decided we'd best carry on. As we continued driving along, though, I spotted a mob of kangaroos (yes, I did just Google what's the appropriate collective noun for kangaroos and I'm SO glad I did because MOB!) and we both freaked because HOW COOL IS THAT and we hopped out of the car to watch them for a while. It was a little reminiscent of Dad's Retirement Road Trip this past summer actually. The roos for sure busted our plan to make it in time for the sunset though, so when we hopped back in the car we were a little unsure of how to proceed. Kept following Google maps and then we saw a sign for a lighthouse! So away we went!

Turns out the lighthouse was down a 13km road (oops) and closed at 4:30 (oops) and we couldn't actually get to the coast from there (oops). BUT there was another kangaroo munching away on the grass! I'm learning that people here think of roos the way we think of deer back home. I like to watch them but plenty of folks think of them as pests. And they're edible. And they're active at dawn and dusk and make lots of traffic accidents happen at night. But still, y'all: KANGAROOS.

So the lighthouse was a little bit of a bust but trust Google in a tight spot, I searched for good places to watch the sunset nearby and it suggested Sugarloaf Rock, so away we went! 9 minutes later and we're checking this out:

The rental car was not technically allowed on the road it was on and those clouds in the photos were starting to spit rain at us so we decided it was best to end on a high note and get the flock outta there. So the day wrapped up with gorgeous views and a commitment to getting to our Airbnb before any roos tried to jump in front of the car. We made a pit stop in Dunsborough for a 6 pack and some kebabs, stayed up too late chatting, and then passed the hell out. It was a good good good day.

Next morning we slept in a little bit, maybe 9ish, and then rolled out to Busselton to have brekkie at The Goose right at the end of Busselton Jetty. [I spend at least 30 minutes a day having a conversation that goes something like this: "You guys have the weirdest slang" "Yep, have you heard *weird word* yet?" "No, there's no way that's a real thing you say here" *polls anyone/everyone nearby* *consensus: it's a real word they use*] There was a craft market going on that I forced Wiebke to walk through and dithered for a while about a hand thrown ceramic travel mug that I really wanted and then decided food was really of the utmost importance. Or coffee for Wiebke.

Jetty views from our couches at The Goose

We had toast for breakfast on their patio and enjoyed the breeze for a while and then decided to walk the 1.8km (that's 1.11 miles) to the end of the jetty. It was LOVELY except for the flies.

On the jetty

Made it to the end!

18,874 km to NYC

Art on the jetty

Art at the end of the jetty

After our stroll we went back for me to buy the travel mug (who didn't see that coming?) and continued our travels, backtracking a bit to Yallingup where we'd explored the Cape to Cape trail the night before. Our destination this time was Ngilgi Cave (first 'g' is silent), an underground cavern with stalactites and stalagmites in spades!

Americans apparently call this cave bacon, everyone else calls them shawls. Much more dignified. 

The Aboriginal story of how the cave formed

Since we were trying to get back north in time for a birthday party for Niki, my coworker Wes' wife, we headed out around 2pm. We were waylaid by a teenager who cracked his head on the cave wall and was bleeding and no one else apparently had any basic first aid experience so 45 minutes later I was the one still holding a bandage to his head and maintaining pressure while we waited for emergency services to arrive. At that point we took the f it route and decided one more side foray wasn't a bad idea at all and went to check out Canal Rocks, another picturesque spot along the coast. Collecting more negative ions from those crashing waves while we could!

Wiebke for scale

Canal Rocks

Wiebke for being a stunner

Our trusty steed for the weekend!

A three hour-ish road journey later (done properly with windows down, radio blasting, us singing at max volume) and we were at Wes and Niki's house with beers and cookout food in hand! It was Wiebke's last weekend in Australia (as of now... her visa still has 6 months on it so I'm whittling away, trying to get her to come back after Christmas), and I think we did pretty darned well at sending her out in style!

Run ragged

Y'all, if it's any consolation, I know I'm the worst. It's been almost three weeks since my last post and I hardly know where to start, so I'll start with the most recent: I ate my first cray today! You don't even know what that is, though, because I haven't told you! Gah! Okay maybe start back three weeks.

I'm living in a weird scuba-filled world and I have to say I love it. That second Open Water course I helped Terry with was followed by an Advanced OW and then a third OW. I was just spending every day squeezing myself into a wetsuit, reminding students of best practices for good diving (don't leave a standing tank unattended! Open air valves with the pressure gauge facing away in case there's a crack and it blows up! Don't put your mask on your forehead - put it around your neck if you aren't holding it or wearing it - because it's a sign of a distressed diver AND a wave could knock it off!), filling air cylinders and washing gear, and then crashing into bed when I got home. I didn't know what day it was, was constantly smelling of pool, river, or ocean water, and was meeting some fab people - both instructors and students - who also want to spend time looking at cool stuff under water. This is exactly why I'm here.

The weekend after my last post I chatted with the store manager, Dom, and he offered me a JOB! Real employment for pay! YES! So that new iron in the fire basically eliminated all the free time that I already didn't have (in a gainfully employed and so grateful for it kind of way). I haven't been properly grocery shopping since three weeks ago, my laundry pile of socks and underwear is huge (I wear one of two tee shirts to work every day depending whether I'm on course or in the shop, so I've taken to bringing them in the shower with me and washing them rather than doing actual laundry OR being smelly. Which is great because it means I have limited items to be cleaned!), and my blog has gone unwritten til now, but I'm spending every day with fascinating people who love to travel, love to dive, and love to joke around.

Speaking of jokes, Aussies (or at least the ones in Western Australia [WA]) are way more laid back about jokes than Americans. I don't mean "you millennial snowflakes can't take a joke and you've ruined everything with your PC nonsense" jokes, I just mean that they bullshit with the best of them and don't limit it to family and close friends. Honestly, it's a little like being at home with the Duffy/Morans! I spend my days getting teased for being American (they call Americans seppos - short for septic tank. I would be offended except they have hilariously derogatory terms for everyone. Brits are pomes - pronounced "pomme" - Prisoners Of Mother England. Eastern Europeans are wogs - idk why. You get the picture), walking around the shop singing, tripping over my own feet, mucking up air fills and making VERY loud compressed air sounds in the shop; that sort of thing. Sunday in the shop I blew an o-ring on an air tank (it's a little synthetic rubber ring used to help seal the tank when it's connected to your regulator's first stage - none of this is important for the sake of the story, sorry y'all) and the dude who owned the tank - who I've never seen before in my life - popped over and asked my hand in marriage, placing the blown ring on my finger. Another person might not be on board with the sense of humor here, but it fits me just fine. Diving is a male dominated sport and I spend my days surrounded by goofy men. Also some weirdly serious tech divers, but I digress.

My co-workers in the shop are a blast, too. Nat drives me to work anytime we're both on the schedule, Wes and Dom the assistant manager/manager keep things running but have been so extraordinarily patient as I've been learning how to do everything in the shop, Terry (the instructor I helped on the OW course also works in the shop) has the most irreverent sense of humor and keeps me from wallowing when I get something wrong in the shop and just laughs in my face instead. The days are long - 8:15 to "6" but more like 6:30-7 in my experience so far - and there's so much to learn how to do (working for the dive shop back home when I was in high school hasn't been great prep for working in a fast-paced retail environment like this one). The shop is the largest scuba store in WA, December 1st marked the first official day of summer, and dive conditions have been really good the past couple of weeks (forecast for perfect conditions every day this week, too!), so every day the shop is constantly busy.

Jack, my DM candidate buddy, and I have to do a mapping project as part of our coursework. I can't remember if I've mentioned this already, so the long and short is that we have to make a pamphlet for a dive site that could be given to someone who hasn't ever been there before and they'd have all the information they need to successfully dive it. So that means mapping the actual site, noting what hazards exist, where the nearest bathrooms/changing facilities are, where the closest hospital is located (along with directions) in case someone has a dive emergency (not every hospital can accommodate diving injuries because the equipment is VERY expensive), what aquatic life you might see, explaining the best possible entry and exit points along with advice on best practices for entering/exiting (are there steps? Is it a long surface swim? Are there submerged rocks that might make entry/exit difficult?). It's meant to be exhaustive so that anyone who goes to the site can dive it even if they've never been diving in WA before. AKA me when I arrived. And, realistically, still me.

So anyway, all that background on the mapping project is to say that we had to actually go and DIVE the thing, so we did that last week and again today! We're mapping a spot called North Mole in Fremantle, and we've been super lucky that our friends can be suckered into diving with us on their days off! Nat came both times, and three other friends came for one or the other. Dom, the shop manager, assigned us the site and mentioned we should bring a rope. He didn't fully convey that you have to scramble maybe 15ft. down over some giant boulders that form the sea wall of a HUGE commercial shipping lane in order to enter the water. Nice. Last week our rope was dead (desiccated in the intense sun on a car dashboard for too long), today our rope wasn't long enough to reach the water, but both times we made it in and out without major mishaps! Plus the site's irritating accessibility means that the 5 of us who went last week had it all to ourselves for the full hour long dive (it's only in 25ish ft. of  water so dives can be basically as long as you have air to breathe - no worries about nitrogen) and the 4 of us today only had to share it with 2 other divers and a huge ray! Maybe 5ft across? It was gorgeous.

After the dive we went for drinks (just got off a phone call with Dad and he suggested that I should include the closest pub in the mapping project I hand in since every time I go out it seems to end with beers... and I think he's probably right), and then on to home.

One of our group today went cray fishing which is completely different from home. Home crays are like little shrimp. Aussie crays are some big ass lobsters that just don't have front pinchy claws. Some days (most days) it seems to me that cray fishing is THE past time for men in WA because every third customer in the shop seems to come through buying snares for catching them, getting air fills from having an early morning dive to hunt some down, or battle stories of the biggest crays they've snagged. So anyway, Grant, who didn't have to spend his time mapping the site, instead spent the dive looking for crays. And he got one! And he agreed to cook it for me since I haven't had one yet! So tonight I had pasta and cray and even though I had to suck it up and accept that the wiggling lobster thing in my refrigerator (we ate at the pub, so a stopover was necessary before dinner could be eaten) was going to be dead and then inside my belly, it was worth it.

Fam and friends, I love it here. I miss you guys, and it's weird to get winter storm alert texts from Philly when it's 100 degrees outside, but I'm so glad I did the thing :)

First course!

Tuesday and Wednesday were set aside for the first Open Water dive class that I was scheduled to assist! Open Water is the basic scuba certification through PADI, the international dive organization I
m certified through, and it's the cert that the VAST majority of "certified divers" hold. It allows divers to descend to 60 ft. below the surface on dives and teaches them the basics so they don't kill themselves. Jack and I were both scheduled to help with this class, so imagine our surprise when there were only 3 students on the course! One dropped out RIGHT before it started. And then we were even more surprised when another dropped out while filling out initial paperwork because he had a medical issue that had to be checked by a doctor before he could begin. Down to two. Number three made it through the pool dives (to only about 7 ft. of water) but couldn't get his ears to equalize when we made it out to the Open Water dives off the coast in Rockingham, so we ended up with just one student, a German journalist from Berlin. What a mess. Fortunately, that student was great, both as a human AND as a diver, so he passed with flying colors and Jack and I were only mildly completely unnecessary!

The instructor on the course, Simon, is a British ex-pat which put me decidedly at a disadvantage: 3 Europeans vs 1 American. Being the only woman/American//political progressive in a group of boys could have been an absolute disaster, but I'm quickly learning that it's totally pukka (some Welsh I've picked up from Jack) to just say "I absolutely don't want to hear about your feelings on the American President" and they just laugh and we move on. This is a cool country. People are way chill.

I made a big purchase yesterday and bought myself a dive computer! Simon told me I was silly to buy a computer based on looks and I should get this monster that's like 4 inches long and sits on your arm, so naturally I bought one that's totally sleek and sits on my arm like a rather large watch and can be WORN as a normal watch. Ideal for right now, when I'm constantly in and out of the water, dunking my hands in buckets to wash gear at the end of the day, and generally wearing myself out in this class. I love it so far!!!

Stacey, Simon, me, Jack, Stephen today on the Blue Destiny!

Today was a day off so, naturally, I went diving! There was a boat trip on the Blue Destiny (affiliated with the scuba shop I'm doing my DM at) going out to Rottnest Island (just off the coast of Fremantle, juuuust south of Perth) to dive at a site called Shark Cave. My dive buddy, Stacey (the Canadian from an earlier cohort of DMs), and I were the only ones on the whole boat to not see a single shark or stingray at the first site (go figure), but we saw a cool Wabbegong (shark) at the second site so I didn't feel too heartbroken. Jack, Stacey, Stephen (the German who finished his cert yesterday) and I paired up as a foursome and we had a blast. Simon came along for the day, too, and I'm deliciously tired tonight from the day's activities.

Didn't find sharks on Dive #1 but I did find some of their shed teeth!

Thank goodness I actually went grocery shopping last night. This will sound ridiculous to anyone who knows me, but I've been too tired to eat. When I get home at night I'm not hungry so I've been forcing myself to eat a pb sandwich or some pasta or whatever, but it's FAR from a balanced diet. Got myself some lettuce, frozen veggies, fresh veggies, and I'm ready to go. Gonna eat something practical tonight. Maybe avocado and tomato sandwich on this lovely ciabatta I got...

Tomorrow starts the second OW course I'm helping with (my schedule calls for me to sit in on two OW courses, one Advanced Open Water (AOW), one Rescue, one day as part of the boat crew, and helping with a dive in the club that runs out of the shop - basically a chance for local folks to go out to new shore diving sites with someone(s) who've been there before). There are actually two separate classes going tomorrow so Jack and I each get to help with a full class of 7 (rather than sharing 1.5!). Terry, one of the instructors teaching this weekend (Fri/Sat/Sun), was out on the boat today and I haven't met the other guy yet... we'll see who I get. Early to bed tonight to make sure I beat Jack to the shop and get my pick of instructors!

Cricket, DM Coursework, and Snorkeling with Sea Lions

Y'all. It has been a busy few days. It's 7:50pm here as I begin to write this and I'm planning to crash to sleep as soon as it's finished. Begin at the beginning I suppose: I went to my first ever cricket match on Friday! I went with one of my flatmates, Weibke, who is a German girl here on the same visa as me. She's really lovely, had also never seen cricket played, and was on board with going as a cultural experience ("and we can always drink beer if it's terrible" - my kinda girl).

Weibke + Me @ Optus Stadium

Optus Stadium

We had essentially no idea what was going on at any given moment but pieced together some bits by the end of the game (match? I dunno). Anyway, the beer was cold.

Saturday and Sunday were early mornings at the scuba shop. I learned that one of the women who works in the shop lives about 3 minutes drive from me in the same suburb and she EVER so kindly offered to drive me in on days when I also have to be there. SO great because it saves me a solid 40 minutes in the morning, and we all know how well I operate in the mornings! So Nat (short for Natalie) drove me in both days and my Dive Master (DM) course began. There are three dudes in my class: a Welshman, an Aussie with Polish dual-citizenship, and an 18 year old Aussie. The shop manager started calling our class the Olympics and asking who won each days' games because we're quite so international in flavor. All three guys are lovely and Day 1 was held with the same instructor as last week, Kayla the badass who takes shit from no one (still true). She ran us ragged, doing long timed swims in the pool without fins, with fins, while towing each other in full kit (kit = equipment = your full scuba rig), so when I got home I decided the time was ripe for me to discover my local pub.

Confirmed: they call bottle shops the bottle-o in actual fact, not just on the internet

I met a couple from the neighborhood, Lawrence and Christine, who are actually British and Corsican ex-pats living here now. They've lived ALL over the world due to Lori's work in the petroleum industry, including Alaska, and were totally fascinating to chat with. We were the only three people in the bar all night, so the three of us and the two bar tenders just hung out and talked travel, living around the world (bar tenders were both Aussies though one has dual citizenship in Canada and her family has moved back and forth a few times over the course of her life), and arguing about whether global warming is, in fact, occurring. They have a dog named Panda who I am hoping to encounter at the park sometime if the universe aligns, and I told them about how the only physical photo I brought with me is of Bailey so then we swapped dog stories and photos. It was wonderful. I left around 9:30, exhausted and with another long day ahead.

Day 2 had a new instructor, Ian, who reminded me uncannily of Geoffrey Rush in The King's Speech. I told him that at the pub after class, obviously, and I was rewarded with a brief lesson in how to Rock'n'Roll style dance (there are actual steps. I was unaware.).

Nat, my neighbor/friend from the shop/chauffeur, asked me over the weekend whether I'd like to join a group that was going snorkeling with sea lions on Monday and I obviously couldn't pass that up. So that's what I did today! We went up to Jurian Bay, about 2.5 hours north of Perth, and snorkeled with an outfit called Turquoise Safaris. The staff was amazing, the music was bumpin, and we had such a blast, all around. High temp was 80 today, so amazing temps for being out on the water in a boat. The outfit provided wetsuits, too, so it was great to be covered up from the sun a bit more (the ozone layer is particularly thin over Western Australia, apparently, so it's VERY easy to get burned here. I've been using SPF 55 for my daily moisturizer every day).

Me, Jack (the Welsh guy in my DM class), the boat Captain, Stacey (currently working on her DM at the shop), Nat, boat first mate, Maurice (DM and boat crew for the shop)

I finally put my GoPro to use and have LOTS of amazing videos to go through of playing with the sea lions but let me just confirm for you that snorkeling with sea lions is THE COOLEST. Andrew and I went diving in San Diego before I left the States and we got to hang with some sea lions there, so that whet my appetite for it. The spot we went today was so shallow that snorkeling was WAY more effective for hanging out with the little sea pups than diving would have been. They are literally like underwater puppies. They just want to play, so if you aren't fun they leave you and find someone else. It seems like their version of fun is spiraling around and zooming around underwater, so they appreciate all efforts to duplicate their behaviors. If you just chill on the surface, they don't stick around. So I got a killer workout chasing the sea puppies around and bopping about under water with them. Best. Workout. Ever.

Jack took this AMAZING photo, so I'll whet your appetite with it while I work on getting my own videos together

The snorkel spot in Jurian Bay

After we wrapped up snorkeling, we stopped for lunch at the Sandpiper Tavern in town and then hit the road, but we made a pit-stop on the way back at the Pinnacles in Nambung National Park. The pinnacles are these limestone rock bits that poke up out of the ground over a massive area.

We hiked around for maybe a touch under an hour and then decided we were completely wiped out and needed to be getting back to home. Nat dropped me at my house and if all goes to plan, I'll be out like a light in about ten minutes!

The Stanford Home for Wayward Girls

If you don't want to read my diatribe about my new landlord, feel free to skip to the **!

I'm beginning to realize that Michael sees this rental property as more of an old fashioned boarding house than an apartment rented out to independent adult human beings. He wants what's best for "his girls" at "the Attadale house" and he's thrilled to be helpful. Weibke (pronounced VEEP-ka) and Irena, my new roomies, tried to warn me...

When I looked at the room/property, I mentioned that I'd like to take a crack at gardening here. Climate is totally different, plants are different, but I like getting my hands dirty. Yesterday I learned that Michael took that request for permission as a mission statement for himself. He brought me a trailer full of dirt from the local compost heap, drove me to the garden supply store to pick up some plants and seeds, even dug up a self-rooted tomato plant from his own garden so that I might have one. So lovely!

Roses at Michael and Grace's house. Clearly he's good at this.

But then he doesn't stop. So I've got all my supplies and he's decided that gardening is now a group activity. After dropping me off last night with all my new things, I kept at it (he had instructed me to keep the plants in the shade "til tomorrow"). I planted my seeds. Planted my plants. Watered. Weeded. Poked around and generally got dirt under my nails. Then this morning I had some errands to run so I was out pretty early. When I got home around 1pm, I discovered that Michael had continued working on my plot. He left my plants as such but my seeds have all been trampled by him adding more soil (goodbye, carrots!) and popping in another tomato plant (so well-intentioned, but that's where my sunflowers were!) and digging new drainage along the wall (ta ta, arugula!). So Michael and I need to have a chat. He emailed me a bit ago to let me know he brought me some lovely loaves of bread that he gets for free when a local bakery over-produces and can't sell all their wares in a day and that he'll be by to garden between 5-6. Sigh.

Those water hoses used to be arugula and the clay cylinders used to be sun flowers. I guess I'll find out what he plans to put in them tonight between 5-6!

I guess I should have seen this coming when he applauded me for not bringing any alcohol home from the grocery store the day I arrived (I refrained from mentioning that I took care of that in the duty free section of the airport). And when he's stopped over several times every day so far. He would give me the shirt off his back if I asked for it, I'm certain, but I'm probably going to kill him if he doesn't give me some space. So.

**
Anyway, I've been really productive the past few days in terms of getting settled into my new place, exploring the area a bit more, and getting ready for my class! Found a local thrift store which I've patronized twice to purchase some home goods - a tea pot, a pitcher, a cup for my toothbrush, some tea towels, that sort of thing - and got my medical clearance today for diving. Australia has stricter rules for diving, so I had to do a complete hearing test, lung capacity test, and then explain to the very kind Scottish doctor that the exercise induced "asthma" I checked yes to was probably a bogus diagnosis from an over-zealous American doctor because I've never used the inhaler he proscribed anyway. So once we got that cleared up, I was free to go with an Aussie-affirmed clean bill of diving health.

Art at the Fish Shop

This afternoon I'm going to finish up watching some videos I need to do for class this weekend. I'm planning to pop over to the dive shop tomorrow to take my exam before going to my first ever cricket match! A guy from my class, a Welshie named Jack, is going to join me, so at least I'll have someone else to be hungover with on Saturday morning. Australia v Pakistan tomorrow afternoon at 4:30. Will report back once I know what the deal is for cheering.

By the Fremantle Market