My weekly routine of Tuesdays as my full day off and Sunday working both jobs was shaken up a bit this week. No sharking, as mentioned, and I ended up working 7 days at Potshot last week. We're supposed to be closed for dinner service on Tuesdays, but a snafu with scheduling a bus tour meant that we were gonna have 30 people who needed dinner showing up and we had to make it happen. So I worked dinner yesterday, got to hang out with the pensioners on the bus tour at the bar, and then hung out with my coworkers after work for a bit. The 7-days on was made MUCH easier by the fact that I was only on evening shifts for most of the week - Friday was my only split. So that meant that when my brother shot me a casual hello text while I was reading in the porch hammock a few days ago, I was free to just pick up and call him for a catch up! It continues to blow my mind that even thousands of miles of distance between us doesn't make it impossible to commiserate and catch up. Technology has its downsides, but I sure do appreciate the upsides. It's a far cry from Dad's multiple week turnaround time of letter writing when he was in the Peace Corps!
I'm (as usual) at the Visitor's Center writing this missive, but the WiFi is overwhelmed by all the tourists. I need to get here earlier in the morning if I want my internet connection to be uninterrupted. I had all these plans to show you photos of my sunrise adventure from a week or two ago, but the photos won't upload. I'll figure it out.
Anyway, so I decided I really needed to get up for a sunrise one of these days. I'm up for it on the days I go sharking, but I'm busy working so I can't take the time to properly appreciate it. I'm running to the bakery for food stuffs, packing the bus, collecting tourists, whatever. So on a day off a couple of weeks back I decided to give it a whirl. Now anyone who has met me in the early morning knows that I struggle with relinquishing sleep. I NEED sleep or I turn into a not-nice person. And, despite my best intentions, I frequently snooze alarms that are meant to get me up-and-at-'em for fun stuff (work stuff I just suffer through the indignity of an alarm). But I shocked myself by actually heeding the alarm and getting out of bed for an adventure! I planned to go watch the sunrise at the lighthouse near the tip of the peninsula, but as I drove, the pre-dawn beauty convinced me I needed to stop driving sooner rather than later and get to the beach so I could watch it. So I nipped down a little side dirt road and headed for the beach in my car. Which was cool until the sand got rapidly deeper and I wasn't yet in 4 wheel drive and got myself stuck. Which wasn't ideal because I really wanted to watch the sunrise and there were still dunes in my way. So I stubborned my way out of the hole and carried on. And then got properly bogged (NB: if I had actual experience doing 4WD stuff I would probably not be considered bogged. But that's semantics because I was by myself. So.). I was close enough to the water at that point that I just left my hazards flashing and walked myself the last 30 yards to the water. It was spectacular. So worth waking up for.
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| Lightly stuck Tessie |
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| Turtle hatchling tracks |
Once the sun was well and truly up, I needed to un-bog. 45 minutes of back and forth over the sand compacting it, letting my tire pressure down, and very patiently convincing Tessie that we needed to make it happen, and I was out! I thought to head back to the main road to town but then saw another side track road and thought why not? My tires already needed re-filling, so may as well use them! So instead, I nipped my way back to town by driving along the beach! It was about 8am by that point and I didn't see another soul. I had considered driving over to the west side of the peninsula and the beaches there because the wind and swell were both going to be down - ideal conditions for a beach day - so I had my bathing suit with me and figured I might as well put it to good use! Parked up in the sand, headed down to the water and was halfway in when my inner nudist said "why get the suit all wet unnecessarily?" And obviously I listened. So I'm swimming about in all my naked, solo glory when I think "Mom will totally appreciate this." So I called her up (close enough to town at that point to have cell service) and showed her the beach and bragged about how brilliant I am, taking advantage of a deserted beach to go for a swim, and how I haven't seen another soul when I SEE A CAR DRIVING UP THE BEACH AT ME. So I had to sprint to the car, Mom cackling at me, to grab my towel and get covered up. The guy waved as he went by and definitely was on to me, but thank goodness he just kept going. Oy.
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| Beach "road" |
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| Pelicans |
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| Morning sprint distance |
Treated myself to breakfast at a cafe in town, re-filled my tires, went for a haircut, and then off to the west side for beaching. Davo (my housemate) recommended staying at one of the beaches further north on the peninsula as there would probably be fewer tourists. So I rocked up to the second one I came to (first one is a popular surf beach, so I knew it'd be packed) and got myself parked. Only after parking did I notice the signs saying it's a nude beach. So anyway, that's how I ended up naked on two separate beaches on the same day in Exmouth! As Davo is fond of saying, all the normal people are in Perth, Exmouth is where all the weirdos live. So I guess count me among them!
This week has been crappy weather (VERY windy, some rain) which has been perfect for feeling content staying home and reading every day before going in to work. This is what I look like 70% of the time when I'm not at work:
This is what I look like the other 30% of the time:
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| I keep pinching myself, but apparently this is where I actually live |
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