New Beginnings: Peaceful Bay & Thailand

I spent last R&R from work on my first real, proper, carefree holiday since Everything, and it was amazing. When I flew out of work on February 19^th, I was scrambling a bit to make a mental plan. I’d had plans with my friends Winnie and Ayden to go down south for the weekend, to a work mate’s family holiday home in Peaceful Bay, WA, but they each had family stuff crop up and had to bail. So I decided to just have a solo weekend and couldn’t be happier with how it went!

Driving a forklift on night shift (while parked and fundamentally stable to be allowed to use my phone, obviously!)

Sunset over the yard at work

The 5 hour drive on Thursday was brutal after coming off night shift and a 3 hour plane delay leaving site. I napped on the 2 hour flight to Perth, but by the time I got my rental car sorted and grabbed my gear from my storage unit it was 2pm and I just knew I’d end up needing extra car stops. I didn’t want to spend heaps of time driving in the dark and risk roos, so I just had to get my ass in gear. An energy drink helped a lot, as did blasting peppy music, but by the time I did a grocery shop at the last real town, 45 mins before arrival in Peaceful Bay, and got to the house, it was fully dark out. Long day.

I spent the next three days hanging out at the house, and it was glorious. I did laundry, unhurriedly. I painted my toes. I read so many books. I took precisely one walk to the beach, where it was misting, and then felt no guilt at all on the days when I didn’t leave the property. I watched a sunset over some dramatic cliffs, and sipped the chamomile tea in the confines of the blanket I’d had the presence of mind to grab before heading out for the excursion. I took photos of wildflowers at the side of the road, dodged the roos that I did encounter, and ate so much cheese. I vacillated between the camping chair I set up on the front porch and the couches inside. I remembered, every once in a while, to make myself some pasta or chicken or to eat the broccoli salad I picked up, but mostly I just turned into a potato. A glorious, contented potato.

Sunset over Conspicuous Cliffs

On Monday morning, I got up at 4:30 so I could hit the road early and make it out for a catch up with some of my work pals. Ayden (one of my bail-ures) and Paulie with his 2-year old daughter, Millie, met up with me at a pub in Perth so we could shoot the shit and catch up. It was super wholesome, and I managed to win Millie over to my team through liberal winking and supporting her desire for MORE SNACKS. I paid my storage unit another little visit, and then only had a couple more hours til Gaia arrived! We stayed in a hotel by the airport, and were up early for our flight to Thailand.

Beers at the Naiyang Beach Resort Boss Bar

At our room at Naiyang Beach Resort

Our hotel was right on the water in Phuket, inside Naiyang National Park. Conveniently, it was around the corner from the airport. You’d think that would sully the ambiance, but you would be wrong. We had multiple conversations about how totally wholesome the atmosphere was at the beach nearby. Families with their little ones, couples, big groups, solo travellers. Influencers with their flowy dresses and faces full of makeup at sunset, and leathery old ladies with legs of steel strutting about in their bikinis. Old men with their beer bellies and speedos (have I told you they’re called budgie smugglers in Australia? Like, for hiding your parakeet?! I love this place), and young men who look like they stepped off a Calvin Klein billboard. The whole gamut of traveling types.

We had two nights there, and two and a half days, so we had a good amount of time to explore. And by explore, I mean go for daily massages at the countless spa/massage parlours that are on genuinely every street (sometimes 3 or 4 of them in a row) in tourist-heavy areas of Thailand. Thai massage is no joke. So for AUD $15, Gaia got daily, hour-long, full body massages that wrapped up with tiny Thai women cracking every vertebra in her back. I mixed it up a little bit and got pedicures, scalp massages, other options from the menu as well, but we spent a lot of time having our muscles forced into relaxation submission. And in between, we would eat. And on the first full day we found a fantastic beach-side restaurant, Sangsee, and we made that our stop in point for beers, snacks, and meals. The waitstaff were amazing, and Eve, our waitress, introduced herself on our second visit and then greeted us by name every other time we stopped in. Honestly, I’d go back just to hang out with Eve some more. I think Gaia would agree. So, we spent three blissful days in Phuket drinking fresh coconut water out of the nut, having cold beers at the beach with Eve, and soaking all the Pilbara dust out of our cuticles in the ocean. On the third evening, we had a shuttle come and scoop us up from relaxation station: we were going diving!

Our berths on Gentle Giant liveaboard

When Matty and I went to Thailand a few years back, we did a day-trip of diving in the Andaman Sea in Similan Island National Marine Park. We took a speed boat out in the morning that dropped us onto a liveaboard boat, where we joined in with the folks who were staying overnight. They had done a dive before we arrived and had another scheduled after we left, and I was so jealous! We talked about going again someday, but doing the full liveaboard experience. And that’s exactly what Gaia and I did!

Sunset on board

Prepping her underwater camera housing

Our vessel was called Gentle Giant and we had the most amazing 4 days of diving. Three days of 4 dives per day, then two dives on the final day, and every single day had amazing weather. As someone who suffers from seasickness, I had packed plenty of meds to keep me alive. I took some the first morning, just in case, and then didn’t take another pill the whole time we were at sea. Every day was a glorious routine of: wake up, eat, dive; eat, nap/read, dive; eat, nap, dive; eat, nap/read, dive; eat, sleep. The food was unbelievably good. I think I fully creeped out our chef because I’d pass by the window into the galley between dives and I’d poke my face in to smell whatever she was cooking and make blissful faces of appreciation. There wasn’t a single meal repeat (no small feat considering the boat had 20 dive passengers plus 10 crew on the vessel), and the flavours were out of this world good. One night we even did hot pot, because the seas were so calm that boiling pots of oil on the tables weren’t a concern. Unreal food, unreal weather. And the diving!!! We would rock up to a dive spot and be able to see the bottom 30m (100ft!) below with no problem. Our two favourite spots were Cabbage Patch, which was this incredible sloping wall of gorgeous, healthy, robust corals, and Richelieu Rock, an underwater mountain in the middle of nowhere that serves as a congregation point for MASSIVE schools of fish.

Chef Extraordinaire

Beers in the water after our last dive of the day

The cool part about Richelieu Rock (which we were lucky enough to get three dives on in calm seas) is that it’s one of the top dive sites in the world. The terrible part about Richelieu Rock is that it’s one of the top dive sites in the world. There were something like 16 other boats full of divers there at the same time as us. It was a little bit like being in a giant, busy shopping mall around Christmas, but with schools of predatory fish darting around while you try not to run into any of the other 200 people under water at the same time. I saw no less than three “divers” who had been hitched to a dive guide like a human backpack. So, I tried very, very hard to mind my own business and un-see the human beings while we were under water. Which was working amazingly well on one of the dives when I found a little ledge with a whole bunch of tiny shrimp that I wanted to show Gaia! And I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why she was distracted and laughing when I tried to flag down her attention, until a bait ball being chased by a school of Giant Trevally swam SCREAMING past me as they hunted. I hope the video loads, because Gaia didn’t stop laughing at my reaction for days.

Here's me riding a Harley Davidson underwater on our last dive

Here's the hunting Giant Trevally video. Watch me flinch when I finally catch on to the massive fish swimming right past me.

Honestly, the diving was incredible. But the part that I felt most insanely grateful about was doing it all with Gaia. Not only because she’s amazing in every way, and because I was so grateful that Rhys was willing to share her with me for a week (I don’t actually think it was such a hardship for him because he was away fishing the whole time we were away diving, but I digress), but because she’s so easy to travel with. We’ve done so much diving together that we’re familiar with each other’s underwater habits and quirks, and having a dive buddy who you trust implicitly – who won’t disappear, who navigates at a similar pace, who you know will get you out of the shit if you get into it – just makes it so much easier to have a good time. We’ve known since driving the Gibb River Road together back in 2021 that we travel together well on land, and we know from our old apartment that we can cohabitate in small places together pretty well, too. So doing this liveaboard thing was the next logical extension: sharing a tiny boat berth and spending nearly every minute of the day together on and under the water. She didn’t even fight me for the bottom bunk so I wouldn’t rock about as much if we did get rough seas – what a legend. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’ll never win the lottery but I’m lucky in EVERY way that actually counts, and relationships that keep me afloat are at the very top of that list, especially my gal pals. So, since we didn’t kill each other (read: since she didn’t kill me), we can safely mark liveaboards off as an option for future travel trips! Which is just another way of saying that after we got back ashore, returned for our final overnight in Phuket, and made our way down to the beach to have beers with Eve, we spent the rest of our time talking about where we’ll go next. We’re thinking the Philippines. Maybe see you there?

Phuket Sunset on our last night