Good Good Day

You know those days that are just a little golden around the edges? Not necessarily because everything goes to plan or some noteworthy achievement occurs, but just because it feels satisfying in your bones? Today was one of those days.

Yesterday we three housemates were peevish at our landlord. Without getting too far into it (I'll just get myself worked up again), he's been here every day this week and is pushing all our buttons. The day started with him showing up in the morning, unannounced and while we were all still in our pjs, to show the 4th room in the house to a prospective new housemate. That pretty much set the tone for the day - and not in a good way. 

**This is the point where I should mention that Irena, my Russian housemate, moved out rather abruptly on Wiebke's birthday on May 1! It was a little dramatic and awkward because she told us as she was literally walking out the door with her suitcases, but it's meant that the last two weeks have been glorious because it's just the three amigos in the house and we're borderline obsessed with each other and every day is full of fun and laughter and sunshine. We just cook meals and watch movies and sip tea together every day and it feels so wholesome! So it's Irena's former room that my landlord was showing.**

Anyway, after yesterday being frustrating, today was such a gift. Had a weird dream about Wiebke and I trying to scare away an intruder who was attempting to kidnap us from my parents' house in Havertown, but from there everything was smooth sailing! Woke up. Chatted with the Papa Bear. Made some green tea with jasmine. All good stuff. 

Last week I finally made some scones from a McKee cousin's recipe and Weronika and I ate 80% of them straight out of the oven. Obviously, I slathered mine with double cream. We managed to save one for Wiebke, gave one to my landlord (who was - surprise! - at our house!), and otherwise they went straight into the bellies. Today, I wised up and made a double batch. Planned to give half to Nat to bring to her in-laws as a thank you for inviting me to Mother's Day dinner last weekend (can I just say it was so wonderful to have a Mom in hugging range on Mother's Day since I couldn't see my own Mama?!). So anyway, fresh baked blueberry scones, walked myself over to Nat's to drop off hers (spoiler alert: we ate them all, so I need to make more for her in-laws) and ended up hanging out for a few hours in the sunshine. 

Blueberry Scones

Have I showed you Nat's dog, Cooper, yet? He's a total sweetie. We went to the dog beach together last weekend, just the two of us, and it was wonnnnnderfullllllll!

Popped myself back home and decided it was too nice to be inside, so I did some weeding and pruning in the garden. Sitting in the grass made me a little itchy but I wanted to exercise before showering so I headed out for a run along the river, did a little yoga in the riverside park (which, duh, made me more itchy - I'm not the brightest bulb), and made it home a little before 5. Now I know I've waxed eloquent about this fancy, non-homogenized, full cream chocolate milk, but I don't remember if I told you that I got it at a fancy grocery store in the CBD (Central Business District AKA downtown Perth), not in my neighborhood. Well post-run Kate reaaaaaaally wanted some of that chocolate milk (my college swim coach always made us drink chocolate milk as an after workout recovery drink and I've used that reasoning to justify all chocolate milk purchases in the last ten years since I stopped swimming) and did some internet sleuthing to realize there's another fancy grocery store only 2 miles from my house! So away I went.

Got a little overzealous in my pruning efforts but now we get this beauty in the house!

Fancy local grocery store totally didn't disappoint. I got the chocolate milk, some produce, some fresh sourdough - all the good stuff. Both of the Ws are out on dates tonight, so when I got home I started blasting music, made myself some toast with the fresh sourdough and ricotta and basil from the garden, and successfully stopped myself from drinking the entire container of chocolate milk! 

Stopped by the side of the road on the drive home from the grocery store to snap this. 

Even my shower was so good. And now I'm wrapped up in my new-to-me huge robe that I got last week at the op shop (opportunity shop = thrift shop) and my new Ugg boots that I got on sale (I'm in Australia, so they're required winter gear), and I've got a really great '70s playlist that I'm jamming to! Life is so good, y'all.

Ricotta toast

So I started my day with a happy conversation with Dad and some tea and seem to be ending it with a happy blog post missive to you all and some honey chamomile tea! I think I'll go watch a cheesy movie, or maybe some episodes of the West Wing. I love days like today. And I love all of you! 

Funemployment

I can't help but feel like all my funemployment has been practice for this lockdown business. All those childhood summers that didn't last quite long enough, all those Christmas vacations that could have lasted just a few days longer, last Sept/Oct when I was preparing for my departure to Australia - all of it was just a preview of what social isolation would be like. Can I just tell you: I LOVE social isolation! No pants required most days, so many endless hours to read all the books I want, not even allowed to go out so no need to feel FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) about social events that I only sort of wanted to go to anyway. It's amazing. I've been giving some thought into my extroversion and can't decide if that's actually accurate... I'm way too content living like this to be a real life extrovert, right? Or maybe I am still an extrovert but having beautiful relationships that sustain me by phone, video chat, email, Facebook, and in person in my shared house is making up for the lack of social outings in the real world. Not sure.

Every time I talk to anyone back home, I feel like a broken record: "I am SO LUCKY to be in Western Australia right now." Seriously though. Nov-Jan I was so lucky to be out west and missing the bushfires that devastated the east coast, now I'm living in a place that has such a firm hold on this virus that we're talking about lifting restrictions SAFELY (unlike at home where literally thousands of people are dying every day and they're going to re-open the economy anyway, which I just cannot wrap my head around). We're on Day 7 in a row of no new infections in WA, down to a total active case count of 14, but still restaurants and bars are closed (except for takeout), travel is still restricted within the state, and we're still limited to social groups of ten or fewer people. I realize that the US and Australia are different countries with different norms, but, like, this is a pretty free country, too. I'm not living in North Korea here. But when I've mentioned the state borders being closed with mandatory 14 day quarantines if you cross for anything other than government-sanctioned reasons (ie. you're a truck driver hauling goods, you're a health care worker, etc), everyone back home is like "well that just wouldn't work in the US because it's a free country" and my mind is blown. For the same reasons that we don't allow people to yell "FIRE!" in crowded venues, I can't imagine why public safety isn't being taken more seriously. I digress.

I'm spending my days, as I mentioned, in comfy clothes and reading books. Wiebke and Weronika (pronounced Veronica, if I haven't mentioned that already) and I cook together a lot of nights and we take turns doing the dishes and it all feels pretty much like utopia. Bit like being in college again, actually, with the sometimes day drinking, constant laughter, and fun outings to buy groceries. I leave from time to time to hang out with Nat and Mick - they just moved to a new house last week that is LITERALLY around the corner from my house and it's only magnifying the feeling that I'm re-living college - and with Simon, who has been introducing me to the most beautiful dairy products I never knew existed. For instance, non-homogenized, full cream milk. OH MY GOODNESS. I love milk, always have. Grew up on 2% or Whole Milk when Mom decided to treat us. But I had no idea that "Whole Milk" at home is NOT the same as full cream milk. Simon had some full cream stuff and I asked to try it and I honestly can't imagine something more wholesome and delicious. It's basically like drinking melted ice cream (which, fair enough, some people might think is gross. But not me.). So then I found some full cream CHOCOLATE milk at the grocery store and had to try it. My mind was blown. There was like a 2 inch cap of cream at the top, a quarter inch of separated chocolate on the bottom, and drinking it is like having the world's richest chocolate milkshake. Heaven. Just this week, I learned about double cream. Think yogurt consistency, but you just eat a dollop of it with fresh fruit or a homemade apple/rhubarb crumble (don't ask how much butter/sugar was involved in the making) and think to yourself "yes, yes; I could die happy now." Anyway, all of this does NOT jive well with my complex feelings about how cows are treated in the dairy industry and certainly doesn't help me in my quest to consume less dairy, but it's a weird time we're living in and if double cream and the world's richest chocolate milk make things feel better, so be it.

One of the best parts about being back in Perth is having easy access to scuba diving again! Exmouth, though located next to one of the most biodiverse reef systems in the world, doesn't have the easy shore diving Perth does. You need a boat to get to most of the sites up there. So I've been soaking up as much under water time here as I can!

Easter Morning dive with Nat

Diving with the boys: Colin, Rich, and Mick (he's hiding on the far right by his car!)

For a while, social distancing rules stipulated that you could only be out in public in groups of two (and it was recommended that both people live in the same house). Nice thing about diving, though, is that everyone can very easily get ready at their own car, you can walk to the water at a distance, and then convene under water as safe dive buddies! A friend I made up in Exmouth, Corinne, also moved back down this way when the borders were shutting down, so I've gotten to dive with her since being back in Perth. Being able to soak up these last few weeks of warm weather as we settle properly into autumn has been so so good.

When I was up in Exmouth, I was slathering sunscreen on constantly throughout the day and was still browning up fast. Skin cancer rates here are higher than almost anywhere else in the world and locals swear that you should buy sunscreen here and not bring it in from elsewhere (like the US) because the formulas are different. Stronger. So anyway, I was spending so much time on the water up there that I decided I needed a bathing suit with more coverage and I bought this utterly charming long sleeved suit that I got to wear exactly one time before moving back down here. We were having a game night two weeks ago and I got so excited telling them about this suit that I can't wait to get to wear again that I fashion showed it to them. And then we were talking about flannel shirts (my one true love, other than full cream chocolate milk) and so this happened:

Floral bathing suit + Flannel = High Fashion

Anyway, talking about how much I love this suit made me want another one and there was a SALE and so, long story, I now have two long sleeved bathing suits.

Dad's Daily Report today mentioned his concern that I not slip into alcoholism while living this hedonistic, college-esque life. So today is Day 1 of "Help Dad Stop Worrying" dry spell. So the W's and I are just back from the grocery store where I picked up some new non-caffeinated teas (I can't drink tea past noon or I can't sleep) and I have some chicken stock I made last week that I can sip on as well. This afternoon Wiebke is working, I'm finishing this post (which they've been reminding me for like 3 weeks that I'm supposed to write), and Weronika is making homemade waffles with the waffle maker she bought this week. It's a murky weather week in Perth - winter seems to have arrived with all its wind and chilly rain - so I'm having mushroom soup and some of my new tea for lunch. Bought some nice looking ricotta and a good loaf of bread so I'll make little ricotta/honey toasts for appetizers and then I'm on dinner duty tonight: cheddar/zucchini/carrot fritters with a dill mayo side. Yum :)

Weronika made these sweet potato fritters last week and they are SO GOOD. Little spinach and tomato on top with a dollop of unsweetened yogurt. Bomb.

She's gonna be so pissed I snuck this photo of her

Wiebke's 30th birthday was last Friday and Weronika is an event planner at heart. So we did some sneaky shopping to get decorations and ended up with this:

Wiebke is immune to the siren call of sweets, so we got her a kilo of hummus instead of cake

Weronika's middle-of-the-night handiwork

Birthday Girl

I taught them how to play beer pong but we couldn't find pong balls so we used toy cars!

Fruit for dipping in melty chocolate

 

It was an awesome day. Plus, while I spent the morning helping Nat and Mick move into their new house around the corner, Wiebke was on dog-sitting duty with Cooper and they got to go play all morning!

As I do at the end of every post, I'll try to be better about updates on the blog :) For the last month or so, I've been reading as much as possible to take advantage of my Kindle Unlimited subscription of books. I got through almost all of Jeff Wheeler's books (really fun fantasy novels with magic and fierce lady characters) before my subscription ended yesterday. So now that I don't have that as a time constraint, I'll be free to blog!

Also just saw the latest gov't numbers and we're 8 days in a row with no new infections and down to 11 active cases! YAY PUBLIC HEALTH POLICIES THAT WORK!!!

Lockdown, Western Australia style

Context: I decided to move back to Perth. I dithered about it long and hard (right up til when I was filling my fuel tank at 6am with a fully packed car, getting ready to pull out of Exmouth), but ultimately decided I'd rather take my chances in a global pandemic near other people rather than away from them. I imagine this means I won't have much chance at surviving a zombie apocalypse, where I'm pretty sure you're supposed to GTFO of population centers and find yourself a grocery store or whatever to take over as your home base, but that's a different kind of apocalypse story. In this one, having access to a ventilator (God forbid) seems more important than having access to ready fishing grounds (though Perth has plenty of fish if it comes to that). So Perth it is.

My landlord drives me crazy, as we've established, but he's an extraordinarily giving human being. I can't remember if I mentioned this in my last post, but Michael called me up to tell me I was welcome in his home about a week before I left Exmouth. There wasn't a room available in my old house, but he wanted to be sure I knew I had a place to stay in Perth. Two days before I left Exmouth I got a text from Wiebke and a call from Michael, both letting me know that one of my former housemates was moving home to Brisbane since her med school was closing its doors for the foreseeable future. They both wanted me to know I had a room to live in and people who wanted me there. Michael told me "you don't even need to let me know if you decide to come down, just let yourself in" and gave me directions for the hide-a-key. He said we'd figure out rent when I got here, but not to let that stop me; we'd work something out. I think it was that spirit of welcome, more than anything, that made me think coming back was the right call. And while Michael was the one who provided the physical space to live, my other friends down here were making sure I knew they'd take care of me if it came to that. I am so lucky.

Anyway, we're doing the social isolation thing here just like everywhere, though probably not as well as we should be. The girl who is living in my old bedroom is super: funny, sweet, kind. The poor thing just got here from Poland a month ago; talk about a welcome party for the kickoff of her global adventure. Irena, my Russian roommate, has been hiding in her room for most of the last two weeks. I always expect her to just start squirting me with bleach when I say hello in the kitchen, and she's appropriated one of the dish towels, kitchen sponges, and a set of dishes as her own. She's also sequestered her food in the shared pantry on the top shelf where we can't accidentally breathe on it. The other three of us, Weronika, Wiebke and me, had a movie night the other night with wine and snacks and giggling, so we're taking a different approach. To each her own!

Wiebke is the only one who's still gainfully employed. She works for HelloFresh and had been going door to door encouraging people to sign up. That obviously had to stop, but they were kind enough to offer her a job as an online customer support person! So she works from home and most weeks she gets a free box of food from their leftovers in the office. I volunteered my car for collecting it, so I get to share in the bounty. Excellent.

I keep thinking that I should be using these days of free time to do things besides cook and drink wine, so I've gotten motivated to work out a little. I told Michael I'd keep an eye on his house here, so I go over a few days a week to bring in the mail and water Grace's potted plants. It's maybe a half hour walk to get over there, so I get some sunshine in, stretch the legs, and feel like I'm giving him one less worry. I did some yoga yesterday (we'll see if I can get back in the rhythm of a regular practice), went for a run on Sunday (not likely to stick), and have been trying not to snack all day long.

Even pandemics can't keep millennials from their avocado toast!

I made a homemade loaf of no-knead bread and forgot to take photos of it, but it tasted amazing.

I also keep trying to kick my ass into gear about uploading all these photos I've been taking under water, but my GoPro and phone don't like each other, and my GoPro and laptop like each other even less, so it ends up being a more obnoxious, time-consuming task than it ought to. Even so, here are some cool things under water for your viewing pleasure:

All those guys are from my Jurien Bay outing back in November (I know, I'm terrible) when I went snorkeling with a bunch of cool cats and kittens from Perth Scuba.

That video ^^ is from Wiebke and my most recent sojourn down south. It's from Hamilton Bay, which is a protected nature reserve for rays. The rays were so intrigued by the GoPro - pretty sure they thought it was food - so they were all over us.

Today's agenda: job hunting. Wish me luck!

Life in the time of 'rona

Everything about this is wild, huh? I still have a room to rent, but my 1.5 jobs are both gone; all pubs/restaurants/cafes were required to close as of noon today (or swap to delivery/take out only) so Potshot is gone and EDC (the diving/sharking outfit) is losing bookings daily and, realistically, they're expecting forced closures soon, too. So I'm back to being unemployed. This is less troubling to me than it might be, but it feels like half the town (and world, for that matter) is in the same boat. What I'm dithering about now is where to ride out this storm.

It honestly didn't even occur to me til yesterday that it might make sense to go somewhere else. Home is out of the question - I'm not gonna travel around the world, picking up bugs/viruses/distress the whole way just to deposit them on my parents' doorstep where I would STILL be unemployed - but it wasn't til I was talking with Anj that I considered Perth isn't. He "I told you so"d me for leaving Perth in the first place, but then considered my circumstances out loud with me, too. After we got off the phone I talked with M&D and generally caught up but my head was still here in Exmouth.

Then I left my bedroom and found out about all the pubs closing, about the states here in Australia that are closing their borders to all but essential travel, about the possibility that all domestic travel will be locked down with road closures, about the reality that there are only two ventilators in the local hospital, and began to consider whether being in a tiny, remote town is preferable to being in a well-provisioned (ostensibly, anyway) city during a global pandemic. What's a girl to do? Go snorkeling. Duh.

Tash, Ben, Carly (my new housemate who moved in on Wednesday, is completely lovely, and is also already considering turning right around and leaving), and I went to Turquoise Bay down in the Cape Range National Park on the other side of the peninsula from here. It was so beautiful - beautiful reef right off the beach and clear, cool water - and was a real balm in our distress and uncertainty. It helped that none of us was in cell range, so we couldn't find out what the hell was happening anyway - and it seems like the whole situation changes hourly. We packed lunch and beer and stuck around til 5:30 or so, gabbing about our lives, about our travels, and about what the hell we're all gonna do. Carly and I hung out at our house and another girl from EDC, Corinne, came over to join the discussions. We left things last night feeling rather like getting out of Exmouth is a good plan... but also, who knows?

For all that the global scene right now is hectic and ever-changing as governments and institutions cobble together plans to help minimize harm and try to keep people safe, I feel less distress than I did in the first days of being up here. But I also don't have any clue what my best move is here. Stay put in the remote desert outpost of great beauty and watery natural wonders OR return to the city that's become a home and is better provisioned with people, food, petrol, and medical supplies to support a population in the midst of widespread illness. Neither feels like the right or wrong answer at this exact moment, though both options have been pulling in a tug of war in my brain all day. I hoped writing some of this down would help clarify but not sure that's worked. Thank goodness for technology that has allowed me to have these conversations with friends back home, giving me the chance to sort through my thought process. One theme from Australia that continues to repeat itself is my feeling of gratitude that the world has so many beautiful people in it who allow me to call them friends. The family doesn't get much choice, but I'd pick them, too.

Y'all, the world is a wild and wooly place and I'm so grateful for faith that leaves me feeling confident that all will work out as it should. Until I sort out my next move, I'm gonna eat some tortilla chips, finish reading a library book that's due back on Thursday, and sit here in the air conditioning feeling glad that I don't have boob sweat going on. Every day is a good day to be alive. Stay safe and healthy, peeps xx

Finding Footing

Y'all, I'm in a much better head space than last blog post. I have 1.5 jobs, I found a room to rent, I'm meeting people and making friends, and I feel like I'm settling down emotionally from the roller coaster of leaving Perth/Perth Scuba. Thank goodness.

So I had my interview last Friday at the Potshot Hotel to work in their bar and was psyched to get a job offer on the spot! Tai, my new manager, knows Wes from when he lived in Exmouth before moving down south and starting at Perth Scuba, and Wes, bless him, put in a good word for me. I owe him a carton of beer for sure. My first day will be tomorrow (Wednesday), and I'm rostered on to work 4 days this coming week! Hallelujah!

Saturday I went out with Exmouth Dive Center on a trial run day AKA the first of my in-person live action interviews. They told me I'd probably need to do 3 or 4 of those days before they would know how they wanted to roster me, so I was mentally ready for that. It was so amazing to get to dive up here. The corals were gorgeous, the boat crew was super welcoming and helpful (which they could easily not have been since there were FIVE of us who were training), and I got to spend a day out on the water with beautiful conditions. The boat crew complained that the viz wasn't great, but honestly, they're spoiled. Just like the Perth scuba divers who complain that the shore diving there isn't amazing. Spoiled, spoiled, spoiled. They don't know what Atlantic Coast diving is like!

After work, the lead dive instructor for the day mentioned he was going to the pub so, duh, me too. Over beers, I learned that he was Best Man in Wes' wedding, so we had fun swapping Wes stories and texting him photos of us having fun without him. All in all, stellar day.

I was so pumped to be asked back the next day to go out on one of the whaleshark boats with a different crew. The company is big enough that they run both kids of trips - scuba diving and whalesharking - and the set ups for the day are really quite different from a staff perspective. Another girl who trialed on Saturday, Tash, was also invited to go out, so we very quietly celebrated being chosen for a second day's work. It was both of our first times in the water with whalesharks and it. was. amazing. These GIANT gorgeous creatures just hanging out in the water eating plankton and chilling while we swam around them. They're a little skittish, I'm learning, so the operators have really strict rules about how to behave in the water. Not just no touching them, but staying 3 meters away at all times, not freediving around them, not splashing excessively - all for fear that we'll make them nervous and cause them to take a deep dive where we can't see them at all. No one likes the asshole who scares away the whaleshark before everyone gets a chance to see them, so I get the impression that's a big part of the job - keeping people from doing those things.

Anyway, Sunday was magic. Imagine my thrill, then, when I got a voicemail inviting me to go out again on Monday! Y'all, I was hyped up. I had popped an ad on a Buy/Sell page for Exmouth locals saying that I needed a room to rent and a dude replied within just a few hours inviting me to check out his place. He and his partner rent to backpackers every year, and he still had one room left. I scooted over to check it out, the guy seemed like not a serial killer, so he told me he'd let me know. I think that was code for "lemme make sure my wife doesn't think YOU are a serial killer before we offer it to you". Good news: they accepted me! So not only was I going whalesharking again, I also had a place to live that wasn't the local backpackers' hostel. So obviously Tash and I went to the local brewery to celebrate (she was going the next day too!), and I got to meet her partner, Ben. He's working doing water adventurey stuff up here - kayaking trips and the like - and possibly also bar tending. Fun people, man.

Monday was incredible, too. Whaleshark success, moved into my new room, finally felt a little settled. It was so good, y'all. I passed out at like 8:45 (again), and I'm pretty sure Glenn, the guy who owns the house, thinks I'm a weirdo for going to bed so early. But whatever, I am a weirdo.

Today, St. Paddy's Day, is a relax day. Talked with Mom and Dad this morning, went out shopping for shorts (I need a pair of black shorts for the bar work and was quasi-successful. I got some navy blue shorts that look black in the right light. So I'm going with it.), remembered to bring my takeaway cup to get a chai latte at a local cafe (which was GOLD. SO good), stopped into a surf shop to buy a bathing suit with long sleeves so that I don't get skin cancer from spending time on the water (I've been SPF 55+ every day with a hat and I'm still browning up a little quickly for my liking. So trying to slow that roll). And now back in the new house for lunch and life updates to my loyal blog crew!

Thanks to all of you who reached out with kind words after my last emo post! And sorry for making you worry. I'm holding up well :)

The coronavirus has finally taken hold of public consciousness in Perth and apparently it's been a ghost town. Here, the cruise ships that were expected to land this week aren't allowed to let passengers off board, so local businesses are hurting. We'll see what happens in the coming weeks, but remote tourist towns without tourists probably don't hang in there so well. Sending love and healthy wishes to all my peeps! xx

Musings & Feelings

I’m interrupting the tale of the Southwestern Adventure with Wiebke to do some processing of thoughts/feelings. If that sounds boring, this isn’t gonna be the blog post for you! Hold steady; the second part of that story will continue soon.

When I started working at Perth Scuba in November, my boss, Dom, pitched a plan to me. Work for PS for 6 months, get my instructor’s license, migrate north to Exmouth to work for the high season (based around whale shark migration timing), complete my 3 months of “regional work” required to renew my visa for a second year in Exmouth, and then return to Perth next summer to work for their sister company, Blue Destiny. There have been some hiccups, but I’ve been basing a lot of my long-range mental plans around that framework. Which brings us to two weeks ago. On the Southwestern Adventure, Wiebke and I did a lot of soul searching out loud together. Her hunt for farm work (her visa is slightly different than mine and she HAS to do farm work… my visa also allows me to do hospitality/tourism work to qualify for a second year) really got me thinking about prioritizing getting my regional work done so that I don’t have the same scramble she was doing. When we got back to Perth from the trip, I had decided I wanted to head up north.

There were a few reasons for that, but the most important one was that high season in Exmouth begins in April. Which means that businesses are hiring in Feb/March to fill positions for the upcoming season. If I waited much longer, I’d miss the boat on seasonal work. So when I got back to Perth, I told Dom about my plan and he wasn’t thrilled. You see, his plan called for me to stick around for another two months – to use up the full 6 month allowance my visa allows me to work for a given employer. Also, several other employees were already in the process of making plans to move up to Exmouth, so the ranks were getting thinner… I’d be much more likely to get steady hours in the last two months because there just aren’t that many folks filling shifts. Dom’s a persuasive fellow (and my friend), so I told him I’d stick around for an extra week and leave on Monday, March 9^th rather than March 2^nd. Bless him, he scheduled me for 5 shifts over the week so I could make some $$ before the move. Also possibly to prevent me having time to pack, but why quibble?

I worked my buns off last week, got the chance to say goodbye to lots of my customer pals in the shop, spent lots of time with friends doing the exact kinds of nothingness that make for comfortable, wonderful friendships, and generally avoided thinking about departure. My last day in the shop was really tough. I realized that news of my departure never quite made it to the GM of the shop (because I am an idiot and didn’t tell him myself) and jammed in a quick phone chat with him trying to talk me out of leaving. Dom and I were in the shop together Sunday and he spent the whole shift teasing me and trying to talk me into staying. A bunch of us went out for drinks after work as a farewell to Matt (one of my coworkers who’s also relocating up here) and me and I got really mopey and distant. With departure impending, I wasn’t feeling at all ready to go.

Simon, Braedon, Helaina, me and Dom on my last day! Definitely almost cried when this was happening.

I took more solace than I should have from the fact that I needed to chase down some car info before I could leave town (short version: the dealership that sold me the car in December didn’t actually have possession of the title to sell it to me, which I only discovered when I tried to update the registration. And then they proceeded to give me the run around for two weeks). I used that task + pre-departure errand running to delay by a day but over the course of all that running around (needed to buy dry goods, a vessel for storing emergency water for the drive up God forbid I should break down and get stuck in the desert for any length of time, had dinner plans with Nat and Mick, etc.) I realized that I was ready. Or ready enough. I was gonna just do it. So I did.

Left Tuesday at noon (because obviously packing didn’t get finished Monday because, hello, I’m Kate Moran) and made it to Geraldton before deciding I needed to stop for the night. Slept in my car (thanks, Grant, for my self-inflating travel mattress! It works like a charm!) at a homestead campground for, like, $10. 

Next day I touristed around Shark Bay (an emu ran across the road in front of me as I pulled off the main highway into the area, and then saw two baby sharks within 15 minutes of wandering out into the water – so cool!) and got most of the way to Carnarvon before stopping at a particularly nice rest stop to camp out with all my fellow cheapskates (honeymooners and backpackers) in their camper vans. 

First wild emu sighting!

Since Tessie and I are traveling together I figured we should take selfies together, too. She got me down to the beach with panache. 

Shark Bay

Second wild bush chook sighting! (bush chook = rural area chicken = emu)

Bricks are all made of seashells that naturally compressed at a local beach made entirely of shells!

Closeup

The aforementioned Shell Beach

Tessie

Then Thursday I was up to catch part of the sunrise and get rolling before the flies started doing their thing in earnest. 

Sunrise at the cheapskate campground

Made it north!

Ant hill? Termite mound? Unsure, but they were EVERYWHERE on the road into Exmouth.

Seriously, it looked like the poop emoji was just scattered across the landscape.

I poked my head into Coral Bay for a snorkel (reef structure just 50m off the beach!) and then had to get on to Exmouth for an interview at 2:30pm. The shop I interviewed with seems pretty cool, I have to say, and having a connection here through Wes (he and Nikki lived up here for years, so his name has opened doors for me, bless him) definitely helped. Wes also put me in touch with a manager at a local bar, so I popped in there for a cold one and a chat, so again, his named opened up a door and I’ve got that interview in a few hours. If either of these work out, I’m gonna owe Wes a carton of beer. After doing my networking for the day and booking a bed at the local hostel, I sniffed out the two micro-breweries in town (surprised?) and chatted with folks at both.

I’m not good at change. I crave stability. But I also left all the stability of home to move across the world and try new things. Got myself settled in Perth and now I’ve upended that, too. Now I’ve moved to a new town with no job, no housing, and 2,500 residents. Yesterday was really hard. I texted a couple of friends to tell them I’m worried I’ve made a mistake, but I am also trying to remind myself that patience is a virtue that I’m never gonna get a hold of if I don’t practice it. Bless them, they all encouraged me to suck it up, buttercup, and reminded me it will get better (except Wiebke, who volunteered to come and rescue me because she is a gem). Making connections with people yesterday, however tenuous, made today feel a little more secure. Chatting with people at the bars was fun and felt normal. Asking how to apply for work felt less natural but was made easier by the laid back attitudes of people here. They were gracious, though several mentioned that they’re fielding lots and lots of emails asking about jobs. I spent this morning wandering along a beach that turtles nest on, beating away the flies and hoping that I can learn to get used to them. I’m trying to remember who I am: an upbeat, happy person with resiliency and curiosity and drive. I’m trying to forget that I didn’t sleep so hot (the dorm room at this hostel was super clean, didn’t smell, had really nice girls in my room, but it was still a dorm room), so I’m a little tired and cranky, that I’m nervous so I’m probably acting weird, that I can’t believe I left a stable job with an amazing community of people down in Perth (I’m starting to sound like a broken record). But it’s hard.

These two little nudges were looking for food handouts

Tried centering myself at the beach. Jury's out whether it worked, as this emo post aptly demonstrates. 

Since I started writing this post, I got a call from the dive shop inviting me out for basically a test day tomorrow. I’ll go on the boat, get a feel for how they do things, and start getting to know the staff. It’s the real interview, I’m sure, to make sure I’m not a psychopathic serial killer. I convinced them at Perth Scuba, so I’ll just do it again here. What I need now is a hot cup of tea (and probably a nap, but that’s a little trickier, not having housing), an attitude adjustment, and to talk a guy into hiring me at his bar despite having zero experience working in food service (unless the hot dog booth at the St. Denis Fun Fair circa 2002 counts). Wish me luck!

Southwestern Roadtrip Round 2

Y'all, one trip down south with Wiebke just wasn't enough, so last weekend we did another one. (Can I just reiterate, so that there's zero confusion, that I am SO HAPPY/LUCKY/GRATEFUL/PUMPED that I have made two lady friends here like Wiebke and Nat. The happiest/luckiest/gratefulest/pumpedest!)

After Road Trip One, Wiebke and I were pretty on the same page about travel style. But this one it felt like we spent the whole trip high fiving each other to celebrate one of us saying the exact thing that was in the other's brain. ie: "girl, screw coffee - let's just stay at the beach all morning" ie: "yo, man; screw the beach - I need some caffeine" ie: "caves are cool and all, but I'd rather pet sting rays at the beach". etc. Synchronous traveling for the win!

So anyway, we rolled out of town on Thursday morning with a plan to take in some more southwest coast and also to look for farm work for Wiebke so she can extend her visa for a second year. For all sorts of reasons that ended up being a cluster, but it didn't stop us from doing all sorts of cool shit (*stuff, sorry Mom!). One of Wiebke's friends from a crappy backpacker job she had doing door-to-door sales needed a ride down south, so we collected Leah from Fremantle Thursday morning before heading out of town. She's a sweet girl here on the same visa as us, but girlfriend is doing it at 18. So brave! We agreed that neither of us had our acts together enough circa 2008 to be able to move across the world and just do this visa thing. So anyway, Leah came along for the ride and we spent Thursday scooting around Margaret River connecting with various vineyard staffing companies in hopes of finding the girls some work. Not a whole lotta luck, but we wrapped things up in time for happy hour, enjoyed our babe of a waiter at dinner (Boris the Argentinean surfer bro), and took in some open mic music at the local tavern. All in a day's work.

Margaret River street art

I've been eating all the figs off the tree at home (and feeling slightly guilty about it) and this William Carlos Williams poem pops into my head whenever I eat them. And then it was written on a chalkboard outside of a book shop in Margaret River! Sometimes I think the universe is actually speaking directly to me. 

Next morning, Wiebke and I carried on and Leah stayed behind to keep looking for work. We meandered down the coast to Augusta on the southern tip of the peninsula that Margaret River is on and scoped out the Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse, walked along some stretches of the most beautiful beaches I've ever seen, and promised each other that if she works out this second year visa, we're going to walk the Cape to Cape track so we can take in ALL of the coastal beauty.

Art at Surfer's Beach near MR. Not gonna lie, I thought this was an actual person with INCREDIBLE posture for a solid 10 minutes while I was sitting at a nearby tide pool contemplating the crabs. 

Augusta beaches

Near the Cape to Cape track, but not actually part of it. 

Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse

Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse

Beach at the start of the Cape to Cape. Unreal beauty. 

After Augusta, we popped back north a teensy bit to check out Hamelin Bay. We figured we'd continue east, and the highway in that direction begins just outside Hamelin Bay so it made sense. Obviously we ended up going back and spending the night in Augusta instead, because why would we do things the simple way? But I digress.

Hamelin Bay is a nature reserve and beach where various species of rays nest and happily live without fear of fishing. We passed Jewel Cave on the way (one of those moments where our brains were in sync - caves are cool, stingrays are cooler), but found the beach with no problems. So I had seen photos of people just chilling with their footsies in the shallows with sting rays and eagle rays and obviously wanted to scope out whether that was a real thing. Y'all, it is SO REAL!

NB: I realize that these photos don't look like rays, they look like black blobs in the water. But some of these little critters had bigger wingspans than me, easily, and just cruised along trying to figure out if we were humans who wanted to feed them.

Lesson: rays are cool, and given the chance to pet them in some beautiful shallow waters along the beach, do it. But don't swim over them like Steve Irwin did and get killed in a freak accident.

We spent the night in Augusta and watched the sunset from, and did an early swim in, Flinders Bay. Y'all, what a gorgeous spot. I felt like I was inside my guilty pleasure movie (Adore, with Robin Wright and Naomi Watts; don't judge) because there was a cool swimming platform to bask upon.

Picnic dinner at Flinders Bay

There were lots of cute retirees who do the early morning bay swim who all wanted to chat with Wiebke and me about our travels, and to help connect us with farmers for her farm work, and who reminded us several times not to tell too many people about how gorgeous Augusta is because it will soon be overrun. I mean, they're not wrong.

We did a quick nip into the Ragged Robin cafe for tea/coffee and then began migrating eastward to Pemberton. Let me tell you, Pemberton is not cute when compared to Augusta or Margaret River or pretty much any of the coastal towns we visited. It's an old mill town, so there's these beautiful wooden clapboard homes everywhere, and the rain line cuts right through the middle of things, but it was seriously like being in a zombie movie. On a Saturday afternoon I expected people to be wandering around, but we only saw folks in the town bakery (where we tried award winning vegan pies) and in the tourist center. I did not want Wiebke to find farm work there, but we looked anyway. Fortunately (in my mind), we were unsuccessful. But successful in finding pies!

The strawberry flan was bomb

I'm out of steam so we're gonna make this a two-parter. Part one: complete!