I hopped on the Easy rider bus to see whom, but Helen looking at me with an amused grin. Hi Helen, don’t mind me I’m just stalking you. We set off and headed south, stopping almost immediately when one of our group got off to stay at the first town we reached. The Easy Rider being a JOJO (Jump on Jump off) tour this was normal but unexpected so soon after getting on the bus.
It wasn’t all fun and games, I had a little argument with one of the other passengers almost right away. I was talking to Helen and we got onto the subject of Heath Care which I knew little about in other countries, however I did know that in England it is abysmal, our government preferring to spend its money on paying an army to kill civilians in other countries than on proper pay for doctors that are overworked and without the needed resources. Anyhow once I announced my views to Helen the man seated in front of me turned around and began to shout, at first I was simply surprised, having no idea why someone was shouting at me. Then when I figured out what he was saying “you have no idea, your not doing anything about it, I’ve been through the war etc.” I slightly switched off realizing he was just a bitter old man wanting to blame someone else’s inactivity for all the suffering he went through. It was almost too much when he said, “have you ever killed anyone?” Strangely no, I haven’t killed anyone yet, its on my to do before 30 list but just haven’t got round to it yet. Perhaps when I do I’ll understand better how the health system and politics work?
After stopping for breakfast we stopped at Busselton to see the famous jetty, which has half fallen down so you cant actually do the mile walk to the end but is still quite impressive, we walked up and then back down and just happened to be standing in the right place to watch the Iron Man competition as it ran by. They looked shattered which doesn’t really surprise me as they had just done something very stupid yet extremely impressive.
Back on the bus and this time off to a beautiful little beach surrounded by trees and a large rock in the distance, we ate lunch, which in my case was a yummy gourmet sandwich and then on with the boardies for a swim, that was when I realized there was a big rock and picture opportunities. I didn’t quite get that far, I started running down the path and noticed that not only was it scorching hot in the sun, but it was also mostly sharp rocks. So slowly burned and quickly hurt. Great I thought and pressed on thinking ‘it cant be that far’ always an obvious sign that it will be a long way when you think that.
Eventually I decided I couldn’t walk back, it being too torturous for my precious feet, the only problem was I had a camera with me, which wouldn’t take too kindly to me swimming. The problem was solved swiftly by Helen appearing on the track headed back towards the picnic area, ‘take this’ I said handing the camera to her as I continued my odd hopping form of travel past and on to the rock. I made it but I didn’t have my camera. So it was time to swim back, having wasted my time getting here I resolved to at least enjoy the swim. Into the cold water I waded and my god it was gorgeous, the day was ridiculously hot and finally I was cooling down in clear, cold, wonderful water! The swim took a little while but eventually I made it back to the group, dripping and feeling rather exhilarated.
Our next stop was the Ngilgi caves where we stumbled about in the dark and at one point I got to crawl through an odd little claustrophobia-inducing tunnel. It was filled with odd sediments that shined funny colours when you put a torch to them, stalactites and stalagmites which I still get confused about, and some little caves inside the bigger caves, apparently some Englishman spent 3 days exploring them soon after the British occupation. Now you can do some of the tougher explorations in a day, all of it spent crawling.
Probably the most scenic part of the day was the next place we visited, a natural rock formation that created a channel for the tide. It was awesome to see the waves come in and I was quite tempted to jump in the water, only the roughness of it and my tendency to enjoy danger a little too much stopped me. We clambered over some boulders to reach an ideal viewing spot, then sat down and watched the waves roll in. After this we went to a winery.
Our final stop was the end of the Margaret river, divided from the sea by about 2 meters of sand. Where a dog was having fun running headlong into waves, it seemed that he was trying to rescue surfers or something, and some dude was doing pushups on the rocks, then switching to a different rock and repeating. The weird things you see.
After our fun packed and entertaining day we headed back up to dunsborough for the night, our backpackers was the YHA there, right on the beach which being a bay had almost completely still water, wrong direction for sunset though. It turned out they were doing a Barbie, of which I believe I had 2 steaks, 2 sausages and 2 burgers amongst a bit of potato salad and pasta etc. so I certainly got my moneys worth, well I say my money, I had to borrow it off Helen so really it was her money. Either way the food was great and I chatted away to my new group and met a friend of Helen, a Swiss lady like Helen, called Nadege, although she spoke French and Helen spoke German, or rather the Swiss variety.
Everyone went to bed but I just wasn’t feeling tired, and I really felt like a cup of fruity tea, naturally I didn’t have any, but I saw Nadege was up as well so figured I’d go talk to her. She then got up and made tea, fruit tea, I love moments like that; when you want something and you randomly get it in a way you weren’t expecting. We sat on the sofa and talked away about jobs and such like, and eventually started kissing. In a backpackers you don’t get much privacy, there was a football game going on in the next room with ‘intellectual men’ yelling at the TV. We stayed there for long enough to decide that we weren’t going to get any privacy, and then I went to bed. I lay down and decided I wasn’t tired. I got up again. Nadege was outside listening to her iPod, so I snuck up sat behind her and hugged her, figured it was nicer than shouting boo. We sat there for a while, listening to her music, and then we got up and danced. I attempted to remember and teach her how to tango, not very successful but it was fun all the same, and I bet we looked very odd to whoever was watching that couldn’t hear the music. Eventually I did go to bed and I tried to fall asleep despite the old guy who I argued with who was still snoring at a rather antisocial level, really you should get your own room if your going to stop other people from sleeping.
We all felt pretty elevated after this and next we headed just down the coast to Hamelin Bay, where there was other people. And apparently stingrays, which we didn’t really expect to see, so were naturally pretty surprised when we noticed a metre wide stingray floating past 2 feet from us. At this astounding sight we all got rather excited and began splashing about looking for more of them, we even touched them, being incredibly docile, to the point where I wouldn’t be surprised if someone had put something in the water. We could actually just stand there as they drifted over to us and glided over our feet. Then a quick climb up the rocks to take in the sun as it went down before heading back to the car and with a feeling like floating we drove back home.
