Hi all

So we arrived in Bunbury and headed straight to the Dolphin Discovery Centre there to find out about dolphins (no s***) and to maybe get the chance to swim with a couple of these beautiful creatures. Imagine our surprise then when we were confronted by a bunch of males intent on gang rape. This is no joke. These guys desperately try to catch a female on her own (sometimes effectively kidnapping her if she’s with a bunch of friends) hold her against her will and have sex with her repeatedly until either they get bored, she escapes, or another stronger group comes along and steals her off them. That, in essence, is the mating ritual of the dolphin. Something the new-agers fail to mention in their adoration of these violent and often over sexed creatures. On the plus side though, they do fend off sharks occasionally and have been known to carry people to safety. I guess as long as you’re not a female dolphin you’re a-ok. We learned this while gate crashing a school’s visit and sneaking in at the back to watch the DVD they were being shown. Cool. Beats the Mary f***in’ Rose that’s for sure.

We wandered outside to the shore and there they were. Not 10 metres from the sand, three adult dolphins and a calf. They looked sensational. And as we stood and dithered over whether or not the dolphin police would shoot us if we waded in to get a closer look (or indeed the girls would be subjected to some kind of weird fetishist aqua sex), they splished and splashed their merry way round for a good five minutes or so. Needless to say as soon as I ran off to get permission to go in with them, they f***ed off right sharpish. Nuts. But they were beautiful. And sleek. And all the other things I’d heard they were. With this in mind we decided to come back the following day and have a go at dolphin watching from a boat. Cool.

Next morning saw me and Mand leading a slightly reluctant Kimbers and Andy back to Bunbury. Us being us, we immediately turned the wrong way out of the campsite and headed in the wrong direction for ten minutes until Dave managed to catch up and the Davettes told us the good news. Apparently they’d been flashing us since we left the campsite, but as I was driving this proved to be of little use. A quick u-turn later and we were going back the right way when Dave pulled up alongside us and Andy and Kimbers shouted that they’d decided not to come, but would instead head on down to our next port of call. Dunsborough.

Me and Mand cracked on and actually arrived early, much to our surprise. Not that it mattered, because a couple of Japanese tourists held the boat up for nearly half an hour before getting on and not even bothering to apologise to the captain. But we were all good and off we set. And had the most amazing time as a couple of schools of dolphins played and dived around the boat. They really are amazing creatures, crazed psychopaths or not. I wouldn’t say I found it particularly spiritual but it was a beautiful sight and strangely alluring. A bit like watching seventies porn. We also saw a load of cormorants camped out on ‘Cormorant Rocks’. These rocks had so much cormorant s*** on them, they looked like the snowy peaks of the Alps. And the smell was enough to strip the enamel from your teeth and negate the need for nasal hair plucking for weeks after. Well for me anyway, Mand still has a fair old tash coming on. Like a spider crawling out of a hole :o) We had such a good time though that we decided to book the whale watching from Dunsborough for the next day with the same firm. The ten percent discount had nothing to do with it...

Now on the way down the freeway into Bunbury we’d passed a sign for a gemstone museum. Feeling the need to enhance our knowledge of rocks (who doesn’t every now and then?) we decided to drop in. And I for one am absolutely 100 percent glad we did. The place was just some bloke’s house that he’d turned over to his rock collection and there were stones from all over the world, and some from beyond. Rocks from the moon, rocks from the sun(?), meteorite fragments, comet fragments, as well as just about every kind of rock you can imagine (for me that was about four). There were also gemstones both in their natural state and the cut and polished kind. Rubies, emeralds, opals, diamonds, as well as gold, silver, platinum, iron, tin. The list goes on and on. But by far the biggest gem of all was Heinrich, the bloke whose collection it was. The man was off his rock-er. He must have had rocks in his head. Ok, I’ll stop. I have never before met anybody who is quite so into anything as this guy is into rocks. Except maybe Johnny and Mr T. His enthusiasm is truly infectious and I found myself agog (I guess you could say in ore - ok, that’s it I promise) as he told us about where the rocks had come from, how they were ‘made’ and a million other nuggets of information too numerous to mention. Throughout it all, he kept making the worst jokes ever and then grabbing my arm and laughing wildly. For example ‘Did you know they found fossilised cow bones on the moon? The cow obviously didn’t make it when it tried to jump over’ and ‘What do you get if you cross a cow and a kangaroo? A wooly jumper’. Sad as it is, it was impossible not to laugh along with him. And he came with us every step of the way. From when he came out of his house next door to open up the museum, he was with us. And he had a story to tell about virtually every stone you asked about. ‘That one? That’s from Mt Everest. My son in law climbed it but got altitude sickness and had to come back down before the summit. A week later a guy with artificial legs made it to the top. Now I say to him ‘what kind of man are you that a man with no legs can beat you in a climb?’’ followed by a maniacal laugh. Did I mention that Heinrich is originally German? Perhaps that explains the sense of humour. From then on he only referred to his son in law as ‘the bloke from Everest’ like he’d somehow disowned him. Quality. But I did learn something that truly surprised me. Asbestos is a natural rock. Or possibly an ore. But it occurs naturally. I always thought it was man made. Also, you can actually eat a lump of it and it wouldn’t harm you one little bit. It’s only after it’s crushed and becomes fibrous that it’s dangerous because then the fibres can get in your lungs. Now this probably seems obvious to some people but it made me step back. And not just because Heinrich was about two inches away and laughing like Al Pacino in Scarface. I don’t know why, but it just surprised the hell out of me. We spent at least two hours in here, being entertained and educated in the ways of rock and I have to say if we go back past it ever again, I’ll have another go round. Absolute quality.

We booked into another campsite and discovered that there was a drive in nearby. As it was Halloween we decided to get some fish and chips and go make out in the back seat of Priscilla, while watching a bunch of idiots get chainsawed alive or whatever. Just like some kind of Yank tv show. Alas it was not to be. After sitting outside the drive in for about half an hour, some guy pulls in behind us, opens the gates and tells us that actually they’re closed. They only open at weekends. Not even for Halloween? Nope, sorry mate. With heavy hearts and heavier bellies we headed back to our tent and phoned Andy and Kimbers to tell them we wouldn’t be meeting them tomorrow after all cos we’d booked on to the whale watching. Turns out they were booked on the same tour. Small part of the world this.

Laters all

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