Hi all

Next morning then, and we were up and off. Now I don’t know I’ve actually mentioned this directly, but the weather is f***in freezin. And as we’re sticking pretty closely to the coastline it’s also blowing a gale most of the time. Time then to buy some winter clothes. Call me a wuss if you will but I’ve started dreaming of big fleecy jumpers and a pair of jeans. In Australia. Land of the never ending summer. We asked the woman at the front desk the best place to and she said Bunbury, so we went to Dunsborough. We no longer trust locals to give us any decent information whatsoever. This was a conscious decision after being steered wrong more often than Nicki Lauder.

In Dunsborough we quickly bought up a couple of fleeces (mine is white of all things, much to Mand’s dismay. But hey, it was the only one that suited me - I’ve since washed it with Mand’s brown fleece and it’s now has a nice kind of streaky look to it) and a couple of pairs of jeans. Anyone whose ever been shopping with Mand knows her compulsion to try on every pair of jeans she can lay her hands on. And so it proved even in Australia. She tried on every pair. Ad I do mean every pair. At one point she just grabbed every single pair on one of the rails, about 15 pairs, and disappeared into the changing room. Now the other thing about shopping with Mand is this. I have to run my eye over every single pair and give her an honest opinion. To me, a pair of jeans is a pair of jeans, especially after the twentieth pair. It wouldn’t be so bad, but whatever opinion I give her she instantly contradicts me. ‘Do you like the legs?’ ‘Yeah’ ‘I don’t’. ‘Which do you prefer, the first pair or the second pair?’ ‘The first pair’ ‘I prefer the second pair’. And the ever popular ‘Do they make my bum look big?’ ‘Nope’ ‘Yes they do, look...’. Why f***in ask then? And do you know what? In the six years we’ve been together we’ve been on hundreds of these little shopping excursions. And not once has she ever bought the pair of jeans (or shoes, or jumper, or blouse) that I actually like. But still we have to go through the whole charade. But I digress and eventually we were fully kitted out and ready to go get us some whale action.

We met Andy and Kimbers on the beach and pretty soon we were boarded and ready for the off. After half an hour or so the skipper tells us to be on the look out for whales and to shout if we see any and he’ll drive us closer. And it was yours truly who got the first sighting. That first sighting is a memory to stick with me for life. There, breaking the waves in the distance were two huge humpbacks, blowing air and gliding gracefully in and out of the water. It was f***in amazing. And with a ‘There she blows’ bellow to matey we were off in pursuit. I hate to say it, but I was mightily chuffed with the fact that I’d seen the first one. Captain Ahab eat your heart out. As we got closer their sheer size and power became more and more apparent. And pretty soon they were joined by two more, a mother and her calf. Stunning. Now this was good enough for me but then they decided it was time to dive. And with an almighty flap, their huge tails broke the surface and down they went. And I shot my bolt. I don’t know how many pictures I’ve seen of this, you know the classic picture of the huge tail looming up out of the water, but to actually see it just scant metres away made me want to just scream and dance. f***ing stunning hardly does it justice. I wanted to jump in and follow them. I’m deadly serious. Once again I got hit by that fear and fascination that comes to me every now and then and makes me want to know everything about everything and further more experience every damn thing on this planet. The fear comes from the fact that I know I’ll never be able to do it. Like I don’t have enough time. I love that feeling and hate it at the same time. It drives me crazy and is part of the reason I resent the fact that at some point I’m going to have to settle down working nine to life feeling unfulfilled and watch life pass me by. Or maybe I’m just a commitmentphobe. Or maybe that’s WHY I’m a commitmentphobe. Either way, the feeling’s there and every now and then something happens to fuel the fire. And those huge. magnificent, largely unknown beasts definitely fall into that category. We motored around with them for a few hours and to be fair I wasn’t overly gutted when it was time to head for the shore. Although the feeling didn’t ebb, the desire to stand around in the cold for twenty minutes to catch a twenty second glimpse of them did. After that first visit where they stayed with us for a good quarter of an hour, their inquisitiveness wore off and they simply went about being whales, which means coming up for air and diving God knows how deep. A cool thought but not much to look at.

The four of us headed for coffee back in Dunsborough and then headed off back to our respective campsites. Predictably me and Mand headed the wrong way down the one road to and from Dunsborough and after turning round we drove past Dave coming the other way. With a cheery, if slightly puzzled wave we whooshed past them and headed back the right way. The next day promised the drive down to Margaret River, stopping off at a couple of Aboriginal caves and cultural centres along the way, before meeting up with the Davettes and the day after doing some serious wine drinking - sorry, tasting, wine tasting - in the surrounding vineyards. Woo hoo.

Laters all

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