ideas for cheap stuff

Well how’s it going lads and lassies? I’m back in Hillarys after a few days in town with the girls. Sorry for missing your call yesterday Skin’n'Blister, shall be on to ya this evening. Oscars were on tv here last night. I wonder what wonderful job Lids has picked out for herself. Her professed aspiration on a prior Oscar occasion was to be a waitress at the ceremony, I’d say she’s now after the job of aiding the presenters and awards winners or some such position. Ah to have dreams. Dee’s sister Laura was here for the last few days but should have left this morning for the north of Western Australia. I only realised that I hadn’t a picture of her for the website till last night. So we took one while internet action was going on to prove to the parentals that the sisters actually did meet up. Anyway, a bit has gone on since I last posted. Tuesdays’ are the new night out for LTD, mostly cos the girls get a bar tab to get stuck into at the Hip-E Club in Leederville, which is only a stop away from Perth main train station. I tagged along with them for the first time last Tuesday, we had lots of company from mates’ of Dee’s Denise, Elaine and Lisa, and general hostel tag-alongs generally. The night doubled as a farewell shindig for Craig, whom the girls took over the management job from. As the girls have already said the free hot-dog and drink upon entry are both winners, I truly do love free or cheap stuff. After the initial free stuff though, the combined bar-tab, and my win of a bottle of champagne, ensured a successfully messy evening, with oodles of dancing. We really found it hard though to get that Dee one down from the podium. Maybe the air up there was purer. Twas late to bed and early to rise as I got a call in to work at reception for a company in the city. I really am delighted to get called in at any time. Tis great to get work as it provides mullah for the future and stave’s off the inevitable over-spending or eating. Had a grand easy day of it and had this guy who rung back 3 or 4 times to speak to someone but then proceeded to keep me enthralled with more stories of rugby, Aussie rules football, Geraldton and Western Australia in general. Had another 2 days of full-time work before the long-weekend, so that made me happy. On Friday evening I dropped in to have dinner with the girls at the Hare Krishna restaurant in Northbridge. Ya can’t really beat an Indian flavoured meal for $2.50 AUD, which is roughly 1.55 Euro.
Saturday was hot hot hot here, actually every day for the last few days has been that way. I did as little as possible, Gerry brought me for coffee and cake though, which was great and Kasia took her first driving lesson, which has improved her driving confidence tenfold. Won’t be long till she’s zooming around all of Oz after us! Kasia was going to a hen’s party that night so I went in to stay with the girls and thereby have it easier getting around to my early morning day-trip departure at 07:30 on Sunday morning. There was an offer to go sell roses in Northbridge on Saturday night but I would’ve been too bollixed on Sunday, really thank god I didn’t do it cos it was a seriously long day. Before I got on the bus I got chatting to a Kiwi by the name of Stephanie. Steph and I bonded as both of us are witty entertaining young ladies and we were both the youngest people on the day-trip. Its a funny thing the way that if you meet someone on a bus/train/aeroplane, etc. and you get on well with them and are having a laugh, those around you usually assume that ye are related or are best friends. Always cracks me up but I’m sure I’ve assumed the same. As Dee always says Steph and I were new best friends that day. So the tour itself took in 800km of road so you can all assume that there was a lot of driving done that day and same same no different views out of the windows. However, a companion always makes the day go faster so I found the tour excellent. We stopped off in a small quaint town called York, which was the first place in the Wheatbelt of WA to be settled. A cute town, pity I scalded my tongue on the coffee I bought though. Next stop was Hippopotomos’ Yawn, a cave shaped like a Hippo’s yawn (wait till ye see the pictures, it really does look like it), where Aboriginal women traditionally went to give birth and no men were allowed near. Then we had lunch and I tried lobster thanks to Steph. Its somewhat meaty for a hard shell. Don’t think I’d be getting it again. Much preferred crab. Also tried caviar, and that is probably the most fishy spec of anything you could ever eat. Steph didn’t warn me before I ate 10 bits of it, she’d only tried one. Oh yeah, there was the amusing point where when I was trying the lobster first I dipped it in a cup of what I thought was sauce, which in fact turned out to be Steph’s hot chocolate. Yes, I know, I’m a muppet, but in actual fact it tasted better with the hot chocolate than with the real sauce!
After lunch and burning my tummy off a steel railing while washing my hands, we all stepped into the scorching hot sun and made our way to Wave Rock, the main stop on our day-trip. Wave Rock is known as Kattakish to the Aboriginals and their Dreamtime tale tells how it was created by the Great Woggle, a sea-serpent that came in land and by going under and over-ground created the hill of York and some lakes as well as Kattakish. Kattakish is meant to be the imprint of the Great Woggle’s body laid in to the rock. The geographically sound, yet less entertaining explanation for this formation is volcanic action along a great fault line, which one can still see along the rock face in parts and along the top of the formation as lines in the ground that look like train-tracks. This was a sacred place where for 2 months of the year, an actual season to Aboriginals there are 6 seasons, tribes from the north, south, east and west came and gathered here to trade and do other business. It was also near here where boys would go through their warrior training to become men. While on top of Kattakish one of our guides sang us an Aboriginal welcome song for us, after he said it this ould lad piped up, “Oh is that what you sang before you ate the white people?”, he obviously thought it was funny but our guides didn’t really take it that way. Anyway, the rock is beautiful and oh so massive. Twas great to see it and hear the stories, however we were very glad to get back to the cool of the restaurant and shop as the rock amplified the heat so it was up in the late 40’s around there, and it was a well needed escape from the flies. After we shared a Toucan, my very favourite ice-lolly here in Oz, Steph and I went for a walk around the wildlife area behind the restaurant. I was looking at all these exotic bird and taking pictures when one scared the living shite out of me by piping up, “Hello”. It then proceeded to say, “How are you?” and “Let us out” but weirdest was when it laughed after me. It then got a bit excited so I perused the rest of the cages and saw kangaroos, koalas, emus and most adorably these 2 wombats fast asleep.
Then we headed for the Humps, yeah I know like the song, anyway there we dropped in to Malkos’ Cave. Here we were told the tale of an Aboriginal named Malkos the Terrible. He was the product of a disallowed union between 2 tribes. The mother’s tribe told her that the child would be cursed but when the child was born he was seen to be big and healthy so they accepted both mother and son. When it was discovered the son was cross-eyed the mother and son were sent away from the tribe and went to live alone in a cave. When Malkos had grown up he was taller and bigger than any other Aboriginal of his tribe and the surrounding areas so the tribe decided to accept him to hunt with them. However, as he was cross-eyed he couldn’t hit on target so they stopped asking him along. Then his mother grew tired of living alone with Malkos in the cave and she too left him for the tribe. As Malkos could not hunt due to his disability he began to starve. When his plight was at its harshest he took the only avenue left to him that he could think of and he began to steal babies from the village and cannibalise them. At first the villagers thought that it was dingos but when they figured out it was Malkos his mother went to scold him and then, guess what?, yep he ate her too. Finally, the tribe came out and took revenge on Malkos, killing him, and now Malkos cave is cursed so no Aboriginals will go there. In all fairness though, I felt sorry for Malkos, I mean everyone deserted him, what did they really expect him to grow up happy and sane? Anyway, within the cave there were some minor Aboriginal drawings and hand-prints, which would have been used as signatures.
The next part of the tour was over unsealed roads. I sat up next to our ex-Swiss driver in the front to get a better view and saw kangaroos, blue-tongued lizards, horny-devils, etc. Twas great to see some of the real outback, yet really weird to see no houses for miles. Our final stop of the day was at this little town of about 18-21 people called Babakin, where we had afternoon tea and tid-bits. Was really cute stop. Can’t imagine living that life though. Steph and I had a good natter on the bus back to Perth. She cracked me up when she told me that when arriving in to Australia she actually tried to declare her first aid medicine bag, to make sure she hadn’t accidentally taken in too many paracetamol and re-hydration packs. What a loon, eh? Ah Steph, hope ya enjoy your time with your sis in Busselton and remember to keep taking those multivitamins before ya get to London, otherwise ya won’t be able to handle the Kontiki tour. Only got back to Perth at 20:45 so I stayed over with the girls again. The tour was great, even though it was expensive. It cost $147AUD, which is roughly 90 Euro through Pinnacle Tours (the only tour company I could find that did a tour out there, no competition, no good), without lunch, however I could find no other way of getting even near there without my own transport. The only bus that goes to the town of Hyden near-by leaves Perth on Tuesday and comes back on Thursday. Ah the joys of travelling in Western Australia. Laura had been to Rottnest that day and I’m more determined than ever to get there for an overnight stay. Sounds simply the best. I’ve really got itchy feet now for getting back on the road after the weekend. Wanna try get some things in this week like Rottnest, the aquarium at Hillarys’ Harbour (meant to be the best in the country besides the glass tunnels in Sydney) and a Torchlight tour at Fremantle Prison cos I just so don’t want to leave it all till the last minute and I’m thinking of heading to Margaret River or Donnybrook on Sunday for 2 week’s work. Think it’d be a laugh to do something different, plus still not getting even 50% work here in Perth so it’d keep me off the streets.
Oh thanks to Nicky Nea for my first card for Paddy’s Day. Ryan looks so cute in the pictures. Especially love the pudding one with the pudding hat on his head! Hope all is well with everyone. We’re off to the Hip-E Club tonight so I’m sure we’ll have stories for ye all over the course of the week. The girls were a bit sickly but even though Dee is only on the mend she’s all up for it.