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The Simple Life
Week 9 – Emma had her own plans for the Friday evening but kindly donated her free bottle of champagne at the Claremont to us. (Always said we were Champagne Backpackers!) We quickly polished it off and followed it with a bottle of wine. Realising we hadn’t graced the Cott band with our presence again, we decided to put in an appearance. Lynne made a fabulous grand entrance, well if that’s what you want to call falling head first out of the people carrier taxi. She looked great – heel stuck in the taxi door, arse in the air, hands flat out on the pavement!! Lyndsay’s screams of laughter and the look of horror on the cabbie’s face helped Lynne’s embarrassment at this scene being caught by the diners in the glass fronted restaurant immensely…..But a quick flip of the bird and she was back on form again!
The laughter and embarrassment turned to disappointment when we found no hot band in the Cott but instead only a dozen other drinkers. We quickly skulled a vodka before heading to Subiaco. We spent some time in the Subiaco Hotel and the Lama Bar but it all gets a bit blurry. The highlight of the evening was definitely our drunken toilet cubicle photo shoot! Those photos will probably not make it onto the website hahahahaha……….. Our rumbling stomachs and drunkenness took over and we ended up home early after scoffing down a kebab and chips!!!!!!!! Still as classy as ever, huh?!
Having both woken up at 5am with the beginnings of major hangovers we popped a few paracetamol and prayed for a lot more sleep. The glorious sunshine the next day couldn’t temp us enough into the (what feels like) 100 mile trek to the beach so we opted for some window shopping in Fremantle followed by a boozy lunch. Alicia and Emma joined us later then we were invited to an impromptu bar-b-que at Murph’s place, with a couple of his friends. Our 1st bar-b-que of the weekend!
Sunday we met Mikey and drove over to Noel’s mums place to meet some of his family for drinks and yes, yet another Aussie Barbie. We had a great time and have been invited back for a little shindig before we leave Perth. We can see now how Noely fitted in so well – his family are just as much fun as ours!
A mind numbingly boring week at work followed. Lyndsay feeling a bit left out at Lynne’s Friday night taxi antics did bring much hilarity when she described her fall from the bus onto her hands and knees in a crowded central business district street. Yes, another arse in the air, handbag smacked on the back of the head kind of incident! She never likes to be out-done!
Week 10 – We were both relieved when Friday arrived and we could start our drive South for the World Championship Surf Masters. Emma had decided to give this weekend a miss but did kindly loan us her car for the occasion. The Red Rocket was built for cruisin’! Sharing the driving we were very proud to make it safely to our backpackers in Dunsborough less than 4 hours later and with no wrong turns. Unless you include getting lost in Fremantle and missing the turn for Mandurah (but we’re not)!!!!! The surf comp was in Margaret River but unable to find any unbooked accommodation there we opted for what we thought was the closest town. Turns out it was about a 40 mins drive away!
We’d just missed the bar-b-que at the backpackers but there was still a crowd drinking and listening to music in the outside terrace area so we decided to join them. With the shops all closed we had to head to the local pub to purchase our wine. Very scary experience! It was like the scene from an American movie – heavy rock band, pool tables, smoky atmosphere, and red-neck locals. It really was a scene from the Simple Life! Needless to say we didn’t stop for a drink, bought our bottles of wine and practically ran out the door! A pleasant evening followed at the backpackers, we were very civilised and drank only 1 bottle of wine between us and spoke to a fellow traveller from London. We were tucked up in our private double bed room by midnight. Brilliant bed, brilliant hostel. One of the best nights sleep we’ve had since we arrived in Oz!
Up bright and early the next morning we had a very pleasant, if not long drive into Margaret River. We were met by some stunning scenery, and this time we do actually mean scenery and not men, a packed beach, an area set up with TV crews, food and drinks vans and surfing merchandise. The waves were the worst Margaret River had experienced for 30 years but to us it made no difference. We saw real surfers in action for the 1st time, caught the woman’s final and soaked up the rays and atmosphere. Well ok, we did have a sneaky peek at some of the cute boys – well it would be rude not too!
Stopping off at the beach in Dunsborough on the way back we had a quick dip in the gorgeous calm, crystal clear waters. We hijacked a poor man on the beach who was enjoying the peace and quiet, to take photos of us whilst we frolicked in the water! Turns out he was English and had just moved to live there with his family. The water was so clear and flat it looked just like glass.
We’d decided to head back into Margaret River for dinner that evening. It did mean taking the car and drinking coke but we wanted to check out the local bars and hoped to meet some surfers. We got off to a good start when passing a warning sign for Kangaroos, we made a mental note to stop there in the day and get a photo of it. Clearly this didn’t impress the local wildlife as what did we come up against around the next bend……? Yup, a bloody KANGAROO! Not so cute now standing tall in the middle of the dark, unlit, country road, playing chicken and daring us to C’MON (Leyton Hewitt style!) Not a word was uttered as we took in the situation at 100k per hour. How we drove around it we’ll never know but it was like Schumacher through the chicane! At this point the screams came and Lynne was mightily happy that it had been Lyndsay in the hot seat! For once we really did warrant a glass or ten of plonk to settle our heart rate!
We had a gorgeous meal but that’s about as good as our evening got. Margaret River wasn’t as busy as we’d hoped. There were a few hot looking guys out and about but it was all very cliquey and we just felt a bit out of place. We ended up heading back to the hostel to drink another bottle of wine. We were entertained by 3 older Geordies (people from Newcastle for the Aussies reading), they were very un-PC and very funny.
We headed back to the surf comp the next morning to catch more rays and watch more surfing action. This day we did venture into the sea, what a laugh (although a little scary too)! With waves hitting us from about 5 different angles we were dragged backwards and forwards like little rag dolls. The finale was the washing machine like section when Lyndsay got caught in a rip and ended up swirling about curled like a bowling ball, crashing into a group of guy’s legs!!!!!! She took them out like skittles! Lynne couldn’t help any as she was doubled over with laughter. We’re so nice to each other! We seem to have a knack of pissing ourselves at each other’s misfortunes!
We didn’t stay at the comp too long as we had a long drive back to Perth looming ahead. Emma phoned us on the journey saying she fancied a few glasses of wine so we headed to the OBH as soon as we got home and polished off a few bottles. We all ended up pretty drunk and emotional about our impending goodbye but happily abused poor Rodders when we rolled in somewhat tipsy, playing “human blankets”!
A short, 4-day week at work followed with plans for our Easter weekend road-trip finalised. We did venture out on the Wednesday night to meet 2 of Emma’s best mates, Anna and Brad, who were visiting from Sydney, for a meal and a few drinks. A proper start to our weekend!
Week 11 – We headed off early the next morning for our marathon of a drive to Geraldton, our first port of call for the weekend. We stopped off at the Pinnacles en route (see photos). Very bizarre (in a cool way) place. Felt like we were in the middle of some Star Wars film. Sharing the driving the journey didn’t seem too bad and we eventually arrived at the hostel about 5pm. There isn’t much to see or do in Geraldton, it was really just a stop-over on the way to Kalbarri. Plus it was Good Friday and the whole of Australia shuts down! No seriously, it’s weird, even the pubs and petrol stations etc are closed! However, this did give us the perfect opportunity to get our wine opened by 5:30pm. The owner of the hostel was a young guy and all his mates were in the outside terrace drinking so we joined them for the evening. All nice guys but unfortunately no cuties. Lyndsay did strike up a conversation with a cute Swedish backpacker called Chris (who turned out to be only 21 – ARGH!) and stayed to chat with him when Lynne and Emma retired to bed at 10pm. The famous phrase of “one more drink” turned into several though and a very drunk Lyndsay appeared in the room at 1:30am. Her slurred predictions of “I think I’m going to be sick” certainly came true!!!!!!!!
Lynne thought it was a bit of an extreme measure to get out of driving duties the next day but it worked hahahahaha………… It definitely wasn’t Lyndsay’s finest hour! What should have been an hour and a half journey to Kalbarri took slightly longer with frequent roadside stops for the now dying passenger with the carrier bag of sick in the back. NICE! Being sick into the wind was not the kind of extreme sports we were hoping for on our road trip! Upon arrival at Kalbarri, a gorgeous seaside holiday resort, Lyndsay crawled into her bunk bed for a few hours while Lynne and Emma went for a wander, a spot of lunch and sussed out the evening plans with some of Emma’s mates who were also there for the weekend.
Lyndsay ventured out of bed mid afternoon (still slightly green!) and we all headed down to the beach to watch the 2 Chris’ (Emma’s mates) try their hand at sailing a mini catamaran. After watching quite a few others capsize we’d decided not to bother! After a shower and a getting ready session reminiscent of the Phi Phi Dream days (remember the Thai sauna for Weight Watchers escapees!) we headed to Emma’s mates rented house to watch some Aussie Rules football, and surprise, surprise have a bar-b-que and drink some wine. What will be even more surprising is that Lyndsay opted for driving and stuck to the soft stuff! Wonder what the matter was?!?!?!
Up early the next morning we headed to the Blue Hole for some snorkelling and sunbathing. Lyndsay, not content with contracting an infection from a mosquito attack the previous week proceeded to rip herself to shreds on the reef! Sounds worse than it is, no blood trails like a shark attack but tiny paper like cuts all over her body. Hurt all the same. No, Lyndsay wants to jump in at this point and say that she feels it was reminiscent of a shark attack and that it was BLOODY sore! She’s happy now that point is made!
Next stop was the Gorges, not too dissimilar to the Grand Canyon (only a wee bitty smaller!). We ventured down the first gorge but at 42 degrees at the bottom and with dirty little flies trying to buzz into every orifice it probably wasn’t one of our better ideas. The fact that some intrepid Aussie trekker decides to shout “they’ve only been sitting on Kangaroo s***, girls” didn’t help us to be any more at one with nature! The 2nd gorge, we were thankful to discover was much more civilised with a wooden viewing platform. Would’ve been an awesome place to throw a party! Or a romantic proposal as we got a bit carried away hahahahaha………..Yeah – keep dreaming girls!
A sunset ‘dolphin spotting’ boat-trip followed. It was great to be back out on the open seas again. Much to our delight we saw a few wild dolphins frolicking around the boat, got some local history on the cliffs, took some amazing photos and were chatted up by 18 year olds, with their parents, who were still in High School! Erm, sorry boy’s maybe if you looked a bit more like the young cuties on the beach and not some American rock high-school rejects we’d have obliged in some harmless flirting! But please note that they thought WE WERE ABOUT 19!!!!!!!
Having managed our way through a few vodka type tinnies on the cruise we were tanked up for a big night. Finding the seaside restaurant booked out we opted for the local fish and chip shop. The food was all freshly prepared so we spent a glorious few minutes chatting to real-live surfers whilst waiting. WHO-HOO……….. It was like a scene from Point Break. There were 4 of them, 2 also waiting for food and 2 sitting in the parked estate style car with all their surf boards piled in the back, all tanned, scruffy hair, board shorts, and bare feet. Catch our drift?!?! We were struggling for breath at this point! A bit out of practice on the man front now, we failed to follow up on any of their leading questions as to whether we’d be in the pub that night, whether they’d maybe see us there etc. The icing on the cake is the very hot blonde in the front leaning out the car window as they were just about to pull away saying “we’re staying round the corner maybe we’ll see you there for a party later”. Clearly they were bored with what they thought was our “playing it cool” attitude! We were so dumbstruck that we didn’t even realise what was going on till it was too late! Yeah good one girls your first opportunity to hook up with cute surfers and you just smile and giggle like little schoolgirls. Maybe asking where exactly they lived or saying you’d definitely be in the pub and would see them in there would have worked more in your favour. Duh!!!!! Lynne practically hyperventilated with excitement after they left, Lyndsay was in shock that HOT guys had spoken to us and were interested but you’ll probably have guessed by the tone of this paragraph that NO, WE DIDN”T SEE THEM AGAIN! The fates were against us – us acting like d*** , finding out there were two pubs, not one and both of them dead and shutting at 10pm and the rainstorm keeping everyone indoors. Lynne, disgusted, retired to bed about 10:30pm. It was the easier alternative than walking the streets of Kalbarri shouting “hot surfer men”, “where are you?” like she’d earlier suggested hahahahaha……….
Lyndsay and Emma were joined by 3 New Zealand guys and some of their mates, who now live just round the corner from us in Perth. Small world. Emma, having a bit more luck than the 2 Scottish shareens got the cute Doctor-come-surfer’s mobile number. We should have taken notes – Skip is too cool for school!
Monday we had to return to reality – long drive home, domestic bliss, work, work, work. We did go out for dinner on Wednesday night with Mikey, Andy and some others. Andy is definitely the hostess with the mostest! With his very own bar fitted in his sitting room we all drank some cocktails (especially prepared by Andy) and ate some nibbles. None of us were even that hungry when we reached the American style diner but it would’ve been rude for us not to indulge in a burger and chips!!!!!! Miguel was in fine form and it was a rare occasion that someone else stole the limelight from the two of us!
Only 2 weeks left in Perth now and our time is pretty much filled up with leaving nights. This weekend we have dinner with friends, a gathering with Noel’s family again and a trip to Rottenest Island. Next week we have countless meals / bar-b-ques planned and of course a final night of madness………Cause we’ve got to leave Perth in style!!!!!!!
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