We're now in Geraldton, having made the 5ish hour journey up the Saturday after my work Christmas party (hosted at a yacht club, in glorious sunshine... nice, just shame I still don't really know enough people well enough to truly relax with all the free bubbly...!), and went straight to Coronation beach a few km north of Gero town centre.
We'd heard about Coro (yes everything has to be abbreviated) but on arriving you can see the appeal straight away - apart from the fact there was the most amount of windsurfers and kite surfers I've seen out on the water in ages (about 20ish at a guess) it is a lovely sandy bay with waves on the outside that are mostly gentle and playful, not kit-breakers. Ideal for me and still fun for Phil.
We've now been here 5 days and have had a couple of really good days, and some pretty light wind days where I've decided to punish myself by learning to tack. I'm terrible at it, and it turns me into a furious monster as it is the most frustrating sport in the world, I'm sure of it! Phil puts up with my tantrums pretty well as I guess he's lucky to have a wife that windsurfs... although maybe he's thinking now that's less of a good thing?! Either way, we've both realised quite how unfit we are windsurf-wise, and Phil also has a long term on-off bicep injury, so we've managed to get on the water for about 3-4hrs max each day but that totally wipes us out!
Christmas Day itself was certainly different from the norm. Woke up to a present in a stocking (a lovely necklace from Phil), then had a big fat bacon and egg breakfast... so far so normal except for the fact the bacon was BBQ'd. Then we went and lay by the campsite pool reading our books and sweltering in the sun, cooling off (i.e. rinsing the sweat off) in the pool, then back to baking ourselves. Phil has decided he doesn't like the sun... this could be an issue in WA! We headed to Coro for the afternoon and the wind was pretty light so it was just me on the water whilst Phil read (in the shade of course) - he's obsessed with Ian Rankin at the moment. He provided coaching tips from the shallows as well, which were mostly well received. I'm still no pro at tacking though and I feel that being able to turn around out back without falling in is a fairly essential skill in light of the whole shark issue... (Mum - only joking). Christmas dinner was, true to every cliche going, shrimp and steak on the BBQ, with olives, gooey cheese (we have no fridge) and sparkling wine (which we used the camping shop's fridge for), followed by plenty of chocolate and some more red wine to top it off. Totally delicious, but turns out a bit too much for my seawater-rinsed, overly sun baked self, and I was sick at 3am due to over consumption. Whoops. All in all though, a lovely day, but obviously missing some key components - family to share it with. Unfortunately we don't have wifi here either so had to stick with just a phone call which was a shame.
It now looks like the forecast for the next few days is a not particularly comfortable combination of no wind, hot, with probable thunderstorms. We're now therefore working out what we can do nearby as we've already paid up for the campsite until 31st December.
Anyway, time to sign off, got some tourist activities to plan!
Thursday 27 December 2012
Thursday 20 December 2012
Life so far
So, been a while! But we have been pretty busy so the weeks have flown by.
In summary, since we got back from lano, we have done the following:
1. Started work - me with peedubs (don't want this blog to pop up on anyone's radar at work!), Phil as a travelling salesman... without car or business card. I've been totally thrown in at the deep end - eg ended up working a 16 hour day yesterday... so trying to decide whether this is a good thing (ie get to prove myself) or not (er... I have no life). People seem lovely though and had a Christmas social already, with another tomorrow afternoon. Phil is finding it a bit slow at the moment but says "it's ok" (I just asked). The act of working hard has certainly helped us to feel like we've settled in though. Just need to work on the whole social life/friends bit...
2. I've bought a racing bike. It's very pretty. It even has clip on pedals, so expect some photos of scraped knees etc.
3. We've found a flat!! It took long enough, and hour after hour every evening trawling websites but we've finally found somewhere in cottesloe so are being royally ripped off I'm sure but we are only one road back from the beach. Excellent. Phil already hates the estate agent though.
4. Moved home again - this time we're in Fremantle courtesy of some very generous friends who are letting us house sit whilst they're in the uk.
5. Drunk lots of wine (work has turned us into alcoholics).
6. Finally put some photos up http://picasaweb.google.com/phil.cutter hopefully works!
7. Bought a new boiler for the Bristol house (poor tenants are apparently filthy and cold).
8. Looked at lots of 4x4s (pictures) and Phil has become very excited about getting a land cruiser now that he has a work car allowance. I suspect we shall be getting a bogan-mobile though (ford falcon) as they're the Aussie equivalent to a big sensible Volvo estate but with a bigger boot!
9. Failed to windsurf after work apart from yesterday when Phil went out but there wasn't much wind. The weather seems to be improving though so we've got our fingers crossed for Geraldton for Christmas (although we've been told we're crazy for wanting to camp in that weather! Ah well, mad dogs and Englishmen and all that...).
10. Enjoy the sunshine. Despite all of the hours of work and general life 'admin' we're still enjoying it here and it is just beautiful, and when the sun is shining it is an incredible place. Even when the sun isn't shining (we've had weird weather patterns for the last couple of weeks) you know it's not far away. Even the commute to work is relatively pleasant as I always get a seat and there are lovely views of the ocean for part of it.
Anyway just one more day of work left before we break for Christmas and although we've only been working 3 weeks it definitely feels like we deserve some time off! Moving countries etc takes it's toll!
Merry Christmas to anyone reading this, and keep in touch xxx
In summary, since we got back from lano, we have done the following:
1. Started work - me with peedubs (don't want this blog to pop up on anyone's radar at work!), Phil as a travelling salesman... without car or business card. I've been totally thrown in at the deep end - eg ended up working a 16 hour day yesterday... so trying to decide whether this is a good thing (ie get to prove myself) or not (er... I have no life). People seem lovely though and had a Christmas social already, with another tomorrow afternoon. Phil is finding it a bit slow at the moment but says "it's ok" (I just asked). The act of working hard has certainly helped us to feel like we've settled in though. Just need to work on the whole social life/friends bit...
2. I've bought a racing bike. It's very pretty. It even has clip on pedals, so expect some photos of scraped knees etc.
3. We've found a flat!! It took long enough, and hour after hour every evening trawling websites but we've finally found somewhere in cottesloe so are being royally ripped off I'm sure but we are only one road back from the beach. Excellent. Phil already hates the estate agent though.
4. Moved home again - this time we're in Fremantle courtesy of some very generous friends who are letting us house sit whilst they're in the uk.
5. Drunk lots of wine (work has turned us into alcoholics).
6. Finally put some photos up http://picasaweb.google.com/phil.cutter hopefully works!
7. Bought a new boiler for the Bristol house (poor tenants are apparently filthy and cold).
8. Looked at lots of 4x4s (pictures) and Phil has become very excited about getting a land cruiser now that he has a work car allowance. I suspect we shall be getting a bogan-mobile though (ford falcon) as they're the Aussie equivalent to a big sensible Volvo estate but with a bigger boot!
9. Failed to windsurf after work apart from yesterday when Phil went out but there wasn't much wind. The weather seems to be improving though so we've got our fingers crossed for Geraldton for Christmas (although we've been told we're crazy for wanting to camp in that weather! Ah well, mad dogs and Englishmen and all that...).
10. Enjoy the sunshine. Despite all of the hours of work and general life 'admin' we're still enjoying it here and it is just beautiful, and when the sun is shining it is an incredible place. Even when the sun isn't shining (we've had weird weather patterns for the last couple of weeks) you know it's not far away. Even the commute to work is relatively pleasant as I always get a seat and there are lovely views of the ocean for part of it.
Anyway just one more day of work left before we break for Christmas and although we've only been working 3 weeks it definitely feels like we deserve some time off! Moving countries etc takes it's toll!
Merry Christmas to anyone reading this, and keep in touch xxx
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