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B-Fly: An Oz Blog

Friday, December 26, 2003

HOT! HOT! HOT!

I know, I know, I keep saying how much I love hot weather, so I really shouldn't complain, but I'm more of a low 30s (celsius)/80s (farenheit) sorta gal. ;-) Gorgeous day today - clear blue skies and hot in the shade...it's currently 6pm and it's 39 degrees C, or 102.2 degrees F. It is meatloafing HOT! :-D

This morning I went to Rockingham to see dolphins swimming in the wild and it was awesome. We saw heaps - unfortunately my digital camera is really not meant to take pics of moving targets! And my camera has also been misbehaving and it won't always take pics when I want it to - I have to turn if off and on again - I've got a method that works fairly well. So while my camera is not really meant for action shots, I think a few pics came out ok. I am bummed because all the tours that let you swim with the dolphins are booked until like Jan 13th (and i'm only here until the 31st of Dec) so I had to do the viewing only tour. We were right next to the swimming tour and I was so jealous that they got to swim with the dolphins, but now I know if I ever come back here, I have to book that tour before my plane ticket! ;-) The viewing only tour was still excellent - so relaxing and beautiful. The little girl in me is VERY happy. I started studying dolphins when I was about 8 or 9 and did science projects on how they communicate etc. Before I was obsessed with butterflies, I was obsessed with dolphins and I painted my bedroom in Springfield a pale blue (to supposedly be oceany) and my room is full of dolphin stuff, shells, starfish, sand dollars, etc. And up until I was 19, I was planning to be a marine biologist and a writer. The writer thing is still happening, but even though I don't want to be a marine biologist anymore (not right now, anyway!) , after seeing the dolphins swimming in the natural homes (and not at Sea World - yay!), it just reminded me why I was so obsessed with them. They're so beautiful, playful, intelligent. I want to study them again - if only in my spare time. So yeah, the morning cruise was fantastic - we saw heaps of dolphins, including a mama dolphin and her calf, teenage dolphins trying to mate (the skipper said that they were too young, but we're trying to have a go anyway - hmmmm, perhaps they have been watching too many Hollywood films or television - even dolphins are having sex earlier these days! Is it peer pressure? ;-) The beaches at Rockhingham are gorgeous - the clearest and prettiest water ever + I would LOVE to go back to Dolphin Bay one day and try swimming there as well - absolutely breathtaking!

Oh, and the mussels our guide made for us were FABULOUS! The tastiest mussels I've ever had! It was hilarious to watch the little kids competing afterwards, to see who could throw their mussel shell the farthest - and it was cool to be able to throw things out the boat into the ocean, knowing we weren't polluting it ;-) Oh, and that's another thing why I really dig these Rockingham Dolphin tours - they do not feed the dolphins and it's all very respectful of the dolphins. We're just their to visit. The dolphin swimmers all stuck together in big circles, so they weren't getting carried away, all noisy and all over the place. So yeah, no dolphin bribery - you just turn up where the dolphins normally are, and hope for the best ;-)

I just got back from Subiaco, which is this really cool suburb of Perth...not much was open as it's Boxing Day, but I found a chemist (my allergies are killing me and so I found some new stuff to try for hayfever etc) and the markets were still open and what did I buy? Two bags! I either have backpacks which are too big for just going to the park to do some reading/writing or purses which are too small - so I got these really cute and cheap bags that are just the right size for me to carry a book, my journal, wallet, sunglasses, keys, etc. My 'writing bags' ;-) The price was definitely right! I kinda ruined my last small backpack at the Homebake festival - it got stepped on and beer poured on it, so I saw these and was like "woo-hoo!" I was going to go to Kings Park after Subiaco - it is supposed to have amazing views of the city/river and I didn't get to go last year, but as I mentioned, it's currently 39/102 degrees here and I was dying in Subiaco and just got gelato instead of hiking to the Park! When I was walking down the street, in the sun, I kept imagining that I was actually walking on the surface of the sun.

Silly me, for some reason, I was obsessed with finding the Merchant Tea House - I was pretty sure it would not be open, but I just wanted to see where it was in Subiaco and I would get an iced tea or coffee if it was open. Don't ask me why I did not look at the actual address of it - I just looked at the guidebook map which said the corner of these two streets. Well, I just could not find it. I was sweating like a mofo and I was just getting annoyed with myself - I kept walking past the streets before and after the one I was looking for, but could not find the one I wanted! I was like, "is it in another dimension??? Do I have to be a wizard and not a muggle to see it? Is it like the Leaky Cauldron? Am I just a dork?" Finally I checked my book to see if there was an address. There was. So I went to it, STILL did not see the corner street on the map, and just started laughing when I saw that it was totally NOT the Merchant Tea House anymore. It was a closed photo place. I checked the year of my Western Australia Lonely Planet, which I recently bought. 1992. WHAT??? How the hell did I not check that? I was just making fun of Steve in Sydney last week for carrying around a travel book that was a decade old....ooops! Oh well, I was at least able to stop thinking about the stupid tea place and just treated myself to orange and blueberry gelato (2 separate kinds, it's not a new flavour combo.)

Tomorrow I leave for the 4-day Monkey Mia tour. It's the tour I wanted to do last year, but I ran out of time. Because I'd booked things on certain days and the tour only left on certain days, I couldn't go, so I'm making up for it this year!

Happy Boxing Day!







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