Monkey Mia Day 1

Aussie word of the day: bickie, short for biscuit = cookie, "Eating bickie's for brekky can make you sick."

As you may be catching on, Aussie slang is one of a kind. I've never known anything quite like it and before you know it, you end up with sentences like this one: "In the arvo last Chrissy the relos rocked up for a barbie, some bevvies and a few snags. After a bit of a Bex and a lie down we opened the pressies, scoffed all the chockies, bickies and lollies. Then we drained a few tinnies and Mum did her block after Dad and Steve had a barney and a bit of biffo." Ask me to interpret and it may take a few minutes, but the whole point is, Aussie slang is clearly it's own language and the poor folks learning to speak English in this country... well, good luck to 'em is all I can say. It's a bit of a mystery even for us native English speakers. I actually had lengthy conversations with some Swiss Germans, a Spaniard, and a Belgian last weekend on my tour to Monkey Mia about how hard they are finding it to learn English in Australia. I told them they should have learned English in America, at least we speak slower than Australians. But then again, I am biased.

We headed off on the first day of our little jaunt up the coast of Western Australia into the northern countryside and then the outback in a little blue bus called the Beach Bus. Fourteen foreigners, mostly Swiss German, and myself, the only American and native English speaker other than the tour guide, would be smushed together in this cozy little bus for four days. We were guided by the amiable, but sometimes strange tour guide, Cleggy, who turned out to be as equally knowledgable about astronomy as he was about the bush country of WA. His knowledge of astronomy lead to a wonderful lesson in stargazing on the final night of the trip, but more on that later. Cleggy is a self-proclaimed free-spirited nomad who simply loves to travel. He has been working as a tour guide for 8 years, but admitted that coming on 32 it's getting time to settle down a bit and plant some roots. Yeah, right, is all I could think. Hasn't anyone told him free birds don't like to be caged?

We were off to the Pinnacles to get lost in the desert. After a few hours of driving we stopped at a roadhouse called Billabong to stretch our legs and grab some nibbly's for the road. Stepping outside the bus, you could already feel the temperature had risen 10 or more degrees in only a few short hours. This was the same thing that happened driving south to Albany in September. Only a few hours outside the city and the temps had drastically changed. Soon we would be baking in the sweltering sun of the Pinnacles desert and infested with black flies.

We didn't actually get lost in the desert, but that's kind of how you feel when you turn off the highway onto a vast, sandy track that you can barely tell is supposed to be a path for tourists to drive on. It was definitely off-roading in the most literal sense and a dune buggy would have been more appropriate. The Pinnacles, as you can see in the photo above, are a natural wonder. Their creation began like all things natural and wonderful; during prehistoric times. Also, like many natural wonders they were formed by an aging process involving layers of stone being built up over time then eroded by water until you have the limestone pillars you see today. Some are pointy like mountains and others a little more phallic looking, but all are astonishing to look at.

After the Pinnacles, we took a brief lunch break at Jurien Bay (photo), where the black flies were aggressive, as one tour member described and relentless. It gives me goose bumps just thinking of the way they swarmed us, landing anywhere and everywhere on a person's body. The tour guide tried persuading everyone to take a dip in the beautiful blue waters of the bay, but, unfortunately, everyone was so miserable and distracted by the flies that they just wanted to get back in the protection of the bus and go. By day two, nearly everyone had purchased fly nets before going insane. Having your face protected from the flies seemed to make them landing on the rest of your body okay and the tour was a little more enjoyable. We loaded onto the bus and continued travelling on to a farm where we would be staying for the night in a 6 bedroom bungalow. We were fed a hearty homestyle meal and settled into the relaxing evening.

At some point in the middle of the night I woke up to go to the bathroom, which meant I had to go outside... in the dark... on an unfamiliar farm in bush country where wild things like giant poisonous snakes and rabid dingoes are hunting for stray animals and whatever else might be lurking around.. like me! Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! This was all of a sudden reminiscent of a time at girl scout camp when I had the same fear of walking to the latrine in the middle of the night by myself. However, I'm pretty sure the dangers in the woods of Missouri aren't quite comprable to those of the outback in Australia. But I had no choice, it was risk my life or wet myself. I'm glad I decided to go with the first option. As I opened the door to walk into the dark abyss what to my wondering eyes should appear peeking just above the horizon directly in front of me was the Southern Cross, the star formation found on the Australian flag. Until this very trip I didn't even know it was an actual constellation in the sky, so I was, at once, astounded and thrilled and feeling quite lucky to witness this, especially because I am no expert in astronomy and it is usually not so easy to discern one star configuration from another. But there it was, a magical moment indeed. That magical moment was short-lived, however, as my astonishment quickly dissolved into fear because the Southern Cross actually sits upside down in the sky at this time of year and you know upside down crosses usually equate with evil, boogeymen, demons and such. Here I go again. So I quickly turned and scurried toward the toilets and then back to bed without so much as a hoot owl beckoning in the dark.