An hommage to Melbourne Cup Day

Hello all! It is Melbourne Cup Day today in Oz. It's known as "the race that stops the nation" because most Aussie's will be tuned into the racing events throughout the day. From their office cubicles they will be watching it on their computers or listening to it on their radios. Some will take longs lunches or the afternoon off to watch the races at a pub and place their bets on their favorite horse. I, on the other hand, will be doing other things with my time. I partook in the event last year. The horse I bet on came in 2nd or 3rd. It's not only a sporting event, but a fashion one too. Big hats and fancy frocks are what it's all about for the ladies, mostly young women. The papers will be posting race results alongside photos of the young women in all their finery as if it were a red carpet event. As an hommage to MCD, I am inclined to post a list of a few of my favorite things about Australia:

• Electronic bill pay, also known commercially as Bpay. This is the ingenious all electronic way to pay bills in Australia that everyone uses. So convenient and no paper trail!
• EFTPOS. Another ingenious electronic banking development, eftpos is an ATM card that also works to pay at stores not just to withdrawal cash from ATMs. People haven't used checks in Oz for years (unless you own a business).
• Paying less than $60 for four tops from Target, but that's just an I Love Target thing.
• Getting paid a 'living' wage. I can work as a PART-TIME receptionist/ waitress and actually support myself off my earned income.
• Mailboxes. I realized how conveniently designed the mailboxes were in Oz. They simply have slots that the mail is put into. The 'posties' don't have to spend time opening and closing the box to put the mail inside. I was thoroughly appreciating this fact yesterday as I was taking outdoor furniture flyers around the neighborhood for a friend yesterday and putting them into mailboxes.
• As always, the weather. Can't leave this one off the list. You will hear no complaints about the weather from me these days as it has fined up nicely and the sun is almost always shining.
• The men. This one was SM's suggestion. Seriously, I think Australia produces some of the finest looking dads in the world. In other words, there are some serious DILFs living in this part of the world.

There you have it. I'll leave you to it as I go out and enjoy this beautiful day... {still looking forward to spending Christmas in cold Missouri!}

Dear Julie Powell... and 2 seconds of spring is simply not enough

I'm back. I lost a bit of focus in the last few months. I started a receptionist job about six months ago and have continued waitressing on weekends at the French restaurant. Once I took the reception position (at a hotel) I took a hiatus from my job hunt and my blogging. I had hit a wall, but only a temporary one. My blogging spark was reignited yesterday by a wonderful movie I saw called Julie & Julia.

The movie Julie & Julia is based on 'two true stories'. One story is of a young woman named Julie Powell (Amy Adams) who is working in an unfufilling job and feels lost with her life and ambitions (that has me written all over it). The other story is of a young Julia Child (Meryl Streep, who could be better?) who also felt unfulfilled in her role as a houswife to an American diplomat while living in Paris in the 1950's and is trying to find SOOOMEthing to do with her time. Throughout the movie it feels as though the two ladies are living parallel lives, however, Julie Powell's life converges with Julia Child's as she embarks on a year-long quest to cook all of the recipes in Julia's cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking and writing about it in a blog. It was quirky and tender and so relatable for me as an aspiring writer who blogs. At one point in the movie Julie tells her adoring husband that Julia Child saved her because she was 'drowning' before her blog became a hit. I knew exactly what she meant.

I came home and promptly looked up Julie Powell's blog. Upon Googling her name it came up with her current blog called What Could Happen? Julie's original blog about her cooking quest was nowhere to be found and having been posted during 2002 it is probably lost somewhere in the vastness of the blogosphere by now. I read her current blog anyway. In the blog Julie writes about the triumphs of her book becoming a movie and the 'surreality' and glamour of the press surrounding the movie. She is charming, innocent, and refreshenly real... just like her character in the movie. She's just your average girl-next-door who has gotten really, really, lucky. If you are female GO SEE IT as soon as you can!

Dear Julie Powell,

I wish I were you.

Sincerely,
Kirsten Haydu

My other topic of today is springtime. My favorite season, but a very short-lived one here in Oz. I've been taking walks around the neighborhood and smelling the lovely flowers as their perfume drifts upon the afternoon breezes. I've never known a place with a more fragrent spring. Probably the best part about Perth in the spring is the smell of flowers everywhere, even driving down the highway with your windows down you smell flowers. It's amazing. It makes me want to stay in Perth... but then spring is gone as soon as it comes. Within a few weeks it seems like the weather has turned hot and sultry. Or it's cool and windy. The weather is fickle and can't make up it's mind what it wants to do. Should I leave the doona on the bed a few more weeks or put it away? I've taken a few photos of the flowers in my garden to try and savor spring a little longer. Everyone has roses in Perth so it was no surprise when we moved into this house that there are eight gorgeous rose bushes along the white picket fence at the front of our lawn. Here are a few of the roses:

And an illegally transplanted wild Kangaroo Paw flower that as you can see is evidence of how quickly the spring passes. It is already fading away. The colors when they first bloom are a magnificent ruby red and emerald green, now merely a washed out red and dingy green.

And in my blogging absence I have also been crafting a Mizzou scarf for my friend Gina's birthday.

It's been one of those days... or weeks... or months

Today I was making a mental list of all the things that have frustrated me lately. My cooking skills, for example, are at an all time low. This could be because I'm under pressure to cook a decent meal for someone other than myself now or it could just be that our oven needs to be serviced because it's not heating up properly. Yesterday, I whipped up some nachos for dinner. Chosen for its relatively easy preparation, one would expect a good outcome. I used a taco seasoning recipe from a friends blog, but due to a lack of measuring spoons I guessed at the spice measurements using regular utensils then proceeded to spoon two large tablespoonfuls of the taco seasoning into the meat. BIG MISTAKE! It was so spicy hot that we could barely eat it. I had obviously mismeasured the cayenne pepper and probably didn't put enough of the other spices into the mixture to offset it's spiciness. I had also decided it would be good to whip up some homemade guacamole. It was ok, but a little on the garlicky side which SM kept emphasizing. I had to run out to the shop to buy more tortilla chips and sour cream to offset the spiciness so SM could finish eating his dinner. As SM just verbally volunteered, "I didn't mind the taste, but my bum did."

Aside from my cooking misadventures, I've also had trouble starting my new knitting project: socks. Socks are complicated to knit. They require the use of four knitting needles instead of the usual two. I found an online knitting tutorial to walk me through the steps of knitting socks - great... but before I even get started I have to knit a swatch to check my gauge so my socks don't turn out too big or too small. That's where the trouble is. I've knitted several swatches and have not found the right sized knitting needles to achieve the right gauge yet... and I'm getting sick of knitting swatches. I just want to get started on my socks already! Finally, I think I've found the right size needles I need for one of the pairs of socks, but I can't locate the size needles I need in any stores. So I'll be ordering them online and that may take a week or more to get them sent to me and I need to have them finished to mail to the States in a few short weeks!!!

Last on my list of frustrations is the internet. We've only had our internet set up for about a week and I'm already angry with it. We can't seem to set up a wireless home network on the service we've had installed. It's one of those things where no one seems to have a solution for you that doesn't involve spending more money to get what you want. I spent most of my day off trying to solve this problem and still haven't found a solution.

On a high note, the weather the past few days has been beautiful and I managed to get outside to enjoy it yesterday. SM and I hiked to the summit of Greenmount - the hill we live at the base of. We walked about 5 kms up the hill and back. The view from the top was gorgeous and you could see for miles. Looking out we could see the airport and city....

... and our neighborhood (our house would be somewhere in the far left of the photo).

Greenmount was very aptly named as everything was really green and there was a beautiful trickling freshwater stream which SM had a drink out of.

I've also finished a few of my first knitting projects. The scarf for Charity's birthday....

... and daisy kerchiefs for her three little girls.

I was so happy when she emailed me to say how much she liked them. I knew I had chosen the right person to send my first knitting projects to.

Farm livin is the life for me!

Aussie word of the day: cheeky = ornary, mischievous. I think most people have heard this used in British TV/ movies as in "That cheeky bugger!"

Happy Birthday to Dad and Teagan! I'm taking a short pause out of my recent projects and job searching to tell you how my May has gone. Basically, I have been getting into the thick of farm life. After coming back to Perth, SM convinced me that I should get up early in the mornings to help he and his mum with some of the farm chores. I thought this was a good way to burn some calories while getting a good early start to my days so I happily agreed. For a few weeks we would get up around 6:30 a.m. and take trays of grassy looking barley from the fodder shed where they grow and store the barley. We chuck the squares of densely rooted barley onto the bed of the ute until it is piled nice and high, then it is distributed around the cow pastures. The cows LOVE this stuff... and the horses too.

After helping load the barley, I would walk the miniature ponies, Muffin and Murphy, down to their paddock. This is my favorite thing to do because Muffin and Murphy each have their own unique personalities. I would then walk back to the cow pasture to watch the cow babies being tormented by Fia, SM's mum's Lasa Apso {yip-yip, lap-dog}. The calves are very curious about Fia and sometimes follow her around the paddock as she runs between cow patties eating the cow poo and leftover bits of barley. Eventually, I got to ride around the paddocks with SM and his mum to distribute the barley. Then one day a new baby bull had to be castrated and tagged. I got out of the ute for this as SM took the calf down and the mom cow looked on in dazed, bewilderment as she chewed on her barley. After a while the mom cow hardly took notice of what was going on with her calf even as the calf starting mooing despairingly. That calf was a tough little fighter and struggled a lot in the process of being tagged, so I had to throw my whole body weight on it by laying across it's kicking back legs as SM held a firm grip on it's head and front legs. SM's mum thought the sight of me throwing myself across the little calf was funny.

Saturday, in preparation of doing a little photo shoot to post to this blog of the cows and me holding a new calf that was about to be tagged, drama ensued. We went down to the paddock in the afternoon while the cows were milling about not doing much of anything. Fia followed us and started tormenting the cows. The cows were quite alarmed by the little dogs presence and her being so close to their calves. They started mooing and walking towards her, then SM grabbed the bull calf that needed tagging. The mom cow, already upset by the dog, really starting giving hell when she noticed SM was holding her calf down. This did not bode well. Fia was running around SM and the calf and causing more excitement than necessary with the cows and the mom cow. Drooling and wild-eyed, the mom cow mooed excessively in desperation while circling SM and the calf. It looked like a very threatening situation to a small town girl like me who has never been so up close and personal with cows in all her life. SM had to let the calf go.

SM's mum got the dog away from the cows and went to get the ute. As she drove the ute into the paddock and SM went to grab the calf a second time to put it into the bed of the ute to tag it, another cow came running at me. I was walking up toward the fenceline to get away from the mob of cows that was coming toward the ute when I looked behind me and saw this great, big, brown, lug of a cow charging at me. I started running and got away while SM had a chuckle to himself at my stupidity. See, what I didn't know was that this cow that was running at me is one of the gentlest ones they have and probably she was running at me because she thought I had food as the ute is often an indicator of barley. At the time, however, with all the drama that was going on with the calf, I thought it was an angry mama cow coming to get me! Despite all this excitement, I didn't get any photos because my camera batteries were flat. Hopefully, the next calf will be mine and I will have photos to show.

And that has been the extent of my farmlife adventures so far. However, there is only a little more time for SM and I here on the farm as we will be moving into his new house in three weeks. We are looking forward to having our own place, but it won't be ours alone for long as we will be renting out some of the rooms. Paint and housewares are high on the list of priorities lately.

I'm still looking for jobs without much success. I've applied to around 10-15 jobs a week. I'm still working at my two hosptiality jobs and enjoying them both and the free time they allow me to look for other jobs. But looking for jobs unsuccessfully has been getting me down as one would expect which is why I began a free HTML/ webpage development course - I think I mentioned this in my last blog - and I have also started knitting. These two projects keep me distracted and entertained whilst being fruitful and lifting my spirits from the job searching doldrums. Last week I recommenced the long forgotten skill of knitting I learned in middle school. I have recently read a few cute, girly novels that emphasize the resurgence knitting has made in the last few years and I was inspired by these novels. The novels follow the young female characters lives whilst intertwining the knitting concept with the characters bonds. Young women around the US have taken to the needles and yarn once more and it has become quite the trend! A few weekends ago I joined SM's mum at the Perth Craft and Quilt Fair where I found the Stitch 'n Bitch knitting handbook and promptly bought it. This was serious! Since cracking the book open for the first time on Tuesday I've hardly been able to put the book or my knitting down.

Here is a look at the first six inches of my very first scarf done in garter stitch {and Chiefs colors}. I've already bought yarn and humongous fat needles to make a chunky garter stitch scarf too! One lucky reader will be getting the chunky one for her birthday {and no, it's not you mom!}

The winter weather has finally set in and the wet has begun. Aussies say there are two seasons in Australia - the wet and the dry. Couldn't be more accurate. It's time to put the doona on the bed. We are all doning our jumpers and uggies and we are dependent on the fire in the wood burning stove to warm the house. My foot is getting better... finally! I found out I have a stress fracture and now get to wear a stylish, little, black, medical bootie a la Gina's blue one she had after bunyon surgery... or was it black too? Anyhoo, that's all the news from Aussie land. Hope you all had a lovely Memorial Day "long weekend" as they say here in Oz.

Boo hoo! Sore foot, downtrodden heart, and other maladies

My Editor-in-Chief aka Dad is commissioning me to get a move on and blog something or else... I'm fired? Autumn is arriving in Perth. The cool, crisp air drifts among the gumtrees that shroud the Darlington Range which make up the Perth Hills. It greets us in the morning, filling our lungs with almost painful freshness and it creeps into our beds via sneaky drafts at night. But the flannel sheets and velveteen blankets are out and the ugg boots and pj pants are on as this familiar chill hints at things to come. It is only a warning for now because the days, shorter as they may grow, are still gorgeous and the weather is unseasonably warm. This time last year I was taking surfing lessons in unpleasantly windy, drizzly conditions. Tonight, as I write this, the sun is setting in warm, theatrical delight over Scarborough Beach, putting on a show for onlookers at the terraced lawn of Cottesloe Civic Center, bathing the clouds in a red and purple glow as it sinks behind Rottnest Island into the Indian Ocean.



My foot is wrapped in a tubular shaped ace bandage. Ah! Relief at last. As I made my way home to Missouri a few weeks ago, I had a stopover in New Zealand that left a lasting and wonderful impression of Auckland on me. Not only will I remember the cozy, quaint, New Englandness of Devonport in Auckland, the amazing city views from Mount Victoria, the Maori cultural exhibit and dances at the Auckland Museum and the desire I was left with to return someday, but my short time in New Zealand also left a pain in my right foot that has lasted almost six weeks! I don't even remember what it felt like to walk normally without any pain until today. Thank you ace bandage.



As for my heart, there is no bandage that can cure what ails it. Let's just say leaving Missouri at the start of a beautiful spring with two sobbing parents regretfully sending me back to Australia was the least favorite part of my trip home. I had such a good time being home and seeing all my friends that I almost regretted my return to Australia too. In addition, I have begun my job search again, both here and in the States. It is always a daunting and disheartening task. I have applied for temp work, admin, bank teller, magazine sub-editor, and finally, tomorrow afternoon I have an interview for a temporary part-time office assistant position which would make me a glorified receptionist. On the upside, the draw card for me at this job is that it is with a publication and I will be working with journalists, so it could be just the break I have been looking for. If anything, I will have a steady income even if it's only for short time and more money in the bank than what I am currently bringing in with my two hospitality jobs. I will keep you posted on this turn of events.



I also signed on for a "free" online HTML course today to learn how to design and create web pages. The more jobs I research the more I realize I want to work in the online environment, perhaps as an online content editor, producer, analyst, etc. My Masters thesis afterall was blogging - an as yet undefined journalistic product of the World Wide Web. It's in my bones. As for this "free" course I'm starting, I'm still waiting for the hitch. We'll see what tomorrow brings! See you then!

Bali Hai is calling

There are two ways to describe Bali, Indonesia. One way to describe it is as the ideal one that you see in travel brochures and commercials beckoning you to a paradise of 5-star resorts with infinity pools whose sparkling waters look as though they flow straight into the ocean. A Bali where Palm-tree sanctuaries surround a beautiful beach and crystal clear ocean waters. This is what the travel agents sell you, but it is not the Bali I met.

If you go to Bali buy the expensive accomodation package at a 5-star resort with a welcome massage and the ocean view because it would probably only cost you a few hours wages to stay there for a week anyway. One thing to be said for Bali is that it is cheap, but you also get what you pay for. Our little mini-luxury vacation only cost $US500 for flights and eight nights at the modest, but clean and resort-like Dewi Sri cottages. A pint of beer was about three dollars and a decent meal cost around five or six.

The Dewi Sri was tucked away in a back street off the busy, club-filled Legian Street giving it a cozy, nestled appeal that you wouldn't have had at a flash, luxurious resort on the beach. There was a small security gate and 24-7 guards, but unlike at the bigger resorts, the security guards didn't have little sticks with mirrors on the ends of them to sweep under every taxi that drove up despite the fact that Dewi Sri was only a few metres from the site of the 2002 Bali Bombings. The staff at the Dewi Sri were as warm and welcoming as could be expected at the open air reception desk and a security lock box was available upon request. Honestly, what more could you ask for in a place where you didn't know who to trust? Everyone is just trying to make a buck even if it involves framing innocent tourists for drug-smuggling and snatching humans from their beds to sell them as slaves on the black market. However, we still hesitated to put our valuables in a lock box the other staff could get access to.

The strong smell of floral and sandalwood incense hung in the humid air helping to mask the scent of sewage rotting in the gutters as well as acting as an offering to the Gods. Tiny tourist shops lined the streets and allies, every nook and cranny filled with hand-carved wood figures, sarongs, sundresses, t-shirts, canvas bags and purses, glass mosaic bowls and platters, jewellry, pirated DVDs, and sandals. One of the most popular wood carvings being penis shaped bottle openers and incense holders. One shop after another were all selling the same wares. If you couldn't get it for a good price at one place just go next door. From the minute we walked out of the hotel in the morning we were greeted by a constant barrage of enticements as we walked along the streets and allies. Women and men sat on the steps to their shops calling out to you, "I give you cheap plice," "Come in, have look!" "Hello dahling, you pretty girl." After the first day it became exhausting walking down the street saying "no, thank you," to every shop owner you walked past and we never felt relief from it until we were back in the quiet confines of our hotel.

Happy Australia Day! I'm off to Bali!!!

Aussie word of the day: prang = (car) wreck/ accident. "I hope I don't have a prang driving Josh's car."

Aussie phrase of the day: cotton on = catch on/ caught on. "He's cottoned on to the joke."

Today I am celebrating my second Australia Day and SM's birthday for whom I'm making a, hopefully, very delicious banana cream cheesecake... actually, it's more because I wanted to try the new recipe than because it's his birthday. This morning we were awoken by SM's dad at 8a.m. to join his parents and the neighbors for an Australia Day breakfast picnic by the lake. I meant to take a photo of Lake Leschenaultia but forgot my camera as usual. We had a family picnic there at Christmas as well. It's a beautiful little spot nestled in the wooded Chidlow area and it doesn't have snakes or snapping turtles so it's a great place to go for a swim. SM and I swam there several times over the Christmas holiday to try and keep the holiday pounds off, but he decided he was too unfit to keep at it - and I was kicking his butt. This time last year I was partying on the deck of my friend Grethe's posh city pad overlooking the Swan River and watching the Skyworks display. A rare opportunity since it is one of those incredibly busy events that people have to practically camp overnight on the river foreshore to get a decent spot.

This year I'm having yet another exciting opportunity on Australia Day... I'm going to Bali. Bali is a common Australian travel spot. It's only 6 hours by plane and in the same time zone as Perth. I'm looking forward to 9 days of hot, sweltering bliss... and maybe a bungy jump as well... it's all 'up in the air' (haha, pun intended). I'm hoping to indulge myself in lots of amazing seafood, fresh tropical fruit salads, a massage or two and loads of cheap shopping. While I am there I will apply for my Work and Holiday Visa so that I can stay and work in Australia for another year. I'm still looking for that elusive new job, the job of my dreams. In the meantime, I've applied to several different temp positions until I find what I'm looking for or a more ideal opportunity presents itself.

I also sold my car this week. SM was glad to help me unburden the load onto one of his co-workers - a desperate Irish guy so eager to get his hands on a cheap set of wheels he paid $300 more than what I bought it for and probably would have paid more. Now I'm driving SM's manual drive Toyota Camry. I've finally got the hang of shifting, but am still sometimes killing it at stoplights.

Here's to sipping Mai Tai's on the beach - or whatever fancy cocktails they make in Bali!

Going home... for now

April isn't very far away and as the months have been flying by, it's really just around the corner. I'm coming home for a few weeks at the beginning of April and am really looking forward to all the sweet sounds, smells and sights of Missouri in the spring. A few things I'm looking forward to are:

• Mojitos on the patio at Houlihan's
• Church with Dad on Sunday morning
• Sunday brunch at Country Kitchen
• The fresh way the air smells after it rains
• Endless amounts of chips and salsa at ANY Mexican restaurant
• A weekend trip to Osage Beach outlet mall with my mom

What are you looking forward to most about the spring?

Where have I been, Hyden?

The last stop on our quick road trip was the tiny town of Hyden, a few hours jaunt up the Brookton Highway where a few of WA's famous land formations sit at the base of a hill. Hyden is home to Wave Rock, aptly named for it's unique wave shape. It it also the home of a lesser known rock formation called Hippo's Yawn, again aptly named for its obvious shape. Both are bewildering sites to see, but of course have plausible reasons for the way they were formed over years of weather and water erosion.


We stopped for the night at the Wave Rock Resort. The resort was within walking distance of both Wave Rock and Hippo's Yawn and allowed us the frightening prospect of encountering one of Australia's infamously poisonous and deadly slithering reptiles. We walked the one kilometre track through the bush to Wave Rock where the flies were much more of a threat than any other creature could be. They attacked with vigor like wild, divebombing, kamikaze pilots into our facial orrifaces. I desperately needed my fly net from my trip up north, but was without that luxurious protection this time.

The granite cliff formation of Wave Rock rises 15 metres up and stretches 110 metres long. Mineral deposits contribute to its unique coloring and crystals collected from the rock are amongst some of the oldest found in Australia. The rock itself is over 60 million years old.

Just down the walking track from Wave Rock and shrouded in gum trees was the gaping mouth of a rock Hippopotamus head which was Hippo's Yawn. It was another site to behold. I had the eerie sensation of its mighty stone jaws clamping down on me and swallowing me whole when I stood within its cavernous walls.

The Aboriginal Dreamtime lore of nearby Mulka's Cave also lends an eerieness to the Wave Rock/ Hyden area. Mulka was the illegal son of a woman who fell in love with a man with whom marriage was forbidden according to Aboriginal law. As a result of this woman and man breaking the law Mulka was born with crossed eyes which prevented him from properly aiming a spear and becoming a successful hunter. Frustrated, Mulka turned to hunting and eating children and became the terror of the district. He lived in a cave where the imprints of his hands can still be seen today. When Mulka was confronted by his mother for his anti-social behavior he killed her. This disgraced Mulka further so he fled his cave and was later captured, speared to death and his body left for the ants as he did not deserve a proper burial. This legend served as a grim warning for those who broke Aborginal law.

Of the three accomodations we had on our trip Wave Rock Resort was my favorite for all the amenities it provided us. Debbie and I shared a two room cabin with four beds, a TV, kitchenette, BBQ, and private bath. The reception office was also a general store where we could buy mosquito repellent, cereal and other various sundries as well as some souvenirs. The resort also consisted of a caravan park full of campers and elderly couples doing the "drive around Australia" thing. There was also a very clean outdoor pool that looked refreshing and cool. After our little bush walk and site-seeing a dip in the pool sounded a treat. However, the sun had sunken into the horizon and the fact that the pool was mostly in shade during the day made its inviting waters anything but pleasurable. It was more like taking a dip in an ice cold pond, but we stuck it out and swam around to warm ourselves up.

It was the end of a nice, scenic trip around the central and south central parts of Western Australia. We had one beautiful bottle of sparkling wine (champagne) left to enjoy while we savoured the last day of a memorable trip over grilled steak and salad on the tiny front verandah of our little cabin.

Dog statue at random dog cemetary

on the the side of the road.

[drive back to Perth]

FINALLY... the end of the Kalgoorlie, Esperence trip

So where were we... ah yes, the Super Pit in Kalgoorlie - the largest gold mine in the southern hemisphere. Note: Australia claims a lot of the biggest things in the southern hemisphere. We drove up to the Super Pit lookout where you could see down into the pit. It was definitely large and deep. The Super Pit is in my opinion the Grand Canyon of mines. The dump trucks and utes going up and down the sides of the mine with their heavy loads looked like little toy trucks. After seeing how narrow the roads going up and down the sides of the mine were I decided maybe being a dump truck driver wasn't such a good idea after all and Debbie agreed with me.

After feeling like a peon standing next to giant truck tires and a massive shovel that showed how big the mining equipment was we moved on down the road to Esperence. We stopped briefly for some lunch at the halfway point between Kalgoorlie and Esperence in a town called Norseman. Looking at a map of the area there is a town en route from Kal to Norseman called Higginsville, which is also the name of a town about 30 miles north of my hometown. The trips between our destinations were becoming shorter now after the longest stretch which was from Perth to Kalgoorlie. I figured it is about the same distance from Perth to Kalgoorlie as it is to drive from Kansas City to Omaha, Nebraska.

We pulled into Esperence in the late afternoon and checked into the Blue Waters Lodge - a hostel that overlooks the bay and our accomodation for the next two nights. We settled in then found a pizza place to get a cheap dinner. Debbie and I shared a bottle of red wine with our pizza dinners at a picnic table across the road from the bay and discussed our current relationships, our post-Master's degree lives, what our futures would hold and where life would take us in the next year. After this deep and meaningful conversation it was time to lighten up the mood and find some nightlife to lift our spirits. Unforutnately, there weren't many options. The Pier Hotel seemed to be the one and only place to go on a weekend night, but at least there was kareoke which Debbie talked me into doing.

Travelling on a tight budget meant I would take all the freebies I could get and I got a free drink if I kareoked... so I did. Debbie was under the false impression that I am a good singer - she once heard me jokingly belt out the Star Spangled Banner and thought it was really good, ugh - so she encouraged me to have a go at the kareoke. Besides getting a free drink, the only thing kareoking would achieve was proving Debbie wrong about my singing skills. Despite a year of voice lessons and years of choir training in high school, my vocal talents are limited to classical music, not rock 'n roll. I would never make a good rock star. I also never seem to pick the right songs for my vocal range. I started out with John Denver's Country Road, but it was too low for me to sing and in an attempt to redeem my singing status I thought I would try something a little higher and more fun to sing... like Cindy Lauper's Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. I think the kareoke lady actually cut off the end of that song just to get it over with - yeah, it was a painful experience for everyone involved. Luckily I wasn't in America because I would probably have gotten booed off stage. But the good-natured people of Australia were kind enough to look away and silently swig their beers to dull the pain caused by my tortured vocal chords. It made the evening more enjoyable and go by quicker anyway.

The next day Debbie and I drove out to Cape Le Grand National Park about a 30 minute drive from Esperence to have a look at some of Esperence's notorious white sand beaches. According to one online source Esperence is the oasis at the western end of the Nullarbor Plain - a 100,000 square mile desert made up of a limestone plateau that stretches across the southern half of Australia. Once you've been through the desert plains Esperence is a tropical oasis. The beaches of Cape Le Grand were definitely beautiful and there were many to explore, but we only visited three:

Hellfire Bay...

...Lucky Bay...

...and Le Grand Beach where we sipped champagne on the gorgeous white sand beach and soaked up the afternoon sun and relaxing atmosphere.

We toasted to the end of the semester and to new beginnings. Families and groups of young friends from the beachside caravan park joined us in enjoying the beautiful day on the beach. I spotted a pod of dolphins gliding in graceful, sweeping arcs across the surface of the sparkling ocean water just off the beach. I watched the calming movements of these gentle sea mammals as they were catching their lunch while Debbie recorded our travels in her journal. The sky was cloudless, the weather was warm and a mild breeze blew. The cheerful, melodious strains of the laughter of children playing nearby completed the perfect scene. Life was good and we were grateful.

Just before the sun went down we returned to Hellfire Bay to BBQ some sausages for afternoon tea. Then made our way back to the city of Esperence and the Pier Hotel for a quiet, light, salad bar supper and a bowl of soup. The next day we had breakfast at a local cafe and visited a few shops then headed out of town to Hyden, our last stop on the trip.