Albany

Albany offered many great things – Whaleworld, walks on the beach, Centre for Arts (which had us creating our own character for an evolving community story – our character, a media tycoon named James Power opened up his own newspaper which Sam brilliantly titled “all the problems”) and markets.

On Monday, Ben arranged a dive with a local, who he met on facebook. On the way to dropping him at the guys house, Ben was telling me how he had changed his mind about facebook – and that it had proved to be really useful after all…. as it turns out this new opinion did not sustain for much longer. Here is a snippet of the story that is terrifyingly hilarious; 9am we drive Ben to an unknown location, to drop him and his dive gear off. We are acquainted with Ben’s dive partner for the day – who we will refer to as Fred. To paint a picture, Fred is covered with tats, and has a few front teeth missing. The bonnet on his sedan is raised, and Ben motions for me to drive the Landcruiser forwards so he can jump start the car. By this stage, I am trying to make eye contact with Ben to let him know that if he wants to back out, I can make up a good excuse, we can drive away no problems. Ben however, is fine and desperate for a dive, so I drive away and join the children in praying for a safe dive (with Nick adding on – “and no great white sharks to eat him up”.) It did occur to me that I did not know Ben’s new friends’ name, address or anything about him. Ben was to call sometime in the afternoon for me to come and collect him. Luckily, I had plenty to occupy myself with groceries and schooling. Ben on the other hand was in for an adventure. As they get into the car and set off, Fred informs Ben that he just needs to release a few tiger snakes into the national park on their way… tiger snakes that were in the back seat. Ben could eyeball 2, but the 3rd was in a pillow case somewhere. Ben describes putting his feet as far in front of him as possible, to give him an extra second of time in case the snake should appear from under his seat. Turns out, Fred is a bit of a reptile man – and keeps numerous snakes, lizards and turtles in many rooms of his home. Yes – he also informed Ben of the time that his tiger snake escaped from his enclosures…. and how it took ages to find it. Finally they free the snakes, and enter the water. Ben explained that Fred became much more pleasant to be with under water. Again, Ben can write about his dive, and the hammer head shark that Fred chased down (good eating though!)

Our highlights of Albany, as usual, were the cost free activities. A walk down 509 stairs to a beach has us sitting in a picturesque setting for a few moments… that is until Ben went to empty his bladder right on top of a huge black tiger snake who was trying to finish shedding its skin. Needless to say, we hightailed it back up the 509 stairs – Sam carrying the snakes skin which Ben had retrieved after the snake was at a safe distance. It is probably no surprise to announce at this stage that I hate snakes.

To make Nick happy, we also took a hike up Castle Rock, in Porongurup National Park. 90 min up (which Larina did all by herself…go Larina!) and then an hour back down. The very top was spectacular, and even Larina agreed that it was worth the walk. Sam bravely made the last 100m summit climb over the boulders and up the 7metre ladder, with Ben by his side. A proud Sam came back down with a huge grin on his face. Mission accomplished.

Clearly we have loved getting to know our new friends, and enjoy their company immensely, so it was only fitting that we followed each other to Albany. During grace, we heard Nick say “and thank you God for our new friends that we keep bumping into, which is just really funny.” On Sunday we joined them in attending a church, which was also a really lovely thing to do together. Thanks for the good idea Dunc and Nat! The seven little Australian children have had a ball together – my favourite was seeing all of them dressed as spies one afternoon as they sneakily roamed around the caravan park armed with hats, glasses, magnifying glasses, water pistols and scarfs.

Sam after a busy day...