My feeble attempt at exercise was limited to a six kilometre walk to the High Wycombe Village and back, a futile trip as it turned out. I discovered that the Weekend West I had purchased on Saturday was missing several sections, the weekly TV guide in particular. I retrieved the receipt from the rubbish bin and set out to complain and have the matter resolved. Without complaint and comment, nothing changes, so I am told.
Alas, Coles was closed when I got there, and not opening until 11 am, their
Sunday hours. I was not prepared to wait around so returned to camp having
succeeded only with my daily dosage of sunshine and ambulant exercise. At home,
I satsfied myself with those parts of the newspaper I did have.
My absorption
of the opinion columns was interrupted by the arrival of a woman who began by
remarking on the wings our landcruier wears on the roof rack. These are the
insignia for NZMCA members, the New Zealand Motor Caravanner Association, which
we put on the vehicle way back in November 2011 when we were in Alice Springs,
in the hope fellow Kiwi travellers would recognise a familiar sign and engage
with us. Granted, the sticker is quite small, however we have been very
surprised that only one person has, in the intervening months and years,
remarked on them and followed up with travel chat. That was at Marley Point in
Victoria about five months later.
The next
time was yesterday when this woman arrived at my awning entrance to start
conversation. It turns out that she and her partner are from KatiKati, a town
close to our daughter’s home and where my parents spent many years. In fact our
son-in-law had done some work for her, so fancy that! We chatted for some time
and when she eventually left, I realised it was well after midday. Social
chitchat has a tendency for making one lose track of time although it doesn’t
happen often, except in laundries and in Informaton Centres.
Carol
told me that the people in the large rig that had moved out just a couple of
days ago had also been Kiwis, so it goes to show that you don’t need wings to
connect up with compatriots, just a more open manner. Chris and I are just too
antisocial; our loss, not theirs.
This
morning I dragged myself from the Skype calls and chats with family in both the
United Kingdom and New Zealand and caught the early bus into the city. I
disembarked at the Victoria Park Interchange on the southern bank of the Swan
River then set off on foot across “the causeway”. I find this term quite
confusing because in reality there are two bridges linking Heiressen Island to
either shore of the river. There are park lands at both bridge approaches and across
the entire island. Bike and walking trails abound, and given the excellent
public transport I have enjoyed, there seems little use for a private vehicle. Perhaps
that is getting a bit carried away; God forbid that I start sounding like a
Greenie!
I had
measured the distance left to walk on my map, however this had assumed I would
follow Adelaide and St Georges Terraces. The walking paths veer away from the
busier streets and take one along the riverside, a pleasant and attractive
alternative, but somewhat longer. Still, after having spent two rather sedentiary
days, it was time I extended myself a little. In the city I walked about,
enjoying the ambiance and buskers once more, and this time ventured across the rail-line to the Cultural Centre. I was averse to actually entering the museum
or the Art Gallery; these should be left for when Chris returns.
After a
haircut, I ate my lunch listening to my
old mate on the accordion then caught a series of buses back to camp. The
forecast is for rain over the next few days and as I travelled through High
Wycombe, I noticed the dark clouds gathering in readiness for late showers.
However after I had successfully tackled emptying of the toilet cassette, my
first solo attempt, the forbidding skies had cleared and the day remained fine.
As I
write this, my husband is winging his way toward Hong Kong, a flight of eleven
and a quarter hours. From there, after an eight hour interval, he will fly the
second leg on to Perth. But his arrival is tomorrow and I have tomorrow’s
meeting with my de-facto daughter-in-law to look forward to before then.
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