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| The pink lake near Dongara |
After leaving Kalbarri we make our way down the coast and have a couple of nights in Dongara, 360 Klms north of Perth. Still trying to get my head around the conversion of kilometres to miles: 100 miles is equal to 160.9 kilometres. Sooo, work it out.
We’re now further south from
KilbarrI and that, like everything I’ve come across in the country, is the
opposite of what my mindset says. Yes,
it’s cooler the further south you travel; all keys seems to fit in locks upside
down and lock anticlockwise, including car locks and door locks; the sun
travels anti-clockwise as does water going down the plug hole; midday finds the
sun in the north.
Although it’s winter, we walk
along the board walk, me stripped to the waist and wearing shorts. I’m sure everyone in passing cars are looking
at me and wondering who this mad person is.
But it is about 22degrees and hotter that summer back home in Scotland.
Our lodging is actually in
Port Denison, a suburb of Dongara. There is a population of only 3,700,
slightly larger than Kilbarra which had only 2,000 people living there. As
usual, the main occupation is fishing or sitting in the cafes eating fish and
chips, or octopus and chips, or having a squid supper or a cray fish
supper. Also on offer are a look at the
local dingos (by appointment, although I didn’t know dingos took appointments)
with familiar names like Billy Blink, Boss, Kal and Streak. Despite the cool names, the photos of the
dingos present them as emaciated, stray dogs that one can see in India.
Dogged by dingos, there is
also the seemingly incongruous ‘sports’ of archery, croquet and mini golf, all
attended to by one very skinny Asian man and a very fat lady of indeterminate
origin, but with the fat face of a Glaswegian hairy.
Although the brochure for
Port Denison describes the marina as hustling and bustling, we enjoyed the
winter tranquillity. There was some life
in the liquor shop though with the locals stacking up on their medicinal
pantries. I’ve never seen anyone buy
anything less than a case of beer.
On the foreshore are a few
campers of various shapes and sizes. One
had a message for all to see on the back.
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| SAYS IT ALL |
We followed the town map
around and saw some of the heritage buildings, but, as with all small towns in
Western Australia, I felt we could have been in some Midwest American township
and I expected to see the locals out on the porch, rocking away with a corncob
in hand practising their trajectories into a nearby cuspidor.
Wherever we went there were
signs of a Christian heritage in the churches, the local Catholic school and
the biblical street names. Why, I had to
ask myself, did they adopt the discriminatory habit of separating proddies from
papes? I’d seen enough of this in Glasgow
with its resultant dogma, hubris and rumbles.
Outside the apartment we are
staying in is a little square courtyard in which there are two large palms that
remind me of the bearskin hats worn by the soldiers at Buckingham Palace and
topped by a plume. They addede a measure
of levity to the storm the second evening we were staying there, blowing in the
wind as if they were about to be torn to shreds.
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| THE BEARSKIN PALMS |
