Anticipation

I'll be honest, my 'chilled out night' didn't go quite to plan. I didn't spend a lot of money, but somehow I managed to stay up till 4am again. We were chilling over a few stubbies in the courtyard and then when they closed the courtyard at midnight we all went to a house nearby where everybody seems to go and continue the partying. After that, as I was kind of on my way to bed I spotted that the Liverpool Sunderland game was on, so I stayed up till 4am watching it. Never mind, I didn't feel too rough thismorning and managed to get up about 10am. I popped to the shop and bought some shower gel and stuff, then met up with the usual suspects and headed to the beach. The wind is light and offshore today and its in the high 30's celcius so it was baking hot, but the water was lovely! There was a bit of excitement too! I'd literally just come out of the water when we spotted the lifeguards pointing at something in the water and congregating at the water's edge. One of the girls, Lizzie, pointed and gasped, saying that she saw something move in the water. At first I thought she'd just seen the weeds swaying on the reef but then all of a sudden this dark grey shape apeared at the surface. Everyone's first thought was that it was a shark, obviously, but it was actually a seal. It seemed to play in the shorebreak that I had just been bodysurfing, jumping out of the water a bit like a dolphin from time to time. The lifegurds called for everyone to get out of the water, I guess they can be aggressive maybe. Then some lifeguards in a powerboat drove around it trying to scare it away, but it seemed quite content to play in the shorebreak. By this time everybody on the beach had got up and walked to the water's edge to watch, even making fireworks night style noises when it jumped out of the water. Eventually it moved on and people were allowed back into the water.

I wandered back over to where everyone was sunbathing and I had just missed a call from Ben and Jenna, who had invited me to go wakeboarding. I ran up the steps back to the hostel to meet them, they were in a nice silver 4x4 in the carpark. It was great to see them, I haven't seen Ben since summer 2004 in Turkey (unless I'm forgetting a more recent meeting) or Jenna since the end of my 2005 summer season. They're a great couple and we had a good chat as they drove me to the wakeboarding place by the river. The guy was booked up so they ended up driving be back again, but it was great to touch base with them, and they invited me to a BBQ next weekend for Jenna's birthday. Chatting to Ben made me reconsider my plans to buy a van out here, he said he had looked for one for a while and hadn't found anything all that good. He also sounded dubious about driving a cheap van across the Nullabor. His 4x4 was very nice (although well out of my pricerange) and had seats that convert to a bed. I remembered seeing a lot of 4x4's in the Quokka, the local classifieds paper, so I decided to look into it. I was kind of looking for a Toyota Hilux, but some Landrover Discoverys in my pricerange caught my eye, so a called up about a couple. The first one went to answerphone so I left a message, the second number I called an unmistakably British born guy picked up. I instantly warmed to him as he told me stories about how he came by the 4x4 and what it featured, we had a good chat and arranged a viewing for tomorrow. It sounds like a pretty good vehicle so my fingers are crossed!!

Now I'm just chilling, anticipating the sunday session! Apparently its changed a bit, when I was here last all the guys were in boardshorts and t-shirts and all the girls in bikinis and sarongs, which gave it a great beachparty vibe, but apparently boardshorts are no longer permitted!! Gutted! Should still be good tho, everyone seems pretty excited about it, and they've been going loads lately. Well, I'll let you know how it goes with the sunday sesh, and the Landrover!!