White Dragon

I have wheels. Four very big ones with a spare on the back. Mike came and picked me up and we made the transactions. I drove back to the hostel after dropping him back at his place. No problems so far (fingers crossed!!) but I'm still pretty nervous. I've called a mobile mechanic who is going to come and sort out the handbrake, change the oil and filter, and give it a light service before I go off to Lancelin next Tuesday. She roars like a beast from hell through her big bore exhaust so I've named her the White Dragon, but when I'm in a hurry I'll just call her 'The Beast'!

I asked Tom if there was a kiteshop nearby and he mentioned one in Freemantle and agreed to pop down there with me. They had a good range of kit, kites, boards, windsurf gear, surfboards. I saw an 8' surfboard that looked older than the sea and asif it had been ridden by a thousand people, so I put a deposit on it. It was very cheap and will suit me while I'm improving. Best of all it has bags of character. I looked at some kitegear and windsurf boards and was sorely tempted to buy loads of brand new gear and spend an absolute fortune, but I resisted and did the sensible thing for once. I think I'll speak to Garth again before I buy too much, and maybe go to some other shops, but I need to be all geared up by Monday, ready to go to Lancelin. I'm thinking whatever I buy now I will most likely ship to New Zealand (if I haven't broken it) so I can afford to invest a little. Every hundred pounds I spend could possibly knock a week off the amount of time I can spend in Oz though, so some caution must be taken.

When we got back we went to the beach. It was another gorgeous day and there was a big crowd of people from the hostel down there. The shoredump was quite big so we went for a swim and did some hardcore bodysurfing. I got proper nailed by one big wave which picked me up, tossed me head over heels a couple of times and then plunged me about five feet down onto the sand. It was awesome!! Back on the beach I read nother couple of pages of Ulysses, its so good!! Buck Mulligan is so very funny! I'm only a few pages in and already its making me laugh, I hope I can get a bit more time to read it and get on with writing when I get to Lancelin, theres so much going on here and so many people around its nigh on impossible to concentrate on anything! The hostel where I'm staying is such a great place, everyone seems to check in for a few days and end up staying weeks, some guys have been here months and months! I only meant to be here 4 days, but that was unrealistic really, its taken a while to find my feet and get the car sorted etcetera. By the time I leave I will have been here 2 weeks. I'm hoping I'm going to start living the life I was planning on living when I get to Lancelin, chilled out, spending very little, spending a lot of time in the water, writing a lot. I'll only be there about 3 weeks before I have to come back and get Nick, so I've booked a couple more nights in the hostel for when he arrives.

Well, tonight i'll just be chilling in the courtyard, tomorrow I'm planning on sourcing a tent and some camping gear, maybe having another look round for windsurf/kitesurf gear, no doubt going to the beach at some point!!