It's just not cricket
According to Chris Gayle the captain of the West Indies cricket team, there is something the Australians are not good at and that is being on the receiving end of sledging, the verbal intimidation that they dish out so well to others. Four days after the end of the third cricket test here in Perth controversy is still raging, Gayle has dismissed the Aussies as whingers and hypocrites after the Australians complained that he had taunted them on field, and bowler Shane Watson was fined a portion of his match fee for his dramatic responses. Gayle has publicly described Watson as soft and as predictable as a wind-up doll; “He only looks big and strong . . . [but] he gets miserable easy,” he said. Of the team collectively, Gayle is reported as saying; “Australians are well known for sledging players. They are a good team and should get on with it instead of having to whinge.” Such tension bodes well for a confrontational one-day series due to start in the New Year.
There is something though that Australians are good at, and that is talking about themselves. Take for example the young man behind the counter at the local post office who volunteered, without prompting, that he couldn’t wait for 2010 to arrive as 2009 had been such a rotten year; two really bad things had happened to him. Obviously feeling the need to explain further, he continued that he had survived prostate cancer only for his fiancé to then leave him. The explanation didn’t stop there; the fiancé apparently told him afterwards that she had wanted to leave for six weeks before she did, but only three weeks before she left went shopping for rings, at her insistence. Despite his betrothed’s heartlessness he felt a bit sorry for her as, aside from her immediate family, everyone saw right through her and supported him. “One thing is for sure,” he concluded, “I’m certainly not going to get a fiancé in 2010.”
Our sympathy ran short on the next visit to the post office however when the same young man asked if we had any friends who could put him up for the 2011 Rugby World Cup as he was looking forward to being in Auckland when the All Blacks get beaten in a home final. The former fiancé now has two more supporters.
Similarly, while opening new Australian bank accounts the customer services officer, when she learned of our occupations as union officials, volunteered a full rundown on the failings of this particular bank as an employer. Even to the extent of describing the difficulties in getting away from the desk to get to answer urgent calls of nature. Notwithstanding the bank’s failings, the customer services officer was efficient and excellent, not only at getting an account opened but also arranging a credit card in the complete absence of an Australian credit rating or even a fixed abode. We liked that.
That we struck such chatterboxes twice may have been chance, but our inclination that this is a national characteristic was cemented by a third instance. Marty slipped off to a nearby hostelry to meet for the first time some of his soon-to-be work colleagues. While not one single question was asked of him, he learned the full warts and all history and every dysfunction of his new employer in a single session. This should not have come as a surprise; years ago he travelled to Melbourne to an industrial conference of the same organisation to describe the perils of New Zealand’s Employment Contracts Act only to find once there that he was superfluous, they already knew it all. There is, apparently, nothing you can teach an Australian.
In something of a confessional, it can be revealed that our flight from reality has been somewhat grounded, hopefully only temporarily. We have been shopping for work clothes, applied for tax numbers, and got the bank accounts already referred to, and that can only point to one of the dirtiest of four letter words; work. Marty has been offered and accepted some fixed-term work in WA (also known as Wait Awhile) and we can only hope such an impediment to our life on the road doesn’t last too long.
Back on the subject of language and dialect, when at the post office recently we were asked what was in the large envelopes we were sending to New Zealand. Books, we replied. The attendant looked puzzled, how was it there could be a box inside flat envelopes he enquired? Not boxes, but books we repeated. He still looked at us suspiciously; you cannot fit boxes in these envelopes he insisted. He looked relieved when, eventually, in front of a queue of bemused Australians and in best Marcel Marceau tradition, we mimed reading a book. Ahhh, you mean booooks, he said.
Of other interesting Australians, Richard Pennicuik, the tree man of the Perth suburb of Thornlie, is in his eighteenth or nineteenth day perched up a gum tree in front of his house in an attempt to stop the local council from chopping it down and replacing it with a Jacaranda. As a result of the protest the council has promised not to touch the tree for three months to allow Pennicuik to come down and meet with them in an attempt to try and resolve the standoff. Pennicuik, bless him, is having none of it. He is stopping up that tree.

Fush & Chups
Lesbian mud wresting. We cannot believe that none of our friends have taken us or even suggested this as a must-see attraction, but it happens every Wednesday night at the Connections nightclub in the trendy area of Northbridge. Described as one of Perth’s craziest events, intending patrons are advised to get in early to ensure a ring side seat and witness the sexiest survival of the slipperiest. It may just be that the 10.00pm start time is too late for our working acquaintances, but we’re not working.
While we may not have yet been to the wrestling, we have found the Kiwi Fish and Chip shop in the suburb of Dianella. Brilliant, it is classic; tattered outdated copies of women’s, car sales and real estate magazines litter Formica tables and their tubular chrome chairs, a few pinball type-machines are lined against the wall, the fridge is chocker with L&P, there are K bars on the counter, an All Black tea towel, New Zealand flag and a few faded posters adorning the walls, and then to top it off, a Paeroa road sign points to nowhere in particular. But this wasn’t just a cosmetic display; the fish and chips were the real deal, proper ones as we know them from our own shops back home. Also on the menu other delectable treats such as oysters, scallops and whitebait. This was as close to making us homesick as anything we’ve experienced.
We were amused; on the wall of the shop was a guide on how to speak New Zealand, with an instruction to read each item aloud. Included among the thirty or so translated words were: peck (to fill a suitcase), min (male of the species), Milburn (the Australian city), pigs (for hanging out washing), guess (vapour), ear roebucks (exercise at the gym, iggs ectley (precise) and sivven sucks sivven (a large Boeing aircraft). Then there were the ubiquitous fush (marine creatures) and chups (things made from potatoes).
When travelling, it is generally easy to pick Kiwis, because offshore they wear their New Zealandness. They hang out at shops selling New Zealand food and souvenirs, congregate in Kiwi pubs, wear carved bone and greenstone pendants and, at sporting events, paint their faces or wave silver fern or national flags. But aside from at rugby matches that sort of patriotism is rarely evident at home and that is one thing that makes this country quite different. Aussies are patriotic and like to show it everywhere, whether it be the five stars of their flag tattooed anywhere at all on their bodies, driving big Australian built cars or wearing yellow and green clothes. There is nothing awkward about it all, and a good example is Seath and Nicole’s flatmate, a miner, who has the Australian flag hanging in his room. To him it is perfectly natural.
Natural it was too at the cricket, the first day of the third test between Australia and the West Indies; the large crowd stood without hesitation for the national anthem and a good proportion sported Australian-branded clothing, and those who didn’t sport flags as ponchos wore hollowed-out watermelons on their heads. We’re sure it meant something, but there was no doubt that all of those around us were more expert at cricket, team selections and tactics than a typical All Black fan. So much so, we moved to a less populated part of the stand and set about supporting the West Indies, which proved difficult as the Aussies piled on more than 320 runs for the loss of only three wickets.
What we have learned in Western Australia is that Kiwi chicks rule, we’ve seen bogan-esque stickers saying so on a number of cars, and then we found the source. The Kiwi Shop in Joondalup has an extensive array of souvenirs, sports clothing, food and even a mobile electric hangi. Iced animal biscuits, bluebird chips, buzz bars and chocolate fish, snifters, pineapple lumps, L&P, Watties tomato sauce and Edmonds baking products, they are all there. We brought a traditional New Zealand flag and a couple of All Black beer coolers to send as mementos to our friends at the Kiwi bar in Patong. The girls have emailed recently saying that life is “bouring” without us.
There is a curious phenomenon in Western Australia and that is the fly-in, fly-out worker. Thousands of miners and support staff such as cleaners are based in and around Perth but work in remote parts of the territory, usually rostered on for between two and four weeks at a time and then return home for one or two weeks. The mining companies fly them in and out as part of the deal, and so the domestic airport is like a commuter hub. But what intrigued us when we went to pick up Seath and Nicole is that many of the workers treat the flights as though we would a car or bus journey to work. On a Friday evening, hundreds of them, fresh from the mine (still wearing overalls and workboots and without any luggage whatsoever), amble through the airport and get into cars driven by waiting spouse or friends. In turn, rather than pay parking charges, the spouses wait, their cars lining the roads leading to the airport, for a text or call from the incoming partner to say they have arrived. It’s a funny old world.

Tattoo You

If truth be told New Zealanders are probably somewhat envious of their trans-Tasman neighbours, they are so confident and so frustratingly good at almost everything. Even Rolf Harris, whose family home we passed on our trip up the Swan River, had a suite of skills including holding an Australian age-group swimming record in backstroke, believe it or not. They are just so damned good.
Aussies may naturally be first rate at many things but also what makes them excel is that they are also hardy; Perth rivals Wellington for wind and our (optimistic) trips to the beach show just how determined they can be against all forms of adversity. Each day at around lunchtime, a sea breeze known as the Freemantle Doctor springs up and it can be an unpleasant, gusty wind. Akin to the cold Christchurch easterly, it can make life on the beach distinctly unpleasant and this is where our colonial neighbours clearly outshine Kiwis. When we ambled innocently onto the sand at Swanbourne Beach one morning intending to bask lazily in the sun and enjoy the warmth, we were met by an army of beach dwellers prepared for the Doctor. Erected on the beach was a maze of coloured windbreaks, behind each one huddled a cluster of people and at first glance it seemed odd but within half an hour we knew why; the wind gusted up, quite viciously, negating any benefit of the sun and while we lay exposed on our loungers with the sand stripping away the top layer of skin these other people lay smugly protected from the elements. We watched one latecomer, a woman, as she chattered to other dwellers with all the familiarity of one of Tiger Woods’s girlfriends as she unraveled a 10 metre long windbreak and then produced a mallet to drive the supporting stays into the ground and then a shovel to heap sand around the base to block out any draft. Now that is preparation and a resolve that us Kiwis just cannot compete with.
A week later, with the wind subsided, or so we thought, and the sun at its full glory we had another go, this time at Warnbro Beach, about 40 kilometers south of Perth. We unpacked, set up loungers and pulled up the sun umbrella - and no sooner had we done that than a gust of wind wrenched it from the ground, hurled it along the beach and then into the water. Resembling something like Benny Hill, Marty, adorned in little but sunglasses and hat, chased the brolly as it tumbled down the beach and into the sea, he eventually swimming out to retrieve the blessed thing as it sank beneath the waves.
And this is where we had our earlier lesson reinforced. On re-erecting the umbrella we observed our beach neighbours. All had their umbrellas anchored in at least two places; a heavy weight attached to the centre pole and sandbags supporting the stays against the prevailing wind. This is why Australians are great; they take adversity in their stride and barely bat an eyelid when faced with conditions that would have us retreating indoors.
One benefit of our beach trips has been that, on two trips to Warnbro Beach, we have watched dolphins frolicking a mere 50 meters offshore. Add to that the signs warning about running turtles over crossing the road and the sight of a squadron of pelicans flying in formation with us down the Highway and it is little wonder we have become obsessed with animals.
While Australians may be admirable at many things they seem not so great at race relations. Trevor, the flat mate of friends, thought that expressing frankly a dislike of “Abbos” was more honest than in the United States where there are any number of euphemisms to discuss Afro-Americans in derogatory terms without appearing to do so. Another young woman we met, and she was nothing flash, described all aboriginals as bad but while she conceded under questioning the potential that there could be some good ones, she was quite certain she hadn’t met or heard of any. The problem with indigenous people, it appears, is the effect that White man’s firewater, alcohol, has on them, and the public labeling of this as an “Aboriginal problem” has prompted a strong reaction from popular actor and television host Ernie Dingo (pronounced Deeengo). Dingo argues that there are more white problem-drinkers in Australia than the entire Aboriginal population and we can believe it if the weekend’s news reports are anything to go by. Graphic film footage on television showed quite vicious brawling in town, including three instances of people smashing glasses into the faces of others, and young men kicking each other unconscious. All of those involved were pale skinned people, just as were the one in four drivers caught with alcohol in their systems when stopped while driving on Kwinana Highway during a weekend blitz. Of some ironic comfort was the fact that two off-duty police were among the offenders, one for driving while over the legal blood-alcohol limit and the other for being a general pest while drunk. Perhaps Dingo has a point.
On another note we enjoyed overhearing an intriguing conversation between a group of young people after two of them returned from getting additions to their already extensive body art by a local tattooist. Inked down the spine of one is the phrase “Forgive and Forget” which suggests that he is yet to reconcile whatever issues he has and take this advice (not that he can read it from on his back to be reminded), and on the neck and heading down the back of his partner in scrawled writing, the first fifteen lines of The Desiderata. When asked if getting the tattoos hurt, the young woman thought about it for a moment, agreed that it did quite a bit, but for comparison said that it was nowhere near as painful as getting a Brazilian. We must remember that.

Deranged
Australia is a place which can grow on you, and there’s plenty of it to do just that. Where else in the world could you wait to meet a wombat to the sounds of an Australian outback song about a chap who took his girlfriend to the pub and just as things were about to get romantic, who should walk in but the bloke’s wife?
The Caversham Wildlife Park, just out of Perth, is a cracker, with almost every quintessentially Australian animal and a farm show complete with dogs rounding up sheep for a crocked shearer to remove the wool from a weathered old Merino. Jaundiced as we are, we were impressed, Bill the Kelpie got a way back out and brought those Merinos in without a hitch, one of the presenters gave us some history and a demonstration of swinging the billy. And then someone else, a wandering Kiwi named Marty, was plucked from the audience to swing the billy just to prove that it could be done successfully by the inexperienced. Which it was! A young Taiwanese woman was tutored in cracking the whip (we learned that the cracking sound is caused by a mini-supersonic boom), lambs came in to be fed by bottle from kids in the audience, and then a cow ambled in to be hand milked by anyone interested in doing so. We weren’t but the thing about this show was that it was pitched just right, with lots of interesting information provided in an easy relaxed way. Unexpectedly, we loved it.
The farm show was a diversion really, we had come to see those Aussie animals and with the exception of the platypus, they were all there. Kaelene got to pose with the Wombat, and the thing about wombats we hadn’t realised is just how big they are. This one was over 30 kg and looked to be about a four foot high dead weight as it sat slumped on its handler’s knee. The wombat was accompanied by a stub-tailed lizard, a Joey, an owl which flew in and devoured, to Kaelene’s delight, a mouse and there were several birds of the coloured variety standing around to say hello.
The Caversham Wildlife Park advertises itself as having 200 species of animals and reptiles. Tasmanian Devils, Quokkas, and Kookaburras, they were all there. So too Camels, Emus, Dingoes (but no outback babies), Wallabies and Kangaroos tame enough to hand feed from a bin of pellets nearby. There were possums (a native and protected species of Australia), Echidna (spiny anteater), flying foxes and several varieties of Ibis and then the Koala, and it may have just been luck that we arrived just as one group was being fed. These creatures sleep 20 hours a day, numbed into a narcotic haze by the gum leaves they eat, but for us they came to life and it was OK to pat one of them while they chewed. Koalas are bigger than we imagined and look quite dopey, it is interesting to watch them sleep, hanging precariously onto a branch or each other, looking as though they could topple to the ground at any moment.
The wildlife park sits within Whiteman Park, 4300 acres of bush and a number of other quite unlikely things. There is a motor car museum complete with a collection of Holden cars (we’ll be back to take a look), a tractor museum and vintage trams and trains and a lolly shop which is all very odd being out in the middle of nowhere. Mind you, Frisbees are banned. We went in search of the Mussel Pool, thinking it was perhaps a place mussels are farmed, but when we got there it appeared to be nothing more than a picnic spot. We were disappointed.
Away from Caversham and Whiteman Park, up north, there is a camel cull currently underway. Four thousand of the humped creatures have been shot and killed in the last few days as part of a programme to reduce their numbers. And this is the fascinating thing; there are more than one million camels in the north-west of Australia.
There are some other curious things which seem as Australian as the wombat; protests. The monotonous demonstrations against climate change or free trade are one thing, but there is one that has taken the attention of the local media, and us. In Thornlie, a man called Richard Pennicuik has climbed up a gum tree outside his house and has camped up there for about a week to try and stop it from being chopped down by the local council. When asked if he would chain himself to the tree, a deranged looking Pennicuik glared at a television news reporter and said that was a ridiculous suggestion. “I’m not an idiot,” he added. His son Rhys, also interviewed, told the reporter that his father could be very tenacious. “He doesn’t look too brilliant but he’s determined enough to stay up that tree for a bloody long time,” he concluded.

Waltzing Matilda
There are, according to authoritative sources, more than 3,000 varieties of gum trees in Western Australia but no Koala Bears. It doesn’t seem right that a state of Australia which boasts of being larger than the United Kingdom, Japan and New Zealand combined does not have those little furry creatures with which this country is so well identified. They live on the east and the Nullabor Plains, it seems, are just too hot and dry for them to cross on their own.
Among our successful natural habitat discoveries has been real Australian people; they can be found away from shopping malls, the Kiwi shop in Joondalup, the Wanderers softball club and other areas usually inhabited by the approximately 100,000 New Zealanders who live here, and one such place was the Guildford Heritage Festival. This was as Australian as it gets, brightly coloured, polished and chromed 1962 R & S series Valiant cars complete with venetian blinds in the rear windows alongside the Western Australian Historical Cycle Club with a half dozen or so penny farthing bicycles and other wheeled contraptions which resembled the ones on we used to ride to school. We hardly thought that historical. Then there were such things as a display of restored vintage tractors and agricultural machinery, 1920’s to 1940’s shearing equipment, vintage wireless gramophones and the Australian 10th light horse display.
We missed the Perth Volunteer Rifle and Artillery Regiment firing of replica guns. They were scheduled to put on shows at 12.30 and 2.00pm, but actually did them at 11.00am and midday, and although we missed out we were told that there was such a commotion when the guns went off that startled birds flew everywhere, among them great big white cockatoos. That seemed to amuse the Australians.
There were a few other Kiwis there besides ourselves; members of the Aotearoa Maori Club, Perth, performed a few songs, although one of them (the people that is) looked Asian which was a most curious thing. Still, it was nice to hear for the first time in a year or so the Maori language and the familiar songs of home. If that was comforting to a couple of travelers, then distinctly odd was the Souleiado French Dance Group which followed. Adorned in period costume, including silly bonnets, under the baking sun grown men and women earnestly danced around the maypole, did funny things with sticks and finished with something that looked akin to Morris dancing. Worse, they made young children do the same and we were transfixed, particularly when they placed a sheep (a stuffed toy one, not the real thing) on the ground and looked to be engaging in some form of suspicious behaviour as they circled it.
We went in search of police to report them, but they were dressed in tartan frocks standing in a circle playing Waltzing Matilda on the bagpipes. This was too much so we fled, missing the Australian lace Guild’s display of handmade bobbin lace, the Bead Guild’s demonstrations of beading, stitching and stringing and the Calligraphy Guild doing whatever calligraphers do, and that is most definitely not what Caligula did. Or at least we hope not.
By the time we reached Lilac Hill Park, the Calamunda camels had gone back to Calamunda, the Home Workshop Machinists’ model engineering had run out of steam and the Aeromodellers of WA with their static display of model aircraft looked distinctly forlorn. The Morsecodians Fraternity of WA Inc was all out of telegraphy and their advertised takeaway souvenir copies of a Morse code message were nowhere to be seen.
There was nothing left but to visit the old gaol which was full of historical memorabilia, but almost none of it related to the housing and treatment of convicts. Instead, there was a collection of garden implements and a ladies side saddle, and a one-bedroomed cottage where someone from the Historical society tried to convince us fourteen children were raised. Worse, one of these people tried to claim that, with the exception of only one person, prisoners transported from Britain were thoroughly bad people, and that the practice of transportation stopped in 1850. Kaelene was having none of it given her great grandfather was dispatched from the County Tipperary gaol in 1851 for a minor offence involving stealing a sheep.
But if there was one good thing to come of the day, it was being bailed up to be surveyed, the surveyor earning our immediate approval by, without promoting or encouragement, ticking the box to indicate that we were in the under 50 years of age bracket. “Would we come back to another heritage festival?” she asked. On the basis of that flattery, “Strewth yes,” we replied.

Trust me, I’m your driver
We’ve met another proper Aussie joker, this one called Barry, and he drives the bus for Swan Valley Tours. Barry picked us up off the Captain Cook cruiser which took us up the Swan River from Perth Harbour to Guildford and he was just the sort of bloke to do the job on a wine tasting tour. “I know nothing at all about wine,” he said, “but ask me about beer and I can tell you the answer.” He continued with a dialogue about its unique qualities “Beer’s the only thing that can cool you down when you’re hot, warm you when you’re cold, make you well when you’re sick and make you sick when you’re well” And Barry assured us he could definitely confirm from experience the last of those.
There was a certain irony in the fact that we, Seath, Nicole, Kaelene and Marty, had gotten up early and taken the train to town, walked from the station to the harbour and then cruised for an hour and a half up the Swan River, only to land and be picked up by Barry some ten minutes by car from home. But the river cruise was all part of the day out and one intriguing thing is that for the hour and a half’s journey we were within the city limits but, once we had passed the WACA cricket ground, the Casino, the Ascot Racecourse and a few other cultural icons, we could have been in the middle of nowhere. The river was edged by bush and populated only by pelicans or the occasional person fishing the muddy water. The scenery was incidental, however, no sooner had the long arm struck ten o’clock than the wine (and New Zealand cheese) came out for the first of the day’s tastings. With four wines sampled and analysed within the first thirty minutes it was destined to be a long day, our $5 guide book, The Scenic Swan River, Perth to the Swan Valley, there for reference if tested on the skipper’s commentary as we ventured upstream.
Swan Valley Tour’s driver Barry was the consummate guide, laconic, a seventh generation Okker, his great-something grandmother was transported on the first few ships from the United Kingdom to Australia for stealing a dress, and if that wasn’t a convincing enough credential, she served her time in a prison built for the worst behaved. En route, Barry regaled us with stories about the Wagyl, a snakelike dreamtime creature (probably a similar sort of indigenous being our own Taniwha) said to have created and now protects the Swan River and other western Australian waterways. Then Lilac Hill Park where the first ever one-day international cricket match was played; described as a premier festival ground, tradition has it that drinking and eating are more important than cricket, the club’s most successful day ever being one year when it rained and not a ball was bowled. Not that day, but another, current Australian cricket captain Ricky Ponting made his international debut and was apparently reported as showing some promise.
Down a particularly corrugated track called Benara Road, off West Swan Road is Pinelli Wines, a family run outfit where their varietals can be brought by the 2 litre flagon. “Of course you’ll be too young to remember flagons”, said the ever-flattering Barry who claimed to be in his eight decade on earth. The flagons we recalled were half gallon, but that was no problem, Barry claimed to be fluent in two languages, imperial and metric. Nick, the grandson of Dominec and Iolanda Pinelli who together started the vineyard in 1980, took us through the tastings, enthusiastically reciprocating our approval of his verdelhos, sauvignon-semillons, roses and reds by pulling out the desert and fortified wines, and then a very special gold medal port. The approximately six wines we were due to taste turned into eleven, dangerous perhaps given this was only the first stop of four or five. Notwithstanding, this young man’s generosity was amply rewarded with the purchase of several cases of the best by Seath and Nicole and couple of bottles of aged port for us (mind, Marty of Scot heritage was tempted by the house port at $13 a flagon).
Away from Pinelli up the Reid Highway, Barry drew attention to a very exclusive Swan Valley address, a sexist one he pondered, as only women and very special ones at that are allowed to reside there. Unfortunately for the occupants, however, the view of the river and surrounding vineyards are obscured by high mesh fences and barbed wire, they inhabit the Bandyup Women’s Prison.
Just around the corner we headed up the Great Northern Highway, part of the roading system that circumnavigates Australia, and those who head off and just keep going for approximately 24,000 kilometres end up exactly where they started. For us the journey was shorter, to the Houghton, Jarrah Ridge and Edgecombe Brothers wineries, and perhaps we were jaundiced by such a good start at Pinelli, but these three wineries seemed a little formulaic, the staff’s patter prescribed and their products nice but unremarkable, except perhaps the excellent lunch at Houghton’s, one of the regions big players. Again to dash stereotypes, us burly men were served a sort of ploughman’s lunch centred on a slab of vegetarian quiche; whoever heard of that?
That was nearly that, past the (Trevor?) Mallard Duck Café and on to the Mash Brewery for a beer tasting and finally the Margaret River Chocolate Company where the irrepressible Barry went behind the counter to give us each a truffle of choice and encouragement to get stuck into the free samples. And we did.
Rather than go all the way back to town, Barry dropped us and our half-truckload of purchased wine off at Guildford with a promise a taxi would be there within minutes to transport us home. “You can trust me,” he said. “I’m the driver.”
There was an amusing postscript. Next day Marty and Kaelene drove back to Jarrah Ridge to pick up a price-driven case of mixed red ($70 a dozen), and who should be there with his next tour group but Barry. There was no escape; he loudly announced to everyone present that, clearly not satisfied with buying out one entire winery the day before, we were back for a second go. “Look at this,” he said,” they can’t stay away. Bloody amazing!”

Closer encounters
It is kind of confusing being in Australia, the country must be going through some sort of growing pains. On one hand it has been comforting to find relics of the outdated traditions by which we have always characterised our ANZAC neighbour, undeniably illustrated when an attractive, well dressed woman walked through the old-fashioned Formica-tabled lounge bar we were sitting in. From a jug-eared, ruddy-faced old codger that could well have been from an episode of the outback televisions shows Blue Heelers or Flying Doctors emanated a loud wolf-whistle that drew the attention of everyone in the bar, a prompt for heads to turn and check out the woman. What a classic, it’s the sort of thing not seen or heard in New Zealand for the best part of forty years but here it was in full unabashed glory, and no-one seemed to think it out of place.
On the other hand, the same bar specialises in having low calorie beers on tap designed to save men from enhancing their bellies, and who would have heard of that? There was a time Australian men would have been proud to have sported an ample sized girth under or even protruding out from below their singlet, but no more. Seemingly metrosexuals of the new Perth and our old friend with the jug ears are now embraced as one. Now that is integration.
On the subject of beer, it is hard to believe that in a nation renowned for drinking the amber fluid could cost so much. There is nothing in the six pack range of stubbies costing under $A15 ($NZ19), with the standard price being around $A18 ($23). We have been told it is not a matter of higher taxes in Australia than at home, but rather that there is less competition. However, the truth may be that, if reports of the hot climate here are accurate (we’ve not experienced it yet), then the brewers know that they have a captive market. Certainly, the infamous Sunday sessions at local hotels indicate that price is not a barrier to more than ample consumption.
But back to the bar we were at, there was a sign on the door drawing attention to its dress standards, and this caused some trans-Tasman puzzlement. Thongs are strictly banned the notice read and we pondered on this. At home thongs are a type of underwear which covers very little at the front and almost nothing at the back, a single strip of material riding, uncomfortably so we would imagine, between the cheeks of the wearers buttocks. It was only right to question why the bar would take such an interest in the type of underwear patrons would be wearing, but it may have been a precaution against impromptu strip shows, the censorship laws being quite strict here. But of course there was a simple explanation; thongs are what we know as jandals, but even why jandals would be banned when almost anything else goes is quite beyond comprehension.
As part of the planning process for Seath and Nicole’s new home, we have been looking at some of these new housing developments springing up all over the place and the question has to be asked why, in a country of endless size, do these house have to be all cheek by jowl, the new subdivisions forming a sea of roofs in the arid, rural landscape? It has intrigued us that in many of the new developments in rural or semi rural locations at home, like Prebbleton or Halswell, houses appear to be only a couple of metres apart, raising the question of why people want to live so close in a rural landscape. If closeness is what they want, why not live in the city and leave the country to those wanting some space and open air? These places do not even get views. It is the same here, miles from anywhere new towns are springing up with houses by the score and not an ounce of room between them. As an aside, we have viewed a number of show homes, and there are dozens of them as building companies vie for dominance, and it appears that separate theatre rooms are now a standard feature, along with four bedrooms and huge, covered barbeque areas. And quite by coincidence a young salesman we were chatting to turned out to be a similar age to our younger children and had gone to Cashmere High School at the same time they were there. Small world.
Perth itself may be growing on us, quickly so. The city centre is vibrant with a skyline not unlike Dubai in some respects, with gardens and some beautiful old buildings, but what makes a real difference is that the city centre has a heart. And that is unlike Christchurch or Auckland.
The last word is reserved for GoGos Madras Curry House which serves the very best Indian food we have ever eaten (including tender and very edible goat), and so too half of the world’s cricket teams. It turns out that GoGo, the owner and chef, has done the catering at the WACA ground for ten years and the walls of the restaurant are adorned with cricketing memorabilia, including signed plates and cricket shirts and testimonials from the players to the greatness of GoGo’s food. A sporting version of a Hard Rock Café.