As I said in the post before, I got toasted while surf-widowing on the boat previously and that was on a cloudy day, so it was sensible sun protection for me after that in Moorea.
We were going to swim with some sharks.
Yup. That's right. And I was so excited.
Until I saw this guy. I was keen to swim with sharks, but the sting rays scare me - having been stung by one I can tell you I never want to repeat that experience!
But I really wanted to swim with the sharks.
But the rays.....
After dithering some more, I jumped in and Wow!
It was one of the coolest things I have ever done!
But damn, those rays were hanging around!
I didn't last too long, and after pulling a muscle hauling my panic back into the boat I did the decidedly un-Jacqui thing of having a beer! It was so worth it, though.
After the shark swim, we wandered around the old Club Med. This relic of times past is testament to a suffering tourist economy on the island, which is really sad. Flights from just about anywhere to Tahiti are very expensive, and the cost of living, once there, is also high. In a place that has such stunning natural beauty you would expect tourism to be unstoppable but it is unfortunately either completely unaffordable for many, and for others affordable only as a once in a lifetime destination.
The upside of this is Moorea is not over-run by tourists, but it's such a small economy that it does really need a bit more...
Honestly. I don't think I have ever seen water this clear.
Not even in a swimming pool.
This is me location scouting....
My mask is fogged up because not only is it crystal clear, it's also dreamily warm.
After meeting Hani and Benji in Fiji earlier in the year - they were showing their clothes at Fiji Fashion Week - finally a long held wish was coming true, and I was going to Tahiti!
We landed in the evening and pit-stopped at Hotel Tahiti Nui in Papeete before getting a morning ferry over to the island of Moorea. Like all good evening arrivals for me, the Tahiti Nui began with an impression of "crap, why am I staying here".
There was some serious mood lighting in the foyer (really dark, perhaps saving on electricity?), and in the corridors encircling an atrium (which I was sure would be delightful during the day) it was so dark we needed a torch to find our room number! However, once inside, the rooms were clean and spacious and the bed gets a big rating with thick soft sheets and a cloud-like mattress.
I slept well.
I chose to sit on the open roof deck of the ferry to get the best view. Under cloud cover it was still hot and very glarey.
The rain started light, but I made the decision half way across to take my computer and camera gear out of a potential storm and down two levels to the indoor area.
Easier said than done!
As the boat groaned and lurched, the weight on my back and the weight in my hand worked in opposite directions to my own weight and negotiating four flights of stairs became more extreme sport than I had expected. I'm going to have to use that as my excuse for not taking any photos after that point, which is a shame because from my sheltered position at the front of the boat, I was rewarded with a cinematic view...
The approach to the island of Moorea is like everything I have imagined of paradise and nothing I have ever seen before in real life. Towering, jagged rainforest-carpeted mountains framing a bay of at least four different colours and shades of awesome. The cloud was low and grey, but the view is one that would shine on any day. Absolutely spectacular!
Lunch at Snack Mahana. Crumbed mahi mahi and a raw tuna salad, marinated in coconut, lime and ginger (I ate a lot of poisson cru during my Polynesian stay!)
With these gorgeous people - Benji and Hani.
Our beautiful hosts had a lot of last minute cutting and stitching to do in preparation for our planned shoots. So we spent a little while at the HaniHaring workshop...
That little fluffy fellow is Badoule, and he is a champion of a dog. You see, Badoule goes everywhere with Hani and Benji, including out on the boat when Benji is having a surf. One surf session, the boat was anchored at the edge of the break and a freak wave came through and tipped the boat with Badoule in it. Benji, naturally, was really worried and searched and called and searched and called, but could not find him anywhere. He was devastated and not looking forward to telling Hani, either.
Five hours, and a very long swim later, Badoule arrived on shore! Everyone knows everyone on this small island and he was returned to his very grateful and incredulous parents. Such a teeny, fuffy little thing! Such a champion!
We were made to feel so welcome in Hani and Benji's home. Actually, we were made to feel welcome everywhere. It's such a beautiful island.
The beach at Temae, just around the corner from the house. You can't tell from this photo, but that water is the clearest and most beautiful that I have seen anywhere in the world. It's where I photographed Heremiti underwater (I'll post those pictures soon).
These crabs crack me up. As evening closes in, they start to come out onto the road (there is only really one main road around the island and it's not even sealed the whole way) bodies the size of soup bowls and arms/claws upstretched in defiance to the car tyres. Like a strange twilight game of Space Invaders they move left, then right, then left again, like they are playing chicken.
Flower crowns.
Hani showed me how to make one, when we were in Fiji. They always look beautiful, so of course she wanted to use some in her photo shoot, but I never realised how much they are genuinely worn in French Polynesia. As in, they aren't just a tourist gimmick. You see girls wandering around the streets with them on, just as a beautiful addition to their outfit. It's the flower crowns, and the fact that everyone says "Bon Dimanche" on a Sunday that make an already naturally stunning location, a gorgeous place to be.
We needed to get some flowers.
but when the rain got heavier, I decided I would do a better job documenting things from inside the truck than I would getting wet.
Which beer did you say we should get?
While the boys surfed, we (with Hani's little sister Mehiti) sat in the lagoon and fished. We used handlines, but Hani also showed me how to 'catch' a clam, diving underwater for it, which we ate on the boat as sashimi.
I got toasted and fried, so lots of other times when the boys surfed after that, I spent driving around with Hani, listening to Jacques Brel, chatting, and being in total awe of my surroundings.
I'm pretty sure I ate fish every day.
Including in my crepe at the Hilton in a restaurant on a boardwalk perched over a lagoon of sharks.
Oh my gosh, we were so spoilt while we were there! I was even treated to a massage at the Intercontinental's Spa Helene!
Tahiti is hot. To me it felt hotter than any of the equatorial countries I have visited.
This was Hani's way of dealing with it after washing the clothes we had used in the shoots (I will be posting more pictures from the photo sessions!) ...
Hani and Benji, thank you so much!
I really, really, really hope we can visit again soon.
It was almost a year ago that Sonny and I were invited to French Polynesia to hang out and do some photo sessions for local designers HaniHaring. This bridal styled shoot was one of them.
Photographed on location at the Sainte Famille church on the island of Moorea. Isn't it so beautiful!
Stunning dress designs by the talented local duo, Hani and Benji, of HaniHaring.
Models - Kim Yen, Teihotu, Giselle, Hoani, Eileen and Tumai.
Make-up - Tevei Renvoyer. Hair - G. David Coiffure.
Granted, it was a fairly unusual decision to visit Adelaide to cross paths for just a couple of hours with my Swedish friends Micke and Ellis, who had been in Australia for a couple of months by that stage. But I do love an excuse to travel, and that was the earliest I could get to them.
And they brought Cheez Doodles out here for me, so I really had to see them.
Only kidding. A little. Of course I would have seen them if they didn't bring Doodles. Probably. Oh stop!
Even though they were flying the long and arduous route home the next day,after making a temporary home with their two delicious kids, Norton and Aprilia, they hosted a little dinner party for us. I was most impressed as I am fairly useless when it comes to prepping to fly, especially with kids in tow.
So long is the time between doing and blogging for me that I am now looking forward to their return at the end of this year - this trip was the end of July 2015.
That night we stayed at The Watson. Great service, modern styling and comfortable.
The plan was to drive back from Adelaide, through the middle so to speak, as against the outback road or coast road that we had followed on our previous round trip.
Our first photo stop, near Millbrook...
and the next one was the Lyndoch Lavender Farm, which smelled delicious! We stocked up on lavender honey, lavender mustard (yup, really yum), lavender chocolate, and a few lavender plants too.
With two photographers in the car, you tend to stop quite a bit, just not at any of the regular pit stops.
We crossed the Murray by car ferry,
and stayed the night in Mildura.
I'd wanted to linger and check out the area the next morning, I hear Mildura has some great sights, but Sonny had other plans, so all I got was breakfast and he drove straight out of town. At least the breakfast was impressive to make up for missing out on other things. If you are in Mildura, check out The Wooden Door.
It's opposite the cool hair salon...
So, we raced through the countryside, barely stopping for anything as Sonny wanted to get to this lake. Not satisfied with the view he had, he decided to spend about an hour off-road on top of that. He was certain it was salt, and worth it.
I'm not totally convinced it was worth missing any chance of seeing anything else that day, but I did get some pretty pictures.
Lake Tyrrell.
That night we stayed at 1860. So named, as that was when it was built.
It's a really lovely place to stay, especially in winter, with it's open fire and frosty morning. Romantic too, if you're into that sort of thing.
I do love a bit of dead tree in a lake. We stopped here with some bread, cheese and wine for lunch.
Then traveled uphill to Thredbo.
There is an outdoor pool and spa at the Thredbo Alpine Resort. That, and it's proximity to the lifts are the only reason you would stay there. You know when you read reviews and people say the walls are paper-thin, etc, and you think they must be really fussy people? That's not the case with this place. Hearing a conversation being held at normal volume from the room next door is not really how I want my holiday to be.
But I did swim in the pool. Actually. I built up to it by hitting the spa first, and I left my beanie on while in the pool!
Sadly, my joints are too shit to snowboard now, so I tried my hand at a bit of walking on tennis racquets. It was actually quite fun, but the bosses of Thredbo are very restrictive about where you can and cannot go in these puppies. Bit of a shame really.
Heading home and I just had to stop as this storm came in. My favourite kind of sky - dark clouds and sunlight!
But geez it was freezing!
Back in Sydney waiting to swap the hire car for the actual car, I was treated a beautiful sunset.
I wanted to go somewhere for my birthday, and Fiji was tempting, but it's just not quite as hot as I like it, in July, so I took the kids to the Blue Mountains. Jenolan Caves is a really magical place, so I thought I would spend my actual birthday there.
We stayed at Mountain Heritage, where I stayed last time I was up there (I know, total creature of habit, but when you find something good....). The kids and I had the family room in the turret, which was pretty cool, kinda round, and big enough for us, and it had a good amount of heating too!
First, I helped them mis-spend their youth in the games room.
It was cold.
Back in the main hotel building, near the open fire, we were treated to a sunset rainbow.
And I love this photo of my three. Evan outside with me and his camera, the girls inside with the wifi (we don't have wifi at home).
My birthday week, so I got to do what I wanted. Pool. Scrabble. I don't know that my companions were quite as into it as me...
Dinner that night was a my nephew Ben's pizza place. Poor guy was too flat out to chat. I think he works more than me!
The next day, my actual birthday, on the steep, narrow, winding road down to Jenolan valley I spotted on the opposite side, in a small picnic area, a wallaby. Having kids in the car is a perfect excuse for a wildlife detour so I pulled the car over. As I grabbed my camera and started to creep out of the car (I didn't want to scare the wallaby away) it started hopping over to the car!
I've never seen that before, but I'm pretty sure this one knew exactly what the deal was - travellers often have food in their cars, and sometimes they share!
Jenolan Caves is a magical place to visit, and I really love it there, but the huge letdown is the shit food on offer. The hotel restaurant is expensive, but good, but for day-trippers the only fare on offer is fried and greasy. The kiosk smells oily.
We didn't eat there. But the birds do.
My birthday photo.
Lilac hair and off to the Rooster for dinner (service was very crap, and food was overpriced for the quality - not at all like the experience I had last time I ate there, and so disappointing for my birthday treat), but at least I had the kids with me, and I do love their company.
The next day was a lesson learned with signage on bushwalk tracks in the Blue Mountains. If the sign says the degree of difficulty is 'hard', then they actually mean it is...
hard.
Downward descent from the Wentworth Falls Conservation Hut was fine for the first half, though the stone stairs are uneven and can be slippery in the second half. However, once at the falls you are rewarded with some really beautiful sights. We descended with the falls to four different viewing points, but I think it may have even gone further into the valley.
Spot the photographer...
The walk up is hard for anyone who doesn't do aerobic and leg workouts daily, and it was at this point that I really wishes for an inclinator that I could step into and be jettisoned upwards. Only problem with that would be that I couldn't boast about having done the climb afterwards.
I have been wanting to do this blog post for so long, because it really makes me smile.
Kula is one of the girls who works at Tomlus, and one night when I was there, I was chatting with her about her young family. She has four kids, the youngest was just a bub at three months old.
I told her that I love to photograph babies (and kids, and families), and asked her if she had any photos of her kids. She didn't. She didn't have any photos of anything, not even her wedding day.
I have always trawled through my parent's photo albums. I got my first camera when I was about 8 years old, and I have been taking photos ever since (copy paste in every photographer's bio, but it is true). I really love photos. Even as a kid, I never threw any out. If they were out of focus, badly lit, not flattering, they are still kept, not on display, but there because they are still a document of a time and a reminder of people, places, things.
I peer into the sepia and scratched faces of older relatives in the photos that are handed down to me. I wonder how their lives were. I seek out our physical similarities, and feel connected with them so much more than I could without that visual cue.
So photos are really important to me, and I wanted Kula to have some of her family.
The instructions for me were to go past the school, and to the new wooden house next to the mango tree.
It is idyllic as it sounds, and it is not. Kula, her husband Meli, and their four kids live in their house of one room and no electricity. It is a beautiful place to live, but I am sure it is not easy.
There are so may smiles, though.
The village voice signaled my arrival well before I reached the house lugging my camera gear on my back, and I arrived in time for little Tupa's bath. Unlike most babes here in Australia, Tupa gets bathed twice a day. He gets a coconut oil massage after his bath, and a teaspoonful of mushed up leaves from a plant that I didn't recognise, but he (and other Fiji babies) has had it since birth, for his good health.
If anyone knows this leaf, I am curious....
Now, tickle Mummy...
Teenage boys are so sweet, but they don't love having their photo taken and it seems to be a worldwide phenomenon...
Dad, Meli, is a farmer. He's one of the many guys who walk along Cuvu back road, and I'm sure hundreds of other roads in Fiji, with a whopping great machete. The kids fetched him from his work when we were ready for his photo.
Never even had a wedding photo....
I loved doing this photo session.
Really loved it!
Kula and her family now have a full set of prints, and a USB of our little afternoon together, and it makes me so happy that I can do that.
As I left, I saw some kids playing in the school yard (where the kindy that I visited with the kids is now located too). Their toys and games were recycling genius with beautiful cooperation and sharing.
The day after I got back from Western Australia, I left for Fiji.
No, I don't plan things this way, but that's how they usually happen for me. I had enough time to give my kids hello/goodbye hugs before I was off to Suva.
I was beyond excited to be going to Fiji for Fashion Week!
We stopped for dinner at Tomlus on our way from Nadi Airport to Suva. Of course it was delicious and we booked ahead for a few days time, as well.
As late evening arrivals at Novotel Lami Bay, our accommodation during fashion week, we were a little travel weary as we were taken to our room, and I was ready to crash. But, as soon as we were let in the door I sensed it.... I knew there were cockroaches. I don't know how, but I just knew they would be there - I have a very finely tuned roach radar. I was immediately transported back to the trauma of my late 80's experiences in the cheapest of cheap backpackers' joints in all the wrong ends of South East Asia. The room looked like it hadn't been renovated since the 80's and had perhaps been flooded a number of times since. Old decor, broken, cracked, in disrepair, with fluorescent tube lighting on the ceiling (I have written articles on my judging of accommodation based solely on the lighting they use, and fluorescent tube is worse than kero lamp). My thoughts were "How can Novotel put their name to this place". After all, we had stayed in a nice one in Exmouth, just the week before.
Too scared to recline on any furniture I was overcome with 'the horror, the horror', and then I saw the roach.
A call to reception had us moved upstairs to what may as well have been another hotel altogether, so different it was from our first room. Why on earth we were given the downstairs room, I couldn't imagine!
The bed linen was nice, it was of a more modern standard, and fairly comfortable. And not one roach for the rest of our stay!
The real winner with this hotel is it's outlook. Such a surprise to look out the next morning to a stunning view across Lami Bay with the water literally lapping at the bottom of the building. Calm and lovely. The beautiful fish that swim past the restaurant are a sweet addition to the breakfast ambience, and I even enjoyed the music that was played in the restaurant (a bit indy, and nothing at all like the squeaky pop that I often have to listen to in Fiji hotels).
Lami Bay is on the edge of Suva, and the hotel on the waterfront had such a tranquility about it.
And it's got geckos by the glassful! (I love geckos so much, and how cute is this little guy!)
A special moment on a drizzly weekday morning...
Sonny, Nicholas Huxley (head of fashion design at Sydney TAFE) and I all gave talks at Fiji National University (which has the unfortunate abbreviation of FNU) and at Tailevu North College. I loved talking with the high school kids about photography and their potential for a career with it in Fiji.
I want to go back and give some lessons now!
We did three days worth of shows, and since I have shared so many photos already on my Running Under the Sprinkler Facebook page, as well as Instagram, I'll just pick a few favourites for here...
I loved being there. It was colourful, fun and real. The models were all gorgeous and so sweet, there were some beautiful designs, and I just had a great time.
While in Suva we had a couple of meals at the Grand Pacific, which is a glorious, colonial styled hotel - the style of the haunts that exist in my fantasy life as international photojournalist or ambassador's wife.
I would have loved to check out the rooms there.
Hanging with Trevor Whippy, talking camera settings with him, over lunch, while it rained.
Actually it rained quite a bit in Suva, but it didn't dampen my smile (awww, cheeeeesy!).
It was all a great experience.
In the many decades that I have visited Fiji I had never been to Suva before. It was well overdue that I visited!
Getting peckish driving back to the Coral Coast, we spotted a bunch of shops at Pacific Harbour. I didn't know what we would find there to eat and it's a funny little area, kinda sitting in the middle of nowhere on the main road, but there are restaurants perched around a lily pond and it's got a pretty good selection of food.
I heard some blues wafting along the path, but I thought the song would have been a one-off. I rounded the bed to see this sign
and that was enough for me, but it got even better.
The Baka Blues Cafe is a perfect mix of seafood and music, as far as I am concerned. I tapped my toes and enjoyed a prawn po-boy,
and I was in Fiji.
It couldn't have gotten more perfect!
The next two nights I was back at my second home, The Fijian.
It had been less than a year since I was last there, but I am always happy to stay.
We had met Tahitian surfing designers, Hani and Benji, in Suva as they showed their designs at fashion week. They came to the Shangri-La to hang out with us.
Hani is a perfect Tahitian princess who made me a perfect Tahitian flower crown!
I wish I could have brought it home with me to show Belle and India, but Australia gets a bit funny about you doing that with flowers and the like, so I gifted it to the lovely Lusia, from Tomlus.
I hope I see you again soon, Fiji!
Read more about my Fiji Fashion experience, and the article I wrote for the Fiji Airways in-flight magazine here.
Broome had always been a place that I wanted to visit. The lure of the tropical climate, it's eclectic cultural influences, and the red, white and blue of the coastal landscape captivated me and my incessant wanderlust.
We stayed at the Bali Hai which was pretty lovely.
I know it's nit-picking, but I wish the decor had adhered more closely to Bali style - so many elements were spot-on, but the corrugated iron (while giving a big nod to the local architecture) just felt all wrong. But enough nit-picking.
The whole resort has a beautiful smell. It's an incense-y smell, but it's not incense. It lingered in my room every time I came in and it was so nice!
My room had three showers and a huge standalone bathtub. One shower was outdoors (very Bali-style but with hot water), and two were opposite each other for a double shower. The bathtub was luxurious. Safe to say, bathing was well covered!
Bonus points for the general store across and down the road with yummy bacon and egg rolls!
It was overcast, and getting late, but we followed advice and took the cameras to Gantheaume Point.
The light was creamy delicious.
I don't know if I had been there in the hot sun if I would have loved it as much, but I did love it.
The place is beautiful.
Apparently on the very low tides (which can be extreme) you can see the footprints of three different dinosaurs embedded in the sea floor.
So it's pretty special.
The next day was a visit to Sun Pictures, an outdoor cinema that has been in operation since 1916.
My tilt-shift and I loved the details there.
Matso's Brewery for a Desert Lime and Wild Ginger cider is a most refreshing must!
Another overcast sky gave me creamy afternoon light at the jetty.
Fishing rods
and fishing nets (I really love this picture!).
The last day in Broome I spent visiting Willie Creek Pearl Farm.
Broome grew around it's pearling industry so it was only fitting that I learn a bit about it.
The Willie Creek tour is educational (though I sat at the back of the class)
and includes a boat trip to see the cages.
Thieving from the farm is kept to a minimum by the watchdog duo of bull sharks and crocodiles who lurk in the opaque, jade-coloured water.
It's so inviting, but then it isn't.
Exploring a little further north, on another white sand beach, I was no more tempted to swim than at the pearl farm. But I photographed this flower because I love the way that things so far away can seem so close. On Fiji's coral coast, this flower grows on the black sand of Sigatoka Sand Dunes, and on W.A's coral coast, here it is again.
Broome Speedway.
I would love to watch the cars here!
So I scratched the itch and followed my dream to visit Broome. What did I think?
I loved it.
I wish it wasn't so expensive to get to, and I wish I could have taken my kids with me this time. A good excuse to go back, though!
Broome airport was outdoors. As in, the waiting areas for the gate(s) were outdoors. I have never seen that before.
Testament to an awesome climate, I guess!
Taxiing in our plane we were welcomed aboard, via the intercom, and introduced to our captain.
I queried the stewardess over his name and she confirmed that I knew him, so I asked her to tell him it was Jacqui, the nervous kindy teacher on board. Many years ago, John was a dad at the kindy I worked at. I knew he was a pilot and had told him how scared I was of an upcoming flight. He took so much time and care to explain how safe it was, and told me all about the training they had to do, and what was involved and how well trained the Qantas pilots were. He is a really lovely guy.
Next thing I knew I was being named over the intercom for a special welcome aboard!
It's not what you know, it's who you know.... Made me smile.
Needless to say, I was not nervous at all on that flight home!
And a pause on our road trip in the middle of nowhere.
This joint wasn't too bad.
We ended up with the best digs in the place too!
This is the view from our verandah.
The view from the bed
Oh so nice!
And the view from our lounge/kitchen/dining/second bedroom pavilion to our bedroom pavilion.
Told you we had the best digs!
Wanderings...
We did lots of wanderings. North and south.
Pretty much a full day of walking on the beaches.
On a hot day.
So when I got to a point on the strip of sand that was always promising an end in the form of a point, but in fact just kept going, I was keen to get in the water.
Two steps in brought me to a screeching halt, though as the shallows came alive with more rays than I have ever seen. The more I looked, the more I saw!
Now, I'm not certain that these flighty little guys even had barbs to sting me with, but having fallen victim to a barb from their kinfolk once before I had absolutely no intention of taking the gamble. A sting from a ray is an incredibly painful experience as the poison travels along your limb, and lingers until soaking the entry point in boiling water for long enough to neutralize the toxins brings it back to just being acute pain.
It's such an incredible coastline, with the red earth and the azure waters, that the following day I was lured into a helicopter for a different perspective,
and if you know me at all, you know I don't like to get around in things that fly.
It was a little overcast, so we waited for it to clear as much as it was going to, then gave it a whirl (yes, I do think that is a bit funny).
Our sweet joint was the beachfront building on the far right...
Spectacular!
Landing on the beach was pretty cool.
There is not a soul around, but there obviously are quite a few different ones around when we were not.
I love these pathways.
Eco Beach is a dreamy place to stay.
Dramatically stunning. A place for lovers of the beach, as well as lovers of the land. A place for lovers! Great destination wedding location - get married on the beach, and you are pretty certain to not have rain (in the 'winter' months). I'll come and photograph your wedding for you!
I would have loved some fly screens on a door or window here and there so I could leave them open overnight. There are some seriously large exoskeletal beasties.
The food was beautiful (nothing in this part of WA is cheap, and I have just learned to accept that), and the staff were always friendly, always helpful.
I left feeling quite spoilt and definitely relaxed, but not before a quick dip in the pool.
Two big days of driving to get from Exmouth to Broome with nary a stop along the way aside from my one in Port Hedland, which I was really excited about because I was going to see my friend Kirsty and photograph her (and her bump) underwater.
But first we had to get there.
Past the prawn. (I'm scared of prawns. Love to eat them, but they scare me)
and the other scenic diversions.
This road house was the only thing around for hundreds of kilometres, so they charged $36 for a piece of steak.
In a roadhouse.
It was clean enough. But it wasn't the kind of place I would expect to pay a good restaurant price for an average cut of meat fried up next to the burger patties.
The next one, a couple of hours up the road, didn't even try to look pretty.
The miners' donga accommodation out the back looked like some version of hell to me, though this lizard didn't care and was high-tailing it over there just to get away from my camera.
Karratha.
It's really hot out there, and we were there in May. Hard to tell in these photos, but it would be a killer in the summer months.
There is something so cool about a big pile of salt!
This one greeted our arrival in Port Hedland.
We stayed at The Esplanade Hotel, which wasn't too bad. The room was small and the door that opened onto the return verandah (great) didn't have a fly screen so we could have it open at night (not so great). We ate there with Kirst and her man, Clint in the fairy-light illuminated garden and the food was yummy, so the small room was worthwhile for the nice meal.
Kirsty and I used to live together in Bondi. A long time ago. She was the best flatmate, because when I used to come home from an all-nighter carving up the dance floor, and she would be on her way out the door to do an early shift at work, she would let me sleep in her oh-so-comfy water bed. That is a hallmark of a truly awesome flatmate.
Anyway, she is now pregnant and living in Port Hedland, so I just had to see her for an underwater session.
I had visions of a spectacular underwater world off the coast but the water in Port Hedland is not quite as clear and gorgeous as the rest of that oceanside stretch, so we needed to find a pool.
In the morning we met Kirsty at the Port Hedland Leisure Centre, where a lovely lady called Diane let us use the dive pool exclusively, so she is clearly an awesome person as well.
It was so fun having such a huge space to work with!
A few shots of Kirsty and her underwater bump session...
This is me...
And it was time to hit the road again
Welcome to Sandfire. I bet I can guess how they got that name.
Actually, I kinda lied with this post's title, because we didn't make it to Broome (at least not in this post).
We stopped about an hour shy of Broome at Eco Beach. Have a look at my next entry for more on that....
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