Rule No. 1: Never throw a boomerang if there are people in front of you that you do not wish to harm or kill. Cole has been pining for a large field in which to throw his boomerang since he bought it in Coober Pedy so many weeks ago. His wish was granted in Kondinin, a short stroll past our caravan park just past the exercise stations for chin ups, sit ups and push ups. Admittedly, I was keen to have a hurl as well and to demonstrate my prowess at throwing this angled piece of wood. As I revelled in the success of my initial throw, Aidan had collected the boomerang and was in the process of winding up for a throw with Piper, Cole and I about 15 metres directly ahead of him. The wind was coming from where we were standing so I had hoped he might throw it 45 degrees into the wind and not directly towards us. Being 9 and still developing the precision of a) knowing what 45 degrees means, and b) physically throwing a boomerang in this direction was perhaps a bit much to ask. As if in slow motion, his initial 45 degree aim turned directly towards us and on releasing the ‘rang, he happened to hold onto it for a moment too long, twirling the hardened curved object just above my head. I’m sure that if I hadn’t ducked, it would’ve scalped a few more hairs from my already faltering hairline. Rule No.2: Always discuss the ‘duck’ position with fellow throwers of the boomerang in the event that the throw is successful and the boomerang actually comes back … right at you. Cole had his best ever throw with the ‘rang zooming up in front of us only to do as it was designed to come right back at us. Arms were thrown over our heads and we assumed the ‘duck’ position as best as possible and fortunately avoided any bloodshed.
Mormor and Morfar’s flight was delayed so we took our time making our way to Perth, deciding to head up to York, which we’d heard so much about, before making the final 100km into town. York is rather quaint – somewhat reminiscent of Beechworth with older buildings and a bit of a café culture. We lunched at a Lebanese Bohemian type café on the main drag and stuffed ourselves with falafels, lamb and chicken kebabs. Across the street was the ‘motor’ museum – a small warehouse full of antique and old racing cars which filled the boys with much glee. On the way out of town we stopped at the Mill – a café and craft/art museum/store with some amazing recovered Jarrah wood tables, chairs and other wooden arts and crafts. Given that the caravan is already stuffed with toys and odds and ends, there wasn’t space for a full dining table with benches and chairs so we headed out in the early afternoon - destination – Karringyup Waters Resort Caravan Park, to the North of Perth.
Although I wouldn’t describe myself as particularly superstitious, the Rule of 3’s seems to be a functional reality in my world and hopefully our inauspicious entry to Perth will fit the same bill. Fiona (our GPS voice) was programmed and had us on course until she came up against her nemesis – the Graham Farmer’s Highway Tunnel. Halfway through the tunnel she insisted we turn left and when we resisted as we were not interested in turning into the wall of the tunnel, she advised, in a rather harsh English tone, to do our best to do a U-turn (we were on a one-way stretch). Thinking she must really want us to go left we took the first exit on leaving the tunnel and ended up deep in the CBD doing the equivalent of a U-turn through the city and heading back to the freeway we’d only left moments earlier. We eventually found the caravan park and just as the clouds opened and rain began to fall, discovered a part of our awning had broken and we couldn’t open it up properly. Finally, with nare a moment to lose we made our way to the airport to collect Jen’s parents. Traffic was heavy, so our timing was cut down to the wire. As we ambled into the ‘Pick up and Drop’ off lane we came to a low-lying bar stipulating nothing higher than 2.8 metres could pass. Sure enough we still had the bikes on top – cresting just over 3 metres. As I inched closer to the bar to try to allow the traffic behind through, Jen was nearly in hysterics, thinking I might gun it just to see if the bikes would squeeze under. As the traffic subsided we slowly made our way in reverse back up from whence we’d come until a large Kiwi bloke from parking security halted our advances. We eventually got turned around and headed out after they had quite politely stopped traffic and opened up the chain to allow us into short term parking – another height restricted area. In the end, our crew had been collected and we made it out of the parking without paying a cent for their troubles – it was almost like we had landed on ‘Free Parking’ in monopoly (without collecting the hordes of cash). Perhaps not such an inauspicious start as I’d thought. We’ll see how the rest of the visit goes.
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