This gallery contains 13 photos.
On the weekend of the 2nd of December, my partner Denis, my dog Kahlua, and Den’s kids – Chelsea and Mason, and myself hit the road for the 8 hour drive to Kalgoorlie. It was the kids first trip to … Continue reading
I left Kalgoorlie 24 years ago, but it’s amazing how much like home it still feels to me.
The Old House, 24 years later - Hard to believe it's still standing
It’s a pleasant realisation, as I sit here reminiscing about the weekend spent revisiting my roots, catching up with family, and sharing the experience (and the 8 hour drive each way) with my partner Denis, his 2 kids, and my dog Kahlua.
So much to see on the one, long road to Kalgoorlie...
[In case you don't know, Kalgoorlie is a large goldfields town, famed for its gold rush history, infamous Hay Street, old buildings, interesting characters, pubs, present day gold mining (of course) and red dirt.
Mining in Kalgoorlie
(I tell you now, it took us years after having left Kalgoorlie to get rid of the layers of red dirt over everything!).]
Why is it a pleasant realisation?
After two weekends in a row spent away – the first at the coastal town of Yallingup, 4 hours from Perth, and the second, 8 hours away in Kalgoorlie – it becomes so much more apparent to me that I love this country, especially for its diversity – the people, the cultures and its landscape. [Seriously, I never thought I would ever appreciate the red dirt and intensity of the bush...especially being a pale, red-head with freckles who can burn after 10 minutes in the Aussie sun!]
Deep down, I think I am a country girl at heart.
You can take the girl out of the country...
Do you still have a connection with where you lived when you were younger?
One of my main goals for 2011 was to put my health first, and to not go through another year constantly stressed, with recurrent colds, stomach upsets and endless fatigue.
If you have followed me at all this year, you would know that I tanked so badly at it, it’s not funny.
BUT
I must give myself some credit for noticing the error of my ways before 2011 ticked over to 2012 – and a few months early at that!
Quitting the old job, going part-time in the new job, eating better, seeing a naturopath, commencing light exercise, pushing back on…everything…Sure I went a bit too hard with the whole ‘changing my life thing’ to start with, but I do now believe that I am heading towards a more balanced life.
Which brings me to last weekend, where I took some time out. On Friday I drove to Yallingup, a coastal town about 4 hours south of Perth, to spend a long weekend with some of my family, notably my sister-in-law Rachel, and my beautiful nieces Charlotte – 3 – and Emily – 8 months.
Yallingup beach
I had the best time hitting the road by myself, allowing the country and ocean air to successfully rid my brain of its cobwebs.
It was wonderful eating great food and spending some quality time with my sister, brother and their friends.
My brother Luke and I
It was relaxing spending a girly night with my sister-in-law watching ‘chick flicks’.
It was absolutely joyous just being with my nieces, especially little Charlotte who has succeeded in stealing my heart.
My niece Charlotte and I
And it was satisfying spending time with my man (who joined us a day later) and my camera (I took 140 photos in the first day).
I thoroughly enjoyed the time out from my day-to-day life, from chores, from the internet (I even managed to go internet and computer-less throughout the entire weekend), from my brain and stress…I even managed to get a healthy dose of Vitamin D!
Sun, surf and sand - Yalingup
I vow to myself to do this more from now. Lucky for me there’s another road trip planned this coming weekend! On Friday Denis and I hit the road, on a 7 hour drive to Kalgoorlie with his 2 kiddies and our dog. From breathtaking beaches one weekend to the striking vastness of a mining town. It is with this thought that I realise I really do love this country after all.
The long country road to Kalgoorlie
Today’s photos were taken in December 2010 on a drive from Perth to Kalgoorlie.
For those not from around these parts, Perth is the main city I live near, and Kalgoorlie is a mining town about 7-8 hours away from Perth. Kalgoorlie is where I spent a majority of my childhood.
At about 6am in the morning Denis, Kahlua and I embarked on our first ever road trip, which was also a chance for me to share my ‘memory lane’ with my partner and dog.
There really is nothing better than hitting the road early. You miss most of the traffic, the air is fresh, it’s not too hot yet (as it’s Summer is December here),
On the road
and you get to see some of the most unique countryside…
The country
‘I’m back…yes I’m back in black.’ Queue guitar riff.
Aptly dressed all in black, AC/DC pelting out of the car stereo – about to embark on the last leg of the 7 hour journey to Kalgoorlie – the mammoth 188 kilometer or more stretch between Southern Cross and Coolgardie, with nothing much more than road, red dirt, scrub and road trains.
I lose track of how many times we did that journey when I was little. I do remember that it was always at that point of the journey that us kids would almost go bonkers…‘Are we there yet?’, ‘When is it going to end?’, ‘I’m Bored’, ‘I need to go to the toilet.’ Such a charming bunch we were to travel with.
It’s weird doing the same journey, now as an adult. Back then it was one woman, 3 dogs, 3 kids, one car, and 596 kilometers of road. Today – it was Denis, our dog Kahlua, me, my car, and 596 kilometers of road.
Technology has assisted with making the journey more pleasurable. The walk-man and the car tape deck have thankfully made way to the i-Phone – with so many 1000’s of songs to meet both of our tastes, which differ a lot – and the ability to pump it through the car stereo. And driving there in my 2007 Mazda – with functional air conditioning – was luxurious.
Surprisingly, Kahlua survived her first road trip with flying colours. At the age of 9 1/2, I had expected her to be grumpy as hell. Dad had pre-warned me about the tendency for dogs to vomit on long trips. I didn’t remember that, but I did remember the flatulence – three dogs sealed in a car releasing potent gases…not good! Lucky for us Kahlua gave it a good shot within the first hour. I can’t believe something that bad came out of such a small dog!
Anyway, she was like a new dog, with the inner puppy making an appearance along the way. What I think did it for her was the fact that she got to spend seven solid hours with her folks, together in one of her favorite places – the car, sharing new experiences.
Denis and I survived pretty well also. It was actually really enjoyable, there were no arguments, we had fun, and most of all I got to share some of my old memories with the two important beings in my life – my baby dog and my man. Should do this more often!
I come from a ‘bogan’ family, and admit it was fascinating growing up that way. We wore black Fab jeans and flannelette shirts. My Dad swanned around with a pack of Winnie blues up his sleeve, and loved to drink rum. We lived in a mining town called Boulder-Kalgoorlie, surrounded by men that road large, loud motor bikes, and came home every day from working in the mines, grotty and smelling like beer and bike oil. The women did it rough looking after their families (they cooked a lot of stew – to my disgust I ate rabbit stew once. I think I was suspect of my mums stew for years after).
I spent a lot of time riding my bike on the big, wide roads or gravel tracks, ‘growing’ frogs in the steel drum at my friends place, staging dance concerts to Mum on the wood pylons lying on the back yard (notably to the Bangles ‘Manic Monday’), and freaking out at the site of a monster red/orange centipede. Freakily enough, my family nearly took a plunge into a mine pit once as Dad took a wrong turn one night travelling to my Uncle’s, and ended up somewhere on the outskirts…luckily for us he stopped just in time for the head lights to vanish off into the nothingness at the edge of the abyss. Lucky! The entire family was in the car. It was not our time.
As kids (there’s three of us), we hung out at the pub with my folks and their friends, listening to Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and my favourite ‘The Bicycle Song’, trying to imitate the adults by playing pool and darts, or wishing we could get lucky on the used bingo cards lying around the place. We also sat around the open fire in the bush at night, listening to music, the reverberations from the sounds of the motorbikes going through your chest, pretending to sleep, but really waiting for the spuds to cook under the ashes – only to be slathered by butter and salt and devoured.
Sure, it wasn’t paradise, and it certainly wasn’t all good, but I’m actually grateful for growing up in that environment. It taught me the value of money – especially thinking back to Mum skipping meals so that she could feed her three kids baked beans on toast – and then worrying about what to feed the three dogs.
It taught me not to not judge people by appearances – ‘scruffy’ people, or people that rode bikes, wore black or looked rough, well they can turn out to be the most funniest, lovely or most philosophical people.
It also taught me to care for every living thing – so much so that I can’t even kill an ant. Mum and Dad brought home injured birds and lizards, we had horses. Mum tried to resuscitate a chicken once because it accidently drowned.
But, most of all it taught me to be grateful for what I’ve got, for the family I have, to not be embarrassed of my roots, and that simple really is best.
I’ve wanted to write since I was little. In fact, I still have the stories I wrote – and illustrated – in primary school, filed away in a falling apart folio, crammed into a box of sentimental ‘stuff’ that I just cannot bring myself to throw out. I decided to get them out yesterday, for old times sake (and as a way to motivate me to stop procrastinating and really get out there and do what I still want to do – which is ‘write’).
I’m especially drawn to ‘Kalgoorlie and the Sad, Giant Tomato‘. This story was about a school science experiment gone awry. Janine (moi) accidentally creates a living, friendly, giant mutant tomato. His name is Vincent and he talks (it does appear that he was named after one of the dogs I had as a kid – Vincent – he died of cancer). One day, Vincent the Tomato runs away and hides in one of the mines in Kalgoorlie (where I lived as a little-un). There are a few ‘citings’ by people and hysteria spreads, as accusations are bandied about of ‘a big red blob’ attacking miners (witnesses refer to ‘it’ as being a Russian weapon – funny how a 10-year-old can pick up on what was going on in the news at the time). Stereotypically, Vincent is just misunderstood (King Kong anybody?), and the story ends after a climax of helicopters, guns, army barricades, and tears. Vincent ends up shrinking back to his normal size – whilst remaining alive – with Janine and her best friends taking ‘turns of keeping the Tomato for a week each, at their houses…probably still doing it to this very day.’ I got an A+. The spelling and grammar were atrocious.
Then there is ‘Time Zone‘, a 13 page story written in running writing, broken down into chapters, and illustrated by moi. This one involved time travel, had loads of dialogue between characters, a romantic sub-plot, mermaids, action and suspense. I’m impressed – why can’t I create something like that now? My teacher commented ‘A very imaginative effort Janine. You have done well. More care with spelling would improve your effort. I’m impressed how you’ve maintained your story line so well. Great descriptions.’ I wrote this in 1989 – I was 12, and as you can see, yes…I still had bad spelling.
And then there was my attempt at starting a teen series (at this moment in time I was obsessed with Sweet Valley High and Nancy Drew). This ‘master-piece’ was created on an old type-writer – so I’ll blame the inability to delete and correct spelling on the machine itself, and not on my apparent laziness…It was called ‘The Teens – The Night They Saved Daylight,’ and it was an adventure story with another romantic sub-plot (I’d graduated to a love triangle by now!), with the premise of a group of young teenagers saving the world from the ‘evil’ warlock, witch, and their ‘evil followers’ Gizmo and Gremlin. This must have been written off of the back of my two weeks worth of nightmares as a result of watching the movie ‘Gremlins‘, which contained a Gremlin called Gizmo. Although wasn’t Gizmo the nice one?
Of course, there are others. There’s the collaborative efforts from primary school, that somehow I managed to physically keep. I do have a vague recollection that it wasn’t a very pleasant experience – tantrums and tears over who did the most work, and who ‘deserved’ to keep it. I seemingly came out on top as I was good at tears…oops. And then there’s the Uni years – where I will not acknowledge any of my poor attempts in the creative writing department (apart from the fact that I kept a ‘consistent’ writing journal). I will never take another creative writing course as long as I live, as I found it stifling, and it succeeded in ensuring that I did not write for many years to come. Of course, after a bit of self-analysis, this can probably be blamed on my lack of confidence and inability to accept criticism at the time – so maybe ‘never’ was a bit harsh.
Which brings me to now. Writing, or should I say blogging, which is a form of writing. This is my attempt to actually DO what I have told myself I should be doing all of this time, whilst sharing stories from my life, family, friends, pets, travels – and whatever else may flow through these fingers and end up in these ‘pages’.