Stuck in Perth

What a 10 days I’ve had! You know when you wake and wonder what is going to happen that day? Well, it was beyond my imagination and I really couldn’t make any of this up. New twists and turns kept evolving, just as I thought everything was settled. So much for my exploration of Perth.

It all started when I got sick with major abdo pains, and despite the usual stuff you you with painkillers and vitamins and lots of fluids, I couldn’t fix myself, ended up in hospital, courtesy of the Perth Ambulance Service. And there I stayed for for four very uncomfortable and painful four bloody days with peritonitis, plus some other abdominal complications.

However, I was very well looked after by a lovely collection of nurses and doctors at the St Charles Gairdner Hospital, (which I can vouch for, should you ever need hospitalisation) and they sorted me. So thank you very much, nice medical people, and I will do as you say and return immediately, should any of the symptoms or the pains return. Promise!

But I was fed up at being ill but it hurt so much that I was actually quite glad to be somewhere being looked after, and I guess I’m lucky that it all went wrong when it did instead of the following week when I was planning on being out in the wilds again, on my jack. 

But as soon as I left hospital, I managed to get flu. A good old fashioned nasty strain that made my head throb, my ears ache and my nose become so stuffed that I couldn’t breathe through it at all. In fact I was so out of it, what with that and the abdo stuff, that it was hard to move around. Which is how I came to walk into a glass door and break my nose. Yep, to finish my week off nicely, I now have a 1cm cut on the bridge of my nose, a swollen face and two black eyes. It bled quite a bit too, and I have a big scab over the cut that looks like the wart of all warts. Bloody hell. My face hurts, I look more ridiculous than usual ( yes, difficult I know) and I’ve grounded myself until I get my strength back and feel safe enough to ride. I reckon a few days and I should be right.

But in the meantime, I’ve been pottering about, scaring the residents of Western Australia with my cuts and bruises.

It was Anzac Day on Friday, another public holiday and a day of commemoration for the armed services, mostly related to WW1 and Gallipoli. The city centre became a parade ground for a couple of hours, preceded by dawn services and a fly past from the RAAF. Not the RAF of course, but almost as good. 

I managed to get over to Rottnest Island on Saturday,  after having to postpone it because of the various mishaps.  Its about 19kms off the coast, a no vehicle ( except for police and other permitted vehicles) island, and home to a colony of quokkas. 

These are small marsupials that look a bit like the menage a trois love child of a cat, a roo and a rat. They are everywhere and are very unbothered by humans, and carry on doing quokka things regardless. An early Dutch explorer mistook them for rats and called the island Rottnest - Dutch for Rat’s Nest.

I wasn’t too sure about the boat over after the trip to maria Island off Tasmania where the sea swell was huge and I was very sick. I’d had enough of that unwell business earlier in the week, but it was OK, one of those fast ferry things where you hardly feel and bumps at all. It was out from Fremantle and back to Perth, up the Swan River - the Swanny, and it was all day on the island which was pretty good. A bicycle helped my circumnavigation and saved my feet , making a nice change from engine power or Shanks’ pony.

Rottnest is only 11 kms long and is mostly sandy bays with bushes, quokkas and the odd building. 

The lighthouse is probably the most visible, handy given that is its job, but they were shutting up shop as I arrived, so there was just time for a look around the outside.

A few skinks were about too, making the best of the warm sand on an overcast but still balmy day, and a pod of dolphins was feeding just off the coast. 

I wouldn't have seen them had it not been for a man pointing them out, and I still wast sure if the fins were actually fins or waves - my eyes are a bit suspect these days. But fins they were most definitely, although they look a bit too sharkified for my liking and there was no way I would have gone in the water anywhere near them for fear of mis identification. However, I do know that Dolphins don’t like sharks and will sort them out, so find a pod and swim nearby if you must, and you’ll be OK. Probably. Just don’t pick a gang of sharks by accident.

The rocky coastline of the island is home to various birds too, Osprey’s being one of them. Typically, they’d all cleared off for the day but their stack was there. It looks like a tall pile of old sticks, perched on a rock, and ospreys use them for life. Some stacks have been dated to 70 years old. Imagine that; sleeping on your old hedge clippings for most of your life.

The little graveyard on the island was sad, mostly very young children.  How isolated it must have been anyway, but how much worse for parents of sick children who had even less access to the limited medical facilities of the day.

The bell tower was lit up when the boat got back to Perth. A pretty collection of bells shaped in a bell like structure. But the PR spin made me smile: “ they’ve got Big Ben; we’ve got big bells”. Clearly somebody who doesn’t know that Big Ben is actually a bell and not the bell tower that everybody assumes it is. Hence the old copper line to sprogs of “ how many hands does Big ben have?”. “Eight”. “Nope, bells don’t have hands. Coffees are on you then. You wont get that wrong again will you”. And we didn’t.

But what they do have in there are  twelve bells from St Martin in the Fields in London, and have been dated to before the 14th century. They were recast in the sixteen century and rung to celebrate beating the Spanish after the Armada, the victory at El Alamein in 1942 and every British monarchs coronation since 1727. Not sure why they’re in Perth but they are.

The coast up and down from perth is very nice, sandy beaches, bars and a few towns now growing up on the actual sandbanks just back from the ocean. A few older places with those modern estate developments with decking and big glass that feature in soaps. They’re going up thick and fast though, and it had never occurred to me until somebody mentioned it that there are very few places in Australia where you can see the sun set over the ocean. But you can here because the Indian Ocean runs down the entire western coastline  and the sun sets in the west. If you live on the eastern side, you get the sunsets, but not the end of day show. So I guess that adds to the allure of the new beachtop drums.

The weather is getting a bit autumnal here. Sunny during the day but down to 8 degrees at night, and cold in the shadow of buildings in the CBD even during the day. I’ve even had to wear a jumper. Terrible.

I had a much needed haircut yesterday too. It was really straggley so I got it chopped an its much better.

I felt pretty rubbish today, I think because all of the bashing of the last ten days finally caught up with me. But on the plus side, I saw a doctor and arranged the follow up stuff I need, had another blood test ( more needles) to compare with those taken in hospital, got a script for some prescription only painkillers because my face hurts and wakes me up at night, bought some hayfever tablets to open my nose a bit and help me breathe, and some cough mixture thats rather tasty and will flavour my gin nicely. 

I was also accosted by a very clean beggar who demanded “ a dollar for a meal lady,you f*&^ing cow”.  What? I thought I’d misheard him so I stopped and asked him what he’d said, which seemed to faze him a bit and he backed off: “ sorry lady, I didn’t mean you”. “Oh really? How many other f*&^ing cows are there round here then?” ( there was nobody else around) “ If you’re going to be rude mate, either see it through or don’t start in the first place.” “ no, ok lady, sorry” .  Must be my scary broken nose or something.

And then finally, as I was about 800 m from home, waiting at a crossing for the lights to change, a bloke runs across the road and gets hit by a car towing a trailer, right in front of me. I couldn’t believe it; not clipped or winged but a proper smash. But rather than lay there dead, he jumped up and bashed the driver. It was just like a Candid Camera skit only it was for real. Totally down to the pedestrian too, the poor old driver got walloped but then  whacked the pedestrian back, then a proper brawl started, lots of shouting and flaying of arms and fists. So that was my cue to go and I was off, and a good job too as I’d only gone about 200m when the police arrived. 

So now I’m safely back indoors and not going out again tonight, just incase; two unsolicited encounters is more than enough for one day.