A Very Sandy Christmas

In the UK, the cold and rain conspire to make Christmas weather a bit miserable, or to give it that little 'let's huddle in front of the fire sipping mulled wine' frisson, depending on how you look at it. This year, in Australia, it was sand that was a constant Christmas companion.

Our Christmas only really got going on Xmas day. Mid-December, we went to a Xmas Carol concert held down the road from our house, a local affair run by one of the Borough Councils. In the UK, you'd take 10 minutes getting your coats and scarfs and maybe even your wellies on before braving the chill, here we skipped down the road in our shorts and t-shirts. There was an ice cream van, and everyone was sat out in the evening sun sipping red wine. They'd put fairy lights in the palm trees. I have to say the singing wasn't really up to much based on the numbers, many people being content just to sit there and watch the show, like they were at the cinema. Father Christmas turned up at the end, after 3 shrill shouts from the army of kiddies. And this was where it did take a decidedly English turn, because Santa turned out to be from England. He hadn't quite mastered the Santa role, with a very poor beard and a general confusion about his role in the repartee with the guy with the microphone, not too sure what to make of the suburb of Bayswater (“It seems, urrm, very nice, and urm...”) and not really exhibiting the decisiveness needed to take charge of hordes of Xmas-addled kiddies wanting their lollies (“shall I start on the left?” he asked). The whole thing degenerated into a farce as the choir sang a disastrous version of We Wish You A Merry Christmas with half of them 3 lines back, then the MC closed the concert, then someone reminded him that the Best Costume prize that he had been bigging up all evening had yet to be awarded, for which Santa was then duly dragged away from the hordes to present, then there were a few lost children – with one parent seemingly not knowing what their child looked like and going to claim them only to realise it wasn't them at all, and we left with the MC having to close a concert he'd already closed and bumbling along wonderfully. It was clear they hadn't had time to practice the ending.

The choir sings to the heavens with their sunglasses on

The next day we went for the work Xmas do, held in the garden of one of the managers. As it was free booze and we haven't been able to drink too much because we wouldn't save any money, we entered determined to 'drink for England'. Unfortunately we were out of practice so I don't think the makers of Corona will be very worried about their stock running out. And we managed to get a bus and train back home at 10.30pm, to give Perth public transport some credit.

Jo falls asleep laughing at the work Xmas do

The Xmas activities were coming thick and fast and so the next day...we went to the cricket. We drove down to the WACA and watched the South Africans beat Australia in the first test of the current series, and we watched a bit of history, as it was the 2nd highest run chase in Test history. It was all glorious sunshine and good to see the Aussies get beat in their beloved sport, as they can get a bit carried away.

Brett Lee of Australia bowls to A.B. Villiers of South Africa at the WACA

On Christmas Eve morning, we played tennis. It isn't unusual for us to play tennis then, but it was unusual for us to play it in 28 degrees heat.

Xmas day arrived bright and sunny. We went down to Scarborough Beach and were lucky to catch the last half hour of the volunteer lifeguards shift, as the sea had a treacherous rip, but it was clear and relatively warm. 48 hours later there was a shark attack off a beach to the south of Perth and a man unfortunately lost his life.

The volunteer lifeguards of Scarborough Beach

In the middle of the afternoon on Xmas Day we sat down with our housemates and had a very nice Xmas dinner, complete with an Aussie putting a shrimp on the barbie, oysters and some German potato salad. That afternoon and evening we did indeed 'drink for England'. We did Secret Santa, Jo got a cookbook and I got a CD I really wanted because there was some mistake and Jo got me in the draw.

Sarah throws another shrimp on the barbie, hurrah

On Boxing Day we drove out to the Turquoise Coast, the coastal area around 200-250kms north of Perth, which should be named the Windy Coast on account of the constantly buffeting winds wherever we went. We stopped at Lancelin, hired some sand boards and went out to the huge white dunes nearby to try out sandboarding. I have to say I was fairly underwhelmed with it, the speediest it got was when we sat on the boards instead of standing. Unfortunately the sandboarders have to share the dunes with some quite frankly idiotic motorbike and quadbike riders whose idea of a good time seems to be how far up a dune they could ride in a straight line whilst making the most amount of noise possible and spraying up as much sand as possible. What should have been a lovely peaceful environment was ruined by the ear splitting noise of exhausts and groups of men gathered around with their bikes, cars and dogs, making the dunes seem more like some kind of refugee camp. It wasn't just limited to bikes, people in SUVs and vans seemed to have this unhealthy fascination with driving up a big hill of sand. What are these people trying to achieve, what kind of life skill is this they are trying to learn? Do they know something about the end of the world that involves the need to drive your car up a sand dune?

Jo picks up some rare speed on the sand

The big draw of the Turquoise Coast is the Pinnacles Desert. Pinnacles is 250km north of Perth on the coast and is a barren sandy area of around 400ha dotted with thousands and thousands of statue-like limestone rocks. Scientists can't explain precisely how they were created, the two main theories being that they are the calcified remains of trees that were buried in sand and then revealed when winds blew the sand away some 500,000 years ago, or that they are the remains of the plants that anchored the Pinnacles Desert dunes. It is an amazing sight, this army of yellow rocks stretching into the distance and the sea, and in the early morning the stones cast long shadows and you can hear a pin drop, it's so peaceful. As one of the top tourist attractions in Western Australia, it has a very spangly visitor centre, and well laid out walks.

On our drives round the Turqoise Coast, we had our first brushes with the kangaroos. We'd heard a lot about their propensity to bounce out in front of cars, to only drive from dawn until dusk, and we thought it would be a problem on the drive east in the new year. However, driving from Jurien Bay, where we had cooked on a barbie by the coast in a Force 5 gale, to Cervantes, near the Pinnacles, at about 7.30pm (dusk being 8.30), a medium sized kangaroo bounced out in front of us, from right to left, narrowly missing the left hand corner of the car. And then, the next morning, at around 7am (sunrise at 5.30am), we saw at least seven kangaroos standing by the sides of the road, one pair waiting for us to pass then bounding over the road behind the car, which by now I had slowed to a crawl, not knowing what they were going to do. So the principle of dusk until dawn seemed to be a bit skewed here, because we were driving after dawn and before dusk and encountering lots of kangaroos. Slightly worrying.

A kangaroo shows us a clean pair of heels

We meandered back home from Pinnacles, stopping off at Hangover Bay where a lovely beach was spoiled by people driving along it in their 4x4s, some not actually getting out to enjoy the beach, but, incredibly, turning round and driving back along it and out. And some of them looked like backpackers in hired SUVs, shame on them. It was at this point that Jo and I went through a long list of what we disapproved of, which I won't go through now, but suffice to say this was pretty high on the list. I for one rate highly the feeling of sand in my toes, but these buffoons seem so disconnected that their preferred experience is sand in the tyre grooves.

A family enjoy the beach from their 4x4. Maybe it's their version of a place by the beach.

Then we stopped in the delightfully named town of Gingin, which seemed very English with its green parklands and water wheel. Curiously, the only shop open in Gingin was the Liquor store, which makes me wonder where the Australians' priorities lie. You can't get any milk, or bread, or cheese, but you can get a 6 pack of beer. I suppose it is Xmas.

When we got back, we shook out half a beach-worth of sand from our hair, clothes and bags.