Monday 9 April 2012

The Great Australian Holiday

Every January, our family would head to Geraldton for two weeks of beach holiday.  This would constitute getting up 'early' to go to swimming lessons every morning at the beach (1h), swimming for a further hour (depending on the conditions) and driving back to the caravan park.  From this point the options were: jumping out at the front gate to go straight into the pool for another hour or more before lunch or cutting straight to a warm shower, getting into trackies and vegemite on toast.  We lived an hour's drive from the coast and water is pretty scarce, so I took every opportunity I could to swim.

Afternoons started with a mandated 'sleep' (sigh) before we could take on the playground, card or board games or, if we were lucky, a bit of TV, right up until it was dark enough to eat tea and play some Spotto.

I re-lived a little of this over this Easter weekend, when we went down to Ocean Grove with a bunch of Frisbee nerds.  I will justify the Nerd label by a short inventory of what I noticed you could steal from the twelve of us over the weekend:
  • 12 smart phones
  • 2 ipads
  • 2 laptops
  • 2 internet dongles
  • 3 DSLR cameras (2 Nikon, 2 Canon) & 2 tripods
  • 2 Kindle book readers
  • A collection of books on Anatomy and Lean principles 
One of the coolest things about the weekend was that it was comfortable.  We easily transitioned between playing card games (Munchkin, Bang, Jungle-Speed, Cribbage) in a fun-focussed atmosphere to all pitching in to cook or clean up. 

We also went to the beach.  At the beach there were Frisbee games and kite-flying.  Despite its freezing temperatures, most of us ended up in the water too.  The surf served up a sequence of spilling waves, perfect for riding.  It was gentle enough for me (with an injured lower back) to even catch a few into the beach.  Much more pleasant than many of my short dumper experiences at WA beaches.  The freezing water and weight off my back did wonders in the short term, even if I didn't think so later that night.

The pure enjoyment from the weekend seemed to stem from a bunch of fun people that are all big kids at heart - a great way to approach life, I think.

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