In coming to Western Australia during the height of winter, I thought I’d made the ultimate choice; I thought I would’ve hit the jackpot in regards to the weather, as everyone knows Perth and a lot of WA are renowned for being hot all the time, right? Erm…WRONG! To say I have been unpleasantly surprised by just how cold it is is perhaps THE understatement of the year. Ok, so Up North it’s warm (oh the irony), think Pilbara and The Kimberley, but in the south and particularly in the desert areas and anywhere more than four hours away from the coast, during winter, and especially at night, it’s bloody freezing. I don’t think I’ve needed to keep a heater on for so long since I lived in Glasgow, and even now I don’t know how I managed to get through six Scottish winters without catching hypothermia or something (though I did have suspected Swine Flu once, but that’s a different story).
Today was a classic example of how my body is not dealing very well with the constant temperature changes: one minute it’s sunny and warm-ish, the next it’s blowing a gale and has dropped to minus one. MINUS BLOODY ONE! Where am I? Aberdeen?! My skin is dry and cracked and is really not thanking me for subjecting it to artificial heat and then bitterly cold air; and my hands, well, we won’t even go there but let’s just say they’ve definitely resembled something less like the hands of a White Walker and I have most definitely been able to feel my fingers before now. Anyway, summer is coming and hopefully the temperatures will begin to increase over the next few weeks, at least during the daytime anyway, and then all will be well with the world again and I can actually begin to feel like I’m in Australia.
But hey, I’m digressing, you don’t want to hear me moaning about the weather, if you did I may as well come back to Preston and sob loudly into my broth because it’s mid-August and the thermostat on the fire place hasn’t risen above ten degrees in about three weeks. Soooo, on with the show…
Today folks, I found the gym. Hoorah! And you know what, for a mining village that has a little less than fuck all to keep the people occupied, it’s pretty damn decent. There’s a treadmill, a rowing machine, a cross-trainer and a couple of exercise bikes. And here’s the money shot…wait for it…there’s even a full set of free weights, a squat rack, pull-down machines, bench presses, leg extending machine thingies, and a whole lot more. They’ve also got a radio in there (granted it only tunes to one station and albeit that station hasn’t heard of decent music since 1992, the year it seems to be stuck in, but it’s something at least). To say I was impressed was putting it lightly. And now that I’ve found my new Mecca, I plan to spend at least an hour or two in there every day – it’ll ward off the boredom and, with any luck, it’ll prevent the belly from bulging and the dreaded “carb face” from returning due to the amount of food I’m bound to inevitably shovel into my gob over the next month or two.
I had heard on the Marvel Loch grapevine though that there was actually another, newer, slightly better gym down the road in one of the other camps; what joy! When I feel more confident about exploring without getting lost in the bush or stumbling upon an active mine site, I plan to investigate this rumour further, and may even defect should it transpire to be true. I’ll keep you informed.
After a gruelling workout (that might be a slight over-exaggeration on my part but you’ll never really know if I spent 40 minutes sweating my ass off on the treadmill or spent ten minutes just looking at it, you’ll have to just take my word for it *winking emoji*), I made my way back to my humble donga via the General Store.
My intention was never to spend much time at the General Store, I mean, there’s only so much you can do in a shop that has five shelves, sells three newspapers and has a collection of smutty DVDs that I’ve been told are “for the boys”, but believe it or not I managed to get into a conversation with a REALLY chatty bloke named Harry. Harry is the type of old-timer you find hanging out at a General Store in the middle of nowhere; you know, the one that likes to sit on a chair outside the entrance, vacant expression on his face, passing the day drinking a can of Fanta, waiting for the next tumbleweed to roll by. Anyway, Harry began to ask me several questions and before long I was in the throes of divulging my life story and he relaying his to me. After what seemed like an age (it was probably only a few minutes), and after my discovering that unassuming Harry was in fact the biggest talker on the planet, I felt as if our relationship had moved a little too quickly, so I made my excuses and bid him adieu; besides, it was very cold, I was beginning to lose all feeling in my fingers, and I needed to shower. I’m sure I’ll bump into Harry again at some point; next time though I’ll be prepared and bring a blanket, and maybe my own can of Fanta.
The rest of the day panned out pretty uneventfully; Thursday is my unofficial day off (I say unofficial as it’s liable to change depending on how busy it is at work), so I did what any normal person would do with their day off – I went to the pub and sank a bottle of wine. Aaah, good times.
Chasing Amy-Lou 