Day 25 - Umina: BEACH

Today is Wednesday the 19^th day of September, and it’s hot. Well last night it wasn’t, it was minus 8, but by 8am, it had already reached 18 degrees and was getting warmer. Beach me thinks

Once I was awake and washed etc, went to the shop and bought stuff I forgot yesterday (which was basically everything) including washing up powder, fabric softner, fairy liquid, kitchen roll etc (all the important stuff) and nachos.

Do you know what Australia is? Expensive... very expensive.

Did a bit of washing. My Nan always taught me to wash your smalls every day (when you’re camping) because then you never run out of pants. She taught me other stuff too, but that’s the one I always remember. Hand washing is horrible really. The washing powder sends your hands all soft and funny, but, needs must.

There is a children’s playground thing between my van and the beach which is always full of Australian kids being generally annoying, one of them keeps offering to sell me chocolate as well. I thought it was supposed to be the older people creeping on the kids, not the other way around. IT’s always warm and melted too. I think he’s having me on. Anyway, after working out which site he was from, it turns out his Dad’s vehicle reg is “Cadbury 1” so maybe he works for them. Either way, they’re going today.

So I wondered down to the beach and sat and read some Sophie Kinsella in the sunshine. The Pacific Ocean really is beautiful. The waves obviously make a crashing noise but when they’ve hit the beach, there is about a 3 second silence before the next one crashes. It’s so lovely. I was just sitting reading my book, slowly crisping up in the sun, when six young boys walked onto the beach, in school uniform, striped off to their pants and ran into the sea. I have never seen anything quite like it. They must have been 17-18 ish and once two of them finally walked back to the beach I plucked up the courage to go and talk to them. I wondered over and made a polite remark about one of the guys’ school bags (I think it was Armarni, it really was lovely) and I had instantly made a friend. He replied with “not many people recognise it as designer, it’s in this new seasons collection”.

Gay.

I made polite chit chat and found out that they were on their lunch break (they went to the high school which was probably closer to the beach then my camper was) but had to be back in 30 minutes. Something that struck me was how incredibly nice they were. In England, if you went up to six complete strangers and struck up a conversation, you’d probably get mugged, but Australians are so lovely. They asked me all about where I was from, and what I was doing and then a bell rang and the boys hurriedly got dressed and said goodbye before running back to their math class.

Finally making some friends.

I gave them my blog address, so they’re probably reading this now thinking “it was English, not Math” but either way, let me assure you, I have NEVER been to the beach on my lunch break, and I am jealous. So very jealous.

Spent most of the afternoon on the beach and only went back when my stomach told me to. Had nachos for dinner. I don’t care what anyone says, nachos is a meal.

Now, what I’m about to tell  you, I don’t want you to judge me for... remember that it was me that told you, so  you can’t use it against me. At 3am, it was bloody freezing and my bladder woke me up. Now, what you have to understand is that the toilet block is about a 4 minute walk from my camper, by which time I would have lost my toes to frostbite and have well and truly woken up. So I did what any rational person would do. Instead of running to the toilet I reached for an empty water bottled and did a wee in it.

Now, if you’re laughing (thanks, that’s my life you’re laughing at) and if you’re not laughing, you have to understand that I didn’t want to do it. And I won’t do it again... (also at night, snakes and spiders and stuff can kill you... so it was actually safer)

So I technically finish writing this on Thursday morning (Wednesday night for you lovelies) and today is moving day. Driving about three hours North to a place called Freemans. Not really sure what’s there, the guidebook said it was pretty. There’s no wifi there though, so I won’t be blogging for a few days, but I’ll write them, and upload them when I get back to civilisation. So until then, much loves.