Day 277 - Dwellingup. To the left is Coal Seam Conservation Park, its not deepest gorge you will ever see but still its impressive. Don't you just love the town names in WA, I must go to Donnybrook and see if I can start one. So you have probably realised from my last post that people starting sentences with "so" is driving me crazy, absolutely crazy.

I played golf at Wyalkatchem (another great town name) and there was a large group a few holes in front of me. Their on course equipment included a Toyota 4WD tray top, a quad bike pulling a trailer, buggies, lots of little kids and a puppy. Marco would have a pink fit if that happened at Northbridge, or maybe not if they paid enough money for the privilege. When I finished they were all in the club house and one of the blokes invited me in. It turns out that they were an extended family who had just finished planting their crops and were having a day out and a little celebration. One of them had strange supernatural powers that forced me to accept free beers and drink them against my will. Who would of thought that would happen?

Friday night in a little country town and a couple of mates head of to the bowling club for a night out. Beer, women and food everything is going well, except that the club is closing so they head to the pub. More grog and fun, then they have a bit of a wrestle, then it gets a bit more serious and one mate takes a swing at the other and then it's on for young and old. When they have finished one of them is injured so the other one takes him to hospital. I was sitting in the pub having breakfast next morning when they separately fronted up, in dark glasses hiding black eyes to apologise to the publican for their behaviour. The publican an older woman, gracefully accepted their heartfelt, humble apologies, it could only happen in the bush.

The suburbs and especially housing estates are something that I avoid like the plague if I can help it. Today I found myself lost in a new housing estate and was reminded that Malvina Reynolds wrote a song about housing estates , she sang, "Little boxes on the hillside .... Little boxes all the same". That was fifty two years ago and we are still doing it, when will we ever learn? The blocks are so tiny that if some bloke from one of these estates tells you they made a hundred in their backyard you would feel sorry for him for having failed. A triple ton might be an achievement worthy of mention but not a measly hundred. I wonder if the houses are all made out of ticky tacky?

My feeling and that of other easterners I have met is that Western Australia seems to be living a little bit in the past, like 10 years ago. The music on the wireless seems to be very dated. Exhibit 1, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" by Gordon Lightfoot is a great little song but I haven't heard it on the wireless for years and years. Exhibit 2, The Starland Vocal Band singing "Afternoon Delight", I know my mate Nick reckons it right up there as a rock classic, but as he lives out east they wasted their time, he wouldn't of heard it.