Whim Tripper
By Ray Beard
She stood on the clean white sand in her pink bikinis under a brilliant blue sky. A few surfers were catching four feet waves gently rolling in on an otherwise smooth sea. It was all round a picture perfect scene, albeit if she had not been in the frame I may not have noticed it. With so many days like this you take it for granted. She raised her arms to the sky at a forty five degree angle and they remained there for a good minute before she ran back to my side.
“What was that all about?’ I asked.
‘A thank you for all this glory,’
‘Oh.’
I liked her despite her peculiarities. Her many. She dried herself and announced ‘I must get back to my hotel, I have to ring Mom before she goes to sleep.’ I obeyed. A minute from her hotel in the city center of Perth, a twenty minute drive from the beach she said ‘quick, turn into Kings Park, I’d like to see it.’ I obeyed.
‘Did you know Jack is it about nine hundred acres of mainly natural bush? I couldn’t find any other city with that sort of acreage on the edge of the CBD in a natural state. ‘
I replied with ‘that’s interesting’ rather than ‘of course I did.’ On reflection I wondered if I did.
We parked and walked through a plethora of wild flowers. It took an hour before she would budge from the plants. ‘This one must be the most beautiful flower in the world’ she would say with regularity, to a different plant each time. We eventually made the edge of the park overlooking the city skyline and the vast expanse of the Swan River. She raised her arms again. ‘More thanks?’ I asked. ‘Too right’ she replied,’ as you locals might say.’
‘Well, it is a long way from New Jersey’ I said.
‘That’s why I came here. I discovered Perth was the most distant city from my home.’
I laughed. ‘So I guess you came on a whim.’
‘No way. Oh, I decided to come in five seconds of learning how far away it was but I then did my research. Do you know it’s on the same latitude as San Diego, but with more sun and with more rainfall everything is so much greener. You have an area of forest starting just beyond the suburbs bigger than England and with some of the biggest trees on the planet and tons of brilliant local food and wine in it ……and then there’s another million square miles in this state to explore and thousands of miles of beaches where you’ll be lucky to see anyone else……. Isn’t that wonderful, you know, having beautiful beaches all to yourself. Sorry I’m gushing.’
‘Probably. Of course if I went with you I guess that would spoil the isolation bit.’
She squeezed my arm and smiled. Darn, I was hooked. I sighed and nonchalantly said ‘I suppose this knowledgeable Yankee could teach me a lot about this state of mine.”
‘Too right. Got a few weeks? Lets go.’
I obeyed.
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