Farewells and Memories

Leaving parties have been had, farewells said. Some people we’ll see back in Reading, others perhaps if we return to Oz, and a few hopefully not ever again. What? I’m just being honest – there’s always a few! Our last weekend was a fitting tribute to our time in hot and sunny Karratha. A morning’s sunbathe in the garden, fish and chips by the mighty Indian Ocean in Point Samson, an afternoon’s scamper on the beach with a borrowed dog (the friends we went with were dogsitting for a couple of their friends – we didn’t ask to frolic with a random stranger’s pet pooch), a poolside evening drinks party thrown by the company, and then on the Sunday a fabulous BBQ party by the pool with a load of friends – you can’t get more Aussie than that. A few snags, a couple of tinnies and a float in the pool, mate. That’s the life. Well, I had chicken and vegetable skewers, a homemade burger and a few g&ts but I felt pretty Australian all the same!


So will we be back? Probably not to Karratha (although a lot of people say that and somehow find themselves back here again and again – money makes people fickle!) but perhaps to Perth, or maybe Queensland. Having said that, Karratha has a way of drawing you in, it’s a funny old place like that. For all its drawbacks – its remoteness, the high cost of living, the lack of entertainment facilities, the flies and extreme heat in the summer – it can surprise you in wonderful ways, ways that sometimes make you gasp. Like when we returned from the pool party on Sunday evening. The night was inky black, the lamplights dim and none of our house lights were on, giving the stars centre stage. And they were magnificent. With no high rises and little light pollution, we could see every single star, every constellation, and we could make out the Milky Way. They seemed to go on forever, blazing across the sky with their fierce light. I had to drag myself inside. I will make sure that I don’t only remember the bad, but the good too. The huge skies, the empty white sand beaches, the tremendous amount of wildlife in both sea and on land, the warm, dry weather, the lifelong friends we've made. Karratha, we won't forget you. 

Attack of the Lizards

We have a lizard problem. At first they were cute, unexpectedly popping their little heads up through the drain in the floor and the sink and scurrying out from underneath doors (although that did occasionally freak me out too – the little ones’ legs are so tiny that they look like snakes slithering across the floor when they move quickly). Now, they have multiplied and have started leaving little presents all over the house for us. And yes, when I say presents I do mean poo. It’s disgusting and they have started to do it everywhere.


Previously, bizarrely, they managed to confine their toilet habits to the bathroom (although unfortunately not in the actual toilet – they weren’t that well-trained) – it was still gross but at least it was just one room and the toilet was within close reach for me to chuck the tiny pellet poos after I’d picked them up with toilet paper. That has now changed as they have advanced to pooing anywhere the mood takes them, which so far has been on the bathroom, kitchen and living room floors and on the wall in the spare room.

I don’t think that it is coincidental that the increase in poo and widening of the areas in which they poo has occurred at the same time that they seem to have bred. Suddenly I am seeing several baby lizards darting around the house that definitely were not here before. And they really do get absolutely everywhere. I am pretty sure that it is only a matter of time before I open the microwave to find one jumping out at me.

It is definitely time for us to leave.

Space Age

It’s all suddenly seeming very real now. Ravi has been driven off into the sunset leaving a gaping space in our driveway. We have given our massive TV to a friend so there is now a TV-shaped space in the front room. And now the movers have been and taken our life for the past 27 months with them on the back of a lorry which has left rather a lot of space everywhere. It truly feels like we’re in limbo, just waiting for the next phase of our lives to begin. Nothing here is ours now, we’re imposters in someone else’s house. This isn’t where we belong anymore and I finally feel totally, completely ready to go. I want to go back to our little Victorian terrace, our very own house containing our very own things in it. Well, possibly minus one very nice distressed white wooden framed mirror bought from Chatuchak Market in Bangkok and stupidly not added to the pile for the movers to take. I love that mirror and I will be devastated if they don’t let us somehow get it to their warehouse before the rest of our worldly goods are trucked down in a road train to Perth and eventually loaded into a plane bound for London. I have a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach – this has not been a good outcome to a day of loss, of feeling torn between two countries, two lives. My mission is now to save the mirror at all costs!  

Bon Voyage, Ravi!

Parting is such sweet sorrow



Monday was a very sad day as we bade a fond (and slightly tearful) farewell to our trusty steed, Ravi. Our Toyota Rav4 took us on many adventures and never once let us down and it was hard for me to say goodbye. The Husband didn’t have much trouble – he filled out the forms and handed over the keys like some monetary transaction. Ok, yes, strictly it was a monetary transaction but Ravi meant much more to me than that. He transported us safely through the harsh Pilbara wilds to far-flung beaches and remote national parks and he enabled us to see things we never would have got the chance to otherwise. And he took me to the shops each week which isn’t quite as exciting but very important nonetheless.

Ravi took us through the remote outback...

To a camp in isolated Karijini National Park...

On a road trip to Exmouth...

Past trains that went on for miles...

To look-out points over the Indian Ocean...

To the middle of nowhere.

We went all the way down to Exmouth and the Ningaloo Reef twice, across to the remote Karijini National Park, along the Rio Tinto Railway Road of Death, to Millstream and Chichester National Parks, and to beaches that could only be reached via unsealed tracks. Although he was a silver car, more often than not he wore an orange/red/brown tinge from the iron ore-rich dirt and dust that is ever-present in the Pilbara. We had great fun in Ravi and I really do feel quite emotional that we have now parted ways for good. At least he has gone to a good home – a loving family with a teenager that will drive him to work every day. The Husband related a few of the expeditions we had made in Ravi and expressed the hope that she too would have similar adventures in him. She gave him an embarrassed smile and shrugged before quickly getting into the car. Perhaps Ravi will be confined to driving around the town from now on but I suppose he is getting old now so maybe it’s for the best. We can be cheered knowing that we gave him one last adventure in his twilight years.

Neon Garden



I felt like Ariel from The Little Mermaid this weekend. I discovered an extensive underwater world complete with different sized buildings, popular haunts for catching up with friends and places to chow down. The coral gardens beneath the water in Coral Bay are truly spectacular. Coral of every different shape, size and colour pack the seabed and rise up like a watery urban jungle. There are massive footstool-shaped coral that tower right to the surface of the water and offer a perfect resting spot for fish to congregate and mingle. There are luminous yellow ‘bushes’, with hundreds of miniature branches that prove to be haute cuisine for marine life – they go crazy for the stuff. There are huge rose-like coral, complete with delicate petals like the intricate vegetable carving Asian chefs are famous for. Electric blue, deep purple, dazzling white, fluorescent yellow, soft green, striking orange – the colours were so intense they popped, begging to be gazed at admiringly. And I did. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.


And best of all? You can swim out to it from the beach. No taking an hour’s boat trip with dozens of other people, then bumping into them as you all snorkel over the same area of reef for twenty minutes before being ordered back onto the boat. In fact, we were the only ones that had swum out to that part of the reef – other snorkelers had stayed near the shore, swimming over the less spectacular coral. I felt privy to a special underwater world that many never get to see. A little mermaid swimming amongst a city of neon colours and architectural sculptures. And only once or twice feeling panicky when sure that a shoal of massive bluebone was following me, intent on cornering me and biting away at my flesh like a pack of piranhas. I definitely shouldn’t have watched Piranha 3 so recently. Despite my fear of being nibbled to death, it was a truly awesome experience. Coral Bay, one day I will be back.

The Death of an Expat Wife

Expat Wife will soon cease to exist. Before you start to panic and recommend the suicide prevention hotline, I must clarify that statement. I am not about to depart this mortal world, merely my status as Expat Wife, for the Husband and I are set to return to the UK after 2 years and 3 months living in the hinterland. It is slowly sinking in but I still can’t quite believe that in just a few weeks we will be returning home. Home. It’s a funny concept. I suppose it is ‘home’ – we own a house there, most of our family and friends live there, we are, after all, British. It says so in our passports. Well, OK, mine also says New Zealand but I can’t really claim to be a Kiwi seeing as I’ve only been there once when I was 4. However, ‘home’ for the last couple of years has been Pattaya and Karratha. Yes, we might have complained about certain aspects of our time in Thailand and Australia but at the end of the day, home is what you make of it. It would be sad if we really felt that we have been thousands of miles from home all this time, just biding away our time until we can return.

I’m going to get all philosophical now but one thing I have learnt through being an Expat Wife is that you have to live in the here and now. It sounds like a cliché but when applied to the life of an expat, especially a temporary expat, it is the only way to avoid constantly missing what you’ve left behind, something I’ve seen happen to too many people. To do that, you have to set up home wherever you are. Photos and other personal items help but it’s more about living in the present – accepting the country, the accommodation and the situation you are in and making the most of it, not constantly thinking about when next you’ll be back home, not wishing away the days, the months, the years. Because that’s exactly the problem – before you know it you’ll have been away for a few years and have been miserable the entire time. That’s years of your life that you’ll have lost to frustration, anger and melancholy.

I have also personally learnt that we could make a home for ourselves anywhere because - wait for the cheesy, vomit-inducing moment – home is wherever the other is. As long as we are together we’ll be alright. So, we’re going back to England for now but who knows where home will be in the future. I’m sure that Expat Wife won’t be gone for long.      

Beach Recycling

As we have seen recently, Mother Nature is a pretty awesome force. Sometimes she can devastate, as with the floods, cyclones, bush fires, earthquakes and tornadoes in the Antipodes. Sometimes she can majorly disrupt countries across the globe, as with the snowstorms in northern Europe and the US and the volcano in Iceland. But sometimes nature can actually be beneficial, improving an area with its brute force.


We went to one of our favourite beaches on Sunday. It is a lovely, sheltered, sandy cove bordered by rocks at each end and not once have we had to share it with anyone, other than the resident dog who likes to dig up crabs. Its downside is that low tide reveals a swathe of rocks that makes swimming difficult. If you time it right and are there at high tide, there is a nice stretch of water without a single rock but of course high tide doesn’t always occur at a time that you necessarily want to be at the beach. Fancy a swim at 4am? First navigate the dirt track in the dark, then watch out for the sharks, then go to see a shrink as you are clearly not quite right in the head. So, on the days that high tide didn’t coincide with beach-going hours, we had to content ourselves with a mere paddle or lying flat out in the inch of seawater before the start of the rocks. Not unpleasant but not quite the refreshing swim that you so often need when baking under a roasting-hot sun.

However, the beach we arrived at on Sunday had been transformed since last we were there. At first we couldn’t quite put our finger on what it was but when we were in the water, having a lovely swim, we realised. There were far, far less rocks. It was a long way off high tide and yet there were only a smattering of rocks on a huge expanse of flat sand. It was The Husband that clicked what must have happened. When the rains from the most recent cyclone created a surge at high tide, it must have brought with it so much sand that the rocks had been covered. It was only with that realisation that we saw that the beach was definitely higher. The extra sand had raised the beach by a foot or so, creating a feet-friendly sandy beach with hardly any rocks. Amazing. Isn’t nature great? Well, until the next disaster she is anyway.