The last two weeks I spent in Western Australia travelling with my parents. We started the trip in Perth with the Peacetree Community, an intentional community of young adults who have connections to AAANZ. Our first holiday day trip was north from Perth about an hour and a half to the small community of New Norcia. This little town is owned entirely by the monks who live there. Years ago there were several schools and a lively community, now 10 monks practice their monastic way of life and raise money to keep their buildings as a museum for tourists. We spent two hours walking around gazing at the beautiful artistry and wondering how the aboriginal children who were brought to this school were treated.

The next day Mum, Dad, and I caught the bus two hours down the coast to Bunbury. Our few days in Bunbury were full of conversation, playing with little kids, teaching our hosts some of our favourite baking recipes, walking around the little city, and taking part in some of the cities Christmas celebration. We visited what would be the first of our four lighthouses for this trip. Eventually the three of us piled into a borrowed van and drove off for five days of vacation together.

Our first port of call was one of the longest wooden jetties in the world. We walked all 1.8 kilometres of the jetty stopping to talk to a family catching crabs and marvelling at the shallowness of the water.

We moved on to lighthouse number two and had the first of our experiences of things being closed. This led to a long list of places being closed. While December is summer time in Australia, the real holiday times start at the end of the month and evidently people take advantage of the slow time at the beginning of December and take a break and either close early or don’t open at all. We joked through the rest of our trip that we went to Western Australia and it was closed.
That evening we stayed in our most beautiful lodging of the whole trip. Looking out the door of our cabin we could watch the blue waves breaking onto white sands. Mum and I climbed out on the rocks to try and catch the sunset over the sea and were blessed with a few bright colours before the sun disappeared into clouds.

The rhythm of our trip became that I would pour over brochures, maps and tourist information in the evening and present my parents with a list of activities for the next day, which they mostly followed. Dad stayed in the car for several of my Mum’s and my trips into stores like the Olive Oil Soap Factory and Venison Company, but he followed us when we would stop at little shops and bakeries for morning and afternoon tea.
The weather was not altogether friendly and we had downpours and cool days. Because of this we tended to look at the beaches instead of spending much time on them. Several of our walks though opened up over waterways or presented views of rocky coastlines. It was not whale season yet some of the whale watching points gave us quiet spots to sit and contemplate the crashing of the waves and the birds singing.

Our third lighthouse was of course closed when we arrived so we decided to stay in the local town of Augusta and come back in the morning. It was well worth the wait. This light house is at the point where the Indian Ocean and the South Ocean meet. As we stared out over the expanse of water we realised that the next body of land would be South America, stunning!

As we pulled out of Augusta we headed toward big tree territory.
Dad and I had seen big trees before, visiting the Redwoods on the West coast of the USA but these were the biggest trees that Mum had even seen. One of the highlights was being able to climb one of the larger Jarrah trees. As part of the strategy of keeping fires under control, numerous trees have become lookout points. Metal posts are hammered into the trees in an ascending spiral and tourists are allowed to climb the trees for fun. The first day we saw these trees it was raining and unwise to climb but at the end of our trip we took a small detour so that I could climb the Diamond Tree. When I say big I mean that I climbed 51 meters into the air without a safety harness or anyone around me. It was breathtaking in more than one sense. At the top I looked out over the canopy of an old growth forest and into neighbouring farmer’s paddocks. My legs were a little shaky when I returned to the ground and it took a while till I calmed down.

While Dad drove I spent many hours gazing out the window watching the world go by and daydreaming. I almost had tears come to my eyes as I looked over clear cut hillsides especially having been, just hours before, in old growth forests with trees that have been alive for longer than several generations of my family. Watching out the window I saw roos, vineyard after vineyard, fruit groves, tour buses, penetrating clear blue skies, red earth and then green lushness. I made Dad stop as we entered each new little town that I thought was significant (this meant considerable amounts of backing up and turning around or parking perilously on the side of the road) so that I could get a picture of the welcome signs with the town names.

One evening Dad had had enough driving and was content to read his book so Mum and I took a flying trip to a few local lookouts wanting to make sure we didn’t miss anything. It was a good thing that we did this because that evening we had downpours and many of the dirt roads leading back into the forests were closed due to flooding.

Overall I took more pictures than were necessary and loved it. Small flowers raised their faces often along the track and I enjoyed learning about the features of my camera to capture soaring landscapes and delicate buds.

I returned to Perth two days before Mum and Dad so that I would have a chance to spend a little more time with the Peacetree community. It was good for my soul to be with likeminded young adults for a few days. It was strange to realise how I felt like an outsider and yet wanted so badly to get to know all of them. I have great respect for what they are working at and while I am normally confident I found myself desperately wanting them to like me and feeling unsure of myself. I know that I am longing for community. We need community to hold us accountable and to hold all of the issues of the world in perspective, we cannot all do everything but together we can keep one another mindful and support one another’s efforts to change the world. Don’t be mistaken I know that living with other people is hard but so is living alone and I would rather strive to work at my quirky parts than return to an empty home every night. Yet while I longed to have more time with these people I also told them of my calling to Canberra and spent time reflecting on why I came back to Australia. I left with sadness because these people live so far away from me but I was glad to get home and to unpack.