So I have been keeping pretty busy during work hours and have been finding plenty to do on the weekends when I’m not playing hockey. We have a pretty cool team and get along well, but there are only a few games left and we won’t be making finals.
It was definitely weird celebrating my birthday this year being the first time away from home, but my friends here still made it pretty special. It was also exciting opening some presents that came in the mail (but I did wait till my actual birthday!)
I went on a tour of the Port here which I found really fascinating. This is where fuel and fertilisers come in, nickel and iron ore is exported from the mines and grain is exported from the farms in the region. It’s amazing the number of birds hanging around finding grain that hasn’t made it onto ships. Sometimes we sit at the beach opposite the port and watch the ships being loaded and unloaded.
I visited the Esperance Museum which has a range of different bits and pieces from vintage machinery to the Esperance Railway and pieces from the Sanko Harvest wreckage. The most notable would the Skylab which crashed in 1979 and pieces were found scattered over the Esperance townsite and farming areas. The museum holds many memories from Esperance’s history and I certainly went home learning something new.
I went to the Bird and Animal Park where we got breakfast (they do $10 all day brekky). After we got a good feed we walked around looking at all the animals and managed to avoid the rain. They’ve got loads of different birds and animals. I don’t know why, but I wasn’t too excited to go, but I was pleasantly surprised. It is not a huge place, but it is well set up and not very expensive.
I attended quiz night number four for the year and each team dressed up to a different theme. We were superheroes and it must have been a good choice because we won! Not bad two out of four! We all had a great time and it was pretty funny going to the pub afterwards all in costume.
At the end of July, I went to Kellerberrin with my new mates to watch speedway. This was not my first car racing experience, but it was my first country town speedway. You get a pretty good vibe from people where everyone seems willing to help each other out. It was pretty cold and wet and my tent was essentially pitched in a mud puddle. Despite this it was a really fun time! I enjoyed watching the racing and then eating hot roast beef rolls around the camp fire at the end of the day.
One of the social events of the year in town is the Yellow Dot Ball. I was not necessarily thrilled about dressing up and going out, particularly as this was a cold wet night, but I think we all scrubbed up pretty nicely. They had a photo booth set up which is always fun and the band was great. It ended up being a fun night filled with dancing, a few drinks and a few laughs.
