Chapter 18 2nd Holiday in Australia.
Before I get too far ahead I’d better write more about some holidays, my second visit to Australia was certainly different because Janet had returned to England and the first thing I chose to do was to buy a car.
We were visiting Graham Woodruff and his wife again in Melbourne and he was a great help in choosing a vehicle for me, we decided upon a big Ford coupe that served us very well for the two months we were there.
We traveled on the same route as previously but the roads were much improved, once again Ann and Tony made us very welcome and by now Johno and Anto were young adults, Tony took us on a short tour of the local area and some interesting things were pointed out, there was the old aboriginal fireplace, still like it was after many years and another thing he showed us was a wooded hill with many dry gullies that contained interesting pieces of agate that had just been washed out.
Vora And myself were housed in some outbuildings that were used by the extra staff at schering times they were like holiday bungalows with screens to keep out the insects and were very comfortable, except that the toilet was swarming with cockroaches attracted by the only water that was available, we went with a spray can of bug killer and soon got used to the wildlife.
I was fascinated by the prospect of finding some nice agate so I borrowed a motorcycle and went to the area that Tony had shown us, very soon after arrival I was finding lots of interesting pieces it was extremely hot on these wooded slopes and as there was not another person for some miles around I decided I might as well strip off, I had been happily fossiking for about an hour when I noticed I was being observed by a family of kangaroos, in the wild they can be big and nasty, they took the notice of me waving my arms to shoo them away but when I picked up a stick and aimed it like a rifle they were gone in a flash.
I had wandered a good way from the motorcycle and it was out of sight, but I knew it was down the slope and located it easily, my habit was to pick up an interesting piece knock it on another to remove the dust before putting it in my bag, I found this long crystal about 7cm long and one and a half centimeters square with pointed ends, unfortunately when I knocked it against another stone it broke in half and I threw it away in disgust.
On the way back I stopped to cool off at the pond, Tony had drilled down to the aquifer, installed an electric pump which still worked, the water emerged water up to the surface to a sloping piece of half around ducting, having removed my clothes again I was happily lying naked in this ducting enjoying the cool water, when Johno arrived checking up on my welfare.
Tony and also shown us where they had installed a cattle trough and when a bulldozer had cleared the site it had disturbed some fossilized trees, I picked up a few pieces with good markings on them and actually carried them and my bag of agates back to England.
Ann and Tony organized a trip to the coast at Shute Harbor and while we were there we all went on a boat trip, it was a beautiful ocean racing yatch but unfortunately there was little or no wind, but it was a very pleasant trip and when we stopped for lunch at some uninhabited island the captain asked if anybody wanted to try scuba diving, I looked at Tony and gave a little nod so we both decided we would like to try it.
So the captain got out the equipment and dressed us both in the scuba gear, he said “ we will go in the shallows first” later the women said it was hilarious, because the water was so full of plankton you could not see more than a few inches under water, so as we went along he would bob up to see where we were, and then we would bob up to see where he was, he then took us into the deep water but you still couldn’t see more than a few inches, and my ill fitting mask was constantly filling with water, after a short while I decided I had enough of this punishment, the instructor was holding us one in each hand and when I signaled that I had had enough he went into emergency mode let go of Tony and did a proper divers rescue, our first attempt at scuba was spoiled by the poor conditions.
We go hunting