Next morning we walked down to the Shark Nursery a bit further round the bay. 1-2 meter Reef Sharks take their young there as a shelter from bigger predators. The pair of us went snorkeling round but couldn't see one. Who'd have thought I'd be let down at swimming in waters that weren't shark infested?
Soon enough it was the G-Man's last day too. As we couldn't really top off any nights out after the Cyclone Party. We decided to do what we'd been putting off all week. The Quad Bikes. We'd been put off by the $65 price tag, but as it was his last day we did it anyway. And managed to get it down to $54 each for 2 hours.
Just before we left at 5pm for the Sunset Ride. Dave, the guide, looked at us and said "its only you two tonight and one guy I'm training up. No one else has booked up. I assume we'll get through this quite quickly?"
I think we both just grinned.
We raced around the bumpy, twisty, sandy tracks which took us up, over and round the cliffs and sand dunes to the North of Coral Bay. After short break at the edge of a cliff, Dave said he'd take us to a lookout high up somewhere. They don't usually go there but we were happily covering a lot of ground.
After doing a long straight run on the beach (where I found the bloody thing had a limiter at 60kmh) we got to the sunset lookout point. "Yep, we're making pretty good time tonight," Dave said. "We don't usually get here 'till about 6pm."
"What time is it now?" I said.
"5.30"
We saw some huge Loggerhead Turtles in the waters just below us. Dave valiantly tried to extend his Turtle knowledge from a bitesize sunset bike stop to a full half an hour lesson. Which I reckon is a good way to do it. Give it some welly on the bikes and find out more? Sold.
We demolished his supplies of Coffee and Doritos while turtle spotting. "You can always tell when you've got backpackers on the trip." Dave said "They always bloody eat everything."
On the way back, we met up with the other quad company tour group. The guide for that one was a bloke called Renee who we'd been drinking with a couple of nights before. "You gonna take 'em over edge?" He said. Dave agreed. 5 minutes later, I was heading after him in about 3rd gear (luckily) when he veered off the track into some virgin sand, and then disappeared. Thinking I was both big and clever I was following him a little closer than I probably should've been...
I didn't have time think about what I was about to do and just plowed after him. I found myself accelerating almost vertically down a 30ft sand dune, slowing only because 3rd gear allowed the wheels to go so fast... I turned on the sharp corner at the bottom and stopped sharply behind Dave.
"Alright?" he said...
"Fu..Bloo...whooa..am...jjeesss...yes Thanks. Can we do that again?!?"
We had a couple of drinks at the hostel that night before heading out to the pub. I saw Alex a 22 yr old trainee Dive Master from the dive shop who was staying at the hostel. "If you're doing your whale sharks tomorrow you'd better only have a couple of them mate." he said. I agreed. I also told G Man I was sorry but I had to take it easy for his last night.
As the pub shut at midnight and we headed towards the beach with a load of take-outs for one of the local girl's birthdays. I knew there was something I should be doing but I couldn't quite place what it was. At 3am, the guy playing guitar stopped playing and a couple of people started leaving. It suddenly clicked I had to be up in a few hours for my whale sharks. I promptly went home and drunkenly set my alarm for 7.20 the next night.
My Whale Shark day will be in the Underwater camera section...
Soon enough it was my own last day. I'd met a few more people but none of them clicked like our little gang. I watched the sunsets on my own, reading my book. That Jamiroqui song 'This corner of the Earth' kept gong through my head. I was reading (from my 'Introduction to Philosophy' book I found in a second hand book shop in Adelaide) about a 17th Century philosopher called Baruch Spinoza who was excommunicated for his free thinking ideas. He spent his life investigating Ethics and the relationship to God once you're on the outside. Stating nothing is inherently good or bad (our perception changes it) he claimed God can be found in 'the nature of things.' As I sat there watching the sunset while reading about the connections between God and the nature of everything, trying to decide whether or not all this spiritual stuff is a load of tosh. Something made me get up and turn around, I knew what was there before I saw it. A huge, fat, white full moon rising in the pink and purple twighlight of the oncoming darkness. A perfect opposite to the disappearing sun.
Who knows. I thought.
Maybe.
***
My last night in Coral Bay turned out to be a right corker. It was the opening night of the Coral Bay arts festival. Having been to Harrow Lodge for 5 years (Arts College) I've been to enough of them to really appreciate the time and effort and creativity that goes into making this kind of thing.
And there was free wine. And Sangria.
Suzanne (my dorm) and Alice (bakery) discussing the neo-classical post-structuralist approach to modern works on canvas. Oh hang on. No. No, I remember what it was. Shoes. That was it. Discussing shoes.
The whole town was there (half of which I knew by now.) About 9pm the band started playing outside the supermarket (where else?).
There was the obligatory Aussie fire juggling.
And of course lots of drinking. Here is Robbie (Mel's Brother), Mel (Dive Shop), me and Nicole (Dive Shop), I dont know who the girl in red is. Forget Aussie surf chics. 'Dive Chics' is where its at. They were a right good laugh. Robbie on the left I met playing pool one night. Him and Gareth hit it off as they realised they could put each other off on the Black. I just enjoyed coming up with some top quality insults to combat his devastatingly original 'Pommie Faggot.'
I've spent three months being nice to everyone i've met and its been really refreshing to be so offensive to someone again. With some notable exceptions (mainly guides and drivers) its not that tough to outwit the average aussie male and though it was a bit like shooting fish in a barrel, I had some cracking 'discussions' with Robbie.