The View From Bawley Point

Note to self: must remember to buy beach house for weekly escape for self and friends. Must remember to rob bank to buy said beach house.

We all had a delightful time down at Bawley Point (about 4 hours sth of Sydney). Trev and Paul had hired a beach house down there for the week and Judy, Bernice, Wanda and myself joined them for the weekend. Wanda drove down separately and Judy and I caught a ride with Bernice in her car Friday afternoon. It is a while since I've been south of Wollongong and I had forgotten how beautiful the drive is particularly past Kiama and through Berry onto Jervis Bay; the way the mountains fall into The Tasman like waterfalls and the lush flood plains gather like puddles. The countryside at the moment is so plump from the monsoonal rains, it is almost bursting at the seams; "Bewdiful country" as my father would say. As the sunset moved onto it's next horizon, the landscape was saturated with autumn gold and I felt like I was in Lexus Ad! All I needed was a Lexus, a mink and a square jaw.

As beautiful as the country side was, it did still take us four hours to get down there. We didn't quite beat the Sydney weekend rush traffic. I think it took us over two hours just to get from Potts Point in the middle of Sydney to Sutherland on the southern outskirts of the city. Bernice's latest disco sounds particularly the 26 min remix version of Leona Jackson's song and the 32 min version of Alanis Morrisette's old song "Uninvited" song forced us to make conversation or go mad. We had a toilet/cigarette stop at Nowra (about 3 hours south of Sydney) just outside an abandoned warehouse which must have been the local pick up for drugs by the number of cars which stopped, stared and drove off………that or they thought we were three very tired looking hookers.

We finally made it to Ulladulla which Judy informed us is Aboriginal for running water and kept doing so every time the town was mentioned throughout the entire weekend.

In the car
Me: "It looks like a big town Ulladulla"
Judy: " Yes it is. It's aboriginal for running water."

On the beach
Bernice: "Have we got beer?"
Trev: "We might have to go Ulladulla to get it."
Judy: "Ulladulla. That's aboriginal for running water."

At the beach house
Me : "So what are our house prices like here?"
Trev: "Pretty up there…about 700/800 thousand..Ulladulla is more reasonable."
Judy: " Ulladulla. That's aboriginal for running water."

After confusing intersections for T-sections (I never knew there was a difference) and attempting to enter service stations which were clearly closed (in the country open 24hrs means shut by 9pm), we made it to the Bawley Point beach house. Literally a house on stilts, draped in 70s kitsch with polished floors and tomato red ceramic tiles in the kitchen and bathroom. It was like stepping into my family photo album. I felt immediately at home.

Trev had cooked up a sumptuous Stephanie Alexander bolognas and we proceeded to consume that along with our entire stock of alcohol (for the weekend) in one night; this, together with a particularly aggressive game of scrabble. I don't know whether it was the 12 bottles of both red and white wine we had consumed or the intensity of the fire in the corner of the room, but for some reason the game of scrabble was played like we had declared war on each other. I'd forgotten how competitive my friends are. All except Bernice and I really and I think that was because we'd drunk too much to care. Apart from the fact that as well I had not played scrabble in 20 years and that was only a couple of times: my family was a monopoly and trivial pursuit family: we didn't like anything that involved a writing instrument in a board game. As a consequence I'd totally forgotten the rules for scrabble, which caused everyone quite frequently to scream blue murder at me as if I'd just eaten all their newborn. Feeling a migraine coming on, I retired and left the rest of them to scrabble over the scrabble.

The next morning Bernice and I cooked up what I like to call a Coronary Breakfast. Yes a good old fashioned Aussie Fry Up. Bacon, sausages (90% fat), scrambled eggs, fried tomatoes and toast with slabs of butter (real 100% butter). I think each serve contained about 1200 calories and considering we each had a couple of servings, we were all well and truly bloated by the end of it. We all rolled to the beach (just a min away) and relaxed for the rest of the day swimming and reading our books. The beach was perfectly deserted except for a dog called Samson who took a liking to Trev's dog Max and appeared to be the only gay dog in the village. Max was having none of it. He may hang out with poofs all the time but he's certainly not one of them. Taking rejection on the chin, Samson still felt quite at home with us lot and hung out for the rest of the day. Max kept his distance.

The water was so invigorating that I thought I was going to see an iceberg float by when I first broke the waves. But as per usual one does become used to the ocean temperature after one's in the ocean for some time. The water was clear as crystal and you were able to see right to the bottom where the feeding fish were……which always kinder freaks me out. I like my oceans devoid of wildlife.

Wanda was perturbed by her star sign, which said that people are always tricking her into doing all the work by saying "thanks" to her all the time. The star sign advised that she had to avoid putting herself in situations where people would be saying "thanks". We then proceeded to say "thanks wanda" for the rest of the weekend.

Once we got back to the house in the late afternoon, I treated the boys to my copy of Some Like It Hot. It was great to watch it with them…..although am sure half the time they were watching Judy and I re-enacting the film instead of the actual film. Wanda cooked a beautiful dinner ("thanks Wanda") and we proceeded to drink our entire new supplies of alcohol. Bernice cranked up the stereo and we turned Bawley Point into a beachside Palms (kitsch gay bar). Tragedy struck at 2 in the morning when we discovered that we had no cigarettes and a quarter bottle of scotch left……and no 711 in sight. You can stretch scotch out but not tobacco. Trev joked we should drive to Canberra (only 2 hours away) and go to the gay disco (Cube). We all laughed then looked at each other….waiting for someone to go….I'll drive! Wanda instead brought out her foot bath and started bathing everyone's feet. It was all very biblical and going against the advice of her star sign. I asked her if she was being crucified tomorrow and this was her way of saying "thanks".

The footbath did the trick however and we all fell into slumber not long afterwards. It started raining about 3 in the morning and it pelted down onto the iron roof. The sound of a downpour outside during the night whilst snug in bed is always so soothing. It put me fast to sleep. The next morning was cold and drizzly so we all stayed in bed reading and snoozing, except for Wanda who was up tidying and cleaning for hours earning her lots of "thanks" from everyone.

With daylight saving over and an extra hour on the day, Sunday ironically seemed to disappear even more quickly with dusk invading the afternoon with speedy precision. The end of daylight saving is often like someone switching off the light….suddenly it's completely dark! Summer is over….thank you for coming!

We were soon back on the highway back to Ulladulla (Judy: "that's aboriginal for running water") where we had pleasant homemade scons and pretended to buy antiques with our imaginary boyfriends.

Once we had completed our imaginary purchases, we gave each other hugs, continental kisses and "we must do it again soons" and then returned flamboyantly to our cars……more gay than Christmas. I'm so lucky to have these guys. We power drove past all the seaside ports back to whence we came. I love to get away but like a bird returning to the nest, I always look forward to returning to the steel wool chaotic security of my nest, Sydneytown.