Saturday, 9th April, 2005. What a day! The day of the Royal Wedding. The day after the Pope John Paul II funeral. The day of 
taking my new friends from India on some sight seeing. It started with a phone call from Mohan asking was Saturday all right 
to meet for the sight seeing. Could I take him and Prabhakar to a distant, northern suburb of Joondalup for arrangements to 
do with their new apartment rental? By the way, Mohan and Prabhakar are information technology people here on a project for 
‘my’ bank. Prabhakar is tall, slim and quite good looking. Mohan is shorter, with some body ‘upholstery’, like me, but he has 
the benefit of young age and good looks. Joondalup is way out of my normal travel zones. Mohan also mentioned that Joondalup 
is near the beach, so maybe we could see that at the same time. It all sounded feasible and good to me. Well, I arrived at 
the appointed place at the appointed time. We set off through the Northbridge Tunnel and onto the northern Mitchell Freeway. 
So far, so good. We went right to the end of the freeway and turned right. This short diversion took us past a truly 
incredible building, which is part of a university. The building is like a mushroom cap cut in half, with huge spikes and 
beams projecting upwards and at all angles on the ‘cut edge’. I retraced our journey, to where we should have turned left off 
the freeway. We then quickly got to the real estate office. One day, I’ll learn to pay attention sometimes. Oddly, the real 
estate office is about one block from my niece’s former home. The lads did the rental business quite quickly and were proudly 
in possession of the key.


Now we could check out the beaches. We got to Burns Beach (I don’t think the name has anything to do with ‘Rabbie Burns’, the 
famous Scots poet), although the next suburb is called Kinross. The lads were interested in the beach and sea and we decided 
on a quick cup of tea and coffee and then we would explore. I’d taken along a picnic pack so we could enjoy the sea, sun and 
fresh air. We walked along the beach for a while. A recent storm washed much of the sand away and we had to walk carefully 
over exposed limestone rocks. A while along the walk, Prabhakar took off his shoes and socks and paddled. Like all little 
boys, he soon had the cuffs of his jeans wet. He rolled up his jeans and went into the water again. Pretty soon his jeans 
were wet way up. I told him his Mum would growl at him for getting his clothes wet. The temptation was too much and soon he 
removed his jeans and tee shirt and was in the water swimming. This is the beauty of deserted Perth beaches, although he 
looked quite respectable as it was. Mohan and I watched him enjoying the surf waves and water. The temptation was too much 
for us and soon we removed our outer clothes and were in the water swimming. The water was surprisingly pleasant and 
enjoyable (seeing it is now autumn). I body surfed a few small waves and it was good. We spent a fun time in the water and 
sitting in the sun (it’s tough, but someone has to live here). Eventually we went back to the car park, showered and dressed 
in our clothes of varying states of wetness. This wonderful time at the beach called for another cup of tea. The lads spent 
some time photographing our silver sea gulls. The birds readily cooperated with the photographers while I threw biscuits to 
them (the sea gulls, that is).

Next we drove down the beach road, passing many truly extravagant houses. Where do people get this sort of money, and I 
wasn’t I among the lucky ones? We paused at Beaumaris, Waterman’s Beach, Scarborough (named after the one in England), 
Floreat Beach, Swanbourne and Cottesloe Beach. Along the way we took many photos with two digital cameras and my film camera. 
At Cottesloe we had our considerably delayed lunch. The lads wanted to walk out on the sea groyne and so we did, taking many 
photos of the excellent scene. A wedding party came along for their album photos. We also watched some keen fishermen, who 
didn’t seem to be catching anything. All too soon we had to leave (it was now getting to late afternoon). We saw another 
wedding party and the water looked really inviting.

I delivered the lads to their hostel accommodation. I rang Huuson, my squash partner, who could fit in a sudden game. We 
played squash and he did very well. Then I came home for another welcome cup of tea. In all this, I missed going to 
cousin-once-removed Elizabeth’s wedding ceremony. I did have my wedding clothes in the car, honest. I really must work on 
being in two places at one time. As Huuson says about my squash games, “room for improvement”. On this day of tootling around 
Perth suburbs we did 174.4 km (109 miles). Amazing, eh?