What an absence! This time last week I was cursing ex tropical cyclone Rusty for bringing a deluge to the Goldfields. I was right to curse. Our little convoy drove four hours through torrential rain down to Esperance. It was quite hairy at points, and I was worried my travel companions would insist we stop in Norseman (cue Dueling Banjos) for the night.

Thankfully my irritatingly positive outlook was enough to get them a further two hours down the road. We got to our holiday rental and collapsed into bed.

The Esperance Cup was meant to be the next day but it was postponed because of the weather. Not to worry. Brosnan prepared a fry up with all the trimmings and we sipped Mimosas to keep our spirits high. After getting 8 people showered and ready we headed to the shops, followed shortly by the pub. The rest of the day is pretty much a wipe out.

All the next day I battled a persistent headache. It was still drizzling but not cold so we headed to the best place on earth; Twilight Beach.

It looks pretty foreboding but the water was delicious and I cleared my head with a swim out to the rock with the boys. That night we gorged on fish and chips and played Unspeakable, an iPhone app that is the same as the board game Taboo. So. Much. Fun. I highly recommend you download it and play it at your next dinner party.

Monday was a public holiday, unfortunately most of our crew had to head back home, I drove Emma out to the airport early and then headed to the beach by myself. I was greeted with this:

Not bad! I enjoyed most of the beach to myself and then headed back to the house to round up the rest of the troops. After a piece of toast and a heated debate over peanut butter vs peanut paste (paste?! since when? West Australians….) we headed back to the beach.

We swam out to the rock and mucked about in the water for a while making accessories out of seaweed. Hungry already we then headed to the bakery for some treats. The Esperance Bakery is the bomb. It has amazing pies and traditional bakery fare as well as sushi and rice paper rolls. I shared a cauliflower, broccoli and cheese pie (to die for!) and some sushi with Erin. I also had one of the giant chocolate rum balls I’m so fond of:

We then headed back to the house and Erin, Bec and I got frocked up for the races.

That’s us in the betting ring. It was sweltering all day, quite a turnaround from the day before! Before too long everyone looked kind of sweaty and gross. But we just embraced it. I lost $25 betting on horses that may as well have been donkeys.

We were in a tent with lots of fun people and ended up track side until 7:30pm before heading to the pub. Far too conscious of the fact I had work the next day I headed back to the house at about 11pm. I got up the next day and walked to work at the Esperance office.

A lunch break looks much better from here:

After work I headed back to the beach with Bec and we had one final swim out to the rock. Followed by an ice cream. I had old english toffee, Bec had soft serve dipped in chocolate. While we were enjoying the view a couple of grey nomads (retired people who travel in caravans) came over to chat. I can’t wait until I can ride around in a caravan and drink wine every night.

Unfortunately Bec, who didn’t have work and spent all day on the beach, managed to fry herself and was looking a tad tomato-esque when we checked into a motel for the night. But nevertheless we were delighted to discover Save the Last Dance was on in the motel room and enjoyed watching Julia Styles awkwardly bluff her way through the dancing scenes. We then met our colleagues at the pub for some pizzas.

The next day (Wednesday) the weather had turned again. Which was terrible timing given our radio team had driven down to broadcast live from the town square. Half way through the broadcast the presenters had to leg it back to the studio to avoid the down pour (and possible electrocution) and we had to pack up in the rain.

After a final cauliflower, broccoli and cheese pie Bec and I headed back up the road to Kalgoorlie with sand still between our toes, slightly more brown (or red in her case).

If you can manage to tack a weekend onto a work trip (or vice versa) I highly recommend it. Although I’m completely exhausted so I’m quite glad it’s the weekend.

Are you doing anything fun? Peanut butter or paste?