23/10/09

I'm slowly finding my feet here in Bunbury, but I'm still job-less which is becoming increasingly frustrating.

But I've been fairly active – a couple of friends of Tilly's (Tenille) and I went out on motorbikes to one of the local wineries, Hackersley, for lunch. It was a delicious 5 course meal accompanied naturally by a bottle of the vineyard's best. Then on Sunday I took part in the 10km Surf to Surf run/walk, which I didn't know I was doing until that morning (the starting gun went off at 9am) so I was rather unprepared. Still, it was something to do. It took me about 4 days to recover though! I've heard there's a triathlon coming up, which seems strangely appealing...

On Monday I started my 2 mornings of training at the Dolphin Discovery Centre (DDC), which is not only something I'm starting to enjoy, but it's also good just to have something to do. Monday was just a case of going through paperwork and the basics, then Tuesday was more hands-on. There haven't been many dolphins in the bay recently, but we're only just coming into the summer season where they become regular visitors. However I got to feed, weigh and measure the 5 baby loggerhead turtles that we are currently nursing. They were originally swimming around quite happily in the warmer northern waters of Shark Bay, but were blown off course during a storm and washed up on these much colder SW shores. So we'll be looking after them for a few more months, before they'll be transferred to a 'nursery' further up the coast where they'll learn to catch their own food and fend for themselves. On Sunday the DDC is having its 'Open Day' which marks the official start of the dolphin visiting season – though whether the dolphins are in agreement to this I don't know. I'll be manning the Discovery Pool and talking about the little things living in it – sea stars (as they are officially now known – no longer starfish - due to somewhat pedantic scientists), urchins, anemones, sea cucumbers, periwinkles, mussels etc

Aside from that, I've just moved house with my flatmate (furniture et al), which is slightly better located in terms of shops (there's a shopping centre with a humongous supermarket just over the road) and for getting to the DDC.

Otherwise I'm trying to come up with a contingency plan if a decent job is not going to come my way...