straya day swimming

Australia Day was last Sunday, and we got Monday off in lieu. (If a national holiday falls on a weekend, you get a weekday off, so you don't get cheated out of the day off. Isn't that lovely?)

Australia Day is a bit controversial. Some people call it Invasion Day (granted, a minority of people). It's similar in theory and execution to the Fourth of July, but marks a slightly different event. It doesn't mark the day Australia became a sovereign nation. It marks the day the First Fleet arrived in Sydney Harbour and raised the flag of Great Britain...so really it should be "British Australia Day" or something like that. "Invasion Day" works, too. So the day is a bit controversial because a) it marks the beginning of a drawn-out genocide of the native people, and b) it doesn't really celebrate much of anything anyway. Here is an Australian's much better description of the inner struggle many Aussies feel on this day (from Pip at Meet Me At Mike's).

But it was a day off, and that's what mattered to me! Actually, what really mattered to me was that it was almost 100 degrees (Fahrenheit, of course). I decided days in advance that I would go swimming. So I dragged Hugh out of bed and made him drive me 80 miles to the start of the Great Ocean Road.

Thing is, I wasn't the only one with clever ideas of swimming on Monday. The entire rest of the state had the same idea. And a good portion of them were headed in the same direction as us. And I think there were some roadworks. And the air conditioning in the car is broken.

Things got a bit dicey for a while there. A 1.25-hour journey became a 2-hour journey. I wasn't sure Hugh would speak to me for the rest of the day.

But it was all good! I picked a lesser-known beach, which was brilliant, because all the usual beaches along the ocean road were PACKED! Ours was a bit secluded and had a few families, but plenty of space to spread out and relax. It was good fun. Yay swimming! I never really stay out for long (which makes the long journey a bit wasteful), but I enjoy it sooooooo much. Here is me being happy.

I am working on my surfer 'do.

And here is us on Sunday, when we met our friends, E and J, for Straya Day dinner and drinkies. We had Malaysian roti at Mamak for dinner, and drinks on the rooftop bar of Goldilocks. We thought we'd be able to hear the fireworks at dusk from there, but alas, we could not. We did hear some live music from a neighboring bar, though.

(haha Hugh has the funniest camera face)