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The weather has been awful here with torrential rain and crazy winds – apparently Perth is known as Australia’s “Windy City”… who knew! I suppose you don’t get great waves for surfing if you’re not this windy.

Anyway, this past weekend the weather had relaxed a little and so we decided to do a road trip further north to check out two places: the white sand dunes and the Pinnacles.

The White Sand Dunes
Located in the town of Lancelin, the white sand dunes are just that, white sand dunes. As far as the eye can see of pristine white sand with a snow-like appearance. Tourists and locals have wasted no time in making the most of these natural beauties and you can often find motorbikes, 4×4 cars and sandboarders charging the alabaster mounds with fervor.

The children had a great time running up and down the dunes. We tried renting boards to attempt some sand boarding but were advised against it since there was torrential rain the night before that had left the sand quite wet. It hadn’t completely dried when we arrived that morning. It didn’t matter really because we still had a lot of fun looking around and walking along the lowly hills. It was a lovely morning out that culminated in having lunch nearby at the Lancelin Beach Hotel with Western Australia’s turquoise coast as our view.

Walking around the white sand dunes

Views of WA’s turquoise coast from the Lookout at Lancelin Beach Hotel

Next stop, the Pinnacles…

The Pinnacles
The Pinnacles are random limestone formations that look as if they sprouted in the middle of the desert landscape. They are a popular natural attraction. We were told that most families who move to Perth tend to see the Pinnacles within the first week of their arrival! I guess seeing them 3 months after we arrived here means we’re late bloomers 😉

We told the children that we were going to see dinosaur rocks to peak their interest, which worked. The rocks are located in Nambung National Park, almost 2 hours north of Lancelin.

It was a very windy day when we went, and on top of that the tours were canceled when we arrived at Nambung National Park for reasons which I now can’t remember. However, you don’t really need a tour anyway. If you enjoy walking for miles and miles seeing random limestone rocks, then you’ll enjoy this trip. And don’t forget to bring your camera…

Apparently, a must-do is to eat at, and do a tour of, the Lobster Shack in the nearby town of Cervantes. Unfortunately, by the time we got there they had just closed. As such we decided to drive to another seafood-inspired eatery in the same town. I was fascinated by the name of Cervantes, seeing as it is the name of Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes who wrote the famous story of Don Quixote de la Mancha. Driving around I was intrigued by the street names: “Madrid”, “Seville”, “Iberia”, “Cadiz”! Surely this town had Spanish immigrants who first landed in Australia! Actually, no. OK… maybe the person who founded this town was Spanish. Nope, not that either. Why would a random town, 4 hours north of Perth City be called Cervantes then? Apparently, it was named after a ship that arrived there, headed by a British captain. Reading further into its history you soon discover that the ship was named Cervantes after the author. Phew! Felt like a 6-degrees of separation game for a second!

Spanish street names in Cervantes, WA

For more stories on sight-seeing, travel or life in Perth in general, please visit Cross Cultural TCK’s Blog

We were told that with our skill sets we would be considered highly employable and therefore very easy for both of us to find work.

Is anyone on here currently studying at the University  of Leicester???

Distance, like everything else, is relative. The Earth is round after all.

Here’s my latest guest post. Please read it if you are a TCK and transitioning to university or college. There’s 10 great tips there too.

read: transitioning globally to university

Dear fellow TCK’s 🙂 I am currently a master student in Oxford, who would like to invite you to participate in an interview researching:

TCK’s as a by-product of globalization and their challenges and potential for multinational hospitality companies.

If you fit in the following criteria, please feel free to PM me.
Born: Between 1985 – 1995 (Generation Y)
TCK experience: Lived in a minimum of 2 countries outside of passport country between the ages of 0 – 18
Time: Minimum of 3 years abroad
Working experience: Minimum of 1 year in a multinational hotel company (does not have to be non-stop)

Best regards and thank you very much in advance,
Alex

Parents are weird. I think its safe to say that’s a fairly universal truth, yes?

But not many of my non-TCK friends have the issue of actually fighting with a parent over whether or not the kid is ‘patriotic’ enough.

Dad, I’ve lived in 8 different places. And that is mostly YOUR fault, too, while we’re on the topic. Which one, exactly, am I supposed to have this undying loyalty towards? That’s like civilians asking me where ‘home’ is.

“So, where’s home for you?”

“I live here.”

“Yes, I know, but where’s home?”

“I was born in (blank).”

“That’s very interesting, but where is home? You know, HOME.”

Yes, because saying a word louder and slower, with emphasis, is really going to make me understand you better. Nope, you’re still strange and asking awkward questions. Stop. Stop that. NOW.

My parents aren’t even from the same place, so its like living through an election year with one parent who is Republican, and the other is a Democrat. (which is, coincidentally, also the case in my family)

I love my parents, though, and I have to give them credit for making it work. 25 years together, and they are still cutesy enough to make me sick. But they also made a point of making it work, too. Whenever my dad was deployed, he’d hide notes and presents around the house, for my mom to come across by accident. He’d write out a stack of cheesy cards, and have me order flowers for my mom and attach one of the cards. I am convinced he paid some of the other deployed people for their phone privileges, because none of the other military spouses got so many phone calls as my mum.

My dad has even started training my brother in how to make romantic gestures towards his (my brother’s) girlfriends. One summer, due to scheduling, my parents kept leaving the country, always missing seeing each other by only a few hours. This happened four times in a row. Each time, my dad would leave a surprise for my mum, to be discovered when she got home. She would do the same when she left. The first time he did this, my dad told my brother, “Now, son. Pay attention. You must always let your woman know when you miss her. They need to know this stuff.” When I told my mom all of this, she blushed like a teenager.

Ok, first of all, GAG.

Secondly, does this stuff actually work? Relationships are HARD. Maybe I’m biased, but it seems so much harder for TCKs.

I see people like my roommate who can barely go a weekend without seeing her boyfriend, and I just scratch my head at the idea of needing, and she truly does desperately need, that closeness, all the time. She’d be that person to turn down a free trip, even a short one, just because her boy couldn’t go. The poor lad is totally smitten with her too, and has decided to change careers because she can not handle the current one, which is only, you know, his dream job.

I do not know how I got on this topic…

Parents AND relationships in the same post. Gross.

I’m done.

A biscuit for having actually read all the way to the end. Nom nom.

– Victoria, British Columbia

– Yangon, Myanmar

– Hanoi, Vietnam

– possibly Moreal, Canada

– In the redwood forest/ on the coast of California 🙂

– Portland, Oregon or Bend, Oregon

– Olympia, Washington

– Hawaii!

– Chengdu, China

– Oakland, California

   short term stints in:

– Denmark in general

– Seoul, Korea

– Paris, France (the nice areas ! ;] :P)

– India, in monasteries, not sure where yet…

   Kinds of places:

– In an auberge/ community oriented Hostel in the countryside

– In an intentional community in Oakland or San Francisco

More to be added later…

Check the post on my blog Interview with Apple Gidley on DrieCulturen blog

enter the giveaway before 30th June!