Saturday night after Dad and I got home from B+B, Jessie came over to stay for the night (yes, Luke’s girlfriend) before we went to the caves down south on Sunday. Connor and Jessie are close, and we’ve had a few good chats as well so it’s not like it’s that weird, right?

My mum’s mum, my other Nan, passed away last year and this was the one-year anniversary. Mum wanted to take us to the caves because Nan took her and her sisters when they were our ages. It would be a nice family thing to do anyway for a rainy weekend.

Sunday morning we all woke up early and rugged all the way up because it was set to be a really cold day, and that’s just above the ground predictions. In the caves it’s a good couple degrees lower in temperature than above the ground so we were all layered in clothes.

It was a little bit of a drive, just over 2 hours south. We stopped first in Busso for a round of hot chocolates before continuing on the rest of the drive. Mum had bought a box of sour straps for the drive, which is all Connor had for breakfast.

We got to the first place, Mammoth cave, and we were all given our own headset that played information tapes as we went through the cave.

Mammoth cave was so big, and there were so many different types of rock formations which was so interesting how rocks in the same cave can look so different. There were more walkways and stairs than I thought there would be.

By the time we exited the cave, we were on a different side of the cave than where we started, which meant we then had a short bush walk to get back to the reception and gift shop. Mum and I were walking together when it literally started to hail. It had been raining in tiny increments but all of a sudden it was solid and bouncing on the dirt path like little individual styrofoam balls. They weren’t large by any accounts, but it was so cool! We never get hail in WA, so this was so awesome.

We had a quick look through the gift shop before we made the 4km drive down the road to Lake Cave.

Despite being run by the same tourist company, the way the cave tour was set out was incredibly different to Mammoth cave. There was a set tour guide and group times. And about 500 stairs down.

Once it was time for the tour to start, we had to walk down into a huge pit in the ground to get to the entrance of the cave. A good kilometre vertical drop. Walking down, tips of the rocks on the sides of the pit were white and I’d mentioned to mum that I really hope that was frost. Nope. Spiderwebs. EVERYWHERE. 😱

Now, I like spiders and understand the good they do for the environment and that most aren’t harmful to humans. However, in a cave where there is literally no escape but through more spiderwebs, where it’s their turf. Nuh uh.

I didn’t even want to enter the cave. Cave spiders are massive aren’t they?

Even writing this is making me shiver because I just hate being in such close proximity to all their creepy legs.

I did not want to stay above ground by myself with countless more spiders though, so of course I went in.

The tour guide was at the front of the group, reciting information about the cave this time. Despite not being that far from each other, and made of the same rock and getting the same weather, the formations in Lake Cave were so drastically different from Mammoth cave, and the whole way along was water. Not deep but enough that there were tiny organisms floating through it.

When we reached the end of the cave, all the little lights along the path (to stop us from falling in the water) went out. The power for the whole cave had gone off. The tour guide said it was probably due to the wind outside, but that we would have to exit the cave and stop the tour.

Because we were all literally metres underground, under rock, in pitch black.

We had to grab all our phones out and use our phone torches to get out of the cave. And then walk past all the spiderwebs again, much sooner than I anticipated. And then climb 500 steep steps back up out of the pit.

Because it was a Sunday, Luke had his phone so we tried to call him driving out of the cave parking lot, but the reception was so so bad. We waited until we stopped in Margaret River for lunch so he could call and talk to us all properly.

Having never been down south of WA before really, doing this trip was a nice change for me; well all of us really. We jumped from lunch to the bakery and lolly shop before piling back into the car for the couple hours drive back.

Connor and Jessie fell asleep by this point and I made sure to take photos for Luke.

Once we were home, Jessie’s dad came to pick her up from our house. We all showered and I don’t think we even had proper dinner that night because we were all just so exhausted (and full from lunch and the bakery)

Come Monday, I had to be up early so I could go into TAFE early and ask the lecturer about the couple questions I wasn’t sure of.

Now I don’t mean to say TAFE is easy for everyone, but I asked her to clarify the questions, and I pretty much got told the answers. I handed the written assessment in to be marked, and in the meantime, myself and some other students who had finished their written assessment had to go to TAFE’s on-campus restaurant bar, and role-play pretending to be either a bartender or a customer that we have to refuse service to.

A separate man came in to observe us for that, making sure we were doing the correct things like asking for ID, politely refusing alcohol (we weren’t actually serving drinks at 9am don’t worry), and offering alternative drinks or options for patrons. The lecturer had marked my assessment and by the time it was 10:30 I had finished all my assessments and passed.

I was told to wait until lunch time and then I could leave. So I just sat there for 90 minutes.🫤Dad picked me up and then I went home and had a 5 hour nap. I did not sleep well later that night. It was, however, the night I finally booked my bus ticket to go down south and meet John.

He’s house sitting for a friend at the moment, so its just him and their two dogs in the house. I’m going down the Sunday 24th and back up on the Tuesday 26th so I can still go to my pole class on the Wednesday. And just to be extra safe should anything happen, (it will) I’ve timed it so that it’s when I am least fertile in my cycle. Smart cookie.

Tuesday I cleaned my room! It wasn’t messy, but I hadn’t folded my clean clothes that were still in the washing basket, and there’s dog fur all over my floor so I vacuumed and folded washing and general other tidiness.

Once I’d done that, dad was moving the desk from the living area into Connor’s old room so it could become a makeshift office. Obviously, we had to remove the computer and printer and everything first, and because its like an L shape desk, we had to take it apart at the join to get it into the room. Thankfully it was much easier than it might have been if mum was home (parents always seem to argue about little nothings when moving furniture) and got done quite quickly.

It was Tuesday night when dad got The Phone Call. I was heading to the shower when I heard mum and dad talking about it.

Nana was back in hospital. Palliative care/end of life type of hospital.

Of course, I immediately looked up the bus timetable and the only day the buses went straight through from Bunbury to Geraldton was Thursday. It wasn’t as soon as I would’ve liked to get there, but at least I could still go to pole and pack my things properly.

I’m glad at this point that work is shut for the moment.

Wednesday, went to my pole class. Still super fun, but I keep pulling my neck muscles with this one specific move so I guess I’ve got to work on that.

Seeing as I was leaving Thursday, dad took us bowling on the Wednesday instead.

Omg, do people in Bunbury have nothing to do with themselves?? Tell me why its 10:30am on a Wednesday and there’s only two free lanes at the bowling alley, out of 14!! It was awesome anyway, albeit busy af. I hadn’t been bowling since I was 11 years old, and the first game it was neck and neck right up to the end when dad had a couple good bowls in a row.

The second game was not so neck and neck. I was consistently half of dads score nearly every round. But at least it was something to do with dad, and we’ll definitely be coming back.

After we were back home, I packed my bag for Gero. I really don’t know what’ll be happening, but I just need to be with Nana. I told Sam that I was coming up just in case I needed someone to take me away from the family for a minute. As much as I love my family, I’m really just there for Nana and don’t think I could be assed entertaining their conversations when Nana is one of my best friends and about to die.

That afternoon I made a biscoff cheesecake. Mum’s been sending me facebook reels of recipes lately and I told her to stop sending them unless we bought the ingredients. So she did, and I figured I’d better use the cream before it expires. We had that for dessert Wednesday night. It wasn’t restaurant quality for sure – don’t think I crushed the biscuits enough for the base – and the cheesecake mixture didn’t really set as much as it should have. Maybe I was meant to whip the cream before adding the mascarpone and biscoff spread?

It was still good though, and mum said that Connor finished essentially the entire cake by Thursday night.

I was in bed early on Wednesday; the Bunbury bus leaves at 6am meaning I needed to be up, dressed, and ready by 5 so we could drive the 30 minutes there and not miss the bus. But I never sleep well before an early morning, so that was a great 5 hour sleep for me. 😀

Geraldton’s going to be a separate post so that will be the next one.

Thanks for bearing with me while I write all this retroactively. I am nearlyyy up to date again (2 more posts behind) but all will come in good time.

See you next blog. BYE!