The coolest thing

Hello, my name is Deidre and I am a rocky shore addict.  I've been this way ever since finding an octopus in a rock pool as a child.

On Sunday my family set off on their bikes to the local beach to explore the local reef.  I haven't yet replaced the bicycle I sold in NZ before moving here so stayed at home with a giant L on my forehead to do laundry and make a curry for tea.  And what do you know?  They see an octopus and a cuttlefish in the rock pools.  Naturally I was insanely jealous. 

It is school holidays here and also unseasonably toasty, so the very next day I packed us up with swimsuits, hats and sunscreen and set off to explore various watery spots.

First we went to the same reef the children had been to the day before, but alas it was too windy and the tide was too far in.  Next we set off to an estuary-front spot that I'd spotted on the map but hadn't been to before.   I liked it but apparently it was also too windy.  Then we went further down the estuary to Dawesville to our favourite octopus-spotting spot, but sadly it was also too windy for any sightings. So we went across to the coast and stopped at Falcon Bay for an icecream and a walk on the reef there.  We saw lots of anemones and not much else so I had a mock paddy and jumped up and down and said "I want to see an octopus!"

To which my son replied, "Um.  Mum.  Like that huge one by your foot?" 

And there it was.

For ages we watched as it fished around in the rock pool.  Then as the tide came in and washed waterfalls of water from its pool to the next, it gracefully upgraded to the next pool and the next.

We watched for ages as the octopus made its way across the reef with the incoming tide.  The whole experience was extremely cool. 

But the very, very coolest thing of the day is that we did all this with the company of another 12 year old girl.

Yes, my daughter who so dearly misses her lovely NZ friends and classmates, has a new friend.

As they swam in their clothes and laughed and squealed like giant girls, I thought about how if you are lonely in paradise, well, you are not actually in paradise at all.