Blast from the past : Scarborough Beach, WA

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Of all the experiences within my life, few compare to the sunsets on Australia's western coastline. For half the year of 2009, I would try every evening to be by the shore to bear witness to another glorious sunset over the beach. Scarborough Beach.

orbville.com

Prior to moving to Scarborough Beach, I had seen many pristine beaches along the Australia's east QLD coast, including the Great Barrier Reef; but this new beach had a completely different kind of beauty. Its sand was powder soft and white; its water was sapphire blue with enormous and angry waves and its seashells were types I'd never seen before. There was a raw, untouched authenticity to its shore; where tall grass grew right onto the sand and rabbits would hide - real, adorable rabbits on a beach - nothing else I've seen yet beats that. There were giant pine trees growing at the border line where sand met soil; and Rosella parrots were seen everywhere and heard above beeping horns and crashing waves.

This was our first home; Will and I. A more magnificent backdrop we could never have imagined as we were consumed by our love for each other and took our first steps into a shared life. It was on Scarborough Beach that Will proposed to me - surrounded by rabbits, gum nuts, crashing waves, those annoying parrots; and a setting sun that still takes my breath away just remembering it.

Scarborough Beach was where I met Will's mum for the first time; where Will and I had our first argument; and there in that tiny, one bedroom apartment on Pearl Parade that I cooked our first dinner, paid our first bills, ruined our first load of washing and got my first taste of homesickness - when I missed QLD so much, that I stayed up and cried in private while he slept.

It was there on Scarborough Beach that I realised for first time that I would spend the rest of my life with someone, as Will and I sat on a blanket sipping champagne (shhhh, alcohol wasn't allowed!) and watched as the sun set over the beach and that very first, very amazing chapter of our joint life. At times, I close my eyes and I am right there again.