'Yong' forever.
“Built by seal hunters for cooking around 1800,” an old sign said.
My Russian friend peeped inside a loose stone structure: “Seen something similar up north in our parts.
“How did it work?” Pam shouted from a boulder In distance.
She nearly slipped on wet rock but Christine, the only Australian among us, got hold of her arm: “Easy, wood burning inside the dome heated the stone. Bread or meat was then placed inside to cook.”
“Are there many seals still around?” She replied back laughing: “Not anymore, hunters took care of it.”
“Isn’t it just breathtakingly beautiful here?” I pulled myself on the highest boulder in the bay to watch wild waves of the Southern Ocean crash below me.
“How lucky we truly are to be here,” whispered my Chinese friend while sliding beside me quietly. I nodded following a sea eagle gliding above us: “How long have you been here Grace?”
“Thirty years and you?” Before I could reply Nina and Pam hugged us from behind laughing: “Squeeze in, a big girl from Manchester is here.’
“Hold onto her before she slid off the rock.” Grace laughed and Pam winked at her: “Wish to be tiny like you, food would cost much less for me.”
“And drink especially,” I nodded and we all burst laughing.
“I always wanted to camp in the wild, finally we do it girls,” Nina pointed to our tent hidden in bushes on the other side of the bay.
“And no one here just us,” Grace breathed in with delight: “And dolphins.” We all turned to see their elegant bodies plopping in and out water following fish.
“I counted sixteen of them, we are just two hours from Albany following the coast and it feels like we are at the end of the world.”
“This is where the ancient continent Gondwana split from Antarctica and Africa,” Christine shouted at us from below, frolicking among the loose stones.
“Once geologist always geologist,” Nina winked at me then sighed:
“It took me ages to get my doctor’s licence here.”
“You are the best GP one can get,” Grace patted her arm: ‘I ended up teaching Chinese at High School and ended up speaking English only with you girls, need more practice.”
“It is because you live in a Chinese suburb when I visit you I don’t even feel I am in Australia anymore,” Pam laughed then shrugged: “But we have our own proud British town of Rockingham south of Perth.”
“Look at the lines on this rock,” Christine pointed excitedly at the bottom of the rock wall, a sandstone, a limestone and…”
“Watch out,” Nina quickly took her arm and pulled her on the boulder just when a big wave crashed against the rock wall: “You silly girl, you will not even live to celebrate your sixty tonight.”
Christine shook her wet hair and laughed: “I always wanted to find a rock from the Triassic period, imagine 252 million years ago first known dinosaurs and mammals and most importantly seafood abundance..”
“That reminds me we have chilli mussels and oysters on the ice in the car fridge they will not last long, better to head back.”
We jumped into our kayaks and paddled across the bay just as the sun went slowly down and the bay glistened in golden mist.
“To Christine,” Pam opened the bottle of sparking while we sat on the rock in front of our tent overlooking the bay from the other side glowing in the deep dark red of last sun rays. We lifted our mugs in unison and sang the Happy Birthday song as loud as we could.
“This is more like glamping,” Christine smiled at us gratefully, cutting huge Pavlova cake topped with fresh mango and passionfruit and passing it around: “Tuck in.”
“We have to fill you up before you disappear in the desert again,” Grace laughed. “I wish my job was as exciting as yours.”
“Me too,” I sighed: “Being a lawyer is the most boring job ever.”
“But very useful,” Pam winked at me: “You sort out all our wills and defend us when we are in trouble with the law.”
“Pam did you lose all your driving points again?” Grace sighed and we all ended up laughing.
“I took a remote teaching job up in Kimberley that should keep me out of trouble and kids out there are so cute but cheeky like this one look…”
We all huddled around her admiring a chubby five years old smiling broadly into a camera: “He loves dancing all the traditional and modern too, it is a different world out there, a different culture but they are so poor…”
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Grace suddenly sighed: “I don’t even remember when my daughter was tiny like this, I miss her sometimes, she is married back in China.”
“My son lives in Germany,” Nina smiled: “He travelled around Europe in his gap year and returned there after finishing his degree, he loves Berlin.”
“I ended up not having kids, wrapped up in my job,” Christine smiled: “But my second husband had two from a previous marriage and we stayed in touch.”
I looked at the empty camp chair at the end: “I miss Wendy.” Then I filled up our glasses again: “Like Wendy always said to freedom.”
“And more camping trips together,” Christine added as we clinked our mugs watching the big round yellow moon appearing behind the bushes and bathing the bay in its glow.
“What do you wish for Christine?”
There was a long pause.
“You know when you study rocks and realise how long it took us to get here and how life on earth is precious.”
We nodded and she continued: “At the end of Triassic period the eruptions caused mass extinction and from nothing life started again first birds over the next hundred million years flowering plants and new types of dinosaurs and then again Asteroid impacts sixty six million years ago wiped out all of them.”
“My boy loved dinosaurs,” Pam said dreamily. I took her hand in mine and we watched a man and a boy walking down the path towards the beach to catch some fish.
“It took us so long to evolve from primates to humans over a thousand million years and from Hominins to Humans another two millions years. It was all good for nothing as all we are good at is destruction.”
Nina sighed: “After Putin invaded Russia I do not even admit anywhere I am Russian and we don’t even speak Russian at home.”
Grace nodded: “It is painful to realise everyone thinks you are a spy just because of what the Chinese government is doing to people. It makes me fearful to say what I truly think because I know they are watching, You can’t hide from them anywhere.”
Pam laughed sarcastically: “UK is a bastion of democracy now but we all know how many colonies they occupied and took by force.”
“Indigenous people are still not treated as they should be, not even here in Australia,” Christine sighed: “You saw it Pam how little they have out there.”
“Come on girls, time for evening swim,” I suddenly stood up to lift up the mood and they followed me down the path towards the fishermen.
When we reached the water the fishermen were gone. All that was left on their spot was one dead fish with a hook still in its mouth.
“It is king whiting a very delicious fish, why did not take it?” Chris kneeled next to it.
“Probably too small or they caught only one and they did not bother with cleaning it.” I nodded: “Such a waste.”
I sat next to the dead fish and Chris on the sand and we watched Nina, Pam and Grace splashing each other nearby.
“You know,” Chris whispered: “My father was an American and I was once so proud of it because we grew up believing it is a pinnacle of democracy, freedom and justice. Now I am ashamed of it. The only thing left there is hate and greed.”
She put the dead fish gently on the palm of her hand and wiped her tears: “They treat us all, the whole world like this dead fish, my father is turning in his grave, I know he is.”
I hugged her and asked quietly: "Do you believe there is another mass extinction ahead of us?"
Chris burst out laughing: "Oh my dear, we evolve to be more than capable of destroying ourselves, we are working on it right now."
Grace sneaked on us splashing us with water: "Come on girls I show you something that lasts."
She picked up a shell and wrote in the sand four Chinese symbols. " What does it mean?"
The other girls joined us and we sat in a circle around it while Grace explained: "In the 4th century one Chinese noble gathered his friends at the beautiful Orchid Pavilion and he wrote a poem about it starting with the word yong." She pointed at the symbols, forever, friends are forever."
We huddled around the symbols and repeated yong forever.