The Loveliest Farewell to Summer

This week has proven to be exceptionally hard because my progress in Uni work has been put to a near standstill as I cope with a pretty serious cold (but not TOO serious…stop worrying Mom). With a big group presentation on Thursday, my head is running a mile a minute while my body works as though my veins are circulating with cement. I can’t find much motivation to leave my apartment and the change in weather isn’t helping much either. The drop in temperature might also be blamed for this head/chest cold, but I’ll go ahead and put the blame on myself for not packing a jacket. My hope-filled soul denied that Australia could be cold and merely prayed that all the people who tried to warn me were merely cold-natured and didn’t know what cool weather was. I am from Boone, afterall.

So in my standard of denial, I spent Saturday on the beach trying to snag the last bit of summer rays before Fall was in full force. The weather held and with only a few clouds and a forecast of at least 75 degrees, I was ready to soak in the sun. After a terribly frustrating and looonng drive to Coogee (which is a bit funny, in retrospect), I finally got to relax in the sand to the soft sound of waves crashing beside me. In accordance to my amazing luck… it was almost instantly that a cloud rolled in and dropped 10 degrees. I was beginning to question my day as I “layed out” in a bundled position, but just then the cloud moved away. I plugged my ears with some good music, closed my eyes, and….another cloud. So at this point I began to accept that the summer has officially left Australia.
My friends came in from the water and it was not long after that we couldn’t stand the breeze, so we packed our beach things and headed to a local seaside restaurant called 5-Ohs for some of our crew to grab a quick dinner. An hour later as we walked out of 5-Ohs we all lingered for a minute in a collective but unspoken pause, knowing that no one really wanted to go home yet. We looked behind us to the setting sun and knew that walking up the headlands was going to reveal a most beautiful sight.
Once we reached the top, all conversations ceased and we each found a separate resting spot to sit and marinate ourselves in this moment. The scene was picturesque with the rising tide bringing the linear swells, each one carrying a dark blue wave to crash onto the rocks below me. The whitewash over the rock looked like vanilla icing being spread over a plate of oddly shaped brownies. In the far-off distance to my right sat a collection of rocks in the middle of the sea that would normally not catch my attention, but a bon-fire’s flicker and the outline of human forms were turned a shade of pink from the setting sun. The town of Coogee and it's buildings were silhouetted by the deep orange rays on it’s backside. My instant reaction to this beauty was a tinge of regret for not charging my camera from the previous night’s draining of the battery. This sunset was not the most beautiful that I have seen in Australia, but there was something about that moment that I was desperate to capture. It was as if I was bidding adieu to the last day of summer by giving my full attention to it. In the end I am glad I didn’t have my camera because no photo could possibly contain my feelings of love for Australia and the beauty it continually presents me.

My intention that morning was to “soak” in the sun, but by the end of the day I was perfectly content finding a new personal definition of soaking in the sun.













Because of my cold and the setbacks at Uni that it’s caused, I don’t have enough time to do my Easter Break update, but I will do it by the end of this weekend. Pinky Promise!