Part 7: Narooma

Australia

“We’re almost there!”

I hear Aya exclaim as I wake up from my nap in the passengers seat.

Slowly I come to my senses and peer out to the left, we’ve made it to Narooma!

“It looks beautiful” I whisper, wiping my eyes.

“Oh and apparently you don’t have to worry too much about seals, they tend to hang around a nature reserve called Montague Island, so no stressing about getting abducted again… you adorable lil fuzzball” Aya explains as she reaches out to pinch my left cheek at the end.

“Shut up, not my fault I’m only 2 feet tall. I make up for it in my drinking prowess.”

“Still wanna swim in a pool of beer one day?”

“I really do, we gotta make it happen.”

As we reach the parking lot, Aya found a decent spot near the entrance because “my short little legs” couldn’t handle to much walking apparently.

Stopping by the water we have a seat and enjoy the view, after a few minutes we notice this lady taking samples of the water, walking through it in brown shorts at ankle deep.

Next, she inspects the insides of a shell, pulls out a syringe before swiftly taking a sample. Then shuffling over the beach to place some sand in a tube, it wasn’t until then that she noticed us watching.

“Hello there!” she waved at us with a gleeful smile on her face.

Standing up, she confidently strutted over towards us. It wasn’t until then we can notice her features. Sporting long, dark hair, tanned skin from being in the sun all day and long legs almost made for the outdoors. Her this Australian accent gave away that she was a resident and as she came within our seating area you can tell she had bright green eyes.

“Mind if I sit with you?” she asked, pointing to the spot besides me.

“Not at all, go ahead.”

Reaching out with her right hand, I offer mines in return to greet her.

“Jessica” she said with a smile on her face.

“Kay Kay and this is my friend Aya”

Reaching over the two shook hands and we started talking.

We discussed how we were taking a tour of Australia, how she was a biologist researching the area and the impact changes in the local environment was having on the seals.

It wasn’t until we talked about the seals that she turned her attention to me.

“So Kay Kay, how is your interaction with other animals?”

“He just got kidnapped by a kangaroo” Aya blurted out, snickering as she did.

With a shocked and excited look, Jessica looked dead into my eyes and asked.

“Can you talk to them?! I’ve always wondered since seeing you on TV.”

Looking towards the ocean, I think back about my experiences over the past year.

“I can’t, I’ve kinda wondered sometimes how I can speak to people but not to animals. But the I’ve never been able to communicate.”

I sensed a slight aura of disappointment coming from Jessica as she tilted her head downwards, fiddling her thumbs for a bit until something broke the silence. But it wasn’t any of us.

“A seal?” Jessica announced with a shocked tone in her voice.

It made sense, they usually stayed on Montague Island and would require a boat tour to go see them. But this lone seal, popped it’s head out of the water and started swimming towards us.

After reaching the beach, it paused. One thing struck all of us in particular, and that was the fact the seal was staring straight at me.

“Is this normal?” Jessica asks me in confusion.

“No, I genuinely do not like seals so if he turned around and went back to the ocean that would be great.”

And just like that, almost as if the seal took offence to my comment it leaned forward, bit my foot and flopped back into the ocean.

“Ahh that mothafu… hmmph!!” I hollered out while rolling around.

“I think you should try being nice to animals from now on Kay Kay.” Aya mentioned, looking down on me from the bench just casually eating her chips with her legs crossed. Not surprised by the outcome, just exuded a sense of disappointment.

“Yea, she may have a point. But this does make me think about something I’ve been trying to prove. Something magical.

“Magical?” Aya and I repeat to her in unison.

Without acknowledging our question, Jessica quickly packs up her things and looks over to us, before blurting out.

“I have to go back to the lab now. It was nice meeting you all.”

As Jessica stood up we quizzically waved her goodbye as she strode away.

With the sun setting we too felt it was time to go, heading towards the car I noticed Jessica was on the phone nearby.

We made eye contact and she waved towards me, I waved back, wondering by what she meant by, “magical”.

After entering the car and peering out of the parking lot, with a lot going through my mind I decided to ask Aya.

“Wanna just head straight to Perth?” I asked.

“How come?” Aya responded, curious to how I felt at the moment.

“It’s just I’m noticing a pattern with animals lately, and I’d rather not piss off any deadly ones. Australia is known as the place where the Devil keeps his pets after all.”

Aya looked ahead at the road for a while, by now the sun had set and we were surrounded by darkness and heading for the nearest place to sleep.

With a slight sadness in her voice she agreed. But on one condition she said.

“That we meet in Thailand in 3 months.”

“Ok bet” leaning over we shook hands in agreement. There was no way I was gonna have as much fun without her.

Next stop, Perth.