That was a wonderful story, Ross
 
I guess everyone will agree with me that the most wonderful places we carry
in our hearts are those that aren't frequently visited by others, and
shells we found there are more special to us than those, maybe more
beautiful ones, we found in places where everybody else has found them, too.
 
Like in Canada, travel to those places in Australia involves going north,
but unlike in Canada, major discomforts in these places involves extreme
heat, absence of fresh water, crocodile-infested rivers, hords of hungry
mosquitoes and absence of infrastructure of any kind (well, I suppose the
latter is the case in northern Canada as well).
 
However much I was cursing the mosquitoes when I was there, those shells I
collected at Cape York are now very special to me. Although more people now
travel to the Cape than before, my mention of our visit to the Cape still
attracts 'you went... where?!' type-of-looks at civilised gatherings
(morning tea with the mums from school, office functions etc.).
 
For another three memorable weeks, I hired a car and went around the
southwestern coastline of Western Australia all by myself. Shark Bay was
another such memorable place. A very small settlement, no fresh water (they
have a giant desalination plant), no trees, gale-force winds year-round,
but the shelling was magnificent. Just imagine: just me and my little blue
car, a beach stretching as far as the eye can see, covered in bivalves
metres deep in some places. Well, to disappoint you, I didn't collect them
all!
 
When I came back, a lady from the shell club asked me 'weren't you scared?'
Well, I was much too busy to be scared, but I must confess that sometimes
when you go shelling by yourself, and you face an intertidal rock platform
with nobody on it, you have to set aside all those things your mum taught
you about going to school via the safest routes and that. I find this more
problematical on city beaches than in remote areas. After all, in remote
areas, you know there isn't going to be anyone else, and those that you do
meet haven't travelled all the way just to make a nuisance of themselves. I
would like to hear other people's (male and female) opinions, strategies
and stories about this. Respond to this off the list if you feel it isn't
really shell-related.
 
These days I carry a mobile phone, and I make a point of not giving anyone
a chance to start taking to me. Of course, neither of those strategies
really work when some idiot schoolboys start hurling rocks at you from a 60
m (180ft) cliff face, as recently happened to me.
 
Patty
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