A trip down south in search of Mr. Darcy...

We recently took a trip down south to Pemberton (four hour drive from Perth, five and a half if you set the sat nav incorrectly). To be honest, my motivation for this trip was largely based around the fact that Pemberton sounds a bit like Pemberley - that great rolling Derbyshire estate owned by Mr Darcy in 'Pride and Prejudice' -- and I had some half arsed notion that I might actually spot Colin Firth's 'Darcy' emerging from a lake, ruffle shirt clinging, dripping with lake-water, brooding and proud. 

Oh lovable, proud, Darcy!

To an extent I almost did get a bit of Jane Austen's England. Pemberton, and the surrounding area, is astonishingly green and were it not for the red sand which bordered the roads and tracks (oh, and the tin houses - lots of tin houses!), one could almost believe they were driving through Derbyshire, with verdant hills and lush forests. 

We visited the beautiful Karri Valley resort, which nestles snugly on the edge of Lake Beedelup, and offers accommodation in wooden cabins on legs, crouching unobtrusively among the trees. That's right, we left our tree-house in the Perth hills -- travelled more than five hours and paid actual money -- to stay in a tree-house on legs among the trees in Pemberton.

Oh but it was worth it! The lake was a dramatic, shimmering promise – diamonds darting across the surface -- bordered by a thick forest of tall Karri trees, and on our first morning it was unanimous that what we simply had to do -- like IMMEDIATELY -- was hire two boats and go out rowing on the lake.

And as DH -- who grew up on an island and learned to row at a very young age -- skated off across the lake with ease, I sat in my tin boat trying to figure what to do with the oars. My upper body strength has never been up to much, and as I struggled with first left, then right, I found myself spinning around in circles, going nowhere, much to the amusement of some fishermen near the jetty.

It's quite hard to row a boat you know; pull too hard with your right arm -- which is hard not to do if you're right handed -- you will spin to the left. This kept happening over and over and if it had been possible to just throw the oars aside and stomp off announcing ‘I’m outa here’ I would have, but by then we had drifted quite far out, and the small matter of being in the middle of a lake meant I had to continue spinning first clock-wise and then anti-clockwise, over and over again, until I found the jetty again.

Flopping onto the grass, I grabbed a book and waited for DH to finish showing off on the lake.

As I lay there, book shielding the dazzling sun from my eyes, he suddenly emerged from the lake, pulling his boat behind him, dripping wet and brooding. And yes, perhaps with a little pride too. It seems I got my Darcy after all....

Happy 40th Birthday DH!