Moving from Melbourne to Geraldton only a few months ago was a new and challenging experience for me. Arriving from the big city where I spent the past half year was a massive change. Geraldton is a very small town around 400 clicks north of Perth and most people have probably never even heard of it. Geraldton is peaceful, scarily quiet at times, tidy in a straightforward way and beautifully directly on the sea.

My cottage faces directly towards the mountains that encircle the town from the other side. The roads (I had the privilege to have a company car) are long and straight and compared to Melbourne absolutely empty. It is real fun to drive around and take in this part of Western Australia and I did make the best of it during my stay whenever I had the time to do so. This whole part of West Australia is so vast and it appears normal that nature is actually nature without all the gigantic buildings and disruption I found in other places. Isn’t it ironic that we have to come to a place like this to then be surprised that nature for itself still exists?

Now that my contract at Batavia Coast Dive has come to a close, I can only say I am very happy to have been here. Having only been an instructor for a year this job was a lucky stroke to expand my experience. The water here is cold, a very new experience for me having so far only been working in warm tropical waters. But all the beautiful things that come with cold water are equally wonderful, different but great, – all the new animals and fish I encountered, sea lions and I hope for another opportunity to dive and work here again in the future. I can confidently say that I will be leaving with new friends that will be a part of my life forever.

See you again soon, Geraldton.

— Photo taken by Lance Thomas —