Yallingup

I should right out confess that I’ve never been to Australia. Indeed, I know very little about the place per se, beyond what little I can remember from school geography lessons, long ago. Thus, like the redoubtable Messrs Sellars & Yeatman (who wrote those great classics, 1066 and All That, And Now All This), all that I do know about Australia (oddly referred to as ‘Oz’ by its natives) is all that I can remember.

So what do I know/remember of Australia? Mainly, that it’s the “Antipodes”—like, in the old days, when people didn’t like someone and they’d wish them ‘at the Antipodes’—and that it’s largely inhabited by marsupials i.e. a popular local term for the selfsame natives, which include such notable creatures as Kangaroos, Koalas, Wombats, Wallabies, Captain Cook, Shane Warne, Mark Waugh and Steve Waugh etc. Apparently, because they have pouches and extra toes, these odd Australian creatures are supposed to be very good at cricket; which is a game they play a lot in the Outback, a sort of blasted heath surrounded by ocean and comprising of most of Australia. According to a friend who’s a bit of an expert on this bizarre land, “they have nothing else to do down there” and that’s why Australia is also sometimes referred to as ‘Down Under’ or ‘Under Wear/Where’ and so on.

But the strangest thing—or place?—in Australia, is Yallingup. I am attaching a photo of this place or thing, taken recently by yet another friend, who was brave enough to go to Yallingup, ‘Down Under [Wear]’. We must accord such bravery due recognition. Now, Australia has many places and things with strange, outlandish names, “imbued with mystic significance”, again according to my expert-friend. Names such as Opal, Offal, Awrful, Oh-phal, Awpull, O-pulo, and many others of similar provenance are rather common there, and generally encouraged by the government, for reasons of its own (also mystical); but one may also find unlikely and exciting place-names such as Didgerry-doo, Ooohoohoo, Yahoo, Poo-Poo, Loo (named after the second most famous battle of the Napoleonic Wars c 1815, in which Australian or ‘Ozzie’ troops, mostly blonde women archers with only one breast called ‘Anzacs’, participated with glee)—and then, again, who can forget Alice Springs (named after the famous Australian movie star, Sharon Stone, who used to ‘spring’ upon people here, rather suddenly) ; or Wollangong? Or for that matter, Wikileakia? But, as every ‘Ozzie’ will tell you, there’s “Only One Yallingup!” (Thank God).

So there you are. Yallingup. The most famous place or thing in Australia, where everything is ‘Down Under [Wear]’ but only Yalling is ‘Up’. Nobody seems to know, what or where exactly Yalling is ‘Up’ but does that really matter very much? Suffice to say, Yallingup is in Western Australia (as opposed to the Eastern side) and is an ancient locale, almost 50 years old, with a beach, some water, some sky painted rather nicely behind it, and some rocks and things to one side. You can see it for yourself thanks to the photo taken by my intrepid friend. Take a look.

Photo, courtesy ICF, 2011