Australia day 5

1 July

The distance we planned to cover today to get all the way back to Perth in time to visit the Kosher Food Centre before we imagined it would close meant we'd have to leave quite early. We didn't have much to go on except some phone numbers I'd managed to glean from the Internet and the name of a suburb on the north side of Perth where the kosher shop is located. I did have an address for the Northern Suburbs Hebrew Congregation in another nearby [obvious by its name] "northern suburb". Trying to gain more information this morning from the Internet was futile with no way to access it, so we set off for Perth with our GPS programmed for a fuzzy destination on the north side of Perth.

As with every night so far, it had rained during the night on and off, and was raining as we set off. We topped up the tank in Albany and set off, leaving Albany behind in the rearview mirror by 8:00AM. Albany seemed like a place we should have spent more time exploring, but Shabbat in Perth beckoned.

The road to Perth traversed a different territory than we'd seen so far. We passed pastures and vineyards and rolling hillsides with groves of trees. At times we were bathed in sunlight with large white clouds adorning wide open skies. The ground was covered with a fine felt of newly sprouted green grass. Streams ran freely through this pastoral setting. Sheep and beef cattle grazed on either side of the highway in vast acres of well-tended agricultural land. Knots of population were far apart.

I needed a break by the time we'd been on the road about two hours. We stopped in a small rural center called Kojonup. It had an IGA grocery store where we bought a few needed items. Up the street we saw a post office displaying the "Telstra" logo. I'd been told that Telstra sold pre-paid disposable cell phones that would enable me to make calls to numbers in Australia. I went inside and the postmistress explained how this works and offered me a few choices. She also suggested that I could surf the Internet by buying a WiFi modem, called a "Dodo", that I can plug directly into my laptop computer. In the end I bought the Dodo and forwent the phone. She spoke with an accent that seemed to have a strong American influence. Turns out she was originally from Vermont. I wonder what led her to a life in this remote location. She also detected my American accent but sensed the influence of some other language. I told her I've lived in Israel the past 30+ years. Both of us were far from our origins and both of us were at home in our adopted countries.

The post office was at the corner of George and Harrison. Razelle noticed this. The street names were purely coincidental, the postmistress said.

The rest of the drive to Perth required one other rest stop. The petrol station/restaurant had a pair of alpacas in the back. Passing patrons were encouraged to feed them pellets that could be purchased for two dollars. I watched a couple of women gush over the feel of the alpacas' pelts as this foursome met at the fence.

Perth came upon us after five hours of driving. Traffic became intense and so did the rain. I'd had several days of driving experience before returning to the scene of my first baneful attempt at driving. I was led onto an expressway and off again by my GPS. My driving was not too shabby – far from polished, but far, far better than when I'd lost my lunch in Perth less than a week earlier.

We reached the GPS destination but found ourselves in a neighborhood with Catholic girls and boys walking home in their school uniforms. No kosher food store in sight. I reprogrammed the GPS for the synagogue address and we found it. It was locked up. Reasoning that we'd arrived about an hour or so before services, we drove to a nearby shopping mall for vegetarian pizza.

When we saw that the sun was about ready to set we went back to the synagogue. The rabbi was in. He told us we could park our camper van in the back and heartily welcomed us to join his congregation for Shabbat services. Razelle and I took turns in the back of the van getting out of our touring clothes and putting on our synagogue-appropriate finery. We had to wait for another cloudburst to pass before we could egress from our cocoon in our "shabbos" raiments.

Services began at 6:00PM. After all the touring we'd done, it was nice to be among landzmen. The head of the congregation explained how we could get into the synagogue after hours and Razelle and I met the security team that patrolled the several synagogues of Perth. We had a guaranteed safe place to spend the night in our camper and access to the synagogue's bathrooms and a bit of kosher food in its kitchen if we wanted. We'd hoped for a higher degree of hospitality than that, but no one knew to expect us and it really was more convenient to stay with our camper.

The sermon that evening was delivered by a venerated elder from a yeshiva in Israel. He delivered it in English, with a very strong Yiddish accent, citing references from Hebrew and Aramaic sources spoken with an Ashkenazi pronunciation. I struggled to follow his deliverance. I heard others whisper among themselves that it was a great sermon, no doubt, but they didn't understand a word of it. Ah, to be in Australia for Shabbos, experiencing a universally Jewish experience. I had to remind myself that I was in Australia, particularly because everyone in this synagogue spoke English with a definite South African accent.

Razelle and I stayed inside the synagogue until the Shabbat clock shut off all the lights. We returned to our camper, crawled under our bedding in the cold as more rain pounded on its roof, and eventually fell asleep.