Hey guys,
This year is just going so fast, I've been back in Derby for 6 weeks and only have 3 more left before the next adventure! Now in this edition of the 'Red Ron Chronicles', I'm going to have to do a little backtracking and catching up again, so bear with me, it might get a little confusing...
In the last email I neglected to include my trip through the Kimberley on my return from Asia, before starting back at work, so let me backtrack...
After my asia adventure, I returned to Perth to the wonderful hospitality of lovely Emma (thanks for the room babe!), and to meet up with Mum and Peter who, bless them, missed me so much they had to visit...well that, and the fact that they wanted to see one of the most fascinating and spectacular regions of Australia for themselves.
It was a very happy reunion at the airport with mum handing out the best compliment I've ever received - that I, of all people, looked 'so tanned'! Hooray! I guess that's what happens when you spend the best part of a year in solid sunshine... We had a couple of days in Perth to see the sights and recover from jetlag, before flying up to Broome, back to the warm weather, sunshine, tropical breeze and red dust! The four days we had in Broome were filled up easily with experiencing everything on offer - trawling through many many pearl shops, relaxing on Cable Beach, seeing Gantheaume Point, taking in a sunset camel ride (very amusing), a movie at Sun Pictures - the oldest Outdoor cinema in the southern hemisphere, Staircase to the Moon and the flying boat wrecks in Roebuck Bay (only able to be seen a few times a year)...whew, I feel exhausted after just writing all of them! And of course there were the markets, galleries, and many cafe breakfasts, I could've stayed forever...
But there was more fun and adventure to be had when after our few days in Broome we picked up our...Campervan! Yes, we braved the campervan experience through the Kimberley, infact, after resolving the few teething issues brought on by three of us in a very small confined space, we embraced the idea of taking your home with you, and the many experiences of 'old farts in caravan parks' and we came out the other side willing to do it all again one day! Maybe with a bigger one next time though...
So after Broome, it was through to Derby, a welcome home as such for me and a chance for Mum and Peter to see where I'd been living and 'the local' that we frequented, it was a bit of an eye-opener I think... I relished the opportunity to be tour guide, and took the drivers seat in ol' Britzy (our van) and whisked around the few sites that Derby has offer, including taking in a beautiful sunset on the Jetty (complete with wine and nibbles - added bonus of having Britzy) and a dinner at Derby's one and only decent restaurant, overlooking the jetty and the King Sound. We also managed to get a flight over the Buccaneer Archepelago and the Horizontal Waterfalls (literally what the name says, a waterfall flowing between two sets of rocks which is horizontal rather than vertical) which was stunning.
After a 'see you soon' to Derby, we let Britzy loose on the Great Northern Highway all the way to Fitzroy Crossing where we enjoyed a cruise up Geikie Gorge, checking out the 'freshies', hoping not to run into a 'salty', and then set up camp along side quite a few 'old farts in caravan parks', but it was an enjoyable night listening to the bats squealing, the dingos howling and the owls hooting...
Yiyili Community was the next stop after Fitzroy before hitting Halls Creek. They have a beautiful art centre there with lots of fabulous artists and both mum and I were tempted quite easily really into buying a painting each. The community is set up really well where all the parents are encouraged to come to the art centre everyday and because the parents come, they bring their kids who are quickly whisked away next door to the school! A win-win situation for everyone. Halls Creek we passed through pretty quickly on the way north and it was onto Warmun (or Turkey Creek) where we stayed at the roadhouse which was an adventure on its own! This roadhouse ended up being the home to numerous heavy rigs, cars, campervans, tents, you name it, it was all piled in together. It was a pretty grotty place really but I like to think it added to the character of it all...
From Warmun it was up to Wyndham to have a look at the Five Rivers lookout where, you guessed it, five rivers meet. It was quite a view to take in, and then after a aquick squiz around the rest of Wyndham (took about 5 mins) it was on to Kununurra where there was much ogling at beautiful Argyle pink diamonds (a girl can dream!), more galleries and food trails to follow, a sunset cruise up the Ord River to the diversion dam (necessary to keep Kununurra as lush and fertile as it
is!) and a fantastic flight over Purnululu National Park which is more commonly referred to as the Bungle Bungles. The Bungle Bungles are beehive-like rock formations coloured in black and orange stripes by algae on their surface, which are unique to the Kimberley and spectacular to look at from the air. We ended up staying and relaxing in Kununurra for aobut 3 days before heading back south down the Great Northern. We checked out the Old China Wall in Halls Creek which is a strip of naturally occurring old marble in the middle of red rock which, funny enough, looks just like the Great Wall of China. We trucked on through to Fitzroy for the night and back to Derby the next day where it was my turn to move out of Britzy and take up my place in the Nurses Quarters again. The next morning it was a sad farewell (only a few tears this time) to mum and Peter as they headed back to Broome and then onto the rest of their holiday down south, leaving me with an overwhelming sense of once again being on my own in the the middle of nowhere...I find it fascinating how once you're used to being on your own, it takes a while to get used to having people who are close to you around again, and yet it only takes them being there for a short while til you're back to normal and then it leaves a bit of a hole where they were when they go...
But never fear, I didn't have time to dwell too much, I was busy getting thrown back into Derby life, getting acquainted with my new housemates, catching up with old friends, and finding out who was sitll in town and who had moved on already...and now I think we're caught up to where I left off last time! So onwards and upwards...
My time so far in Derbytown has been reasonably uneventful, lots of working, working, working, trying hard to save my money for my next adventure. There have been a few animal adventures, like seeing my first live snake and plenty more dead ones, getting to know Blue-tongue lizards personally (they live under our house, look like snakes but with legs), battling with swooping bats every night on the way to work, and having many close and personal encounters with frogs of all shapes and sizes in the toilet, the shower, the sink and even the fridge (that one wasn't moving much though...)! There have been a few great nights out at the pub, including the Kimberley region Country and Western Music Festival - yes very popular up here in the Outback! There was a great marsh party the other week (yes a party on the Marsh that surrounds Derby, otherwise known as the tidal mudflats that never get wet...) where the bonfire could be seen clearly from the quarters and infact, almost every road in Derby that had a view of the marsh. Unfortunately I was on night shift so had to leave reasonably early on in the piece, incredibly early it ended up in fact, because when I was getting home from work at 7.30am, they were all only just coming in off the marsh!
I've also been housesitting for 3 weeks for my friend Di here, she's got a little hospital one-bedroom unit and puppy dog that needed looking after while she was on holiday and I was the lucky recipient!
I also got to babysit her very spunky red scooter which was a lot of fun to zip around town on, and as I found out, highly conspicuous!
Everyone was able to track my moves around town as there's only one red scooter around and you can't miss it, especially as it sounds like a ride-on lawn-mower! Lots of fun though, cruising down the highway at its top speed of 66km/hr, being overtaken by roadtrains!
I had to opportunity last week after talking to one of the Royal Flying Doctors Service nurses to go out with them to a clinic. We went to a community called Tablelands which is home to between 20 and 60 people at any one time. Its in the middle of nowhere, extremely isolated and experiences pretty harsh conditions, so I automatically thought - adventure! And it was... We left Derby base at 7am and flew towards Tablelands, circling over the community about 8.30 to let them know we were arriving and to send someone to pick us up. We landed on the 'airstrip' which is more like a dirt track with halved oil drums lining each side that can have fires lit in them to act as torches when landing at night. It was a pretty sharp and short landing, and a we bit bumpy as you'd imagine but all part of the adventure I thought...well, it was only just beginning... After parking up on the side of the airstrip and unloading all the clinic gear, we stood and waited for the sound of a vehicle on its way...it was a sound that never seemed to arrive. After sitting under the wing of the plane - the only shade available, for a good hour and a half, we eventually decided that perhaps they hadn't heard the plane overhead and didn't know we were there. Unfortunately there was no reception to be able to ring the community nor was the plane able to make radio contact with anyone while grounded, so the decision was made to send the plane up again, to circle the community once more and to try to make radio contact with the community somehow... The plane took off, showering us in a whirlwind of dust and dirt and we were left in the open blazing heat of the desert, on the airstrip with no shade and means of moving anywhere...we were stranded. After another 20 minutes, the plane landed again and informed us that after circling the community, he saw only one vehicle and it was up on blocks with the bonnet open, didn't look promising, but he had managed to make radio contact with Brisbane of all places and Brisbane were going to ring the community until they got hold of someone to come and pick us up. We had a laugh about it, and then quickly moved back in under the wing of the plane for some shelter. Only another half hour after that did a vehicle come rumbling down the track to get us, hooray! Until we saw it...it was the shell of an old toyota van, with not many windows left, a boot that didn't close properly and nothing at all on the front dash - not even a normal ignition, it was started with a screwdriver! We loaded up the van with our trailerload of things, crossed our fingers that we'd arrive in one piece and piled in on top of one another, onto the floor - no, no seats either, and just clung on as we rattled back down the track, bumping and swerving, with dust pouring in on us...
When we arrived at the community, everyone seemed to be sitting waiting for us, word travels quickly I guess. We set up a table on the veranda of a house (that was as good a clinic as we could get) and proceeded to check blood pressures, blood sugars, fill up medicine boxes, give injections, and weigh babies until at last we'd seen everyone. We'd worked hard and were tired so packed everything up and began the search to find someone to take us back to the airstrip...alas, everyone after being seen by us took off mustering
and there was no one left - we were stranded again! We went house to
house, calling out for anyone, we tooted the horn of the stripped out van, and then we sat, and we waited... Eventually someone emerged from one of the houses most upset that we'd disturbed her afternoon nap, but reluctantly agreed to take us back to the airstrip in the beat-up van. So in we went again, piled on top of gear, and other people, and covered in dust. Arriving back at the plane was a relief with the promise of air-conditioning once we finally got in the air, until we saw a grader coming down the strip - now where would you ever see one of them in the Outback??? Who knows how it got out there, but it meant that it was all hands on deck to pack her up and get outta there quick before the dust got even worse. We eventually got everything in and ourselves and it turned out to be a reasonably uneventful trip back to Derby after the unpredictable day we'd had until then! It definitely an adventure...
Since then its been another week of hideous night shifts with nothing much happening except watching the weather. Now this may seem ridiculous, but in these parts its not. See the few weeks have been getting noticeably hotter and more humid with the buildup to the wet season. And the wet season would usually not start till around late October/November. But the last couple of days have been incredibly windy with a lot of cloud building up which is something that is quite unusual. Now in the beginning we didn't really realise it was cloud on the horizon becuase there have been so many bushfires recently that the sky is almost always coloured purple and smoky somewhere (very cool to watch in itself) but then tonight as I was walking back from the jetty, I just about fell over as I saw a huge black raincloud come towards me. Within 5 mins it was spitting, and within 10 mins it was raining properly, and it was magical.
You would think that growning up in NZ, I would have seen enough rain for a lifetime, but there's something so intriguing about rain in a place that never gets any, and it was exciting! Everyone was out on the streets, standing looking up at it, dancing in it, taking everyone by surprise. What an experience! It may sound ridiculous but its something pretty amazing that'll bring a whole town outdoors at the same time. Within an hour though, it was all over and the cloud had passed, but it gave just a little hint of things to come. The locals have been hoping for a decent wet season for a few years, and the Aboriginal elders have predicted that this years wet season will come early, so it looks like maybe everyone will be happy. That shower was nice, but I hope the real wet season holds off a few more weeks so I can get all the sunshine possible out of the Kimberley!
So if you've made it to the end of this marathon read, you deserve a prize, and that prize will be that the next one will be shorter I'm sure! Hope everyone is well, keep up the emails, I love getting everyone's news.
Take care,
Red Ron
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