Tag Archives: travel

My Life as a Travel Agent

Posted on by
4

travel agent

Do you know any logisticians who want a job? Sometimes I wonder if being a logistics expert would be more helpful than being a doctor in East Arnhem. This week I have been spending most of my time directing traffic, or at least pointing vaguely in a direction and hoping that the drivers will understand.

I spent a long time with a pregnant lady near term explaining why she needed to travel to Darwin. When she very reasonably refused to go by herself, I spent an equally long time trying to arrange for her relative to get there with her. I tried everything for her – hitch hiking with CareFlight, a chartered plane, driving to Gove at short notice. I had to admit defeat as the weekend made it too hard to arrange. The woman graciously travelled alone.

The next day, a young unwell girl was transferred to hospital from one of the homelands that I visit regularly. She arrived at the hospital with her aunt and was admitted, then promptly disappeared for the night. I heard on the grapevine where she ended up, and the next morning it took a few phone calls to find out which house she was in, make a case for her to go back to the hospital, and organise a taxi to take her there.

Today, I saw a boy in a remote homeland who I was worried about. Was it appendicitis? My gut instinct said yes. He looked miserable – hot, tachycardic, dry, uncomfortable. I wanted him in hospital soon and planned a plane to pick him up before we left. His mother was not so sure. “He’s scared of flying,” she said. I pointed out that she would be with him on the plane and he really needed to go. “I’m scared of flying too. Can we go tomorrow in the bush taxi?” I rang back to the office for ideas, and was told a bush taxi had left another homeland and was headed our way, should be there any minute. I looked out the window. There was the bush taxi, about to leave! I waved furiously from outside the clinic, and received a lethargic wave in reply without noticeable deviation of the vehicle’s course. I jogged over, trying not to look too conspicuous running in the relaxed homeland atmosphere. Someone yelled “Wuy, doctor – you looking for someone?” I caught the taxi, and the boy and his mum squeezed into the last seat in the back.

Plane at Gan Gan

Plane at Gan Gan

They left with nothing, so I dropped in later to Emergency with a few bags of clothes sent from home. The boy looked a million dollars…. probably not appendicitis.

I’m not very good at being a travel agent. The logistics of getting around up here are such a challenge. It would be hard for a Yolngu person living in the homelands to negotiate this maze of trips, planes, cars, appointments and deadlines just to receive good healthcare.

Sampling the Stereotypes

Posted on by
Reply

image

Coffee, croissants, baguette, strawberry jam. It was a very Parisian breakfast, and I couldn’t help but smile at the way our whirlwind tour of UK and France has covered a good number of stereotypes. We had steak and guinness pie in England, haggis/neeps/tatties in Scotland and potatoes in Ireland. We visited castles, drank warm English ales and cold Irish Guinness (some of us),  rode the Tube in London, the Metro in Paris, got stuck in traffic on the M1 and  listened to Irish music in a pub called “Duffy’s”. We got the impression that all English people lived in 16th century thatched cottages and all Irish people lived in castles

image

Haggis

/>
image

More importantly than doing all these stereotypical things has been visiting a number of very special friends from times past. We have really enjoyed making connections with people again, sometimes after more than 20 years. We have been glad of so much warm hospitality wherever we have stayed. Thank you so much to the Wellers, the Jones, the Youngs, the Sniders, the Irvines, the Calcrafts, the Suttons and Ruth.
image

Our trip has taken us from London, up the east side of the UK to Edinburgh, to the beautiful Lake District, to Dublin then up to Newry in North Ireland and finally to Paris. We’ve travelled without hiring a single taxi, which I think is a fair achievement given we had 3 bags, a toddler, a pusher (aka “buggy” in UK), a backpack and a pregnant tummy in tow.
image

I’ve been keeping track of things that are great and should be imported to Australia:
– postcodes that are specific to a small area. Very helpful – just type it into the GPS and away you go. Or as one person told me, send a letter to them like this: Name, Postcode, England. Brilliant!
– number plates that tell where and when the car was registered. I don’t know why, I just think that is good.
– French bread.
– French cheese
– French shops that are not supermarkets selling bread and cheese
– Speed limit of 70mph (or about 115kph) on all motorways
– Good quality cheese in English supermarkets
image

I’ve also kept a list of things that I like about Australia compared to this part of the world
– Fish and chips. Sorry England, you may have invented it, but we perfected it.
– Coffee. The best coffee I had in London was from a cafe run by Australians. Although Zappi’s Bike Shop Cafe in Oxford was good. (Thanks Cam)
– Kids being welcome in restaurants. Seemed not the go in Paris
– Cold beer
– Weather – no, it is not a “scorcher” of a day when the temperature gets out of the teens.

Goodbye to Nhulunbuy

Posted on by
3

The bags got packed, the house got cleaned, the goodbyes were said and we left Nhulunbuy. On the plane we felt sad to be leaving. It’s a special place, even if somewhat surreal. After being there for three months I do feel a sense of longing to find out more about this part of Arnhem land, to get under its skin, and to learn more Yolngu Matha language.

We’re off on a bit of a discovery trip now, exploring some other places and thinking about where we could end up for the next few years. I would love to come back to this area. Who knows what the future holds? For us, we want to follow our faith in God and let his direction guide us.

As a parting memory of Nhulunbuy, here’s a photo of the hospital sprinklers going flat out in the middle of a torrential downpour.

image

And here is the embarrassingly large pile of stuff that we somehow managed to sweet talk Qantas into letting us take on the plane.

image

Next stop – Katherine! The wanderings continue.

Nhulunbuy

Posted on by
2

My first impressions of Nhulunbuy surprised me. After driving 12 hours on a red dirt track in the heat, the last thing I expected to see was someone running in the hot twilight air. I was amazed that anyone would have the motivation to strap on some running shoes and pound the baking footpath for fun. Subsequently I’ve found that the town is very keen on fitness, and being active seems to be the norm.

from foundingdocs.gov.au

Let me tell you a bit about where we are living. Nhulunbuy is a town of about 4000 people on the tip of Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. It is often referred to as “Gove”, named after William Gove who was a WWII pilot killed in 1943. It is a mining town on land that is leased from the Yolŋu people, who are the traditional owners of this area. There is lots of bauxite here, and this is mined, sent on a long conveyor belt to a port, refined, and loaded onto ships to eventually become aluminium. This area has an important history about Aboriginal land rights, with the famous Bark Petition in 1963 opposing mining here. This was the first document recognising Indigenous people in Australian law. Although the court at the time allowed mining to continue, the case helped prepare the way for later recognition of Aboriginal land rights.

Nhulunbuy is a beautiful place. It is only a short drive to find sparkling water and sandy beaches, or camping spots with cool creeks and no crocs. There is a great sense of community here. In fact, there seems to be a club for everything! So far, I’ve heard of the Yacht Club, the Surf Club, the Triathlon Club, the Running Club, Mums of Preschool Kids, and I’m sure I’m just scratching the surface. There is an active community notice board on Facebook where lots of things are bought and sold and people comment about community issues. Everyone seems friendly and keen to involve newcomers.

I’ve been working out some of the quirks of living in a remote community, even one like Nhulunbuy that is so well serviced. Woolworths sells sausages, but not in the second half of the week as they come packaged from the barge and don’t keep that long. IGA is about twice the price for everything, but they sell fresh fruit and veggies on Tuesdays that are better than Woolies. You need a permit to drink alcohol – which is a good thing. The power goes off periodically if the mine needs extra electricity. It takes about 3 weeks for a parcel to get from somewhere else in Australia to here.

Sitting at the Yacht Club this afternoon, listening to live jazz music and watching the sunset over the boats, I felt lucky to be in this beautiful part of the world.

“Shaken” by the experience

Posted on by
3

Conversation while driving on the Central Arnhem highway is different to normal conversation. The few flat sections of road that allow for some casual chat are punctuated frequently by long stretches of teeth chattering, car rattling, spine shaking corrugations and bumps. I frequently felt compelled to glance in the rear view mirror to check if the spare tyre was still attached to the back – mostly because I was sure it wouldn’t be long until a puncture occurred. Some of the corrugations seemed deep enough to swallow the whole car, and I imagined a search and rescue team having to pull us out, crevasse style, with ropes and winches.

In reality, the drive from Katherine to Nhulunbuy was much better than I anticipated. It was never boring, with changing landscapes and frequent buffaloes or kangaroos on the road. It took us 12 hours to drive 750km, of which about 650km was dirt road. The river crossings were fun and the crocs seemed to be too lazy to laugh at our nervous examination of the riverbed before we drove through.

It was a relief to get to Nhulunbuy, not only to be driving on bitumen again. I think that we will enjoy being here.

In Katherine

Posted on by
2

Tomorrow is the “big trip” that Georgi has been talking about for a long time. She’s really keen to finally get to “Lulunbuy” as we keep promising she will soon. I don’t think that she knows exactly what she’s in for – 10 hours and 700km of bumpy dirt road.

The trepidation is increasing somewhat now that we are about to start this trip. I’ve heard a lot of different bits of advice, that usually starts with “watch out for…” or “don’t forget to…” or “whatever you do, make sure that you…” It almost seems like we’re about to fly to the moon in a rocket made of tin cans rather than drive a car from A to B.

Having said that, it will be an adventure. We’ll get up at 5am, drive the 100km of bitumen the have breakfast while we contemplate what’s ahead. I’m just hoping the corrugations and corners aren’t too bad, and the Goyder river has no crocs so that when I wade across to make sure it’s lower than the roof of the car I don’t get eaten…

Last doona night for a while

Posted on by
Reply

Tomorrow we start out on a new adventure. We’re going to live in Nhulunbuy, a town in East Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. We’re going for work, learning, challenges, and – just maybe – escape.

We’ll fly from Melbourne to Darwin, meet our car (presuming it didn’t fall off the back of the truck) then drive to Nhulunbuy.

When I tell people about our plans, often they look at me with a weird expression and say “why do you want to do that?” I’m wondering the same myself…