Argy Bargy...

Started to come down with a sore throat on Friday...there it was. I knew what was coming next. Sure enough, despite my best efforts...a cold. So now I have a racking cough, sore throat and a voice that sounds like a rusty saw.

Ah well, I was bound to get it.

On Saturday we went for a drive back to the beach we had visited before, Mauro wanted to find some flat rocks for the garden path.

No more shells though.

Then we went exploring down another track, big mistake. We got stuck at one point and had to back up, and to top it off we hit a tree branch which swung back and smashed the left side mirror. Broke the glass and took the mounting off. That was fun to tell my boss about this morning.

Then the track just stopped at the top of a hill and went through what looked like private land. There was a gate at the bottom. Closed, and it took s a hell of a time to get it open. WE saw a car and a motorbike go by in that time. (A lot of traffic for an island with a population of about 70, considering no one lived up the end we were).

Actually it turned out that were not that far from The Corner, because we soon came across the airfield. Home again!

So the NEXT day, Sunday. With me dosed up on panadol, cough syrup and vitamin C, we set off again. Originally we wanted to go the other side of the island, but Mauro was navigating, and he is more useless at reading maps than I am. We ended up going back the way we had come home the day before, but continued on past the point here we had come through the gate and followed the surfaced road to the end, where it ended at a beach with an iconic tin shack on it. I found out from one of the locals today that it had been specifically built for BBQ's, and there were plans to put a water tank there too.

Then we drove back a bit and went down the side road, which eventually turned into a dirt road again. But signs of civilisation, there was some road grading machinery lining it. They had been putting in some concrete culverts and bridges.

After driving for a while we came across another four wheel drive coming towards us. It was K, who is one of the people to go to to get things done. (I have a collection of them now). He told us to watch out for a swarm of native bees that had attacked him. Fortunately they don't have stings, but one of his dogs had snapped one out of the air. The dog's name was Colin (Colin?)

He showed it to us rather proudly, and we leant out our car windows having a chat...I felt like a real local. He had just been down to the beach at the end of the road, a place called Battery Bay, looking for shells. "You won't find any, I took em all" he said.

I told him about my finding of the Paper Nautilus, he trumped me by saying he had 14 (mind you he has lived there his WHOLE LIFE). And then told us that he had been out on Key Island last week and got a bit hungry, so picked some limpets off the rocks and ate them raw.

Yum!!!!

When we got to the beach (eventually) we could see his footprints and the dogs in the sand.

No shells.

But a nice view.

Then we drove back a bit and took a track coming off the main road. It led down to a dried out lagoon. We followed it over the lagoon and up a rise. Good thing I stopped on the top of the rise, cause it went very steeply down the other side and into another lagoon, not a dry one this time.

So ten point turn and retreated.

Starving hungry so home again.

Anyway, the whole issue about the barge was in the news today.

I might be asking for food packages soon!!!

Two weeks in paradise.

Blew up gale yesterday. Squalls of rain, then the sun would come out.

All night the wind was howling down the flue of the wood fire stove. Mauro asked me if I had heard the house creaking during the night.

But it dawned warmish and sunny. Still windy though. I had to turn off the heater mid morning because I was getting too hot.

At midday a guy from the Dept of Infrastructure came to talk about the "Barge". The barge is the lifeline of the community. For the last year it was coming fortnightly, bringing food supplies to the store, particularly fresh fruit and vegetables, and other goods such as building supplies to other people on the island.

It seems that the company who runs the barge has an exclusive contract with the State Government, which ensures that the service runs at least monthly. For some reason, there was some "misunderstanding" by the guy who owns the company where he thought that the government was going to pay him to run it fortnightly. Unfortunately, this was not the case, and when he discovered that the government was not going to pay him for that, he stopped the service.

So now it is back to monthly.

Which means that now fresh fruit and veggies and other groceries will only be delivered every month... obviously this means that storage is now an issue too.

And it also means that my and Mauricio's worldly possessions, which we were expecting LAST Tuesday, will now not be arriving until NEXT Tuesday.

Another few days without Age of Empires, woe be Mauro.

Finding the nautilus...

Turns out that on of the shells I found on the beach the other day was a Nautilus. I mentioned to L. who runs the store, and she looked at me in amazement. She has never found one after living on the island her whole life, and supposedly there is only one found every seven years.

Cool.

I also found three cowrie shells, also quite rare.

I went through all the stock today and made a list of stuff I need. While I was doing that P. was cleaning. Lovely woman. She told me about her garden, her handicrafts and the library. She runs it. (For an hour every week!!!) and also works as a teachers aide at the school.

Today at the Health and Weinberg centre there was a guy who does community development and mental health. Turns out he lives in Leichhardt, one suburb over from where Mauro and I have just come from... We had a chat about getting some community projects and Mauro put forward his idea of getting a community radio up. He thought it was a great idea, and so did Judy, who is the High School Teacher...could be something there.

Everyone has been asking about Mauro's music, and it sounds like there might be something there for him...has always been a major worry, what he could do here.

MMM, cooking lamb shanks, hungry.

Tomorrow!!!

Day at the beach...

Well the weekend was for exploring our new home. On Saturday we went for a walk around "The Corner", which is what the locals call the town...well village really. Since there is only about 60-70 permanent residents on the Island, you can't really justify calling it a town.

"The Corner" is a collection of buildings, mostly on the "Esplanade" (only used on maps and by the Post office, no streets REALLY have names here).

Overlooking the beach is the post office, the "store" and the Aboriginal Association office.

Up the hill a bit on the left is he maintenance depot, which includes the Fuel dump. (Diesel is more than $2 a litre, good thing I don't have to pay for it!) Up the road and perched on the side of the hill to the right is the school, a building for the Primary (with 6 students) and the High school (currently with one, but s couple more are due to turn up). Each with their own teacher, and a teachers aide for the primary school. And the building they use for the library, which is part of the old school, or so I am told.

The lady that cleans the clinic once a week is also the librarian...it opens for one hour on Tuesdays, and yo can order books in.

Behind the school is the Hall. I haven't been in there yet, but they had bingo on there yesterday, and we half considered going. (no! Really!!!)One of the locals stopped around today and told me to let Mauro know that they have a game of 8-ball there on Thursday nights. (Cause the weekend is for drinking!)

Behind the hall, on the same side of the road, is the church.

WE met the priest/ vicar...what ever she is called, last week. Funnily enough her surname is Chick...so does that mean we can call her Vicar Chick?

Or the Chick Vicar?

She seems very nice, but definitely living the delusion. She reckons that she was "called to minister" on Cape Barren by god, signified though a series of coincidental meetings.

Oh my lordy!!! For some reason I keep picturing Dawn French, but unfortunately she looks nothing like her, and isn't half as funny.

Well I'm afraid I won't be going to HER services. Prefer bingo.

So, we had a walk. And it was nice. Though I managed to scrape my leg on some rocks.

On Sunday though we went adventuring in the Beast...the 4 wheel kind. Turbo diesel V8 Totota Landcruiser 70 series.

Ouch! Bit of a change from my little Daihatsu Charade.

Found a track and followed it down to the beach on the southern side of the island till the track stopped. And then had a walk around. Collected some shells. There are cuttle fish shells EVERYWHERE, and I picked up a massive one, long as my forearm.

Rafts of seaweed actually prevent the waves creeping up the beach. But it was a fairly sunny day. Mauro found a pair of sunglasses just lying on the sand, and he had just been talking about needing a pair.

The universe will provide, eek, I'm sounding like Vicar Chick.

The day after the day after the night before...

Mark left on Friday. I felt very proud driving back from the airfield in the beast by myself.

I pottered around the clinic for a while, opening drawers and trying to figure out how I was going to reorganise things. Cleared some crap off surfaces, and rearranged the script drawer. Lovely warm afternoon.

Then there was a bit of a rush as people came in for their pills before the weekend. I met a few people I had been told about, had a few chats. Everyone was very nice and understanding while I was trying to work out the documentation etc.

So then before you know it it was time to lock up. Got everything sorted, put the newly washed sheets on the bed in the flat, and started checking windows and closing blinds.

Then the clinic bell rang. It was a fellow who had been chopping wood and a splinter went up into his eye.

I flushed it out with saline, but he could still feel it. So rang up J. Told me where to find the fluorescing, and had another go. Had him sat up in the dental chair washing out the fluorescing (nice fluoro yellow streaks everywhere) when the bell went again.

There had been a car accident, 4 people in a ute, lost control going round a bend and flipped. This was one of hem...flung out of the ute and landed on his belly. Thought he might have cracked a rib...obviously in some pain.

So onto the bed he went, on went the monitor (first use) and checked him out. All ok on the surface, but yeah likely a cracked rib. On the phone again to J, told me to keep an eye on him for a bit.

Tummy got tighter and more rigid...hmmm, maybe a slow bleed?

Rang the doc, told me to get him the helicopter.

Finally after much toing and froing and changing of plans, the copter turned up to take my fellow to the hospital.

Very proud of myself cause I managed to get a line in, only on my second attempt and with minimum fuss (though I couldn't find the NS injection ANYWHERE).

They very lovely L. general maintenance and person in the know got the lights set up down at the pad.

When the ambos turned up, we also found out the another person, a girl in the front seat of the ute, who had been knocked out, then promptly went AWOL with her boyfriend, had turned up.

So they decided to take her as well. Oh that is when the drama began.

Then yesterday. They discharged her, so had to arrange to get her back...everything ok, just a knock on the head.

But the fellow with the abdo injuries had discharged himself against medical advice. Ho hum.

But everyone seemed impressed with me. I stayed calm, I did things logically.

And my friend with the splinter in the eye went home and I haven't seen him since, so hopefully he is ok as well.

Talk about a baptism of fire!!!

So, we managed to get up late on Monday morning, although we knew that we had to get some shopping done before flying over to Cape Barren.

Then, even though we checked with the woman at the hotel, we couldn;t find the supermarket. I was operating under the false assuption that there would be lots of little independent grocers around the town...nope.

Finally we found the Coles, ran around quick, stopped for a the toleting...then managed to get to the airport in time to get loadd into the tiny little plane.

Mark, the agency dude, (who rather resembles a cross between a pirate, a bikie and a gnome) picked us up at the airstrip...

Oh complete pleasure.

And it was such a beautiful day!!!

WEll three days on and we seem to be settling in fine. I flew over to Flinders today and met up with a few people, and managed to do some shopping.

On the plane on the way back I noticed that one of the screws on the side of the left prop was spinning and vibrating alrmingly. I was half expecting the prop to fall off.

I tapped the pilot on the shoulder and said...

"I don't know if you realise, but you have a screw loose!"

He laughed and gave me the thumbs up sign, and said the engineers had checked it out and all was fine. Seems I wasn;t the first to have said it to him.

WEll Mark is off to Uluru tomorrow and will leave me to my own devices. That's when the real fun begins!!!.

...and a new life begins...

"Well," I said to Mauricio, as I drove the rented ford Fairlane down the Princes Highway towards Narooma, "here we go, living the dream".

Apart from the fact that everything had seemed to go almost magically smoothly up to that point...if frenetic, I was still nervous. Nervous about scratching the car (with a $3000 excess, and no insurance...eek!). Nervous about rolling the car and blowing up in dramatic fashion.

Nervous about having enough money to survive the next few weeks.

But not really nervous about Cape Barren.

We stopped off to see dear old dad and his schizophrenic dog Rastas, in his new digs in Nowra. Rather easy to find after we dropped off at the information centre and he conveniently rang right at that moment and gave us directions with the aid of a friendly woman with a map!

After stopping off for lunch at the local club (one that I had incidentally drunk at aged 5, the first person to actually imbibe liquid there...albeit orange juice) Mauricio and I continued on our way.

We pulled into Narooma just as the sun set, and couldn't find the hotel...turned out we had passed it several times.

After several minutes of ringing the attendant turned up, smelling pungently of marijuana and looking decidedly bleary eyed. But all fine, we got signed in, and then set out down the main drag in search of food. We found that, and a nice bottle of rough red at a local pizzeria, with pictures of mandalas and Buddhas on the walls, and ate a "Souvlaki pizza", so named cause it had minced marinated lamb, feta and tzatziki on it.

Very nice actually....


Next day we went in search of Mauro's friends, the famous Bicho...who lived somewhere off the scenic drive...eventually again after driving up and down the same very long dirt track several times, and with a couple of interrupted mobile calls, we found the place.

Then we set off for Mystery bay.

Just beautiful.

After some discussion, we had a very short speech and Maria tried to open the urn so that we could distribute David's ashes on the beach...but the bloody thing wouldn't come open.


"Stubborn to the end" muttered Maria.

Finally the cap came off and most of David washed away on the next few waves, some blew.

He would have liked it I reckon.

So we waved goodbye to the rest and took off again.


Pulled into Eden for some fish and chips and petrol and refresh some memories. Then Mauro drove us over the border into Victoria...and intermittent rain. At one point a deer lumbered across the highway in front of us.

Bairnesdale was a very Stark sort of town, all car yards and industrial estates, though the hotel was nice enough. We managed to get coffee and food at the MacDonalds (ugh).

Next day continued to Melbourne, with me driving again...well for most of it.

Actually Melbourne was very nice, bit tricky to drive around with all those trams.

WE got a bit lost for a while, actually i lost Mauro for a while, incidentally while looking for a map!!!

after a few hours of wandering we headed back to the car and thence to find the airport. Cause we didn't have a tag for the tollway we had to navigate the back way...and got there eventually.

That was when the fun began!!!

$300 excess on our luggage.


Say no more.

Tired, hungry and with a splitting headache we finally set off. Oh and I saw Peter Garrett alighting from another plane.

Landing in Launceston late, we managed to get a cab to take us into town. I unsuccessfully tried to hie a car, considering that would be cheaper in the long run, but they wouldn't let me because of the provisional license, even after I explained that I had just driven 1000 km on a provisional from Sydney to Melbourne.

Nice little boutique hotel, bottom floor. Heritage building.

Off to search for food!!! 930pm on a Sunday night in Launceston...Pizza Hut and KFC only things open. Oh well.

The next day after an expensive hot breakfast, off we went to do some shopping. And went in the wrong direction. Finally got some fresh fruit and veg to take over to the Island, managed to get back to the hotel with the aid of a skew wiff shopping trolley. Then called a cab to the airport...


little plane...

and then....


WE were home.