Some more pics

Mark in the square... he goals! Some locals we had a kick around with...

More pics from our first weekend - the roads around turtle beach

Swimming at turtle beach... looks nice but the next day a small croc was sighted 30 mts from the sand.

James, Sim and Em

Heading back to Nhulunbuy on the red dusty roads

the last few days...

Things up here are pretty good – the weather is a steady 29-30°C each day and the nights are a beautiful 24. When it gets down to 28°C it feels positively cool!
We have met a few people here and managed to get a couple of invites out to social events at night – last Friday night we went to the surf life saving club. The Club are set up right on the beach (with a fence around) and every Friday they have a massive barbie, with a bar and everything. You grab a table and chairs, and set up anywhere on the lawn, and have a yarn over a few drinks and a burger while the sun sets. Pretty nice.

At about 11 or so, the gang decided to head to the Walkabout Tavern or the ‘animal bar’ as it is locally known. Its a pretty gross bar in the centre of town that hires hookers to come out from Darwin and Brisbane for a weekend – they serve behind the bar and once the beer jugs are filled with cash, they do a little topless action. Don’t get too excited anyone – they were feral, as were some of the patrons! Our group was attracting a little too much attention from some drunk old white folks so Em and I piked without regret. The Walkabout does have a nice lounge bar near its accommodation section complete with a pool, which is a much nicer way to spend an hour or so.

On Saturday, Em and I hired a 2wd hilux and headed out to Turtle Beach again – stopping at Yirrkala on the way to meet up with some people and watch the AFL. It was great fun - we had a kick with the local kids, and took a few marks from several missed shots at goal. The indigenous guys up here are so fast – that’s the biggest thing I noticed anyway. To my chagrin, the local hawks (Djarrak) team lost!

On Monday night, we went around to Dan the Doctor’s house for a birthday get together – he was cooking up a massive fillet of buffalo that he had hunted out at the Raminginning community (W of here) with a mate of ours, James. There were also couple of Yolgnu families there, and it was great to have a chat with them too – I learnt some Indonesian in exchange for a bit of Italian! The kids were very cute and told me about some local hip hop I need to check out. After talking with them for a while, we have decided we are definitely heading to the Garma Festival while we are up here at the beginning of August – its a five day cultural festival, music, dancing, food, camping etc.

With luck by this time next week we will have wheels (4wd ones!) so we can head out into the country again.

some pics for the text-phobic

some shots of em's first trip (today) out to a remote arnhem land community - Gangan.

Here is our little unit from the outside (bushes on the left are where the toadies hang out).

Inside...

This is our street...


And the bike path we take from the town centre every day (about three trips a day)
Here's the town square. Surrounding this is the Arafura Times office, a butchers, a bric a brac shop, quantas, westpac, Australia Post, and Woolies.
Here's the town square from the south side... Pizza shop, Em's work, Local MP office and Woolies of course.

Em outside her office (which is up the stairs)

Life so far in the Top End....

Darwin

We arrived in Darwin very late on Friday night (2am!)... It seems that most flights into the city get in really late, which (anecdotally) is because the Army or Airforce use the runways during the day.

Anyway, we ventured out of the airport into a beautiful 24 deg night, sorted out the shuttle bus to our hotel (with two bikes, two bags, a laptop and a backpack, we certainly were a hit with the driver!). Looking around at our fellow passengers, its funny but I kind of felt like we were hanging out with some real aussies – you know, tougher and harder working the land sorts. The weather also makes me feel like its more raw up here – like you have to strip off all of the accoutrements of Melbourne and get down to the basics again.

We hit the sack straightaway, as the last week in Melbourne had really drained both of us with all the organising, packing, working and going away events.

The following morning we ventured out into the main street of Darwin – Mitchell St – for breakie. Darwin is a strange sort of town to start with – its like the main street of any town, like Frankston for instance ;), but with heaps of hostels and hotels, and more pubs. Its got country folk with tans up to their shorts line, aboriginal people looking quite skinny compared to the whiteys, townies, and heaps of young european tourists.

There was one terribly ironic view we got on the main street – diagonally across from the territory housing office there was a massive public housing block that had been rubbished, with fences broken. But they do seem to be quite particular about their hours of work... which are common in the NT - Em has them too.

Its probably a good time to come up here as I think we have been way too spoilt in the south – in the culinary arts in particular – as evidenced by my horror when the poached eggs I ordered came out on tip top white bread.

We then hit the shops for a few hours to get all the summer gear we needed while in the top end. Its the strangest thing, but all of the stores here have the same winter stock (woollen jumpers, overcoats, woollen skirts and pants, skivvies) as in Melbourne, where it is 10 degrees and raining... I don’t know who is running the chain stores these days but they certainly could use a bit of common sense.

We had hoped to hire a car on the Sunday to drive down to Litchfield NP for a look see, but hadn’t taken into account the effect of the start of the dry season – the height of tourist time in the NT. So we put that aside for another day, and pottered around the hotel pool instead, with a slight detour by the pub to watch a dismal Hawthorn loss to the Crows.

Later that day though, we headed out to the famous Mindel Market, an awesome set up right next to the beach – complete with food stalls, hippy clothes for sale, and amazing live music (from jazz, to electronic didgeridoo and bongos). Very relaxing and a great source of some more summer gear.

On Monday Em headed out to attend a number of meetings with NT Health people and services, who she will have contact with while working in East Arnhem land. I did some more shopping.... yes there is a pattern emerging.

Nhulunbuy – Getting there and getting sorted

At 5.45pm we boarded the plane to Nhulunbuy – a 30 seater propeller driven thing... which makes a very loud sound as it flies along. We even got in flight service which was nice. We saw some amazing scenery from the plane, but once the sun had set it was pitch black until the lights of the runway showed up about 1hr 20 from takeoff. This was our plane...

It was much cooler than Darwin when we got out of the plane in Nhulunbuy – about 20 degs. We were picked up in a troopy by Craig, Em’s manager from the Aged and Disability Program. We got dropped off at our little unit – complete with a lounge, stocked up kitchen, laundry, bedroom and ensuite, not to mention a backyard to boot! Its got ceiling fans in every room, and an airconditioner in the lounge and bedroom which is nice to put on for a few minutes to take the edge off before bed.

I was the first into the unit, and was met by some of its lingering inhabitants (read - cockroaches) for a few seconds until Em quickly dispatched them. The cane toads out the front aren’t exactly my best friends, but we are moving closer to speaking terms as the days go on. Craig had sorted us out with some dinner and basic supplies in the fridge, and Em’s colleague Hillary had also dropped off some tea, sugar and muffins as a welcome as well – really thoughtful after the trip and newness of it all.

We have only been here a week but the people we have met so far have been incredibly welcoming and friendly. Its nice to get a hello from most people you walk past, and have a chat to people in the shops. Craig picked us both up on Tuesday morning, and took us to get our alcohol permits, tenancy forms signed, and Dhimurru permits for travelling outside of the leased town of Nhulunbuy into Yolgnu (the local Indigenous community) lands. I was also introduced to all of Em’s workmates, which was really nice.

We also stopped in at the local IGA because ‘market day’ was on – every Tuesday the barge from Darwin arrives with all the food and supplies for the town so the stores are on sale to get rid of it while it looks fresh and tastes good. Prices are halved, which brings them to the equivalent of Darwin prices – in general the basics are quite expensive here and anything more than that can be prohibitively so. Anyway, we stocked up with an entire box of fruit and veg including watermelon, bananas and pineapple. I love the summer fruit!!!!

Nhulunbuy – first impressions

I keep describing Nhulunbuy as a 1970's rural Vic town (like an outer suburb of Shepparton) that has been picked up and transported to remote Australia. So, as we ride around town on our bikes, shop in Woolies, swim laps in the olympic sized pool and play tennis at night under lights, we can't help but feel that while this is vastly different to the home we know and love in Melbourne, it isn’t really reflective of the broader region.

We haven’t really had much interaction with the Yolgnu people, save for Em getting herself invited onto the court of a kids beach volleyball match at the pool. There are many Yolgnu people in the town square, which is amazing for us given how isolated from indigenous people we are in Victoria. Hopefully we will learn a few Yolgnu words while we are here so that we can talk to people in their own language rather than rely on English all the time. It could be harder than Italian though!

The weather up here takes some getting used to – its around 30deg each day. The heat around 2pm is oppressive but we are adjusting and the night-times are magical. We have stocked up on cold water in the fridge, and I have been known at times to stick my head in the freezer or run outside in the neighbour’s sprinklers when things really hot up.

Adventuring

This weekend we went camping overnight with a couple of medical students (James and Dayton) that Em met at the hospital. They had access to a 4WD so we were able to drive roughly 25km south to a place called Numuy (Turtle Beach).

The water was pristine and beautiful to swim... and of course there are salt water crocodiles... We ended up at a beach nearby - Little Bondi - where we felt a little safer going in as the local surf life saving club (!) was out patrolling for crocs in a rubber dinghy, about 50 little nippers and their parents in the water, people snorkeling, spear fishing and throwing around the tennis ball...almost like port phillip bay, but a little more dangerous! This is Little Bondi from the bluff (pic courtesy of google images). Imagine about 50 more 4wds on the beach, and a red and yellow lifesaving tent near the far end of the beach, complete with flags.

Of course we have left our camera in Melbourne (most of these pics are from my mobs) but James has taken some great shots and we will post them shortly. We are hoping to head out to Cape Arnhem this weekend by jumping on to yet another pre-organised camping trip. Its supposed to be amazing... very wild with beautiful beaches. Although I may be a little more circumspect about the swimming without any locals or surf club patrols around!

We have been inspired to look around for our own 4wd soon so we can take full advantage of the local area, and of course to do a bit of a trek across to Broome after Em finishes work if we can wrangle it.

Lazy days – for now

At this stage, Em is pretty busy getting set up and aquainted with the way things work up here - both at the hospital and on the community outreach side of things. While Em works, my day consists of a little reading before getting up, a slow breakfast, some internet time, and some more reading. Then Em gets home for lunch. After that, I head out to the pool for some swimming and poolside reading... this is the view from my towel!
Em meets me after work and we do a few laps of the pool for exercise... then head back home for dinner, or to the courts for a hit of tennis. So far I have read three books:
- Excellent Cadavers by Alexander Stille
- Royal Exile by Fiona MacIntosh
- The Godfather by Mario Puzo
And am halfway through The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas. Will shortly post a little review on each as requested by my lovely SPB colleagues. Speaking of work, I am keeping an eye on The Age, and saw that the successful tenderers for the Carlton Redevelopment have been announced. Finalmente! I hope its all going well at DPC.

I have recently applied for a policy officer job with the Community Stores program, a part of the NT intervention that relates to the provision of healthy food in remote locations for the indigenous population, who are on income quarantining. The good thing about it is that it is supposed to be based in Darwin, but the director has let me know that an outposting will be fine so I will be travelling around the area a bit as a result. The politics of the intervention (and this part of it) is very new to me, and very varied depending on who you speak to, so I was a little concerned about getting involved - but I have heard some really good reports on the benefits it is having for women and children in particular. I only submitted the application on Friday, so we will see. If that doesn’t work out, I am keen to do something in the broader area so I am not just hanging out in Nhulunbuy the whole time.

If anyone feels like being old fashioned, we are contactable via snail mail c/o the Nhulunbuy post office, Nhulunbuy, N.T., 0881 (apparently may even take weeks unless you post express, however we have not yet tested this theory!). Otherwise, email is good – sgianfrotta@cyberq.net.au or el2burnell@live.com.au

Will write more soon.

Take care,

S and E
xxxxxx

a bit more on nhulunbuy for the stats fans out there...

NB: courtesy of NT Tourism