News bites from Nhulunbuy

We have been very lax over the past few weeks, so here are a few headlines from Nhulunbuy since we last posted....

• Sim goes to Brisvegas to pick up our new car – a 1994 Toyota Landcruiser
  
• Sim and Dad travel from Brisvegas to Nhulunbuy

• Em takes a trip to Groote Eylandt and Bickerton Island for three days
  


• Sim starts a new job – with Marngarr CDEP (Community Development Employment Projects)
  
• Em and Sim moved out of the little unit into a tiny room in the hospital quarters
  
• Plus... on the weekend we headed out to Bawaka, a beautiful homeland right next to the beach, about 100kms from town. The trip itself was a second option really, after the boat trip we planned fell through due to mechanical issues... The car handled the sand really well, once we had the tyres down to 15psi of course! We spent the afternoon swimming in the shallows (big croc area so can't go deeper), and looking for mud crabs to spear. We ran into some local indigenous guys - who were more than happy to pose for a shot (around 15 in the troopie!).

Check out the posts below for a little more detail and more photos on any of the above...

The new car....

We have hooked ourselves up with a 4wd from a Brisbane car dealer – a mate of Dad’s so we got it wholesale (at the trade in price). It’s a 1994 Toyota Landcruiser, a 6 seater. It’s done about 450,000kms but it’s a diesel engine so apparently they can go up to over 1M kms or so we hear.

I flew down from Nhulunbuy to Bris via Cairns (where I spent a happy few hours acquainting myself with the lagoon by the esplanade, a good coffee and the newspaper – perfect!). Brisbane put on a massive welcome for me – I got caught in an absolute downpour which was great for my Nhulunbuy uniform of thai pants, t-shirt and thongs. Over the week that followed, I spent almost equal time between my Dad’s place on Bribie Island, and my cousin Ben’s place in Zillmere...

I helped Dad build a new roof for his shack, and organised the transfer stuff for the car, which was horrendously complicated for reasons I cannot even bring myself to write about now. There were some light patches in the week though – I went out for some great food (Italian and Persian) with Ben and Amanda (his GF), and went shopping for camping and other essentials (a stovetop coffee maker, a Sherrin football, and star anise to name but a few). Anyway, by the end of that week, the car was ready to go on first its big test – the 4,000 km drive to Nhulunbuy.

Sim and Dad travel from Brisvegas to Nhulunbuy

The big drive went relatively well, bar a few major hurdles, including (a) not being able to turn the immobiliser off in the car, and having to wait 5hrs in Toowoomba on the first day for an auto-elec to fix the problem; (b) having to sleep in the car overnight when all the motels around Longreach had no vacancies, and (c) Dad leaving his medication in Brisbane and us having to bugger around in Tennant Creek waiting for it to arrive by Express Post.

I still haven’t really gotten over the tediousness of driving long stints on such flat and straight roads. Don’t let anyone romanticise about travelling long distances in the outback – its hot, tiring and very dry and there is nothing better than a cold shower at the end of the day.

The track into here from Mataranka (on the Stuart Hwy) is about 700kms long, and its a long red dirt road for the most part, a combination of hard corrugations, sandy bits, and much welcome (albeit short) patches of bitumen. Dad and I drove in Thursday arvo at around 4 and ended up sleeping in the car that night under the most beautiful and brightest stars I’ve ever seen – the milky way is so easy to see out here without the city glow.

I had heard a few stories about people rolling their cars on the track, but it wasn’t too bad after the wet season when the graders have just been in, and the biggest challenge is how long it is – and how long it feels. Arriving back home was so good – the dust on the road had permeated the whole car, our clothes and bodies. It took me a long shower with two shampoos to get rid of it all – crazy.

Dad spent the weekend up here – we treated him to a barbeque at the surf club of course, and took a drive out to little bondi beach for a lazy arvo. We hit the footy for the last half of the game, and had a cook up on the beach while watching the sun go down at Wirrwawuy, our local beach. Awesome times. Sad to see him go on the Monday morning, but it was a big treat to have him here and show him around. Fingers crossed he comes up again.

The footy at Yirrkala - Dhjarrak vs. Gopu (the two top sides) - Dhjarrak Buddy takes a big mark.

Dad taking in the footy on the roof of the landie. Our set up at Little Bondi - a nice half day spent swimming, reading and relaxing

Preparing our tucker for the barbie on the beach

Em takes a trip to Groote Eylandt

I (Em) had my first overnight trip out to Bickerton Island and Groote Eylandt (to the south east) recently. My workmates and I saw people from five different communities, one of which was a mining town, the others were indigenous. The people are lovely and I have really enjoyed getting to know the locals, they are shy and friendly, and have many different and interesting stories to tell. Despite my not speaking their languages nor knowing their culture, I seem to have been able to communicate ok and work as a physio.

I will always remember one fellow I met after being directed through a community (a cluster of seven houses), down the road to the beach, and walking a few hundred metres along the beach to where he was camping with his three wives (yes, this is appropriate in Yolgnu law!) and children. It was the most memorable place to do a physio assessment; crystal clear blue water and white sands! This man was happy to see a physio as he had been walking around (with help) with a ruptured patella tendon.

The flight (another seven seater propeller plane) saw amazingly beautiful scenery as the flight path took us directly over the coast line south of Nhulunbuy to the islands. People pay big bucks to do this as a joy flight so I feel really privileged to get the opportunity to fly for work. I still have another three or four trips while I am here so plenty more flying to be done!

Sim gets a new job with Marngarr CDEP

A little while back I mentioned on this blog that I had met a guy at a buffalo barbeque here - and hit him up for some contacts in the public service for a job. Turns out he is the new general manager of the Marngarr CDEP program - and that he needs a right hand person to help set things up in the early stages... So now I have a job! Formally, I am the Community Development and Employment officer (we made up the title today).

Marngarr has the Gumatj Association as its parent company,and is based in Gunyungara, about 12 kms from Nhulubuy. Gumatj is a local clan up here, quite a powerful one due to tribal hierarchies and a major recipient of mine royalties. The Gumatj leader is Galarrwuy Yunupingu, who incidently wrote an article in the Australian two weekends ago about economic participation for the Yolgnu people and the work that the community is doing in setting up a self sustaining timber mill and cattle station. I don’t know enough about the politics up here, but as a newcomer it seems a good thing to support as it will help the Yolgnu live the way they want to, and will provide resources for the community and real job choices.

Anyway, its nearly the end of my first week, and the 7am mornings have been difficult to adjust to! But I have met some great people and the program is slowly getting on its feet. The past few days have been all about paperwork and ticking federal government boxes. Its a great experience for me, esp. coming from a central agency where I am so far away from how things work on the ground... The thing I keep thinking about is how the timing is fairly ridiculous if the government wants to get quality outcomes happening. To get some substantial change out here will be a generational thing at the very least – the closing the gap targets are pretty ambitious if its based on the current population - even the older Yolgnu are saying so.

I do get out of the office though, and on Tuesday we drove two hours to Birany Birany (pronounced Bran Bran) to meet some program participants there... While the paperwork was being done, we played with the kids and took some great photos... One girl had a go on the camera and took some brilliant shots. I am hoping to spend some more time with them as the weeks go past and can’t wait to go to the Garma Festival in a couple of weeks with the team.

Em and Sim move out of little unit into hospital quarters

Shafted? Absolutely. We have had to make way for another longer term physio placement up here and move out of our comfortable unit.. into a motel-like room (two and a half star) in the quarters.

The worst part is that we can’t open the windows to get fresh air – its all about the air conditioning (or so they say) so the windows are screwed shut! Am sure this contravenes some tenancy laws somewhere but we only have a few weeks here. The up side is that we have a few mates just across the hallway so it makes hooking up for drinks and sport a lot easier.