Torres Straight Adventures
flying over the ocean |
After a few days of back and forth, I
ended up with a one and a half hour drive in a hire car, (which I
ended up paying for myself due to more mis-comunications), a 2 hour
flight to Cairns, an overnight stay in a hotel there (with taxis rides
I paid for there and back), another 2 hour flight up to Horne Island
and a 15 minute ferry ride to Thursday Island (which I again paid
for.)
It was all pretty exciting....and
expensive. Sigh...somehow this often seems to happen with agency
work...you can claim these expenses back from the agency, but it
always means you have to have the cash to fork out first...and as I'm
usually down to my last penny before I leave, it gets a bit
scary...then of course you have to keep track of receipts and send
originals into the agency...and then theres always the 3 week time
lag as you start work just at the end of the last period...so all up
you have to find money to get yourself there and feed yourself for 3
weeks before the whole thing actually pays off....
But whinging aside, I got to travel to
the top end tropics! Warmth! Less clothing! Sunburn!
And it's mind bogglingly
beautiful...... And I still get such a kick out of flying...turning
up at the airport in (for me) smart clothes looking all efficient,
being smiled at by air hostesses and random strangers...and people
watching! Stressed families of crying children packed with bags and
strollers and bottles...businessmen in grey suits and slicked down
haircuts talking importantly into their mobile phones...carefree
travellers with sensible hiking clothes and backpacks...and me.
kissing turtles on Cairns boardwalk |
The hotel room is white and grey and
impersonally lonely, and it takes me ages to get to sleep. But the
next day I have a few hours to wander around Cairns and treat myself
to a luxury breakfast at a poncy waterside restaurant. It's always
weird sitting in these places on my own...I enjoy having the peace
and quiet to think and watch and rediscover the inside of my own
head...but it is lonely...and I miss my kids, and my boyfriend, and
look enviously at the happy couples all around me. I end up having a
long conversation with Dan (my dead ex partner) in my head while
sitting there....
Cairns lantern tree |
I bought a lovely green dress that is
too tight, having convinced myself that
a) it will probably stretch and
b) I will lose more of that mid-life
midrif through exercise and healthy diet on the island.
And no Viv, you cant have it.
Cairns is full of huge tropical trees
filled with colourful lights, art exhibitions, open air music and
English tourists with excellent wax jobs and spray tans.
The local waxing emporium is closed, so
I'm stuck with hairy legs and no bikini wax...and my usual argument
with myself between comfort and the wish to conform to local female
customs....which reminds me that I forgot to bring a swimsuit anyway.
At midday I take another cab to the
airport, lose my favourite cardi along the way and spend an hour
eating stale salad and coffee in time to just catch the last boarding
call.
The man who sits next to me on the
plane turns out to be the Don of Torres Straight.
my plane to the island |
And after I've swallowed my panic about
saying the wrong thing the the Big Boss, turns out we have a lot in
common and he actually has rather a lot of revolutionary and
alternative ideas about nursing, healing and how to fix the problem
with hospitals himself! Its rather fascinating listening to his
stories about his own nursing experiences and how he came to be in
the job he is in now...and the challenges of organising 2 hospitals
and a bunch of independent clinics on isolated tropical islands. And
20 years from now I'll write more details about this conversation in
my memoirs, grin. One of the problems with this blogging about nursing thing, you cant really share everything without insulting, upsetting or breaching confidentiality...yet its the personal stuff that makes it interesting...as I said, memoirs....
2 hours and some magical views from
above later, we touch down and take a bus across to the harbour. The
land is sooo dry! It looks more like outback scrub than what I was
expecting from a tropical island! The bus also gives me my first good
look at the islanders themselves! The bus conductor is a delightful
little old lady in a long floral dress, with a straw hat covered in
artificial flowers on her head. The Islanders themselves are big,
relaxed, happy looking people. Clean and healthy looking too, which
is a big change from the desert. The seem prosperous and well fed,
and there’s a lot of laughter around me...
at the wharf we crowd onto the little
ferry boat that speeds us over to the next island. My seat neighbour
from the plane is picked up by another hospital bigwig, and I get a
lift with the ferry people up to the hospital.
Of course nobody knew I was coming
today, but after a bit of scuttling around, the head of the hospital
is found who then finds a key for me to a room in the 8 bed share
house across the road and I have a home for the next 3 weeks.
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