It just keeps raining
Greetings from the wetlands of Alice Springs. It has been downpouring here on and off since last Friday. Our rain guage has been overflowing since last Sunday. The rivers are all flowing, and they cross over roads in many places making them unpassable. Tom, our heroic cabin boy tried to get home last Saturday night and his Toyota truck got swept off the road and turned on its side and hit a tree. His dog, Zeus, drifted off downstream and Tom had to swim after him and managed to effect a rescue. Tom and Zeus then had to walk several kilometres home in the early hours of Sunday in the pouring rain. Many peole have been stranded. The rivers seem to go up and down a bit. The road at Honeymoon Gap beside us has beeen flooded and closed off for a fair bit of the time over the last 4 days. Half the road is now closed because of a huge hole about waist deep. I know it is that deep because some of the kids swimming in the area went in. The kids just find it all so exciting and watchingthem play in the water is just delightful. Today the Todd River was raging and not safe for swimming at all. It covered the footpath beside it and only one bridge was passable when I left for home tonight and there was actually a traffic jam as everyone who lives on the east side of Alice tried to get onto it after knocking off work. Made me think of Sydney. Fortunately I don’t need to croos the Todd but I was worried other rivers would block the road I had to drive to get home. Fortunately I made it. Although with all this rain now I wonder if I will get back in tomorrow. Oh well, what will be will be. This place is just so amazing! On several occasions I put on my jacket and go for walks and bike rides along the river and just stare. It is so different to how it usually looks. Watching the colours of the setting sun reflected in the water is so special. I wish you could all be here to see this. It feels sort of miraculous because this country is normally so dry. Rhere are so many birds and bugs and frogs about too. And poor old Keith is missing it all because he has been on a Melbourne-Sydney-Darwin jaunt over the last week. And he has the camera so I can’t even show you a picture of what it looks like. But it’s in my memory. Rivers of water in the desert… makes a lot of the old testament imagery really come to life.
Filed under Uncategorized | Comment (1)More brushes with Ngapartji fame
Regular readers of our blog may remember I had the privelege of meeting the amazing Lorna from Ngapartji Ngapartji on our verandah some months back and impressed her enormously by remembering the Heads and Shoulders song in Pitantatjara. Some of you may also know that Tom, our reasonably new cabin boy, was in the Sydney Opera House performance of Ngapartji. Well, it gets better. Our verandah is now even more Ngapartji famous because last week we had Trevor, the multi talented mega star of the show visit. He was visiting Tom who brought him over with our other neighbours, John and Mallie and the kids. We all sat on our verandah drinking some good red wine and Trevor played all these old 70’s songs on Keith’s guitar while we shared stories. It was such a good night. I had one of those moments where I thought, “There is nowhere in the world I would rather be than here right now.” It felt very special. So many differences between us all but for a while it was like we were one spirit. Mallie spoke with me about it today and how it was special for her too.
Filed under Uncategorized | Comments (2)The Todd River Runs
From last Thursday to Saturday Alice Springs had a few storms with good downpours of rain. It was wonderful listening to it on the roof waking up on Friday morning! When we got up we noticed Roe Creek across the road from us was beginning to flow. When we got home that night it was really flowing through the Gap and lapping the edge of the road. For a day we had a riverfront property. Keith and I were out staring at our new river on Friday evening and all these cars kept pulling over to look and people got out and had a chat. After I finished work on Friday I noticed the Todd was beginning to flow as well and when I went into town on Saturday it was really flowing - not busting banks or anything but a good movement of water. Later on Saturday Keith and I went out to Simpsons Gap and water was flowing there as well. We could hear the sound of what seemed like sheep bleating and dogs barking. The frogs are out! There were a lot of people at the Gap enjoying the water as well. Everyone, black fellas and white fellas, comes out and walks along the water and paddles in it and picnics beside it and stares at it in wonder. It’s a very special time to be here. The air is also crisper and cooler again with all the dust settled so the light is just wonderful. Keith took soem photos……………..
You will notice that the sign measures no water. The measuring tools we use here in the centre under record by 20%. This is to ensure that people dont get unecessarily enthusiatic about things like water. Its all a part of desrt psychology. 
Melbourne
I got back yesterday from 5 days in Melbourne. I had a wonderful time. I was there to do a 2 day workshop on Indigenous Mental Health. It was a very challenging workshop. I still have so much to learn and I really need to make a bigger committment to go the extra mile. The rest of the time I got to have fun with Gemma and David in Melbourne. It was lovely having a nice cool change from Alice. I stayed with Gem in Urban Seed quarters and got to meet all these wonderful people who hang there and share a Credo Cafe lunch. And I bought a copy of the Big Issue from one of the 500 vendors I got to meet wandering around Melbourne with Gem. I also went shopping in my favourite part of Melbourne - Smith and Brunswick Streets - where there all these intersting shops and plenty of op shops and factory outlets as well. Much more fun than Westfield. And we ate out and I had my fix of sashimi. And Gem and I went and saw Andrew Bevis in Rocky Horror Show and dance the Time Warp at the back of the Comedy Theatre and Gemma drank red daiquiri in a cocktail glass with flashing lights. Melbourne was so much fun I thought I’d take a bit of the place back with me. The clouds seemed to follow the plane. While I was away Keith said it was really hot and dusty. Just after I landed a cool breeze came in and this morning I awoke to thunder and rain. I lay in bed listening and watching the babblers find shelter just outside my window. I then spent the rest of the day dusting the house. Everything was covered in a thin layer of red dirt. But now the rain has cleared the dust and dropped the temperature and this evening was beautiful. As the sun lowered I wandered around the property collecting cow shit for my vegie garden and dug up some of the buffel grass we are trying to clear. Then I went over to talk to my neighbour who was not long back from Melbourne herself. She went there to talk with other aborignal people about the problem of uranium mining here. She told me she found the gargoyles on the chuches really scary. I told her they were there to scare away evil spirits but she didn’t seem to be convinced. She exceeded her weight limit for the Tiger flight back home with so many op shop clothes. I loved the inner city vibe of Melbourne but as we watched the sunset between the gap I felt quite happy to be home.
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