Freefall

This is what I did last weekend - abseiling at Emily Gap. Fred provided all the gear and some excellent training and I slid down the rockface with the greatest of ease. A long way from the days when heights made me sick with anxiety. In fact, it was a bit too tame for me, not a drop of adrenalin. The company was excellent, and only one person over 5'4" - all vietnamese, filipino and other short people! Fred's son Elliott was a real rocker, scrambling up and sliding down like a pro (and he was the shortest of us all).

This weekend I am recovering from a big week, another big week - training up my replacement, Kate and giving away stuff and packing away stuff and cleaning up stuff - stuff it, I've had it. Been digging the plants out of the garden to go to good homes where they might survive better.

There have been massive willy-willys charging through town regularly, competing with the dust sent up by the bulldozer that's clearing a house site next door to me. Some day I hope to catch a photo of the rubbish spiralling upwards in a kupi-kupi (pitjantjatjara for willy-willy) or walpa (luritja for wind). The dogs all go crazy barking and jumping up at it! It has been very hot but the sky has had rainclouds and a luminous promise for several days. Some rain passed through today. The glorious smell sent me running outside but it was only a few drops - the first for six months. Not enough to make the minkulpa grow, but everyone will be hopeful. Drugs rule the world - though the women were shocked and disbelieving when I said that minkulpa (native tobacco) is a drug. This is bush tomatoes here in the photo...

I am sad to be leaving - everyone knows me now and the kids all shout and wave to me. These days there are kids dunking themselves in makeshift swimming pools all over town. This morning we passed someone sitting on a chair in a half-tank half-full of water under the blazing sun, just keeping their feet cool. Further down the road there's a bunch of people playing cards (gotta get money somehow) under a tree. I feel at home here in so many ways. And there is so much work to be done. I just have to come back some day. I am planning to spend over $2000 to study and get the Cert IV in workplace training and assessment when I get back - it will be very useful out here. First, though, I have to go to the Nightcap action group reunion - 25 years since we had all that fun saving the forest! I have also booked a ticket to Tassie for a week in mid-feb to see my bro Tim and some of the Austin family and go to the Forest Festival at Jackey's Marsh - and remember bushwalking up there on the Tiers and camping overnight (and freezing!) in an idyllic (and freezing!) north-facing cave all those years ago. Then the Franklin was saved and now Gunn's are about to pulp the forests. It goes on and on and the price of freedom stays the same - or is it getting higher? ... perhaps the best thing about the intervention is the politicising of the people that it will encourage. Women for Wik seem about the most spot-on for the news and views for walypalas, I recommend their website (link at left).

Karen and Katie who work with me are coming over to Brisbane at xmas to see Katie's daughter so I will see them then. I hope they don't get too homesick. At least Brisbane will be sweltering hot for them.