All in a day's drive

It's a pity you can't redeem the miles you clock up on the road for those in the air - with 7,500 kilometres covered in just over a month, I'd be a Super Double Diamond Platinum Frequent Flyer in no time, with enough points to go around the world several times over.
Just as well the car had its 1,000km service at 4,800km.
Still, at least I'm getting some benefit from this gig, and that's knowing what I don't want to do when I grow up - add long-distance driver to the list (along with policeman, teacher, childcare assistant, Aboriginal health worker, etc.).

Everything is said and not a word is spoken

If it's hard enough getting most grown-ups to get their annual medical check-up for fear of getting a needle, try the process with 40-odd kids all under 16.
So, on a hot, humid Sunday morning in a community shed 240 kilometres south of Darwin, I find myself helping set up a four-metre high jumping castle, complete with water slides, tunnels, bridges and an all-weather sound system that puts most home stereos to shame.
The jumping castle is the latest strategy in getting families along to the Government's Children's Health Checks, and provide some reward (along with, literally, a free lunch) for kids who'll spend an hour getting poked, prodded and jabbed by a team of six medical staff.
Of course, you can't actually show the kids the jumping castle before they get checked - unless you want a community health report that shows everyone under 16 having a resting heart rate of 180 - so it's left to me to explain to each and every kid about what's waiting in store.
As you can see from the image above, my sales skills obviously need some work. While the little girl laps up my spiel with visible excitement, her older and very protective brother is somewhat more reserved, telling me without saying a word that I'd better not be bullsh-tting.

Winning while still coming last

My warm welcome back to the Territory continued on Friday, with news that the town I'm living in has taken a Top 5 finish in the list of Australia's most disadvantaged communities.
I have to admit that I was a little surprised at first - like most remote Aboriginal communities, there's very obvious poverty and other social problems, but it doesn't seem that bad - although when I think about it, being called a 'f--king c--t' and told to 'f--k off' by a three year old probably points to some much deeper signs of disadvantage.
It's the same when I take a closer look at some of the images I've taken over the last month. In one picture, our friend above sits atop a broken stroller in the middle of a street surrounded by stray dogs and rusted car bodies, both hands clenched into fists, and a gaze that appears full of anger. I wonder if it's just a play for the camera, or whether someone so young can have seen, felt or heard so much hate?
For most kids here, swearing, spitting and hitting (family, friends, dogs, anything) are common, normal behaviours, and when I ask them to stop, they look at me in confusion, laugh or ask why.
Sigh. Maybe that Top 5 finish really was well-deserved, and at the very least, we'll have something new to replace the 'Winner, Tidy Town 1984' sign as you drive in.

Full steam at dead slow

Talk about a warm welcome back to the Territory.
I have the cops out here Tuesday and Wednesday nights, the neighbour collapses from heat exhaustion Thursday, and an unexpected storm (above) sees the main road home flooded and closed until Friday.
The end result is less sleep, more miles and another meeting missed, but no one seems to mind except me. Apparently, I've still got a way to go in understanding 'Territory Time', or the casual, flexible and laidback approach to schedules, engagements and other commitments people up here.
It's largely based on accepting the two most challenging elements of living in the Northern Territory - distance and climate - and the realisation that going slow is actually pretty fast.
As the copper from Monday explained (after taking two and a half hours to get here), "get used to what 'NT' really stands for - not today, not tomorrow, not ta next day".
Slowly, and taking the long back road home, I'm coming around to his way of thinking. I just hope my bosses are on Territory Time, too.

Bright white but still unseen

When you're as white as I am, and one of four white people in a small community of 160 very black people, you'd think that you'd stand out just a little.
You'd be surprised.
Beyond the initial fascination of someone and something new, there's little, if any ongoing interest in who I am, or what I do. It's not a case of reservation or rudeness so much as general disinterest and daily life - leave me to my business, and I'll leave you to yours.
I suspect that I'm the latest in a long line of white fellas to this community, each who've arrived with their own particular (and, to the locals, probably somewhat peculiar) agenda.
There is one exception, of course, and that's the kids. Like any community, whether white, black, green, blue or brindle, it's the kids who appear from nowhere, a mini media scrum of questions about the who, what and why of white person number four.

Water, water and not a drop to drink

Obviously, tree frogs and brown snakes ain't the only ones reading this blog, with Huey noting my comments about the absence of any "real" wet season storms, and sending in a beauty on Sunday evening.
Lasting for well over two hours, and dumping more than 60mm in total, the storm knocks out power, telephone and satellite services, and in true Top End irony, the community's water supply.
As of Tuesday afternoon, power is restored, but we're still waiting for telephone, satellite and, despite the many knee-deep puddles around the community, water.

Dancing in the streets

After a day of constant thunder, lightening and torrential rain - including 100mm in less than an hour alone - you'd be dancing in the street when it all finished, too.

When printers turn deadly

If you've been reading my posts so far, you'll recall my small green mate from Wednesday night, and perhaps remember my half-hearted attempt at humour when I noted I'd rather a visit from a tree frog than a brown snake.
Well, for a colleague down south in Ti Tree (about 200kms up the track from Alice Springs), the situation wasn't so funny.
On Friday morning, after noticing that her laser printer was only printing the top half of the page, she thought it might be time to replace the toner cartridge. Turns out there was plenty of toner, but the real problem was a metre-long western brown snake who'd decided that the printer would make a nice warm, dry and cosy home.
As you can see, the critter is none-to-happy about being interrupted - and, given these bad boys are among the Top 10 deadliest snakes in the world, I'm not so sure I'd be stopping to take happy snaps.

Hangin' tough on the tidal plain

After a week of waving, smiling, saying g'day and spending most of this morning clearing two huge vacant blocks by myself (in 32C heat), I'm finally acknowledged by the locals.
First one, then some, and almost all, and by lunchtime, I've been invited to come out fishing on the tidal flats.
It's a terrific afternoon, and in between billy-tea and the best damper I've ever tasted (cooked in sand and hot coals), the fellas land three baramundi, two salmon and a sea snake.
Meanwhile, the kids have discovered my digital camera, and are amazed when they can see themselves as soon as the shutter is pressed. Technology comes quick in the Territory, but only when you've got the bucks to buy it.
I can't but help cave in to their fascination, and put on a brave face as I hand over several thousand dollars worth of digital SLR to a stack of tiny sand-covered hands. It's a photographer's worst nightmare, and made even worse by the fact that most of the kids struggle to even lift the thing to eye level.
In the end, they take over 200 shots - albeit it with most showing the ground and their feet - and return the camera without a single grain of sand on it.

Strangers in the night

I must admit that I've been surprised by the lack of wildlife I've seen since getting up here, although considering the amount of time I'm spending on the road, that's probably a good thing.
Still, it was neat to come back from a cuppa to find Kermit having a close look at the Toughbook (see post below) late last night.
He must have approved as he certainly wasn't in any hurry to get back outside, and was quite comfortable sitting on the screen as I snapped away - to the point that I got bored with the novelty of 'frog on laptop' pics and went back to typing away. Eventually, he hopped off back into the night, but not before leaving a nice trail of sticky gloop all over the screen.
Still, better a tree frog than a brown snake, I 'spose.

Getting down in the donga...

For those who've asked, here's a picture of a typical top-end (cyclone-rated) donga for CEBs and Government Business Managers involved in the NT Emergency Response.
It's nothing extravagant, but what do you expect when you build something out of nothing more than a few shipping containers (five, in this case) and some simple steel framing?
In the example above, you're looking directly at the front entrance which opens to the common area, kitchen (front right - with window) and two of the four bedrooms, each with own bathroom, workstation, etc.
As far as accommodation goes, I'd call it four-star. In addition to high-speed wireless broadband, the satellite dish pumps in 92 TV channels and industrial-strength air-con keeps everything as cool or warm as you want.
In any case, compared to almost all the surrounding houses - if you can even call 'em that - it's pure luxury and to be quite honest, almost feels explicitly extravagant.

White Lines, Road Trains and Rain

In two days, I've driven over 1500 kilometres, with three seemingly unending constants - road markings, road trains and rain.
For each of them, you could replace the 'unending' with 'unnerving', and that's coming from someone who's driven a stack of miles over the years (it happens when you don't like flying) and considers themselves pretty darn confident behind the wheel.
But when the highway is undivided single-lane, the semis are four times their normal size, and the windscreen wipers don't make a difference even at maximum, it's a whole new experience.
See above, and keep in mind that I've overexposed it by half a stop so you can actually see what's going on. It's taken around 3pm and in real life the light was much lower, although thankfully, the road train to the right was much further away than it looks.
And if you think all that's bad...don't even ask about how much it costs to fill the tank!

Within striking distance

One of the big drawcards Darwin holds for me are the awesome electrical storms that come during the wet season - they put what we've got down south to shame.
Last night was a beauty, and the first real sound and lighting spectacular I'd seen since arriving. Of course, as soon the lightning starts up, I realise that I hadn't charged the camera, and combined with no tripod and only a teeny-tiny lunch, this was the best I could manage before giving up and heading out for dinner.

A snatching success

There's a reason you stand well back when using a snatch strap to recover a bogged vehicle, and this is it.What you're seeing above the tow-point (black metal looking thing) from a Toyota Troop Carrier lodged firmly in the side of a Goodyear Desert Wrangler tyre. What you don't see is the 100mm D-shackle that's attached to the tow-point (now inside the tyre), or the internal sidewall armouring of the tyre (now completely shredded by said tow-point).
Of course, this happens when I'm halfway through my final assessment for vehicle recovery (the two guys in blue shirts above are the instructors, Darren and Noel).
At first, I think it's an easy task - a Toyota stuck fast in thick, up-to-the-axle mud - until Noel tells me that in setting up the exercise, he's really, truly got the vehicle bogged.
So, after assessing the situation, I rig up a snatch from the front left tow-point of the Toyota to the back of the recovery vehicle, and making sure the usual set-up process is checked and double-checked. With that done, I tell the recovery driver to start off, and give it a little extra grunt...he does so, and a second or two later, there's a terrific whoosh and an almighty bang as the tow-point snaps, and hurtles into the spare tyre. Given the strength of those tyres, and the pressure they were at, the tow-point (solid steel) and D-shackle (cast iron) must have been moving at well over several hundred kilometres an hour.
(For those that don't know, a snatch strap is like a big rubber band tied between two vehicles - as the recovery vehicle moves off, the strap stretches all the way to its limit - and then, as it springs back to its original state, the stored kinetic energy pulls out the stuck vehicle. They're highly effective, but also violent, unpredictable and highly dangerous.)
In the end, I get the Toyota free, pass the assessment (blamed on the Toyota being a rental and in a fairly sorry state to begin with) and the only damage is the write-off of a brand-new tyre, but I'm damn happy I told everyone around to stand even further back than usual before the recovery process began.

Tough toys for the Territory

Given the climate of the Territory, it came as little surprise to hear that over a third of the (brand new) laptops provided to the first lot of CEBs in late 2007 have since died.
With the humidity up north, the heat down south, and dust everywhere between, the Northern Territory is an IT Manager's worst nightmare.
Until now - enter the Panasonic CF-30, or as it's commonly known as, the Toughbook.
This is the Hummer of the laptop world. Originally designed for the US Army, the Toughbook is big, bulky and the perfect choice when you want to tell any AirBook carrying tree-huggers to eat your shorts.
Deep down, the Toughbook is just like any other laptop - screen, keyboard, touchpad, hard disk - but that's where the differences end. Outside, the Toughbook is wrapped up in a magnesium casing and a quarter-inch plexiglass screen, has huge rubber gaskets and seals all over, and there's a two-stage locking mechanism before you can access pretty much any of the Toughbook's ports.
If it looks heavy, that's because it is!
Panasonic's marketing men call the Toughbook 'ruggedised' (yeah, I didn't think such a word existed, either) and in fact, the Toughbook is so damn tough that it doesn't even need a fancy-schmancy carry case - it comes with its own built-in handle!
Of course, being ex-Military, the Toughbook is all about security. The hard drive can be removed in seconds (so long as you know how to use those two-stage locking mechanisms), data can be permanently deleted in three clicks and login is via a standard Windows password and an external PIN token.
Dust, heat and humidity mean nothing to a Toughbook - but that's probably because the thing is so heavy, it never gets taken anywhere near any of 'em!

Rain, more rain and humidity

So much for sunny Darwin - since I arrived a week ago, its been raining all week. And by rain, I'm talking rain, with a total of 690mm for February, including 182mm in a single day. Compare that with Canberra's totals (66mm and 16.4mm respectively) and you quickly realise why the wet season is called exactly that.
It makes a challenging environment for people and cameras alike, although I did manage to get down to Stokes Hill Wharf earlier this evening - just in time to see the next storm rolling in.