Letter: Delayed on T.I.

Letter 11/ 9 /82

Well, we've got as far as Thursday Island and I haven't a hope of telling you all about what's been happening to us ... but why not try?

Already I'm missing my typewriter! 

We left the cot, and high chair, and nappy bucket ... and many other things ... in Darwin - James is having to grow up very fast. But he was very good on the way over.

Friends in Darwin were very concerned about us traveling, and at the last minute gave us $50 -"to spend at least one night in a motel". Well, we couldn't do that, but instead we spun it out over the trip and stayed in on-site vans instead of the tent. So we all slept well, Peter didn't feel drowsy even once while he was driving - which was just as well because I had to be doped up for the trip. I managed to not be sick until we were nearly at Townsville, which was quite an accomplishment. I've been trying to get vitamin B6 - the macro B we take has it as a high component, and my vitamin chart suggests things like bananas (can't keep them down!) avocados (!), red meat, peanuts, green veges - all of which I've not had much success with, including the macro B. Anyway, since we've been here on T.I. things have settled down a bit - feeling awful but at least not being sick.

TI hospital

While I'm on that topic... visited the doctor here at the hospital the other day. (No private practitioners here, only the out-patient sit-and-wait type!) James is teething, developed a cold etc, and we didn't want to head off up to Murray without antibiotics in our hot little hands, just in case. And I had a hemorrhoid that needed lancing, and thought it might be worth being "on record" here and finding out what services are available on M.I. Well the Doc was very good, gave me a thorough check (despite my protestations that I'd been thoroughly checked in Darwin!) All is well, except that he reckons my dates are out by 2-3 weeks - I say I'm 11 weeks, he says 13-14. The options are: I'm wrong (I don't think so!) or it's twins, or there is another problem which he didn't want to discuss. A doctor visits M/.I. once a month (weather permitting, and all the other things that go wrong here) so that's encouraging.

Planes

A plane goes to Murray only once a week ( - all things going well), and we were booked to fly on Monday (13th) pending permission from the Chairman of the Island. We had accommodation with a lovely family (contacts of Rod's), but things were obviously a bit tight and it would not have been polite to stay more than 2-3 days. Then the Chairman refused us permission to go until a week later, so Rod and Peter had to rush around looking for somewhere else for us to live. On T.I. one doesn't consider cost, just anywhere will do if anywhere can be found. 

Well eventually it was obvious that this house was the only option. It's owned by the Anglican church, and it's big, unfurnished, and other people live here too. Its recently been painted - cream walls and yellowy floorboards - so it has a nice fresh feel about it. Its a real old-fashioned place (like most T.I. houses) with big verandahs filled in to make rooms. No one actually lives in the centre room. The verandah down one side is blocked off from the rest of the house to make a flat for a swarthy skinned lady ("Flo") and her brood of noisy children. Another couple, Eric and Dobra, live in the verandah down the other side - they have a mattress on the floor, a card table and two chairs, and they are hardly ever here.

And we have the verandah at the front of the house - with three mattresses on the floor, and suitcases strewn around! At the back verandah is a kitchen and bathroom. All the inside doors of the house are missing, just curtains instead, but it doesn't seem to matter. (James loves flinging the curtain aside with a "BO!" - his version of "boo!") Anyway, its quite livable, and plenty of room for James to thunder around.

Life on TI

T.I. is a strange place When I was buying something in a shop the other day I hesitated, wondering if they would accept Australian currency ... then I remembered that we are still in Australia! There are no air-conditioned supermarkets here (even Madang, in PNG, had one!), just funny little shops that sell an odd range of whatever they fancy. There are some Chinese shops, like you see in Port Moresby - so really this could be anywhere in the Pacific, except Australia. 

The prices - well, I'll never complain about prices down south again! We just can't afford to think about it. If what we want happens to be available we grab it and stock up because we may not see it again. Nothing grows here (unlike Murray Island, apparently) so fresh fruit and veges are rare and expensive - likewise meat and bread. 

The people we stayed with - he used to be a lighthouse keeper on Booby Island, now he's skipper of the "Lumen" ship that looks after the buoys and lights around the Strait - he gave us some fish from his freezer, and today we feasted on cray-tail and mangoes (they grow everywhere) so we are not exactly starving.

Baggage allowances

When we drove up to Cairns, we tried to bring most of our things we'd left before in Townsville up that far. But then on the plane we were limited to a case each - we brought 3 and paid excess baggage. It was a Fokker F27 - propeller job, very slow flight. We sat right by the wheel, which was very interesting for James, but he found the landings rather rough and upsetting. We landed at Weipa, and there was a so much turbulence that the hostess was rushing back and forth issuing bags and mop-up cloths. I was relieved that we managed without. 

Then we landed on Horn Island - there is no room on T.I. for an air-strip, but Horn is big, flat, swampy, and mostly uninhabited. So then it was a bumpy bus trip to the coast, followed by a boat trip (by a circuitous route to avoid reefs) across to T.I.

An interesting day for James. We had been trying to tell him the day before in Cairns about the plane, and he was awoken that morning by a big plane going overhead - he kept saying over and over, "bi- pay-! bi pay!" His speech isn't too clear yet. He does "talk" a lot these days - he wiggles his tongue all over, sounds a bit like a magpie or kookaburra, but the intonation is sensible, and his "sentence" usually ends in a relevant word like "bow" ("boat" - he is fascinated by them.)

Our luggage allowance on Monday's flight to Murray (that's Mon 20th) is 13kg each, none for James ... not much when you are aiming to set up house! Excess is 55c/kg - IF there is room. Ships are irregular and very unreliable around here, but looks like we've got to start getting used to that. If we can get the rest of our things on a boat we don't want them to get there before we do or people are likely to say "who are they?" and put them back on the boat. Also we want to get the rest of our things up from Cairns, which could be quite complicated.

We are both presently reading our way through "The Drums of Mer" by Ion Idriess. We've had trouble getting a copy all this time because it is generally out of print. It was published in 1933, and the Murray Islanders have come to accept it as true. It's just a novel (fanciful, and rather gory in places) but it is supposed to be "based on fact" and it certainly gives a background to what Murray and its people are like.

This letter is heading towards being a bit of a fatty. We haven't had any mail for ages because we haven't told our Darwin office where to send our mail. One nice thing about people on T.I. - you can say "we're going to Murray Is" and they know where you mean, you don't even have to explain where the Torres Strait is.

Monday

Mail leaves here every day except Tuesday, so I'd better get this in the mail now - now that we've managed to buy some envelopes.

Don't know what milk powder's like "down south" but here its $6 a kilo, toilet rolls are 90c each! Flour is $1.80 a kilo ... it just doesn't bear thinking about.

Must close. Looking forward to hearing from the outside world eventually.