September 2024

Good morning Pretty Pool!  Beautiful orange sunrises most days, as long as you're up early enough to see them - that's getting earlier and earlier as summer beckons.  Blink and you'll miss the moment.  Peter's been back home for a few weeks now, and the prospect of another stinking hot and humid summer here on my own isn't too appealing.  A call from an old colleague about a new Wairau job provided the impetus to plot my return.  Decreasing numbers of midwives at Wairau Maternity has led to a re-think of the service provision model.  A Community Midwife role is one of the solutions, and for me, that was my midwifery dream in the UK many moons ago.  The position will include continuity of care with no shifts or on call, all very attractive.  I'll be sad to say goodbye to my lovely colleagues and boss Katrina here, and will miss the fabulous Indian Ocean views, and easy beach access and walks.  But home is home, and that's definitely where my heart is.  I'll head back to NZ at the end of October and start work mid-November.  Just in the nick of time to plant a vege crop too! 

   

 

Staircase to the Moon is back again for the season.  Though we've gone to viewing platforms to witness this before, it turns out that we get a pretty good view from our balcony.  It's tricky to get a decent pic because of limited light, and a little breeze can stuff up the focus with a lengthy shutter time.  Clouds can totally or partially obscure the whole moon disc too.  In any case, it's an impressive spectacle.  There should be one more staircase before I leave the Pilbara, so here's hoping I can get a better shot.   

 

The last full moon was a super moon, and that brought with it very high and low tides.  The photos were taken at a high 7m tide, showing the view out to the Indian Ocean from the viewing platform just outside our apartment and along Crocodile Alley looking both ways.  The 'lake' at the far left of the first pic is a car park, and Crocodile Alley is usually a track not a creek.  It was amazing to watch the tide coming in at speed, easy to see how stranding can happen in an instant.  The lowest tide was just 9cms and revealed those stunning corals at Cemetery Beach.

I'm trying to capture what makes my heart sing here, and each beach walk provides plenty of opportunities to be awed by coastal nature.  I love the pock-holed light brown rocks and darker oyster clad rocks that line the reef in some places, and the soul-nourishing curvy ridges of sand that are left by the tide.  Watching ever-changing little rivulets of sea water returning to the ocean is always a very soothing timewaster.  

                                

Today has been very windy and rainy - both quite a pleasant change from the relentless burning sun and blue sky.  The weather has dropped the predicted temperature too, currently 'feeling like' about 23 degrees according to the Bureau of Meteorology.  The sand didn't blister my feet during this morning's walk, and I'm almost cracking the woolly socks out!  The flies came out in force to enjoy the damper air too.  Luckily these are just the annoying variety, and not the bitey ones.  The rain lasted about an hour, and another hour later there was no sign that it had fallen.  I can count the number of times it's rained here in the last year on one hand.  Meanwhile, Marlborough has had a very wet winter that is spilling over into spring.  Better brace myself I guess; it won't be long before I'm complaining about the cold and wet. 

Work took me to Karratha for a couple of weeks, and a lovely opportunity to witness some of the wildflower displays en route, particularly around Whim's Creek.  The bright red Sturt Desert Peas were especially spectacular, and the feathery pink Mulla Mulla were abundant.  I stayed in a Pelago apartment, and this one had a sea view.  A day trip to Point Samson was very lovely too.

The Karratha trip also took me to Onslow - a town with a WACHS hospital that I'd tried to visit twice before but was thwarted by bush fires and a cyclone.  This time the plan all fell into place, and my lovely pal Sonja (Regional Nurse Educator) and I travelled together from Karratha.  Just spitting distance (400kms) from Exmouth, it's a beautifully located little mining town with a well-equipped hospital.  We stayed in the Onslow Beach Resort and ate at the Beadon Bay Hotel.  Great for me that work provides the opportunity to enjoy these classic out-of-the-way places.     

I'm keeping everything crossed that I'll get the chance to swim in the fantastic Gratwick Aquatic Centre in Port Hedland before I leave.  It closes over winter and was supposed to re-open yesterday for the summer season but failed to reach water quality requirements.  My togs are packed, and I'm good-to-go as soon as this is sorted.  I'll be heading Inland in a couple of weeks, so sincerely hoping it'll open before I leave.  There's a great pool in Newman that I'll get to, but no pool has ever out-ranked Gratwick for me.  

                                                       

We decided to get each other an Ancestry.com analysis for our birthdays this year.  For some reason, mine came back weeks earlier than Peter's.  Turns out I'm very much Northern European as you'd predict.  My British roots are part Somerset/Devon and part Cornwall.  We'd recently learned from Auntie Sally that my grandma's roots were Cornish, and her family were Cornish Tin Miners who moved to South Wales when the tin industry collapsed.   So, the testing seems accurate as far as we know.  Peter didn't have any exotic origins either.  Unlikely any southern hemisphere rogue sailors in our gene mix, but interesting anyway. 

These aerial view drone photographs show the reef at Cemetery Beach, the salt works nearby and the port - the largest bulk port in the world.  Not my pics, but a good memory of the raw beauty of the Pilbara's natural environment and its ancient indigenous culture alongside the large-scale industry that currently forms the fabric of Hedland.  I'll be taking fond memories back with me from a place that's been well out of my comfort zone on many levels.  It has undeniably been the adventure I was looking for and I'm deeply grateful that this life opportunity presented itself.  

I'm slowly getting on with packing up our Pilbara life and am adjusting to being on my own.  It's a bit unsettling to be in a country far away from any of my loved ones, but it's not all bad.  Solitude makes for an easy life - just me to please.  And there are so few daily living tasks that I don't have to be hard on myself for not getting on with them.  I'll enjoy this little relaxing life chapter as much as I can, whilst looking forward to the heavenly day that I return to my tribe and my place.