Walford Creek isn't just down the road; well, not down the road from where I live. Last year I blogged Travel Is An Extreme Sport which annotated this journey diagonally across Australia, then 1/4 of the way back again, then straight up the guts of Queensland into the Gulf country. Though the destination was the same, this journey was very different indeed. When last I went to Walford Creek it was a pleasant 29 degrees and only 12% humidity at 3 in the afternoon. The exploration fly-camp was fully operational and we ate top shelf grub, drank icy cold beer and slept in air conditioned comfort.
This time we had no electricity, so meals came out of a tin and we slept outside under a blanket of mosquitoes and a layer of hot wet air that was thick enough to scrawl your initials into. The mercury hovered around 39 degrees during the day and the humidity was a saturating 52%. In the tropics this is called the Build-Up or the Silly Season. Forget tinsel and carols; this is the time when, in many very northern towns, people go a little nutty and get all aggressive and stupid. Bad things happen to good people during the Build-Up. The body struggles with the heat and humidity. Nobody can maintain their resolve and, therefore, nobody can put up with any crap from anyone else at any time of the scorching days or oppressive nights. In nearly every single one of these remote towns people seek relief from the heat by boozing on and the result is akin to pouring Avgas on an open fire.
It is not the temperature that kills your brain, but the humidity; you break a sweat just thinking. Everyday the thunder clouds offer hope of relief that only turns to disappointment when the rain just does not come.
Does this sound like a place you want to be? Probably not.
But a situation is not what it is, it is what you make of it. I am a field biologist and I am fortunate enough to say that, over the last seven years with Animal Plant Mineral, the tropical savannas of far northern Australia have become my home away from home.
So, here I am and I have just spent six days out in the scrub with my favorite client who has become, over the last 3 years, a very good friend. I tend not to name names in my blogs, so I shall just refer to him as Mr Ed. Mr Ed is younger than my dad but he is wise like a tribal elder. He is a (virtually) self-educated metalurgist and chemical scientist. Over the week he regaled me with story after story of his life spent discovering and developing mines all over the world; here in Australia, Iran and PNG. A truly remarkable man for whom I am very fortunate to call a friend. We worked together, sweated our innards out together, ate tinned surprises for breakfast lunch and dinner together but slept a good distance apart. Even under a blanket of saturated air I could hear him snoring from 50 yards away.
In addition to collecting biological information, our primary purpose was to erect a weather station to record site-specific data. Not like the one you see below which stands in a park in Mareeba, Queensland. Ours was to be far more accurate.
Mr Ed achieved the build without the aid of any instructions. Imagine assembling the biggest of Ikeas flat packs in 40 degree heat, 50%+ humidity and no instructions; but we did it. I took this self(less)ie of me playing with the tower and Mr Ed downloading data whilst sheltered under the humpy I built for his comfort.
For six days we never struggled for conversation. Only on the 8 hour no-time-to-stop drive home did silence drive us to distraction. Our solution was to put on an audio CD that we found in the glove box of our hire ute. Les Norton #16 Mystery Bay Blues. We managed to get to CD four of eight, so I guess I will never know what Les and Grace got up to during CD five, six, seven and eight. But I could have done without the sex scene (sound) of CD 4. The narrator of Robert G Barrett epic Aussie Super Hero saga was a virtuoso with all of the eloquence and expression you would expect from someone who's voice you have to endure for 8 hours (I am certain the same guy was doing all the male AND female character voices). But the narration and literacy of the sex scene was such an epic failure it had Mr Ed and I in stitches and red-faced embarrassment at the same time. Sweaty melons - really? Grumble in the Mumble - please, my ears, my ears. The sex scenes were narrated with the intensity you would expect of Les Hiddins discussing theories on global economics. Sitting next to my client in a single cab cruiser on a road to nowhere made the experience about as awkward as enduring a parents first chat about pubic hair and changes a boys body goes through when he becomes a man. I think both Mr Ed and I were more keen to jump out of a moving car than tolerate another second of it while we both fumbled for the 'skip track' button on the car audio system.
Whatever the case, it was yet another one of those trips that I will never forget. So hot, so horrible, so hard, yet so much fun. From the comfort of my air conditioned room less than 12 hours in out of the bush I already want to go back and do it all again.
Yes it can be hot as Hades up there and sometimes the work can be as dull as waiting in queue at your local Department of Transport, but when the heavens open up on a desperate country starved of rain then there is simply no place I would rather be.
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