ARIA Award

The ARIA Award goes to...

Well, perhaps I should explain what ARIA is. No, it's not the Australian Recording Industry Association. It's the Accessibility/Remoteness Index of Australia. This was developed by the Commonwealth Dept of Health and the National Key Centre of Social Applications of Geographic Information System in 1997 (there is such a centre!... I wonder what else they do other than ARIA awards...).

The ARIA measures how far you are, from any one point, to the nearest urban centre. There are 5 major categories: major city, inner regional, outer regional, remote and very remote. There is also a category called 'migratory' but unless this relates to birds or the nearest urban centre is liable to move, I'm not really sure what that one means.

The class of remoteness is assessed according to the 'restriction upon accessibility to the widest range of goods, services and opportunities for social interaction'.

But what does this really mean in practice:

Goods

• I stock up on my favourite toothpaste and soaps whenever I'm in town
• Passing visitors bring me out emergency supplies when I miscalculate stocks
• I have all the non-fiction books I'll need for the next year piled up around me
• If my laptop dies, I'm stuffed
• I've learned to live without a highlighter. It' s just not high priority enough to remember on town trips.

Services

• My front and back screen doors don't close properly. They will continue not to close properly until we either get a training course for the young fellas on CDEP or I get new doors
• The dogs get into my bin on a regular basis (bins are emptied sporadically, all depends what the fellas are doing that day)
• My tax is overdue. I keep forgetting to do something about it, but it all seems too complicated to work out. Calling up, explaining, sending the papers, etc
• Getting something laminated requires more organisation than it's worth.
• My hair is getting long, and I'm resorting to leave-in hair conditioner.
• One day, I'm going to have to work out how to get that pinboard mounted onto my office wall. Myself.

Opportunities for social interaction

• Thankfully, I like my own company.

So, the ARIA goes to ... Kanpa!

Bush Kitchen

Consistent with my prediliction for all matters food, I thought I'd turn my hands to the bush kitchen. Food and cooking in the outback.

It is an unmistakable fact that since I've moved to Kanpa, I've made more creative meals than I have in decades.

Case in point: Tonight's Fetta and Baked Pumpkin Pizza (with Homemade Pizza Dough).

As Pip can attest, I don't really cook. And certainly not with any sense of creativity. Pizza is a good example. It generally doesn't come with a recipe (instead requiring the cook to exercise some quality of invention to personalise his or her pizza), and I certainly don't bother to create or knead dough under normal circumstances.

Perhaps it's the fact that I just can't go out for dinner. So if I want to avoid eating steamed vegies with a can of salmon (my old standby dinner) or make a one-pot stew strictly according to the recipe (and from a selection of favourites that I can count on one hand), I need to get more creative. I've got a bit more time on my hands too, with not seeing 2 movies a week, going out, or popping up to the local theatre.

So, when the moment comes in between reading, listening to podcasts or music, or doing another laborious load of washing on my twin tub washing machine, I am sometimes inspired to approach the kitchen like an enthusiastic novitiate. I've even taken to turning out meat and 3 veg dinners (which had always seemed too daunting - how on earth do you coordinate 4 items with disparate cooking requirements to come out at the same time?!).

Recent delights include Vegie Pack Soup (believe it or not but I've never used those soup packs, who on earth would have thought you could just chuck them all in at once), Lentil Soup Creation, and Spinach & Ricotta Filo Parcels. And even though I told Pip not to send anything I wouldn't know immediately what to do with, perhaps I will find a way after to use that tub of preserved lemons...

But a tub of preserved lemons is hardly the thing needed for the Yarnangu bush kitchen. Last week, my friend Tahana and I were lucky enough to be invited to a bush tucker feast unlike any I've seen (and this just a mere 200m from my door).

A knock on the door and the invitation to see 3 emus and 2 bush turkeys make their final hours in the world was extended. Bernard Newberry had been out hunting and, courtesy of the excellent rain in recent months, there was an abundance of things to shoot. Emus from Laverton had migrated up to the Lands and were hanging around waiting to have their necks broken, legs cut off below the knee, plucked, singed and then slung bum pointing up in a communal sacrificial pit.

A long pit, fit for the 3 emu bodies, was prepared. After it burnt down to coals, these were shovelled out and the birds thrown in. Bernard told me that in the 'olden days', they used to stuff the birds with eucalyptus leaves (in order to 'fatten' the birds and extend the meat further amongst all the waiting family members). The birds were also cooked in a type of oven created by hollowing out a cave in the side of pit, which cooked the birds slower. But today, they were being cooked like a marlu (kangaroo), by being placed at the bottom of the pit with coals and dirt heaped around them. The dirt helps to stop the outside of the bird from being charred. As Bernard said, 'it's not a burnt sacrifice'.

While hunting with a gun is clearly a better way to down a bird, I wondered how emus used to be hunted. Bernard told me that they hunted them by luring the emu into a smaller space, then closing off the exit. Alternatively, witchetty grubs were hung in a circle from a tree, and when the emu approached, the hunter (who was perched in the tree) would spear the bird from above. The 'food in the tree' method was also what my colleague Robin Smythe said was used to hunt bush turkey, although the hunter was nearby with a boomerang ready instead of being in the tree itself.

Bush turkeys are normally thrown onto the top of a small fire, and cooked this way. That night, however, the turkeys were on their way back to be cooked in the oven. While Bernard thinks it spoils the turkeys a little, as they have more flavour when cooked on a fire, both Maria (Bernard's partner) and I agreed that it was a less gritty way to each a turkey.

The little kids are Maria's grandchildren and the nephew of one of the other residents here.

Breakfast with James Blundell

One of the delightful things about being in a slightly bigger remote town in the middle of nowhere is that, just sometimes, things happen in Warburton that wouldn't happen elsewhere.


Like James Blundell doing a special Warburton gig.


The Tamworth Country Music Festival On Tour was visiting about 20 remote towns in country Western Australia over 8 weeks. Warburton was on the list. The line up: James Blundell and Felicity Someone (she just won a Golden Guitar).


While I'm not much of a country music fan, other than the Dixie Chicks, even I know James Blundell and Way Out West.


So, with more careful attention to detail than usual, I made sure to be in Warburton last Monday night for a private concert with James Blundell.


The main Yarnangu cohort I hang out with at any community events are the West family women. They urged me to find out if James would do requests. I hardly needed prompting. After all, when else would I get the chance to speak to James and with a valid pretext.


Once I'd tracked him down in the little battered caravan next to the stage, he amiably agreed to dedicate 'Way out West' to the West family. We settled down in a pile of blankets, surrounded by the cool April fog and a clear night sky, to listen to the show.


The show as on a temporary stage down by the oval. Family groups sat around in small circles, dotted around the oval. Utes, landcruisers, troopies, and battered cars surrounded the smaller circles, just outside the low white fence of the oval. A game of touch footy was being played by the kids up the back.


The local coppers wandered around, smiling. Probably hoping that Yarnangu weren't too pissed off about being booked for traffic offences by all the visiting coppers on a marijuana sting operation the week before. The visiting coppers swaggered about, forgetting that they're the minority and not that ninti for anything really.


And Felicity and James played on. In between songs, there was a smattering of applause, but mostly just a quiet audience, watching the show, enjoying the music. A few nurses got up to dance, but only young kids joined them. Intermittently, one in a bunch of adolescent girls would jump out of the security of their group, and gyrate their hips to the music, arms in the air (this particularly erotic form of dance is the only one I've seen out here, apparently copied from black American music video clips).


After Way out West, with the cold setting in, and only one more song to go, we packed up and started to retreat to the comfort of our respective beds. Just at the final set ended, Debra and Nyingurta decided to ask for their photos to be taken with James. Like true groupies, we clustered around the caravan door, and finally emerging, we converged upon him. Like a true star, he was friendly and willing to pose for any number of photos. But was he just being nice, in a practiced star-like manner? Regardless, much was made later when we poured over the shots of Nyingurta being 'held tight' by Mr Blundell. See the squeeze at the top of her right shoulder!:



But what of breakfast?


The next morning, while poking around the roadhouse camp kitchen, I suddenly realised that my other breakfasting companion was none other than James himself. As often happens in the kitchen with passing visitors, we struck up a conversation and had a nice little exchange about what we were both doing here and what it meant for each us respectively.


And yes, he really is a nice bloke! I'm won over. He looks good in jeans, and perhaps it's time that the Dixie Chicks had some competition.

Bring me a Zucchini

For those of you starting to read the blog in the right order (ie, from bottom to top), this is the promised 'Tall Tales from the Store' entry.

Shopping seems to be a preoccupation of mine out here. Re-reading my blog to date, it seems to reappear regularly, despite shopping being my next favourite thing to a poke in the eye.

But if the shop hours alone weren't reason enough to be keeping a pretty sharp eye on the basics of sustenance and survival, I also can't help but turn my attention to matters within the store.

I have been generally interested in the sorts of things that are and aren't for sale in the Warburton store. There is- rather surprisingly - gourmet cheddar sticks, chai latte sachets and pickled asparagus. There isn't - equally suprisingly - hot water bottles, skim milk powder, and diet cordial. And this in a community where health problems and low incomes would mean the latter probably should be available and the former easily de-stocked. I think the explanation has to be that the people who can best advocate for their needs are those with the least need to do so. Equally, store policies on good eating and stocking (such as not putting 1 year out of date stock on the shelves) are not a top priority for the money making enterprise that is the community store.

The other interesting thing is that there is no EFTPOS or credit facilities at the store (or even the roadhouse). Cash in general is often a problem for me, and not just because I'm too busy with my burgeoning art collection to focus on the health of my bank balance. If I need a large amount of cash for whatever reason, such as paying my vehicle registration, organising travel allowance for 10 members, or fraud, I'm completely stumped. I rely upon the goodwill of the store managers to give me a wad of cash from the store safe, and then invoice back Ng Council with a purchase order. None of which is a profit making enterprise for the store. This means it's not something they're particularly interested in doing if it's busy or the safe is low on reserves. All in all, it has made me acutely conscious of the ease with which business is disrupted when you're thousands of miles from a bank and/or an electronic point of sale machine.

The ATM at Warburton is also liable to go bung for a few days in a row, as happened recently. There was a general stampede up to the roadhouse, and their cash reserves were wiped out. Luckily, the ATMs were fixed and re-filled pretty quickly, so there were no riots, but it did put me to mind how much harder it must have been before ATMs were installed in Warburton. Frankly, how did staff access their accounts? I'll need to ask an old timer that question.

The other disadvantage, however, of having only two ways to access my cash (Warburton Store, Warburton Roadhouse), is that I am always charged non-Commonwealth Bank ATM fees. I raised this with my bank, and was informed that despite there being no other way I could access my account, they couldn't help me. While I did get a nice $37 fee refund, it's hardly a system I can continue to rely upon! I've flagged that I'll have to talk to the Banking Ombudsman about equity issues, but haven't had the chance to begin that path yet. The only benefit of doing so, apart from a fee refund which might be small fry for me, is that hopefully it will lead to an exemption for all remote customers.

But I digress. This post is called Bring me a Zucchini. All the above was a scene-setter for the little tale I want to tell about the store. It involves zucchinis, two inter-state visitors, and an empty fridge.

Shortly after I arrived in Warburton this year, I thought the time had finally come to get some basic provisions beyond milk, bread and cereal.

I trotted down to the little cool storage area at the back that holds the fruit and vegies and stopped. The shelves were bare, save one box of apples and one of oranges. I looked around for a store worker and asked, 'what's up with the vegies?'.

It turned out that the cold fridge truck only comes once a fortnight now, and it was the alternate week.

What day is the truck due? I asked, certain it had to be anytime soon. About 5 days from now.

I looked back at the sad little pile of oranges and apples, and wondered how I'd made a vegie stew with that. Taking into account my pathological aversion to canned vegetables, things were looking dire.

I jumped into the car and went up to the roadhouse (which also stores fruits and vegies for passing tourists). A limp stick of celery and a mouldy pack of corn stared back at me.

'This it?' I asked mournfully of the roadhouse worker, fully expecting the answer that came back. Yep.

Just the day before, I'd left a message with one of two inter-state visitors that were on their way now to Warburton. I'd asked for some fancy icecream making ingredient ('fecula', which incidentally they couldn't find either) and the weekend newspaper.

Being the wonderful, generous people they are, they also took the liberty of guessing what culinary deights I might be missing in Warburton and packing me a care package along with the newspaper.

When they arrived the next day, with care package in tow, I lit up.

Is it possible, I asked, that you thought to bring me a zucchini?

Needless to say, a zucchini is hardly the sort of item that a city-based visitor thinks won't be available in Warburton.

And, by luck, the blue vein cheese and pear gourmet cheddar sticks were also a novelty flavour.

Lonely Planet Guide to Nyapari

Orientation

The Anangu Pitjantjatjarra Yankunyatjara (APY) Lands are situated in the far north west corner of South Australia. In this remote area of Australia, the lucky tourist can experience a remote bush experience in a traditional setting unlike any other.

So rather than rushing in to join the rat race in Alice Springs or some other bustling metropolitan centre, kick back a little and take in the sights of the APY Lands in South Australia.

The APY Lands are strikingly beautiful, with immense mountain ranges, rich colours and bad roads (creating a heightened sense of danger while travelling). Not for the faint hearted, and only for those with 4WD, the APY Lands provides a remote holiday experience for the lucky few.

Nyapari

One of the westernmost communities of the APY Lands, Nyapari is a small but engaging community. With no more than 15 houses, one clinic, an artc centre, and only two staff houses, Nyapari is a quiet and comfortable place to stay. The local residents are traditional owners, or community members with long established family ties to the region. The nearby Piltati rockhole, a significant Dreaming site and source of water, provided the impetus for establishing the community when government policy facilitated the establishment of outstations in the early 80s.

Sights

The main attractions of Nyapari are the quiet and peaceful surrounds. Nestled at the base of a mountain range, with scenic views and quiet strolls through the nearby creek and waterholes, there is ample opportunity to feel the serenity.

Within the community, however, there is a surprising attraction. In 2006, a community art centre has been established by Amanda Dent (ably assisted by her partner Brian Hallett). Tjungu Palya, the art centre services two other communities, nearby Kanpi (20 k away) and Watarru (a 5 hour drive). While the art centre doesn't provide retail services (yet, there are plans to establish a tourist outlet), the art centre manager can be convinced to do a special deal for the few outside visitors that come to Nyapari. However, a warning for future tourists - any time spent helping you decide if the painting will match the colour of your couch is only going to take Amanda's time away from artists. So, be prepared to be self-sufficient, or offer your services to the art centre in return (such as straightening up their office or re-arranging the small artworks on display to better artistic effect).

In addition to making a unique purchase at the art centre (such as this 'Piltati' painting by Eileen Yartija Stevens, acquired by the author), other activities include a trip to the nearby Kanpi store, and strolling to nearby rockholes. While the scent of a rotting camel was evident on a recent visit to the main waterhole near Nyapari, this will soon disappear and the bones will no doubt be a further scenic addition to the area.

Guests at the sole Nyapari accommodation (see below) will also be able to spend the ample time on their hands by working through their hosts' fine library collection, including books on exchange from the other resident staff member and art magazines ordered by subscription.

Sleeping and Eating

Accommodation and dining options in Nyapari are limited. The only available accommodation is the home of Amanda and Brian. Bookings are tight, but can be arranged with considerable notice and much persuasion (such as offers to bring Easter chocolate treats, not stay longer than 4 nights, and to tell no-one of the experience).

Amanda and Brian are amiable and relaxed hosts. Each evening, in lieu of other dining options, they prepare sumptuous meals with flair and creativity reminiscent of their day jobs. Their home has been artfully renovated by Amanda, creating a stunning effect resembling an Ikea catalogue.

Getting There and Away

Nyapari is 5 hours from the nearby bustling metropolis of Warburton, and 3 hours from Uluru (Ayers Rock). Most visitors would come to Nyapari via Uluru, hiring a vehicle from the airport and taking the back road south over a bone-shattering 4WD road that is, as far as can be determined, never graded.

Permits are required. Permits are only issued to visitors with a valid reason for travelling to the APY Lands. This does not include visiting Amanda and Brian as tourists. It does extend to those holding permits on the nearby Ngaanyatjarra Lands, wishing to travel through the APY Lands to Alice Springs. It also extends to those holding permits to see their friends. All in all, getting there and away is probably the hardest thing about visiting Nyapari.

Getting Around

4WD only. While in Nyapari, however, one can easily take in the sights on foot. There is no public transport available in Nyapari. A public transport link from southern South Australia into the APY Lands has been proposed, but at this stage it is only anticipated to extend into the easternmost communities, thereby missing all communities west of Amata (including Nyapari).

(Author wishes to thank Amanda and Brian, who took a booking very generously over the Easter holiday period. This extract will be submitted for Lonely Planet 'Central Desert Aboriginal Australia' edition, when it is proposed for printing.)

And it looks like...

Front view of my house in Kanpa:




And here's the view from the front door:




See the bull's horns above the gate, referred to in an earlier post. The horns really 'swung the deal' for me when I was considering living at Kanpa. How could I say no?!

Looking out through the gate, you can see the edge of the workshop on the right, and the edge of the diesel generator on the left. There also seems to be some white goods over there. Not sure why.

The little garden was created by Frank, Preston Thomas' (the Chairman of Kanpa) brother. When chatting to Beverly, I found out that Frank had a hammock set up in the right-hand side corner of the front of the house (in between two shade sails, one of which you can see in the top photo). On closer inspection, I found two rings welded onto the posts, to tie the hammock ends. Next purchase: 1 x hammock.

Does it get any better than this?

Ngura walkamunu (nice home).

What's it Like?

This much asked question is hard to answer. One of the reasons for the long delay in getting my Warburton blog up and running again - so I could defray this question artfully with 'oh, it's good, why don't you check out my blog for more details' - was that I accidentally lost my book of work scribbles. That wouldn't seem to be a valid reason, were it not for the last page of that book. Scribbled there were all the memory prompts I collected in the first frantic three months of arrival. Waiting for a free moment to relate them online. After moving office and packing for different trips too many times, the book with its precious page has gone missing. With it went my desire to 'rethink' all those interesting blog ideas. Instead you'll have to make do with some fresher, and less inspired, thoughts.

What's it like?

Well, it's different. But not that different. More expensive, but a lot cheaper. Easier, but much harder. (See, not so fresh...)

To make sense of that, here are some examples.

Different:-

• I'm not used to seeing baby camels as pets. He's cute, but a bit noisy. Thankfully, when I was in Warburton, he didn't live on my side of town, so I didn't hear him too much.
• What I could hear without too much trouble from my old house was the sound of the generator. Warburton uses thousands of litres of diesel a week to keep the place ticking over. Being inside the generator shed is a powerful experience. When the power goes off (which has been happening a bit lately, rumour has it that the education department installed split system airconditioners without thinking), the town is quiet. Too quiet. Eerily quiet. I bought candles the other day. Not cute, smelly ones. Simple white ones to put in a handy place I can scramble to in the dark.
• The dark. At Kanpa, there are no streetlights, I can lie in bed and not see a single thing. I can wave my hands in front of my face, less than a centimetre away, and see absolutely nothing. I'm thinking of buying a nightlight. Mamu (spirits) might get me.
• Mamu may have frightened Yarnangu into staying close to camp in the olden days, but with some streetlights and the familiarity of settlement life, Warburton at Night is a different community. While the white staff are ensconced in front of the TV, watching DVDs they've seen before, or chatting on the phone, young people emerge and start to make the place theirs. Apart from the odd rock on my roof, without venturing outside I would forget that there is a whole place out there that I barely know exists, let alone understand.
• Yes, it is pretty hot. Last year, melting butter to make a cake was easy. Just take it out of the fridge and put it into a bowl from the cupboard. Similarly, hot apples were a new experience. Preparing for a humid trekking experience in January by not putting on the airconditioner was a real endurance test.
• Walking to the store, and back home again, in under 5 minutes, is a somewhat easier endurance test. For someone with a pathological dislike of shopping, the easy accessibility of the store does make it just that little bit easier. It even defrays some of the annoyances, like shopping hours that are so limited there is no option but to shop during work hours. Plan ahead or suffer the consequences. Luckily, Warburton has one of the best shops for the range of choices in the vast region between Kalgoorlie and Uluru, so planning (even for my monastic eating habits) is not so onerous.
• Notwithstanding this, the shop does have some logistical challenges. The 'cold truck' arrives fortnightly. It's boom and bust with the yoghurt, fresh milk and - when some poor planning takes effect - vegetables. See a later blog entry for more on the store.

Not different:-

• People. Yep, we're pretty much the same everywhere. I'm not denying culture, but I am denying the immutable presumptions built into the "these people..." statements. Statements that are all too frequently made out here, as if whitefellas don't have cultural mores guiding our actions and beliefs.
• Being in touch. For someone who is chronically feeling 'out of touch' with friends and family, the value of being able to be 'in touch' is now much more appreciated. One weekend, soon after returning from Xmas holidays, I spent a weekend without any phone or email options at all. It is the only time I've really felt isolated in the Lands.
• Stable home and office. The reason stable is such a nice word to use here is that the idea of parking myself each day and evening in the same place, having access to the same regular bale of hay, the same brush down at the end of the long ride, seems to accurately reflect how important it is to have a home and office that isn't constantly changing. My office is a mish-mash of different options, depending on how hot it is, or what sort of work I'm doing (ie computer work, or talking to people). No airconditioner really makes the benefit of having a 'free' phone and a satellite broadband connection seem almost useless. But equally having an office without a regular phone and internet connection is useless. I live in hope.
• Exercise. It's hard to find time to do, wherever I am. While I'm no longer spoiled for choice - walking/jogging on the airstrip being my only really practical form of exercise - it doesn't account for motivation. While the benefits of the regular quiet walk far outweigh the disadvantages, my desire to curl up in bed and hibernate for the winter (regardless of the season) is unchanging.

More expensive:-

• $32 at the shop will buy you one 10L water, one loaf of bread ($3.60), 4 tomatoes ($2), a block of cheese ($8) and a small pack of mixed fruit ($7).

Less expensive:-

• With a weekly rental contribution of $10, and no entertainment options other than free ones on the radio, TV and borrowed DVDs, I should be saving money. Note, I should be. Whether I am or not, depends upon my continuing desire to have a nice little art collection. When I return, no doubt my financial adviser will look at me over my bank statement and heave a little sigh of opportunities lost.

Until next time... Exciting Tall Tales of the Store. Depressing Partnerships with Government. And, hopefully, the Lost Blog Ideas of 2006 Recovered.

Kanpa (sounds like, home)

The first and most important reason for living in Kanpa is that I have a house. I even have a little garden. And an entrance gate with some bull's horns. Like an old ranchero entrance. Enchanting. Considering that 'enchanting' is not a word I would use for many (any) of the houses I've seen on the Ngaanyatjarra Lands, it's nice to be able to stretch its use for mine.

Similarly, all three rooms and living spaces in the house are occupied solely by me. This is again another advantage. After having spent 4 months in a share house in Warburton, the presence of people and the absence of space was a bit too much to bear. I know 'space' shouldn't be a problem out here in the desert, but considering that we're now very much in the habit of living under a roof, what goes on under that one roof (when you get one) becomes considerably more important. For those with Google Earth technology, imagine your focus of attention honing inexorably towards that one tiny pinpoint on earth. Unable to stop no matter what keys you frantically press. Now you are experiencing what happens to many people out here - as they move further and further away from more people, the greater the magnifying glass focus on just the few people around. Perspective is easily lost. For me, the best way to safeguard against this loss is to have more space to muse on the many (ie, few) people. In all their crazy and delightful ways. And one small bedroom just wasn't enough. (Some people are very puzzling. And I don't mean Yarnangu.)

Running a close third to the above two features is that Kanpa has the best selection of radio (and TV) that I've ever actually experienced, in any State or Territory. Now, admittedly, my TV viewing has been limited. But I do generally know how many channels there are. Kanpa has all those and more. I've got about 7 TV stations, representing the offerings of a few nearby States, with different timezones. I also have a fantastic array of radio stations. And most important of all, RadNat (as the Chaser boys would have it called). Radio National. It may not be popular, but it is my thing. In fact, so much so, that I need only send a sharp look towards Damian (the Community Advisor of Warburton) and he knows that I know that Radio National has been 'turned off' in favour of local radio and I'm not happy. I'm not really sure how the radio stations work in Warburton, but apparently they can be turned on and off according to ... some system. I'm a hard and fast RadNat listener. I think I'm the only one in Warburton. Luckily, Damian does listen to it with as much equanimity as local radio, so I have a way of encouraging the switch to be turned back on. When I'm in Kanpa, however, I need not worry. It's in my hands. And it's called satellite.

Which brings me to my broadband. Another reason Kanpa is a good place to be. Courtesy of a generous subsidy from the 'guvment', Telstra has installed a satellite broadband service. Thank you, Universal Service Obligation. Thank you, National Party members. For a mere $500, I can get three boxes of equipment delivered, a man anxious to drive on boggy roads to meet his service expectations, and a cute dish on my tin roof in a few short weeks. Of course, this was after spending about an hour on the phone explaining that Kanpa wasn't in or near Alice Springs (like it's postal address), being 1200k west. Approximately. And no, there were no streets, nor house identifiers. But I could assure him that someone would be there, and they would know which was Sophie's house. If he really had to put something in the computer, he could write 'House 3' (after all, it's the third house on the left when you drive in). It may not be as good as the new fancy cable that is being laid over at Warburton, but it's a damn sight faster than dial-up and allows me to log in and talk on the phone at the same time (oh joy of joys, how some things are so easily taken for granted).

Of course, it's not all a bed of roses. It is an hour and a half to Warburton, and my Yarnangu team. I do need to stay in Warburton during the weekdays so I'm able to more easily work with colleagues and those ubiquitous stakeholders. It is going to be harder to learn language than if I were in Warburton (Kanpa is mostly English-speaking residents). I won't have the same 'drop by' social visits on the weekend from my team that I enjoy so much, including the easy invitations to go hunting for goanna, honey ants or sweet sap.

But it will be more than a room of my own, and for that I give thanks.

Kanpa phone: 08 9037 1171