Ayrified …

Day 7: Friday 30 March (8pm, Ayr)

Over the years in my HR roles, I’ve often been required to summarise events, and usually the most logical way of doing this is in chronological order. Sometimes it can make a very exciting day seem ordinary, so I apologise in advance for that happening here - it really was a great day!

The day started, as has become usual, with a walk around the streets of Ayr just after 6am. John had grabbed for me a map of Ayr at the Anzac Memorial Club on Tuesday night and I’ve been highlighting the streets I’ve walked so far on it. It’s surprising how much you can cover in an hour every morning, especially when we're staying so central to everything! This morning I headed south to see what awaited me in the streets around one of the high schools.

Kingfisher wadda mooli - he's smack in the middle of this shot

Yesterday morning Shelley and I were stopped in our tracks by a lone, tiny kingfisher, sitting in the middle of the footpath. He must have flown into a shop window as he looked a little dazed and after a few minutes, flew off. It was the only day I didn’t take my camera with me on our walk, so of course this morning I grabbed it before anything else as I left. No kingfisher greeting me up close like yesterday, but there were about eight of them sitting up in the wires watching me this morning. Their colours are amazing so I took a photo of one as close as I could get to it. He’s in the middle of this shot.



We arrived at the Gudjuda office just before 9am and there is a lot of work going into the organisation of the next couple of weeks where separate men’s and women’s trips to a sacred place are being planned. Eddie gave us an excuse to hitch a ride into Townsville to collect the equipment needed for the trip. He suggested we take a trip to Magnetic Island and explore the Strand to really top off the week of getting to know the people and the area.  Who are we to refuse such an offer?!



View from The Strand out to Maggie

We set off for Townsville with Michaela at the wheel. The trip took ages as there are a lot of road works being undertaken and the Bruce Highway is one lane each way, so it was stop-start all the way. It was practically lunchtime when we arrived, so we stopped off to eat, just long enough to discover that we were about to miss the ferry to Maggie (as the island is fondly known). We endeavoured to make it anyway, but found ourselves at the car ferry instead of the people ferry, so gave it up and headed over to The Strand instead. Wow! Now I know why people talk about Townsville as a beautiful holiday destination!  This place is gorgeous!!  Of course the ice cream shop was closed for repairs but it was good to see that the workers were taking a well earned coffee break when we arrived …  



I'm sure that's our ferry ...



     … and when we departed … 

  
    … good to know that the view is being enjoyed!

More of Townsville's Strand

We picked up all the camping gear we’d been tasked with purchasing and headed back home to deliver the goods. Back at Gudjuda we met another one of Eddie’s relatives, Alfred, and made plans to drop Shelley down to Bowen tomorrow morning. One of Alfred’s many roles is to work with indigenous kids in custody and he sits next to the magistrate in court when their hearings come up. I'm hoping he’ll be willing to share some perspectives with us on the trip down tomorrow – more cultural education for us, so my pen and paper are ready, just in case!

Perhaps it was the afternoon sun and the sleepy trip home, but we were stopped at
road works at one point and it was noted that this burnt branch looks like an elephant :) 

We finished off the day with dinner at the Commercial Hotel in town where a fancy dress party was just kicking off. We weren't invited and couldn't make out the theme anyway, so headed back to our rooms for an early night – all this work has tuckered us out! J