I've been to some remote places in my time. The Mongolian plains, the Russian steppe, even the top of Cradle Mountain (although it was rather busy there...). But never before have I been to a place that is only accessible by air for 4 months of the year. Welcome to Kowanyama, a settlement of around 1400 indiginous Australians on the coast of the Gulf of Carpenteria in Northern Queensland. There are plenty of dogs here but no cats. While you may think one leads to the other I would beg to differ. You see there are many many birds of prey around here (I haven't been able bothered to identify them) I suspect that cats wouldn't last too long. There's also an awful lot of vehicles here, more than you might imagine, although I use the word vehicle in it's broadest sense as many of them don't appear to have run for some years, and others defy classification further than 'it used to have wheels'. Yes, this is what I expect Alaska is like (but without the preserving layer of dust covering everything) out in the boonies.
There's a thriving CBD (Central Business District) here, with no less than three shops (opening and closing on a cross between pre-war sunday trading hours and the Spanish siesta time), two take-aways (one greasy, one open three times a week), a guest house (don't ask) and of course the Police station and Justice Centre. There's even a canteen that's open for three short evenings a week (provided they've got a band, otherwise they can't serve the light beer which is all they're licenced for).
Now, as I said, Kowanyama is only accessible by air for 4 months of the year, but thankfully we're in the dry season at the moment, which means the weekly delivery road-train can make it in with supplies for the shops. Unfortunately the delivery comes on tuesdays, so having arrived on wednesday all the best bits had gone and we're left 'creating' dishes (Yam Rogan Josh anyone?). I had heard there was a library with internet access here as well, which is partly right. There IS a library, but it's part of the junior school, and there's no public internet access (if you're wondering how I'm doing this, I'll tell you later). I've also heard tell of a Post Office and a Bank somewhere in town, but I'm not sure there's much more to see without walking 50k's to the next settlement. I'l keep you posted.
All this may make the place sound like a miserable place to spend 4 weeks with no gainful employment, but I'm not so sure. I've been kept busy so far with cleaning, and if I'm lucky I can make it last until at least tuesday of next week, then it's only three weeks to civilisation. On the subject of Civilisation, I also have my computer which is a boon. Not only can I play games on it when my hands get pruned, I can charge the iPod and play my music through it, drowning out the local radio (read: The guy down the road who may or may not be deaf). I think I may be driven to my audiobooks soon too, as so far I've tried to engage five people in conversation, but only succeeded with four (the woman in the shop didn't look the chatty type).
I am planning on spending part of my day walking as well, not in order to get around, but more for the goodness of it. Otherwise on days when I don't feel the need to pay through the nose for essential ingredients (how does $7.00 for a jar of honey sound?) I may not even leave the house.
Ah, the house. It's pretty comfortable and very spacious, it even has a spare twin room, and I think it's all part of the job for Lydia. As a result I've become a bit of a domestic god(ess). Lydia is allowed to prepare her own breakfast (of cereal), she has lat night's leftovers for lunch and whatever I can throw together in the evening, as long as it involves rice.
What else do I do? Well, I've still got the three papers I brought with us and I'm slowly working my way through the crosswords in all of them. And if I get REALLY bored I can always work on my dissertation.
Now, Lydia's mother is talking about coming up to visit but I'm wondering, with the flights only on monday, tuesday and wednesday how do I entertain her while Lydia's at work?
