I’m sitting at Yuelamu clinic. There is a crow cawing from a tree in the clinics yard. Jillian, the nurse, and I have just reviewed an Aboriginal footballer with a toe infection, he had a laceration kicking a football at training last week; not many players wear shoes. In a match when a player takes a mark near the goal, the game stops and the player puts on a borrowed pair of boots for the kick, then takes them off and returns them afterwards. However there is no denying the locals love their footy. TD is wearing his Yuelemu sleeveless yellow jumper.

Last week I drove to Kings Canyon which is also called Watarka. The national park in which it is situated is called Watarka National Park. I went south from Alice Springs, driving on the twisty Stuart Highway. About thirty kilometres south of Stuart wells is a turn off that goes west on the Ernest Giles track. About five kilometres along the track is another turn off to the Henbury Meteor site. The camping there looks pretty good. There are ranges and gorges nearby which make it a good possibility for a long weekends camping but this was not my destination. The main track is a 100 kilometres and is generally a good surface. The last time we drove on the Ernest Giles, a grader was working the gravel. There are stretches of sand, up to a kilometre in distance and these were fun, with a bit of playful sliding at times. I keep the pressures at 30psi, back and front, and the differential lock on to keep all the wheels participating on the road.

There are some fine views from the Ernest Giles track. Desert oaks, acacias, dry river beds, hills and always that crisp blue sky silhouetting the ridge lines spotted with a few trees. The rich colours, the orange, reds and splashes of white rock with a foreground of forest.

At the Luritja Highway, I turned right rejoining the caravans on the bitumen. It was another 103 kilometres to the Kings Canyon Resort and a shirt distance beyond is the Watarka clinic. To my surprise, I found I was booked into the resort as accomodation was fullin the clinics houses. The resort is great. I had a spacious room, a verandah overlooking the bush and breakfast included. The problem with staying at resorts like Kings Canyon and Yulara, is that it’s impossible to cook dinner. So each night, I shuffled over to the clinic to cook my steak, sausages or chicken. Afterward I braved the chill air to drive the short distance back. I had parking right outside my room which made it easy. In the morning I would walk to the restaurant, the Carmichael room. Breakfast was very good. Now I’m not paying for any of this which is nice. To a paying customer it is $400 a night. I did lash out and have dinner out on Thursday evening. Yummy pork belly, plates of vegetables, and two nice glasses of wine. Now I’m legendary as a two potter, after a week of no alcohol, I felt dry agreeable with the world and all its denizens. I tottered back to my room and slept very well indeed.

The clinic is more fun than some because of the mixture in my clinical work. I was involved in two cardiac cases, stabilising them both and evacuating one, trauma is common here as well. This is from road accidents, locals and tourists doing roll overs due to burst tyres on the bitumen and due to sandy pits on the gravel tracks.

Going too fast helps too! I was involved in the care of a man who fell on the Ridge track. It begins with a steep ascent up a rocky track to gain the escarpment. This gentleman lost his footing and fell. Managing him was interesting, it’s good to use the procedure skills of neck immobilisation ( done by using a bag of wrapped saline either side of the head with tape afire day between them and on the forehead), intravenous analgesia, assessing rib and other fractures. Transporting such patients require a vacu mat. This mat is related and wraps around the patient, keeping the person still. It means transport is safer and less painful. These mats are several thousand dollars each!

After work, there was not much time before dusk for any long walks but there was the opportunity to do some pleasant shorter walks. I walked the Rim track which goes for 45 minutes, around the resort. You can hardly see the resort buildings. The track offers many fine views of the Carmichael range, all the more vivid and colourful in the light of the setting sun, it’s rising orange glow abruptly above the plain of sand, buffer, spinifex and desert oaks. I walked a track near the clinic along a sandy access road. And also drove to Kings Canyon itself and selected the short Kings Creek walk. Gum trees, river gums, and birds are the highlights, the wagtails, the parrots sparkling colour through the trees in their noisy flights. It’s a primeval experience, the rocks, gullies and cliff tops ancient beyond human time.

On Wednesday afternoon Rod came in for a chat with Chris, the clinic manager. Rod runs a tour company in Kings Canyon. A major part of his business is organising trips for schools. The upmarket private schools including Scotch and Geelong Grammar. The kids spend two weeks here as well as near Yulara. They learn about culture from local elders and do some infrastructure work such as house repairs and painting. Rod is the founder of the Watarka foundation. They have raised $350,000 to expand the local school to go from grade 6 to grade 8. They are waiting on a few permits then construction can begin. The student numbers are from 7 to 24 at the school and there is currently a single teacher. She would move up to grade 7 and 8 and a new teacher would do grades 0 to 6. The experience of education here for indigenous children has been frustrating. After grade six most of the children have achieved a very good standard of education including g literacy and numeracy, good enough to carry on. However, after a term these children feel so home sick and miserable they come home. There are no jobs and no education available for them. The costs and technological savvy needed for home schooling or school of the air are simply beyond the skills of local parents. It’s hoped that extra two years will mean they have the maturity to cope with life away from home. Of interest is that the schools Rod are involved with want to support this venture as well with online learning, live streamed lectures and possible scholarships for the local indigenous children who show promise at th3 end of grade 8.

I drove back on Friday morning. The sand on the Ernest Giles track was cooler and the traction is noticeably better. I’m not sure how much fun it would be to go this way in high Summer with the prospect of rain and the sand being considerably warmer and too pliant under rubber. I stopped to take some photographs. There were no camels this time.

On the weekend, poor Jennifer hurt her lower back sitting in too low and soft a couch. Recovered substantially with time, mobilisation ( gentle!), and getting a new chair from Desert dwellers. Desert dwellers sells gear for camping in NT. we bought an Oztent, Kokoda chair. It has a firm lumber support as part of its design and Jennifer is pain free when she sits in it.

On Sunday we went to Telegraph Station. The Arid lands group was holding a barbecue, a talk from Aunt Patty an Arrente elder and a walk to Wrigley Gorge. Aunt Patty is an older Aboriginal lady with plenty of vim, she told us all about the protest movement surrounding a proposed Junction lake. She makes the point that if you want to live by water, live near it. There is no need to flood sacred sites. The moratorium has lapsed now but there is no move to build the dam to create the lake at he headwaters of the Todd river. Water control for very heavy rain to reduce risk of floods will take a different route, looking at some vast plains that could easily be accessed by minimal earth works.

The barbecue was great. We had camel burgers on bread. Yummy! Jennifer joined us up to the Arid Lands council which is an environmental group based at Alice and gets in involved many of the critical issues around the use of the land includes under the land, ie fracking and th concerns people have about contaminating what is already a parlours supply of water, in regards to both quantity and quality.

Wrigley Gorge is part of the extensive track network centred at Telegraph station. There are mountain bike tracks, walking tracks and some combined tracks including the one to Wrigleys Gorge. The wind was cool and pleasant, as we all set off. It was a mass of people at the start but the crowd soon separated out and for most of the track I was by myself with merely the susurrations of my fellow walkers ahead and behind. The land is arid and twists and turns along dry river beds, up and over rocky cliffs and finally arrives at Wrigleys Gorge. River gums nestle in a narrow valley. Most of the walkers elected to take a shuttle bus back but I had enjoyed the walk too much to do it just the once.

While writing this I have seen another patient, a little three week old infant who is losing weight and there is no obvious reason why. Mum is only sixteen but appears very capable and she is supported by her mother, who comes in with her. She will be flown out at lunchtime today with Mum and grand Mum to Alice Springs Hospital for assessment and treatment. She is not deathly ill but the continual loss of weight is an enormous concern and requires attention. The bush bus another option but that departs twice a week and I don’t think we have the time to wait for it’s next trip and the four hours on the road with a sick baby does not bear thinking about.