It’s Monday night and I’m sitting in my camping chair at the Outback Caravan Park, in Tennant Creek. We began our drive yesterday morning, travelling from Alice Springs to Devils Marbles. It’s 398 kilometres of the Stuart Highway. I took us about five hours including a stop at Ti Tree for lunch. A fine sunny day for driving.
Devils Marbles is one of the highlights of the Stuart Highway. Jennifer and I have visited this park before but it was always a rush, this time we could explore and take photographs at the two best times with no need to scuttle back to work and before it got too dark to drive safely. We walked on the many trails amongst the rock formations. The setting sun sets the rocks red aglow, the grass is backlit as it swirls in the wind, and the gums provide dabs of green and white through the landscape. Devils Marbles are the eroded superficial remains of a much deeper granite massif that arose under an immense layer of more ancient sedimentary rock, sea floor rock, then as the softer surface rock was eroded away the tougher granite remained. But this granite had already been altered, cracked, and split and when it arose into the light of day, these cracks filled with mud and water, splitting the rocks into the weathered Marbles we see today. 
We arrived back at our campsite just as it was becoming dark and cooling down. Overnight it’s very cold so it’s great to be able to rug up in our comfortable camper trailer, under a generous doona. We awoke at seven am, and walked another trail amongst the Marbles and again, were busy taking lots of photographs. We left at 10 am and drove 100 kilometres to Tennant creek. This had very little open on a Monday holiday but the Battery Mine was open. This is a retired mine and processing facility for the gold found in Tennant creek. Beginning in 1926, Tennant creek has been a reliable producer of gold. In all by 1996, 130 tonnes of gold had been recovered. As well as 270,000 tonnes of copper. What makes this area so unique is that unlike Victoria, and most other gold rushes , the gold is in ironstone and not quartz. Quartz is relatively easy to separate from its contained gold, it’s much softer and the gold is often in chunks or nuggets. In Tennant creek, the gold is in fine fragments, too small to even in see most circumstances. Lumps of ironstone, need to be crushed into dust to gather the gold inside it. The ironstone located beneath the water table is generally richer , it’s called magnetite. And you guessed it, it’s strongly magnetic as well. The denser the ironstone, the more magnetic the ironstone then the more gold will be in it. So remote sensing can be used today to locate more gold bearing deposits. 
In the early days, mining businesses were small concerns, one or two blokes, both worked a mine in truly appalling conditions. One man would be lowered down a mine shaft in a bucket, using one leg, to push off the mine shaft wall, then at the bottom use a pick to break off fragments of ironstone. The actual shaft went down through mudstone, as no one can go directly through the ironstone deposit. You have to shimmy up to it and chip off the bit in front of you. It was hot and incredibly dusty. The town grew but it was mostly men. The isolation and lack of female company, made life pretty dangerous at times. Was it worth it? For those men who worked the mines, most did little more than pay their way, but some did do well eventually becoming truly big mining companies but overall the capital and size needed to make a go of this sort of mining, ensured it was the big players, the ones who arrived in the 1950’s which made the really big money and still do. 
We did two tours. The first tour was through a “mine” built deliberately by Normanby Mines to be used for tourism. They had the expertise to make it as realistic as possible. Along the mine, the guide, showed us examples of mining, form the very early days, to the much more mechanised mining on the 1950s and 1960’s. We were shown the drills, the explosives, the crib room where the men sheltered during blasting, the Beethoven box used by the “powder monkey” to set off the explosives. We saw the mine shaft and the ladder ready and waiting to provide an exit for flooding in the mine. Huge pumps at the base of the mine kept the water out, but as the mine was a kilometre below the water table, a failed pump lead to rapid flooding. The second tour was of the stamping battery. This facility ground up to mined ironstone into a fine dust, you could then use mercury to bind the gold. The amalgam so formed had to be heated in a retort to seperate it from the gold, then the gold had to be heated to fen higher temperatures in a crucible to remove final impurities. A whole years work for a miner in the early days, would produce one or at Most two ingots of gold. An ingot was worth 50,000 dollars, that was a for a year, of 16 hour days, in hot, dusty, noisy and dangerous conditions. 
Afterwards, we drove back to our campsite to relax before dinner. It’s getting cold now. I can hear the cars and trucks on the highway, but only faintly. And that will be us too, as we compete our trip to Elliott tomorrow.

This week I have spent working at Laramba from Monday morning to departure on Friday morning. It is easily the most friendly place I work, and this trip did not disappoint. I drove up north along the Stuart Highway, to the turn off to Laramba. It’s an eighty kilometre stretch of sand and dirt, and the troopie struggled. The old problem with these otherwise legendarily tough vehicles is the narrower wheel base of the front versus the back wheels, that makes them slidey slippery on sand. Any how, low 4 WD got me out of trouble, albeit being very slow; well at least I kept moving. 

The week has gone well, gradually and methodically working through the listed patients. Francis and Isobel are the two Aboriginal workers who take the clinic car, and try and locate them in the community.
On Friday, I was at the final meeting for the week before the drive back to Alice Springs. I’m very glad I took the option to stay longer because of a wonderful dinner with Helen and Brian, at her place and the chance to talk with Robbie Charles. He is arguably the most articulate and clear thinking Aboriginal person I have met. Robbie is the Project Officer for the transition to having a Community committe in each location  that will meet regularly, and to meet with clinic staff and the district manager of the health service. There are already committees that meet representatives from public services such as for housing, power and water. Usually the same key people are in most committees as throughout human history!
The community group cannot force the clinic or health service to do anything but will be a regular source of advice for the clinic, as well as giving the communities the opportunity to air grievances or suggest ways of improving health care delivery. It is to be a two way process where clinic managers can point out ways the community can contribute to improving health, such as financing a regular bus to town. It’s quite an exciting prospect and it’s being rolled out by aboriginal people from these actual communities.

It is Thursday evening and the working week is drawing to close. I’m lying in bed in the donga. It’s been very cold at night so I’m wearing my thermal top and my black beanie. The wind is howling outside. There are some street lights on the road beside the donga, just beyond the wire mesh fence. It is very quiet for a change, the cold and wind keeping the dogs huddled together on verandahs rather than barking at the moon and stars. In the morning we will go for a walk. We walk along the Sandover Highway, all of four meters wide and made of hard red clay starting to crack and tessellate as the summer wet finally dries out. The plains of spinifex and grass are dead yellow, faded from their rich summer green. Cockatoos and corellas group in masses in the few trees, looking like pallid tropical flowers amongst the leaves and branches till they erupt together into the air, keening and calling.

We walk over the plain, diverting onto dusty, nearly overgrown side roads , it would be too easy to get lost in the maze of intersecting tracks. We carry sticks to threaten the dogs nearer town if they get too cheeky. There is always a beautiful sunrise to the east, it can be vivid pink and red, or a burnt dry orange, lighting up along ripples of clouds. The sky is clear and deep blue, and fades only minimally as the day truly begins and the sun climbs above the horizon. 

After breakfast we head over to the clinic. It’s only a short walk. As Jennifer or I make up our coffees, we settle in for the morning meeting with the other staff. The clinic is badly understaffed and there is a too real possibility the nurse manager will have to forgo her leave. The logistics of providing staff to clinics such as Lake Nash are complicated and difficult. The nurses here have enormous responsibility, severe isolation, and really no hobbies they can pursue. Even walking safely can be difficult with the heat and the dog packs. It takes a tough, resourceful woman to do this job. I say woman because I have met only one of two male nurses in my time. One of the staff left to work elsewhere while we were here. Their level of competence and savvy clinical judgement is incredible. These remote nurses are the best. 
It’s been a quiet week for us. At least so far because as you all know, things can get pretty dramatic, pretty quickly even on a half morning’s work tomorrow. 

While we have been here in Lake Nash, the news on TV has been about a treaty between whites and blacks. No one has mentioned it here. The people here just get on with life. Politics seems a very long way away. The big players who are passionate about these sorts of things don’t come here. People still buy their coke, forget their tablets and miss important appointments. While other people care for their sisters, listen with intelligence and interest as we explain about their health, and proudly drink water rather than sugar riddled beverages. As a doctor, I see and hear the stories of their lives. Of being a stockman. Of riding hell for leather across this arid country till his horse is tripped by a deep crevice and he is tumbled off and the horse rolling over him. Of being a small boy and walking beside his father as he cares for a vast desert market garden used to provide food for personnel in WW2. Just one of many unwritten stories of the indigenous people’s contribution to this country’s war effort. Of the woman who accompanies her sister three days a week to the local dialysis centre, and does all the work setting up and running the hemodialysis. She will do this forever never complaining, never forgetting. This buddy scheme is the norm in remote communities and again it is an unwritten story of self sacrifice and commitment. 
My tapestry grows greater and richer with each person I meet and each story I hear.

 All of these stories and people, their voices and faces, are painting in my minds eye a vast canvas coloured by their resilience, warmth and vitality, but tinted with some sadness by the seemingly insoluble and ongoing problems these wonderful people face. I don’t think they care much about a treaty. I think they want to survive and enjoy life as much as they can from one day to the next. Unlike white people who struggle to exist in the present, many Aboriginal people, live far more in the now than we do. This is both good and bad. Living in the moment gives a warmth and spontaneity to life and reduces needless worrying but on the downside, it’s hard to take actions which have a pay off in months or years from now such as taking medication daily. The financial insecurity of Centrelink, the costs of food and services, the social commitments of communal life, sorry business, gambling, alcohol, isolation, the lack of much employment and issues around health, all produce a sometimes chaotic situation in many remote indigenous families. So is it really so very surprising that they want to live in the present moment and avoid focusing on a future which is hard to understand, just plain frightening or of pasts overburdened with loss and grief?

There are not the social and support services here in the bush that we all expect in the major towns and cities. So why do they stay here? Simply because they love this land and are a part of it. For all the difficulties of living remotely, this land is as much a part of them as they are of it. The men talk about the heat of summer, the cold winds of winter, and the satisfaction of having worked on the land. So maybe that is what a treaty needs to be about, their authority over this land. There is a medieval story you may know. A knight has offended a mighty witch and she will stay his punishment only if in one year, he can correctly answer her question. The question being ” Above all else what does a woman want?”. He eventually learned there is a simple answer to the question but it was confronting all the same; the right to choose for herself. I believe that the Aboriginal people in these remote communities should be permitted to choose for themselves too, to run their townships their way and to educate their way. I think we do live in interesting times. Could they do a worse job than white government? Now that’s hard to imagine.
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I have written before about the health impact of water in Central Australia but I learned something new. While we have been at Lake Nash, we met the dentist who comes out to this region. He has done this for thirty years. He told us about a problem at Ali Curung. Dental problems are severe with brown discolouration and loss of enamel, but no decay, due to excessive amounts of fluoride in the water they drink. It’s twenty times the amount added to drinking water in the cities. In addition, tea contains fluoride. And the longer it is brewed the more fluoride is leached into the brew. Here the Aboriginal ladies, brew pots of tea all day or have multiple tea bags in one cup. Unfortunately boiling water for drinking deals with bacteria and viruses but concentrates heavy metals and chemicals. No one has measured the intake for the average person in Ali Curung but it would be three or more times the maximal recommended intake at least. Now fluoride in normal amounts strengthens bone and protects teeth but in large amounts both of these beneficial effects are reversed as bones and teeth cannot form properly. Bones in the arms and legs become brittle and break too easily. Teeth never form proper enamel and pit and break even in adolescence. Normal dental repair and fillings won’t work as the scaffold of healthy enamel is not there. And yet barely forty kilometres away, at Murray Downs, their teeth are perfect aside from soft drink induced caries. Their bore pumps water from a different aquifer. This problem with fluoride has been known for decades but it is considered by government to be too expensive to fix. Water would have to be processed by a costly industrial process to remove the industrial quantities of fluoride.
All the water used in Central Australia is from the great artesian basin, the freshwater it contains comes from as far north as New Guinea and eastwards as far distant as the Great Dividing range. It travels over hundreds of years and thousands of kilometres through horizontal cracks in the sedimentary rock of our ancient seabeds into the rocks beneath central Australia. This vast underwater lake is the Artesian Basin. However it’s quality and safety vary enormously. It can be contaminated by pondages of effluent, or by agricultural chemical run off, seeping down from the surface. It will also be contaminated by the minerals in the earth at their location such as fluoride in Ali Curung, or Uranium salts at Laramba. Water quality is assessed by tallying up to forty different biological agents and mineral toxins, and I recall that very few community bores fulfil all the listed criteria for desirable water in remote Australia. The situation will only get worse as all water reserves are diminishing rapidly due to population pressures. Yuendumu is one example of a town with very limited water security, with a rapidly diminishing supply to its bore. The central desert is littered with communities abandoned due to the local bore dying. When communities run out of water, they have to move elsewhere with a duplication required of all their facilities, few as they are.
The assumption of clean, safe, reliable drinking water is currently not the case in many remote communities. Yet the costs and effort needed to address this issue and provide universal ” town quality water” would be enormous, and clearly quite beyond the capacity of the territory government. Yet would it not be possible to provide even one safe supply of drinking water, one tap adjacent to the shop so at least the locals can fill up water for drinking? Use the bore water for washing and cleaning but have a seperate source of imported or processed water for drinking. Solutions don’t always have to be big and industrial and mind-blowingly expensive.

Greetings from Yuendumu. Yuendumu is a 3 and 1/2 hour drive from Alice Springs, a substantial part of that travelling northwest on the Tanami Highway. Much of this road is single lane, bitumen with red gravel on either side. Approaching distant vehicles merge with the silvery illusion of mirage. At one stage when I was travelling on the highway on the way back from Laramba, I pulled over to let what I thought was a truck pass but turned out to be a tree ; It didn’t arrive.
The country on the way to Yuendumu is flat pasture land, with long low sweeping hills. It looks and feels like a landscape in a spaghetti western. I would not have been surprised to see mounted cowboys flying across it on Appaloosas. 
Work has been a bit quiet here which makes both of us restless but the saving grace is as always, we have met some terrific local people. They are a thoroughly friendly bunch , staff and patients both. Of special note is the driver here, his name is Jabison. A softly spoken, bearded and slim Aboriginal man who helps out with driving and at the front desk. This afternoon, Lowana the manager told us that Jabison would like to take us for a drive. We jumped at the chance as we had felt pretty trapped in the house, as walking was impossible due to the noisy, aggressive camp dogs all over the town.

Jabison pulled up at the roadside by our house in a troopie, we clambered in and set off. The road got dusty and sandy, and not far below the surface a bit muddy too. This we discovered as we got bogged crossing Mission Creek. Jennifer and I jumped out, and we all put rocks under the tyres until we could drive out. We pushed first one way then the next, having enormous fun. Then after exiting backwards successfully Jabison drove over again now at full speed and very nearly got across till getting bogged again, a mere two metres from the bank and certain safety. Then the local youth group arrived and one of their party, a bear of a boy, big and friendly called Max recognised Jennifer. They tied on a snap strap ( wrongly) but it did give enough pull to get our troopie out of trouble at last. 

It was then only a short trip to the rocks, I think he called them Juts Juta. They are the place of the water dreaming. The place to make rain. It’s also a terrific place for camping out, the eerie red rock formations creating a magical backdrop. This is where the youth group is going to stay this evening.The rock formations seem to erupt out of the irregular grassland and amongst the scattered trees. A very beautiful sight. We walked a path of our own , nearer and nearer, threading a cautious path between rocks and rare patches of flat ground and all the time looking out for snakes. Every new vantage point offered even more fascinating views. What a great privilege it is for us too see this sacred place. Near this place, under the stars they have corroboree, staying here for a few nights; celebrating this beautiful land and sharing their stories.
Jabison drove us back by an alternate route. This track avoids the creek crossing that provided so much exercise earlier. What a fabulous trip this turned out to be as the troopie dashed along the track, a track overgrown by metre plus high grass. The grass was lit up, almost disembodied in the brilliant light of the setting sun. The rays of light were broad beams of illumination into forest, down hills and across grassland interspersed with early night shadow.. As we drove along, Jabison told us some wonderful stories of this place. This area, a plain ringed by five low hills is full of secret places. We passed the men’s place earlier but here were many more. There is a swamp where the people can swim. This swamp has permanent water and has a great lizard, bigger than a crocodile. This great beast stays under the water as it has done for a very long time. Only one thing will cause if to attack and eat a child or adult in the water or lounging on its grassy banks. This is if someone is talking another language to the local people of Yuendumu. They themselves are always safe unless they speak another language. One day a coloured fella brought a group of children to swim and while they played in the water, he saw something big deep in the water. He warned them all to only speak in their language which was hard for him as he was not fluent in the language. No one came to any harm but he was still worried he would get blamed if some of the children got eaten. By the way, Aboriginals call themselves the people and we are the coloured people.

Further along he told us about Bigfoot, a giant who would eat the people, the grown ups and the children of Yuendumu. Anyone who got last or even went out at night was not safe from him. He lived in a cave still called the Giants Hole and he was so big and so strong, he would move a massive rock to form a door. One day the people had had enough and a warrior called Bint Ji ( I have not got the names quite right so apologies to everyone for this) who with other warriors killed the giant, once and for all freeing the people from him..

Today, if it rains, and rains and night comes, in Papunya which is not far from here, if you go out you will see giants carrying huge burning fire sticks. But you can never tell anyone because they invariably will catch you and eat you. 

By now our track had joined the Halls Creek road, and we crossed Mission Creek at in more gentile style. The sun was setting apace now and the clouds formed huge folds of richly glowing colour. As we pulled up outside our house, we thanked Jabison profusely then walked across the sandy road to take photographs. We had seen Beryl, who is one of the nurses, standing on the road doing just that with her iPhone. We ignored the barking dogs and watched the sunset with its splendid desert colours light up the western sky. Wow!