There is no place like home. We are very happy to be in familiar surroundings and not relying on the good grace of friends. Those friends were wonderful when we disembarked from the ship. Graham had timed his arrival well and we were soon on the way to his house in Sutherland. The following evening Graham had organised a get-together of friends who were all expatriate Australians stationed in Maprik in the Sepik District of Papua New Guinea in the 1970s. Plenty of memories there.
On Sunday as we recovered from the party, we were collected by Albert, a mate from the Gulf of Papua in the early 1960s. He showed off his very nice apartment on Sydney Harbour and Kathy, his wife, served us a nice lunch before we visited the Australian Museum to see an exhibition of photographs by the famous Australian photographer, Frank Hurley. There were many photos taken by Hurley in this 1920s expedition in places that I had worked near or visited. The expedition took two float planes to Papua...the first aircraft to be seen by the local population. One can only imagine what they made of these amazing, noisy, beings. Hurley was a bit of a villain at times, stealing artifacts from village long houses. I'm sure he gave out some beads to the locals.
Albert kindly dropped us off to Syney Airport and we departed Sydney at approximately 7.15pm.
I am 'down' with a very bad cold. Thinking back I seem to recall that I always return from a trip with a cold or flu. The ship was very aware of the possibility of spreading nasties to the passengers and we were all asked to use a disinfectant gel provided before going to food serveries.
Tomorrow I will drive up to Quinns Rocks to replace a tap washer at the rear of one of the units we are renting out. Even with the fuel involved in the 100km round trip it is far cheaper than getting a tap doctor in. Just have to take care not to break anything necessitating a major repair job.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment