36C (96.8F)…
Ya know I gotta say it.
It’s so bloody hot today.
39.1C in Hobart last Friday was bearable – a sleepy city by the ocean, cooled by the sea breezes (even it it was a chokingly hazy breeze, thick with the smoke of countless wildfires burning Tasmanias forested areas to the bare earth).
A quick flight back to Dubbo via Sydney airport, airport pickup from a kind friend and a smash-and-grab visit to the old house before handing it over and I’m back in a very different desert, heavily infected with my least favourite animal.
36 degrees and thunderstormy today (Wednesday) makes the scorched brown plains and the baking tar and concrete of Dubbo city marginally habitable, even for someone comfortably acclimatised to sub zero temperatures, snow and ice.
Even the water here is thick and chewy in comparison to the Reverse-osmosis-treated steely flavoured glacier/sea water mix on station ; unfiltered Dubbo water is a fruity combination of murky muddy river water filled with chemical run off from farms and heavily mineralised artesian water slurped up from the bowels of the earth.
Even filtered and cold it has a bite and at room temperature is barely drinkable, leaving an odd aftertaste in your mouth ( like McDonalds mouth – that erky chemical coating you get after eating a Big Mac).
Some notable changes from last years return to Earth – it’s less about the suffocating crush of people and noise this year (at least so far) and much more about the climate.
Its just so bloody hot out here – a blowtorch heat that sucks the moisture from your soul and a driving wind that sandblasts everything with the fine red choking dust of central Australia.
At least it isn’t bushfire smoke I guess .
Small miracles.
Like last year, the sudden shift in temperature and location has buggered me – at least I got a full 8 hours sleep last night in a comfy bed – a welcome change from the weeks of single bed /bad pillow torture and being unable to sleep before 3am and waking at 7am sharp like a whipcrack (ahhh see country reference already).
Yesterday was a record for catching up with people – arrive 4.30pm and already 2 friends caught up with and a catchup with my sister and brotherinlaw completed, plus nephew and grand niece meeted and greeted. Today, its my usual coffee shop and an aimless wander around town (aww they remembered my order – thanks Eliza!)
Wandering! How Ive missed you. Getting back to my almost-OCD 10km wanders per day minimum has been a blessing. It’ll be easy to maintain as I have to walk everywhere here – no car, remember?
At least it will help shift this 8kg of Antarctic blubbery baby fat I somehow gained over summer.
Decisions to make this week : do I get a car? Do I get a motorcycle? Can I bear bus or train travel in Australia? Where am I going to live? How do I get to Iran from Istanbul and stay alive in the process?
Today is housekeeping – changing my addresses at various government agencies, sorting out banks, juggling real estate agents and repacking the scattered remnants of my old life into smaller and smaller boxes.
I think that the people that broke into my house and scattered the contents to the four winds may have actually done me a favour : more useless stuff that ive clung to since childhood has been stolen or destroyed. Everything is impermanent and as such ultimately disposable but breaking that emotional attachment can sometimes be difficult; when thieves make that decision for you though it’s not that much of an issue and can be a blessing in disguise
(I AM really pissed about them stealing my box of original Star Wars figures, my Lone Ranger doll from the 60’s, and my favourite Spiderman figure from when I was a kid…grrr)
A day or so of reorganising and then I’m done and dusted with my Dubbo life – should be a hoot!
On the plus side, ‘Captain Marvel’ starts early in the local cinema so I’ll try to get an early seat at that Gig before the screaming hordes descend tomorrow.
One of the many things I’ve commited to do is NOT fall back into the limiting habits of me previous life and keep pushing forward into something new.
So Dubbo for a few weeks, Hervey Bay to see my long neglected daughter Isabel, Sydney to explore some new beginnings, Canberra to see some of my Antarctic buddies, then off overseas again to see what trouble I can get into until the next contract comes along.
Having complained about having no control of my life for years, now I’m finally in the drivers seat. Total accountability with noone to blame but myself for what will come – it’s terrifying but addictively good.
Be careful what you wish for.
(Plus I also have to write more often now the words are back…)
….
TBC
Man Down! 