Posted by Nina on April 22, 2002 at 04:25:28 from 155.205.64.174:
Wednesday of last week saw me, five of my students and three children on the banks of a quite large rockpool, fishing, having a cup of tea, genreally resting after nearly two weeks of intensive linguistic work. Rockpool (we could hear the waterfall, but couldn't quite see it) was 30k from nearest tiny community, tiny community was 130k from nearest town and town was nearly 300k from home. We were having a wonderful time - till I lost the key to the (government fleet) troop carrier...
Well, we found handfuls of teabags (sacrelige, I know, but what can I say?) at the bottom of various bags, Angelina (aged 65) caught a big fish, we had a tin of powdered milk, a tin of sugar, a small bag of flour and a block of very sweaty cheese. Oh, and my swag and billy, the baby's sheet and blanket, a blazing fire and a quite respectable gibbous moon.
We were not rescued that night, not yet the next morning. We ran out of tea, caught another fish (smaller - we gave most of it to the children), used up the flour making damper, trekked up and down the side of the pool (rocky, steep, not pleasant) filling our various plastic bottles with water and waited in vain.
When the last drop of tea was drunk I began to long for Susan - and bunloaf and seedcake and grog and pemmican and steak and kidney pie...
Thankfully we were finally rescued well into the evening of the second day by a doubly qualified mechanic (all the 'proper' skills as well as the many many improvisatory skills Aboriginal mechanics develop over the years) who demolished the steering/ignition system in order to break the steering lock mechanism and then start my car! Last person was dropped off in nearest town at midnight.
(government fleet has forgiven me - when I asked this morning if they would ever let me have a vehicle again, I was told "I don't see why not, you're one of our best customers" - brought a tear to my eye!)