Third Year of living in Fregon

| Trip to hell | Amercing Nurse in Fregon | Wild-west town | Easter | Inland Sea

Wild West Town

26th Jan 1992

On the actual Australia Day we decided to have a barbie over at "Club Med" which is the nurses area which is behind the store. Their living compartments are not very big and they include a kitchen/lounge room, a bathroom/toilet and a single bedroom. The windows are made of Leczin (bullet proof plastic which is almost unbreakable) and have bars on the windows. Each nurse is on duty 24 hours a day and seven days of the week. It is not very quiet as there is the continual sound of the compressors from the freezers at the store, the sounds of all the arguments as these happen by the store and the sounds from the stores. It was central to everything including the clinic which was over the community square. So that the nurses don't go insane they have to go off "The Lands" for a break and they bring in relief nurses. (Faith was one of these).

Bruce and the Ned Kelly Gang

Our family decided to dress-up as the Ned Kelly Gang which is a famous Australian Outlaw gang which robbed the rich and persecute the law in the nineteenth century in New South Wales. So we all put paper bags on our heads and had toy guns and rifles and off we went to the barbie at Club Med. The kids thought it was great fun and were continually having play fights.

David had taken to being a dog which meant he ran around on all fours and barking like a dog. He got so good at barking that most people would be fooled into thinking that it was a real dog. David was off barking and running around with the Aboriginal kids.

While this was happening there was the sound of a car tearing around the fence that surrounded the community circle. This was not unusual as often the young boys tear around showing off to the rest of the community. As it was dark it was hard to see who was doing it but they were getting close to where we were having the barbie and the donuts that the driver was doing in the red sand was causing dust to go everywhere. All of the town started to congregate watching the show as there is not much to do at night here and anything that is a bit different causes a crowd. In fact there were people up trees, on top of cars and others just standing around cheering.

After about half an hour the people at the barbie got bored of so we wander back to Club Med where the noise of the car continued for another half an hour. Then we hear 3 loud riffle shots and the noise of the car stopped and then there was lots of arguments going on. The next day we hear that Alfred George (who is only 15) decided that he needed to drive his fathers car to Ernabella which is 60km away. His father had refused to allow him so Alfred decided to create mayhem for a while to show his anger. Witchety George, Alfred's father was so embarrassed and shamed at his son's hour long "dummy-spit" that he decided to "save face" by shooting a .303 calibur bullet through the back window and out the front windshield of the car while Alfred was driving away from him. He then shot out the tyres of his car to stop his son. It is good that he is a accurate shot as he used a 303 to it. When the car had stopped Witchey then shot out the distributor so that his son could no long drive the car. Witchety then had to bring the car over to our house to get Bruce to fix the shot out engine. We all thought that this was hillarous and made an intesting story to tell. It was exciting evening after all. (maybe Ned Kellies ghost was lurking somewhere close).

After working for almost 6 months on the lands, Faith had enough and resigned and moved back to Sydney. I missed her company and our photographic expeditions.

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