From Tea Bag to Tennant Creek: Preview "Australia Day Award"

From Tea Bag to Tennant Creek: Preview "Australia Day Award":

'via Blog this'

Uluru in the morning

Uluru Sunrise

   

In the desert I saw a rock

a big one

That looked like a giant hamburger

when I was hungry last night

This morning at sunrise

it was a cathedral

with morning light

constantly revealing more

More of the wonder

etched in a sedentary monolith

which looks as Karen says,

alive

While the gathered multitude

 whisper in tongues reverently

  as Canon cameras create

a muted castanet call

to record, remember, rejoice!

Christmas dinner timelapse

A glimpse of our Christmas day dinner Joel had his camera clicking away,  Roberts house is handy so the meal was cooked there and brought down to our place. A good time was had by all.

Click Here to see timelapse

More Christmas Time

Hi everyone,
Here are some of my Christmas time  pictures the last ones were Joels. He is teaching me to do this . I have captioned some of the photos you should get the idea of what we were doing around Christmas day.
I am enjoying a new bike and Tuiana has a new guitar we were all spoilt.
It was a very different being away from home, we had eight people around the table Christmas day we enjoyed going to the  Aboriginal church Christmas day.
You will see some new words to Jingle Bells  
Over the Christmas time there was a visit to Micky Nothing  an old man we have got to know a bit.
There was  and walk up Nobles Knob to an old Gold mine and a picnic at the Pebbles  which are really pretty big rocks.
Tuiana took us to a tree out from Mary Anne dam which was worthy of photo. It is  landscape which has a stark beauty extreme  etching of nature evident where ever you look.

My next blog   will show some of our travels with Joel as he has been with us.
I have been photographing the photographer.
God Bless
Ian and Karen Joel and Tuiana

Click here to go to web album

Christmas in Tennant Creek

A few pictures  of  Christmas at  Tennant CreekClick here to go to web album

A Christmas Note from the Davidsons

I had a look what was in the letter we sent last year and it said,

"Next year will bring change how much and where were not sure"

It has been, as Karen said the other day,' a year of two halves' with big changes of retiring from being Pastor at the Church in Reeton and  Karen leaving her job as Nurse  after a year at Whakatu Marae.
It was difficult leaving so many of our family and friends we love in Reefton and Nelson who are very much of our lives.Especially Joel as he settled into Auckland.

Karen was accepted  to work  in Remote Health in the Barkly region which covers a very big area of of the Northern Territory based at Tennant Creek.
Karen has coverd many many miles each month flying with a  Doctor to the cattle stations to hold clincs .

Other time she has worked at clinic’s in rural communities of Ali Curung, Elliot, and up among the Barrumundi Mob at Borroloola at the Top end  in the Gulf of Carpenteria.

It is great having Tuiana and Robert here, Robert has gently mentored us in Territory ways. Tuiana has made many friends and is 'who's who' directory of Tennant Creek.

We live with constant reminders we are not at home, heat, frogs, flies, birds,  insects’,  dust, distance and languages,  the rain is tropcial, and the  thunder and lightening  have no mountains to bounce off here on the Barkly tablelands.

The broken bottles on the streets each morning ,the blood on the footpaths the smashed windows of the hotel  the Two oclock shuffle of takeaways at 2pm each day from liquor outlets.Prisoners working around town in their green and yellow t shirts and in the afternoon calling home from the phoneboxes before going back to prison for the night.

All those things have lost their uniqueness a little and are just part of life here, as one of the nurses said to Karen ' You deal with what is in front you, “It is what it is”, and “you do what you can”.
September  saw us have a flying visit home  to celebrate my 70th.birthday.
I still have warm feelings of the acknowledgment of this and the effort that many people put in to make this such a memorable celebration.

At Christmas our hearts and minds turn to home,
We have been singing the carols and worshipping the babe of Bethlehem here, listening again the powerful words of 'Peace on earth and good will to others'
We are part of a Maori  Waiata group who joined with the Aboriginal Inland Mission Indgenous choir and the  Tennant Creek Choir( Karen is their accompianst) we sang Caorls at Peko Park in the middle of town.
There was a thundrstorm threatening, the school hall was the back up option but it only rained a  little bit which cooled things down, for a  large number which gathered .
I wish there had been a video of Karen playing the keyboard as a little aboriginal boy ran past us all while singing followed by his dog. Karen like the piano player in a western pub fight scene  just kept on playing. They dog came thorugh a couple of times enjoying the lights the music and people.
We are thankful for the love shown  and the interest in our life adventure .Face book , email and letters keeps you close as we hear of your adventures as well.

We look foward to  Joel arriving in Darwin for Christmas and trust 2012  will continue to be adventurous and Blessed.


                                                      God bless and keep you in his love,
                                                                        Ka kite ano
                                                     Arohanui , Ian, Karen , Joel and Tuiana    x x x x x                                

 
 
 
 

Some of the pictures from the montage a bit bigger.

We are back from crocodile country from the Top End.
Karen is out at the stations with the Doctor at present.I heard last night that one engine on the plane wouldn't start if it didn't start this morning someone would be flown out from Alice Springs to fix it. Hopefully she will back tomorrow.

The plane we went to Borroloola was grounded for four hours before it went back we found out later. I wondered what the smoke was coming out through the cooling system was.
On the weekend we were at Alice with Robert when he had the call to go to AliCurung as there was a bad accident eleven young people in a car that had gone off the road, three killed, five flown out,and two taken off in the bush.

We had a very busy Saturday afternoon with a 700km plus drive up to AliCurung and back to Alice. We were picking up Tuianana on Sunday who had been in Perth for a few days.(She gets about more than we do!) We were tired by the time we got back Karen did great job driving, I was on kangaroo watch.
There was a family of fifteen next door when at Borrroloola we enjoyed the kids coming over. Justin learnt to play Old MacDonald on the banjo, they were always bringing kids home after school to see some tricks.
It rained here last night so things cooled down a little. There is picture of Karen in her rubbishbag coat going to the Clinic at Borroloola.
Take Care,God Bless

Ian and Karen