It does say quite something, I think, for the pilot, that they all walked away from it. Anyway, it was an all night rescue epic, and I felt very guilty that I was tucked up in my little bed instead of helping. Will volunteer for the SES (in my copious spare time). It's something I believe in though.
Anyway Marc and Bastien have flown out without any mishap, off to Queensland where I hope they have better weather. Marc made serious strides becoming quite my favorite relation by saying he quite understood why we came to Flinders and that it was fantastic!!!
Their last day here was chucking it down. We still squeezed in some early mornig climbing on the sea cliff at Emita, and Bastien had a Australian salmon school chase and take his hook (but he lost it) which we saw from the cliff-top. "Fantastic." (It got said a lot) Not I think for him as "fantastic" as the top. :-D
We then went to the show - which was both great and the saddest thing I have seen. The saddest part was the parade - for which not one single boat-owner (it was supposed to be a nautical theme) had come up with a towed boat-float for kiddies to parade on - so these four poor little urchins had a very wet miserable muddy walk around the parade arena, and most of the people stayed inside and did not come out and cheer. We did. Good for them. A humph for all those who thought using their boat for this purpose not worth while. We should be supporting our Island's kids (listen to me getting all proprietarial about our new home. But it is worth protecting) The fair was real country fair out of Agatha Christie,
and my wife (as the model - dressed in Flinders winter-style bikini (ie - every item of clothing you can layer yourself with)) won first prize in the fishing photography section (it was Anne's picture of B with a squid). As is usual with these things on Flinders - it takes a lot of time to go anywhere, because everyone stops, chats and gets introduced - including some new arrivals to the island, who read the Blog. Pop in some time. We've made some friends this way already.
Then my scintillating conversation and the sheer excitement of Flinders Show caught up on the youth of today, (you can see them paying keen attention to every word I say) until it was time for them go and catch squid. That was icy... and not successful.
So we brought them home to eat for France.
Christ! That cray -- are they making a movie about giant invading crustaceans from the stars or something?
ReplyDeleteMore seriously: I was impressed as hell that the pilot put everyone down safely in that crash. Dunno about the weather where you were, but on the larger isle, it was foul and fouler. And it's not like he had a runway to play with...
It was rain, wind and the reporter said "snow" but I am not sure of the last! The pilot did the most amazing job to bring them all out with scratches and bruises, although they apparently did not enjoy the leaches that joined them on their stroll through the dense bushes and trees!
ReplyDeleteFrom what I have heard it was a real masterclass to put down the aircraft in the trees without killing everyone, and the worst problem being the leeches.
ReplyDeleteThe crays... you know, I should have realised - by the size, that they are relatively much fewer and further between here than back where I used to dive in South Africa - less crays, but obviously much more food and more size as a result (same held good for trout in the streams in SA - where conditions enabled little guys to survive in droves and you seldom caught really big fish. It's a big (scary) learning curve here. I used to free-dive (that's the law) for crays in SA. Mostly got my bag of 8, sometimes my various partners share for them too (that's also legal - a hangover from the colonial era, when the (white) licenceholder could instruct someone to catch his crayfish, as long as he was within 200 metres). I simply would catch nothing doing that here. There is BTW an 11.5 KG cray carapace on the wall of the pub. The one in the picture was a mere 2.3kg
At least you don't exaggerate like Texans and call them 'prawns' ;-)
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