Barbara Buchanan
Nature Conservation Across Australia
2005
To remind you I chose 3 one month placements in Perth, Darwin and Alice Springs in order to experience very different climates and projects. I enjoyed Perth so much I extended the end of my trip and went back again for 2 weeks to visit my adopted family at the CVA office there. The highlight of my trip must be the 3 weeks I spent working at Uluru with the privilege of living on the traditional landowners community just 2kms from the rock. I could make my predawn cup of coffee watching the first streaks of dawn appearing over Uluru which completely filled my kitchen window. Most people get 3 hours at Uluru and I got 3 weeks! The CVA accommodation in Alice Springs is special - we lived in a converted silver bullet railway carriage, close quarters but certainly adequate for 8 of us. I enjoyed all the projects immensely as physical work and getting down and dirty is not new to me having worked with horses for years and also as a professional gardener.
Don't know how many people will read this but another highlight for a 52 year old was all the virile young men I got to sleep with!!!!!! With bunking accommodations. Being as it is wherever there was an available bunk was where one slung their sleeping bag. As I've got great street cred with young people I really had a blast with them - I'm now quite an expert on different types of heavy metal music. The last week in the house in Perth I was with a group of 10 and the next closest in age to me had just celebrated his 20th birthday. I will be returning to Oz in October and will be pursuing more volunteer work with CVA in different parts of the country as it is a wonderful way to see so many things that a normal tourist would not see. I also managed to complete The Track, Darwin to Adelaide - a long held dream of mine, including staying in an underground hostel at Coober Pedy. On the next trip I intend to take the southern east-west route along the Eyre Highway, from Adelaide to Perth, also on a small group camping trip - one sees so much in these trips and the guides usually are great. Ok, so that's the trip in a nutshell and a few words - as you can imagine when speaking to a kindred spirit I could go on for ever, to regular tourists they are just glazed with disbelief by this point!!
Anyway Teraisa, thanks again for everything and hopefully our paths might cross somewhere in Australia - I'll be the one with white hair having a blast with a bunch of 19 year olds.
- Barbara Buchannen (OZ)
