We've been in Derby for a little over 3 weeks now, minus the week we spent in Orientation in Kalgoorlie. Although it’s only been a short time, so much has happened that it feels a lot longer. My students arrived a week ago Monday, and we welcomed them with a steak barbeque, with salad, and chips from the local Takeaway. We finished with American-style banana splits, as novel to them as the daily cricket matches on the telly are to us. They have settled in well to their studies at the hospital and DAHS (Derby Aboriginal Health Service). We have been staying in a nice house provided by DAHS, but have been given the opportunity to upgrade to another place with a wonderful garden and beautiful veranda, just around the corner. Vicki and I spent this last weekend painting the kitchen and master bedroom: white of course...

But despite all this, I know we are still in the first impressions stage. And my first impression of Derby and the Kimberly, is that everything is INTENSE. When we first stepped off the plane from the South (twice in two weeks!) the heat hit us like a sauna. The sunlight is piercingly bright- we have to wear our “sunnies” everywhere. We walk early in the morning to avoid the baking 38-40 C. heat. From complete darkness, in minutes the sun slams over the horizon. At that moment, the quiet is suddenly broken by a cacophony of birdsong and the flutter of rainbow wings in the trees. The earth itself is extreme, this ancient landscape thrusting upwards in rust brick termite mounds. Boab trees have immensely thick trunks and dark green leaves. Ghost gums, white barked, provide contrast. Bugs are huge, a grasshopper, larger than my hand, dive-bombing me out of a frangipani; giant beetles appear and walk across the floor of my Consulting Room. The tides fluctuate 10 meters, boiling up the sound in standing waves of caramel-colored water. A ship riding in to the wharf on the tide grows from a small dot on the horizon to running up on the beach in 15 minutes. The sky is huge. Cloud bases float at high altitude and build into the stratosphere by late afternoon. Wind blows off the King Sound strongly enough to push land-sailors to high speeds on a mud flat Sunday afternoon. Some days thunder rumbles like an earthquake, shaking the building before unleashing a twenty minute torrential downpour. Immediately after soaking the soil, the sun returns to steam the town, and vapors rise from the puddles. At the end of the day, 4 layers of clouds take it in turns to glow golden crimson in an 180 degree sunset. As if that was not enough, the full moon bangs over the horizon, huge, orange and upside down. INTENSE.

You can see it here: