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the-k-alien · 2 years

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2022-07-17: a year that felt like 100 years, but also felt like yesterday I still can’t believe it’s been a year since I held you in my arms for the last time 1 year ago. I still remember that last week so vividly as if were yesterday. I wanted to watch those videos and photos today, but I couldn’t. When I close my eyes, I see all these moments in front of me... Sunday night I left to work aboard for a week and said goodbye to you like I always did. You were sleeping and you didn’t bother look at me. I thought you were lazy, but you were already feeling unwell at that time and I didn’t know 😔. Mom told me on Friday night that you’ve been sick for a few days, but she didn’t want me to get worried so she didn’t tell me... I came home Saturday afternoon and you were eating from mom’s hands. You clearly looked weak and unwell. However, that night you seemed a lot better, you were even unpacking with me and wanted to get in my luggage. You were curious of all the stuff I brought back home and you ate better too! I debated if I should bring you to an emergency vet, but I decided to wait and see since you seemed better. Now I know you were only better because you were happy to see me 😔. Sunday you kept improving. I thought my home remedy’s working, but I still contacted your regular vet for an emergency appointment. I cancelled work Monday and the rest of the week except for Friday, which I fully regret now. We went to the vet on Tuesday and you kept improving from the day I got home. The vet told me you seemed weak, but ignorant as I was, I told her you were doing good... Wednesday was the day that things got worse. I started giving you your first pill EVER, but you were getting weaker. Thursday morning I made you chicken soup that you barely ate. I started seringue feeding you water and forced you to eat food. I started getting really desperate because you stopped eating. You vomited a lot of liquid that night and you were shaky after that. Friday I went to work despite all that because I felt back cancelling another day. I shouldn’t have left your side if I knew you were gonna leave me the next day. I contacted the vet to change your meds and mom brought you to that appointment. Things just went downhill so fast that night. You didn’t have enough strength to walk straight and you haven’t ate anything. Out of desperation, I went to the emergency vet at midnight wondering if it was worth it to bring you there because I didn’t want to torture you if they can’t saved. Finally I decided to not bring you there. I just knew that you have very slim chances to be saved and YOU wouldn’t want to be there alone in a cage. I made all the decisions as if I were you. Your happiness is my priority and I KNEW you would want me to stay by your side until the very end. That night I probably slept 3-4 hours. Called the vet you used to go because they are open on Saturdays. They were so understanding and took you in that day. And that’s when I had to make my decision for you and I think I did the right thing. I’m sorry for delaying your treatment and I’m sorry for not noticing you were sick earlier 😢😢. It was completely my fault and I’ll never be able to forgive myself. You were so healthy your whole life that I was sure you were gonna stay with me until you reach 20... I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you needed me 😢. I’m sorry for all the wrong decisions I’ve made 😔 This year without you have been the hardest year of my life. I’ve never cried that much my whole life. My heart literally felt torn the first 2 weeks. I barely ate anything the first week you left... I still can’t look at your photos without crying... I miss EVERYTHING about you. I miss your purr, your meows, your footsteps, the smell of your sweaty paws, your little arms around my neck when I held you...It feels like it’s been forever since I last held your head in my palms, kissed your nose, scratched your chin or behind your ears, held you in my arms, played fight with you, brushed your teeth and cleaned your ears, watched cars and birdies out of the window, laid with you on the floor or on the couch... I MISS YOUR SILLY LITTLE FACE SO FREAKING MUCH and I’ve never missed anything or anyone that much in my life... You were the cutest kitten of your litter and you’ve been spoiled by your human mamma from day 1. You came to my life when you were 5 months old, but I was able to keep a few photos of you as a tinny baby. You grew up to be such a pretty and smart kitty. You were perfect and I don’t think I’ll ever find a perfect kitty like you... Today, I saw a bird flying away from my window sill at around 1:53pm. I just turned around and saw a bird fly away from my window. I don’t think it was a coincidence that you left EXACTLY 1 year ago at 1:52pm on July 17, 2021. I believe you sent that birdie to me today ❤️. This afternoon I went to a cat café with mom to commemorate your special day. It was our first time at a cat café and it was pretty nice. All the kitty were sleeping tho, but they are the chillest cats ever. They don’t move even when I was touching their hind legs! It felt nice to be surrounded by kitties again, but none of them felt like you... you were way too special 💖 I’ve said it, but I’ll say this again for the rest of my life: I miss you and I love you so so so much. I’m so sorry for everything and I hope you’re doing good up there ❤️🌈

#mickie #rip mickie #l love you

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lindoig8 · 3 years

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Winter!!!

Tuesday, 1 June.

June already – hard to believe! Where has the past 70-odd years gone?

We started with a big load of washing and put all the rest of the groceries away. The water at Gemtree wasn’t brilliant so we had only done a minimum of hand-washing out there and had heaps to do once we had better water in Alice.

Once it was all on the line, Heather made our lunch and we set off for a drive through the East MacDonnells. It is one of my favourite drives around here and we called in at Emily Gap, Jessie Gap and Corroboree Rock, all along the Ross Highway and an easy drive from here. We had each place pretty much to ourselves and it was great to wander and gape at the hills and rocks at each place. There was no water anywhere (and very little on our previous visits) but everything was green and there was peace and birdsong and gentle breezes. The whole experience was quite delightful.

It is really impossible to describe the country here, especially in that area. To say that the rocks are awesome is such an understatement as to be ridiculous. Mighty slabs of rock in brilliant colours are everywhere. There are huge trees and green grass, yellow(-ish) sand and more rocks. Stupendous! And more stupendous! I will let a few pics speak for me, but remember that the pics are a pale shadow of reality.

The aboriginal influence is everywhere with lots of caveats about walking in places or climbing on the rocks, even limiting photography in some areas. I am not sure how comfortable I am with their level of control, but it works pretty much on the honour system unless you get caught. Not sure what might happen if you did, but we didn’t do much to invoke their wrath in any case.

We then followed yet another section of the Binns Track: a wonderful drive south and then east to the Ross River. The second half of that was superb with towering cliffs and even more spectacular rocks surrounding us – almost canyon-like. We followed the dry tree-lined riverbed for several kilometres until we came to the very dilapidated Ross River Resort that looks sadder every time we visit. It looks more like a kids’ school camp than a Resort. We were getting low on fuel so I checked the price of diesel out there - $2.50 instead of the $1.30 in Alice. I wanted to refresh the fuel in our jerrycans so we emptied them into our tank and headed for home, arriving back at the caravan just after dark after a wonderfully inspiring day.

Wednesday, 2 June

Because we arrived back in town after dark yesterday, we started the day by collecting our washing from the lines immediately after breakfast. A few things were not quite dry due to the cool moist air overnight, but they were soon dry and put away back in the van.

We had a leisurely morning and then headed into town to meet up with a friend who is working here at present. He works for the government in Melbourne but travels with his office – working from home, just a different home when and where he chooses. We have known him for over 10 years through our work at LACVI, but haven’t seen him for a while and it was great to catch up and have a wonderful thought-provoking discussion with him.

We put 150 litres of fuel in the car and went looking for a butcher that we had been told sold camel meat. It is supposed to be particularly healthy meat and we have wanted to try it for ages – and we wanted some goat for our special goat curry too. We found the shop (Milners) not far from the servo where we purchased our fuel and they have a huge range of game and fish as well as more traditional fodder. We bought several items but were looking for pippies and they didn’t have any. Fortunately, there are two 'Milners' in Alice Springs and the other one is even bigger so we found it and topped up our meat stock with everything we wanted. We have since tried one of the camel cuts we purchased and it tasted very much like beef-steak – tasty but pretty tough, but blame me for that: I probably didn’t cook it correctly.

I spent quite a lot of my ‘spare time’ during the week working on the Gemtree Bird-list so whenever we weren’t doing something else, I was beavering away on that.

Thursday, 3 June

We intended getting away earlier than usual because we had a big day planned, but it was still after 10am before we were in the car.

We drove past the places we had visited a couple of days earlier and struck out for Ruby Gap. We have heard so many people talk about what a challenge it is to get there and lack of time had defeated us at least 3 times before so we wanted to start a bit earlier this time. Once off the bitumen, the road deteriorated and certainly got worse as we went on, but I still didn’t think it was all that terrible. We eventually reached the National Park and encountered a gate – the actual Ruby Gap is a further 5 clicks beyond the gate – and that is the bit people say is so challenging. Alas, the gate held a sign that advised us that the rangers were doing aerial shooting of feral animals and only the road reserve and the camping area was accessible. We had noticed some helicopters flying around as we approached the area and now we knew why.

We ate our lunch and debated what to do, but a careful reading of the signs encouraged us to give it a go. We set off down the hill to the riverbed and were confronted with 3-400 metres of deep heavy sand – with another gate at the far end. I walked the track to the second gate and decided it was passable, but I could see another 500 metres of sand on the other side of the gate that looked pretty dodgy too. We had a little confab and decided that maybe Ruby Gap wasn’t worth the risk so we turned around and drove back up the hill to the first gate just as the Ranger arrived. He was there to remove the signs because the feral animal cull had been completed, but he discouraged us further from going back out there. He said he is always winching overly-ambitious 4WDs out of the area and said he has got himself into serious trouble on occasions too. In consultation with him, we decided that we wouldn’t try it because we didn’t know if anyone else was out there to help us if we got stuck. Cattlewater Pass is one thing, but Ruby Gap seemed just too foolish without any back-up so we headed back to the main road.

This gave us a bit more time than expected so we decided to go into Trephina Gorge – another of our favourite places in the East MacDonnells. When we got near the Gorge, we saw a sign for the John Hayes Rockhole. I once worked for a ****** called John Hayes and we decided to explore. The track in was unbelievable. It was only a bit over 4 kilometres but was about as bad as the dreaded 22-kilometre Tuwackam Track that took us three and a half fun-filled hours some years ago. We traversed about 2 kilometres and came up behind a guy towing a caravan in – at an average speed of maybe half a kilometre per hour. By chance, we found a place we could turn around so did so and headed back to a more passable road.

On to Trephina Gorge and it was every bit as beautiful as we remembered. We walked a long way in and took lots of photos, but the terrain was very sandy and boggy so walking was very hard work and we decided to head back to the car after half an hour or so.

Our route home took us past the John Hayes Rockhole so we gave it another go on the assumption that the guy who we had been following would have reached his destination by now. Unfortunately, the road had not improved in the interim and it simply went from 'absolutely dreadful' to 'very absolutely dreadful' and went downhill from there. But there was no possible place to turn around and we eventually arrived at the tiny ‘Camping Area’ with another 3(?) kilometres to go to the Rockhole itself. I spoke to the guy who had been towing his van in front of us earlier in the afternoon and he was wishing desperately that he hadn’t embarked on the drive. There was another bus there but the guy said he had no idea what lay further ahead on the track – and there was nobody about from the third vehicle there and the guy said it might well have been abandoned rather than try to return to the main road in it.

We turned around and got back to the main road after another half hour or so and encountered yet another caravan considering the trip in. He asked what the track was like and when we told him, he decided on the spot not to tackle it. He was waiting for his son who had been in there before and they were going to go in together, but he decided without question that he was not going in, even if his son wanted to take the chance.

By the time we drove home, it was quite dark and we discovered that we had a blown low-beam headlight globe and the car has rather/very poor forward vision unless we are able to use our high-beam, and especially our recently-installed light-bar that is really fabulous.

That night, we were in bed watching our usual DVD with the sound reasonably low (in my opinion). We have gone outside the van a few times and listened to check how loud it is in case it is a nuisance to the neighbours – and unless the windows are open (very rarely), it can hardly be heard. But the Park has a sign indicating ‘no noise after 10pm’ and by 10.01, we had a guy from the next row banging on our door and demanding that we 'shut off the racket'. We immediately turned our system off and read for a while instead – missing the last few minutes of our show. Next morning, this guy was leaving so he connected up his truck and ran the engine for over an hour immediately behind our van while he and two other couples laughed and chatted and shouted within a couple of metres of us. I am sure he was doing it to spite us, but on principle, I didn’t take the bait and they eventually gave up and left. I almost wished that he got 4 flat tyres before he got out of Alice!

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