The Pain and the Pleasure of New Places

Wandered around Fremantle over the weekend and was blessed enough to run into the Fremantle Arts Festival, so at least there was some music to entertain me. Ann- you'd have loved the WA Mandolin Orchestra. Fortunate enough to have the choice of Lindsay Pollack, a long time favourite, playing at Kulcha or the Herd playing down at the Arts Centre or some funky groove stuff I never heard of over at the Fly by Night musicians club. I chose the funky happenings and wasn't sorry...but as I was incredibly hung over and totally outdone binge-drinking wise by the seasoned party crew at the Perth office it wasn't a late night.

It's a strange city, Perth, they don't have that many people so they added a few bronze extras, mostly with a colonial feel to match the buildings. Its clean and refurbished and after so many good boom years it still looks flush with money. However it is a boom and bust kind of place, and all good Perthians are preparing for the big bust, commiserating with me for coming out West at the start of the wrong kind of cycle. You know you hear about the resource boom back in NSW and know that its a mining town but just how big and how skewed and how totally pro-mining it is still came as a huge shock to me. I guess I am still reeling and this week the shock of the place nearly had me totally undone.

Maybe I should start at the beginning... First of all the reality of work at a seriously underfunded and under resourced statutory body like a Native Title Review Board in what appears to be the most discriminatory state of them all - WA. Means that the accommodation that you knew would be nothing flash turns out to be a horror show that you can't switch off. Here is a photo of my hotel, I live in that yellow strip next to the jacaranda at the top left. People of Wollongong- think about those units at the corner of Crown and Mt Keira and you'll get the idea...

Next, welcome to an organisation that has been so chronically underfunded that the mining companies (opponents) had to request more funding for them, just so that they could manage to perform the totally one-sided farce that facilitates mining operations in this state. The result of which is a state of disorganisation second to none. Which means you get dumped in front of a computer, hardly introduced and you start working, never really sure what you are doing or why or if you should be doing it differently.

The frustration and bewilderment of landing in a place like this and needing to basically fend for yourself brought me to tears yesterday (not to mention the lack of sleep brought on by the eleven (yes, count them) lane freeway running past my window) ...BUT then amongst all that are the moments of humour and bewilderment that you get by looking at the world through the eyes of another. How strange this native title system must seem to the traditional owners who having been working in such a crazy, disorganised and frankly embarassing debacle that doesn't really get them anywhere anyway; except with a whole lotta money that they can fight over and at war with their neighbouring claimant groups about where exactly, with pinpoint GPS precision, their country stops and another's starts.

It is, despite all that, interesting work and the some of the people I am meeting here are really inspiring and amazing people. Thanks to the heavens for my fellow intern Akmal who has a great attitude and keeps me laughing through the day. And on the weekends to escape the accommodation horror I have been doing all sorts of exciting stuff, at least it's a great motivator!

On Sunday I went for a paddle around the Shoalwater Marine Park near Rockingham and also snorkelled through some really amazing kelp and seagrass forests. A marine environment I had never thought I would enjoy exploring so much (due to my absolute terror of seaweed) but it's really nice when it's all attached and alive, growing in a more orderly fashion with (naturally) seaweed free avenues you can snorkel through to look at all the different and countless types of kelp.

In the evenings I am not far from King's Park, its beautiful...and some of the Wildflowers are still out. There is also a flight of more than 600 steps (my estimate) and each night I join all the other crazies walking up and down them in an effort to fall into an exhausted (and traffic oblivious) stupor. Altogether, (although not if you asked me yesterday) I am still glad I came because I am learning and after all that is what it's all about.