How I came to be in Kintore (Part1)

 

When I met my wife, in 2009, we had many things in common but the main thing was our love of camping and being in nature, country, outback, bush, beach – not the city life. We were both originally country girls after all.

We soon set a 5 year plan that would be a stepping stone to our ultimate goal which is to work and travel / camp our way around our beautiful country, Australia.

We camped as much as possible and built up our gear so that our 4WD (Lizzie) and camper trailer (Crusher) were set up the way we need and want for basic comfort, practicality and for off road, free camping wherever we could. We would be completely self-sufficient and would only need enough money for food, fuel and the occasional camping fees.

 

Our first trip together was to outback NSW, Broken Hill Via Mildura and Lake Mungo

 

 

Then it was to the Victorian High Country - Corryong and Omeo

 

 

Then we upgraded to Lizzie and Crusher and explored Murrindindi and Sheepyard Flat in Victoria's NE.

 

 

 

 

 

Touring around Alice Springs, NT for two weeks with the "My Swag" group in July 2014

 Last year (2015) a tragedy in our family and some professional issues for me made us re assess our 5 year plan. We had already reached 5 years and our projections were tracking steadily so it was now time to take another leap towards our goal.

The universe always tells us things…….what to do and when to do it.

By June 2015, I had had enough of my workplace so I began putting feelers out to other jobs, including Governess Australia (an employment website for people to work with children in remote locations).

We had dreams of me being a Governess on a remote cattle station and Linda being a general handyman; maybe creating and maintaining an amazing vege garden, orchard and flower garden as is one of her many expertise. In our spare time, we would take Lizzie and Crusher camping and explore the region that we were living in. Linda would take photos of the region and sell them to tourist, cattle station, camping, websites and magazines.

Anyway, the stars were not perfectly aligned yet……..

BUT one Friday night, I saw a job advertised in a Facebook Group I was in and it ticked all the boxes. It was a job working for the MacDonnell Regional Council, based in Alice Springs, Northern Territory and my actual job would be as a children’s services team leader in a remote Aboriginal community. Everything about it would be new to me – the job, the location and the state.

I showed Linda, saying “what do you reckon?”; never once believing that I would even get an interview. Linda fully supported me applying for the job so I went ahead. However I didn’t push the “submit” button until the Sunday night. We talked about it all weekend, the “what ifs”, “pros and cons’ and the logistics. The biggest issue would be that Linda couldn’t join me because her daughters needed to finish their schooling and be settled in employment, accommodation and life.

Issues at work and life itself made me forget about the application until I received a phone call inviting me for an interview – I was excited but still not there yet. A week later, I had a phone interview and continued to wait. Work, life, work, life, work, life continued…….still no word.

One day while still at work, I took a phone call from the MacDonnell Regional Council offering me a job – in Kintore. I accepted the position and then texted Linda at work the word “KINTORE”.

Long story short and in my next blog entry my life turned upside down but in all the good ways we wanted.