1974-THE FURY OF NUNGALINYA "Old Man Rock"

23rd December, 1974 was living in a house on the banks of the mighty MacArthur River in the Northern Territory. The beautiful red bluffs of the river were what greeted me each morning I opened my eyes.

I had not been off the Cattle Station for 20 months and things were getting a little desperate. I had one pair of thongs left with a broken big toe connection. My hair was down past my waist having not had a hair cut for years. My son four years of age had grown out of his clothes and had been running feral for the past two years. Riding about in helicopters, graders and living on the river with the aboriginal children. My son did not speak English. He spoke the local aboriginal language mixed with English. Visitors would listen to his earnest stories and go away shaking their respective heads "Someone should tell that woman that something is wrong with that kid".

I decided that was time to visit civilization and purchase some clothes shoes etc for my son and myself. The neighbors on MacArthur Station, Americans, Howensteins, dropped in when they heard I was off to the big smoke. "Would you like a lift we are taking the plane to Darwin and will drop you off". "OK, sounds good". My son, James and I an unlikely looking pair, bare footed and brown slipped on to the little plane at the MacArthur airstrip heading for Darwin. The plane set off into clear blue skies and we droned northwards. The pilot after about half an hour did a uuuey with the laconic explanation "Think we might go to Mt. Isa, the winds are getting up at Darwin". An understatement. The Cyclone warning was not issued until 12.30 on the 23rd December and we were in the air at 9.30. Luckily for my son and I the pilot was not gung ho as many were in those days. My father survived over 50 Jap raids on Darwin and perhaps I would not have been so lucky as did not have anywhere to stay, was going to sort that out when I arrived at Darwin. I narrowly missed the ferocious Tracey by the skin of my teeth.
At Mt. Isa found a few seats on a jet connecting to Brisbane and my son and I boarded the plane, both barefooted. I decided I would pretend that we had shoes and walked off that plane into the Brisbane Terminal with my head held high and learnt on Christmas afternoon from a friend at Katherine that Darwin was evacuating with streams of shell shocked motorists driving through Katherine not knowing where they were heading. The little matter of our lack of shoes paled into insignificance and I marvelled at the hands of fate.