by Thea Hayes
We toured Rajasthan, going from Delhi to Bikaner, Jodhpur, Ranthambore (to see the tigers), Agra (Taj Mahal) and back to Delhi. We saw both incredible poverty and incredible history—the Royal Forts, Heritage Palaces, the Marwar camel festival, where we rode camels and elephants, and the biggest highlight of all, the Taj Mahal. Mary, one of the girls on the tour, was always looking for ring-necked parrots. At Agra, we made our way with thousands of people to see the mausoleum, and through an archway it suddenly appeared—the wondrous sight of the Taj Mahal. We were all blown away by its beauty and splendour, but then Mary piped up, ‘Oh, I think I see a red-necked parrot.’
Bob, in the meantime, was seriously looking for a job in the country. A position was offered to him on Carbean, a farm situated between Goondiwindi and Moree. It was an 8000-acre broadacre property owned by Charlie Hickson, from Mungindi. We had driven out to meet the manager, Charlie, at Carbean, and when we saw the house, we decided to take the job—for six months, I said.
While I was in India, Bob moved in to Carbean. I hated the thought of being so far out of town. It wasn’t like Carraman at Narrandera—only eleven kilometres from town. However, after we moved some of our furniture from Straddie to our new home, and all our personal effects had been collected from Jason’s shed—where they had been since 2010 when I went walkabout with Bob—we became quite settled in our new home, playing old records; looking at old photos. It is very comforting to have your own things around you.
I rang up the Goondiwindi bridge club to ask if I could join them, and after meeting them all at their Christmas party, I started playing bridge with the delightful members of the club. The sixty-odd kilometres to town didn’t worry me at all.
Bob and I are enjoying life on the farm until fate decides the next journey. Carbean is a haven for birds of all descriptions, but particularly dozens of apostlebirds. There is plenty of artesian water and in these drought conditions, the birds keep coming to drink and bathe under the sprinklers or in the bird bath that Bob has placed in the middle of our rather grand garden.
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The dollarbirds odyssey
When I first met Bob, I discovered that he was a self-taught ornithologist with great knowledge about most Australian birds and their habits. I, on the other hand, knew almost nothing about birds. Bob gave me a bird book, but it wasn’t until we went to Narrandera that I started to take an interest. My first study bird was the dollarbird. It was during our first year, on my birthday in October, that the dollarbirds descended on our farm, nesting in the river red gums just beside our house.
The birds migrate from New Guinea and southern Asia to breed in this beautiful area and fly back to their home every March with their new family. We saw them in the same tree for two years. You could hear them in the mornings, a rapid cackle, ‘kzak-kzak-kzak-kzak’ or ‘kak–kak–kak’, or sometimes, it would be similar, but a slightly slower and stronger ‘kzaark’.
We would try to see them high up in the branches. They were very elusive, but not to the cockatoos and galahs, who thought they owned this particular patch of trees near our house. You could hear their screeching as they flew around our house being hunted out by the dollarbirds.
After the dollarbirds had settled in and made their nest in a hollow in a tree, if you were lucky, you would see acrobatic aerial twisting and rolling during their very vocal courtship flights. You might also see patches under their pale green-blue wings resembling American silver dollars, the reason for their name.
One year, we noted the arrival of the dollarbirds—it was almost exactly the same time as the previous year, on my birthday. We heard the relinquishment of the cockatoos and galahs, and we saw a display by the cocky young male, and presumed love had found its way.
However, in February we had a heat wave. It was so hot. It went on for weeks. Late in February we heard a very sad ‘kzak–kzaak–kzak-kzaak-kzak-kzaak.’ It was the male dollarbird calling for his mate. It went on and on for several days. What had happened to the little family? He couldn’t find them. We could only presume that the mother and baby dollarbirds had expired in the extreme heat in their nest deep in the hollow of the tree. We felt so sad.
By March the dollarbird had gone back overseas. We wondered if we would ever see him again. Having lost his loved ones, would he want to return here?
The next year, on 17 October 2014 to be exact, we woke to the screeching of the cockatoos and galahs, who were flying around in a frenzy. Going outside, we heard, ‘kzak-kzak-kzak.’
The dollarbird had returned.
Over the next few days he made claim to his hollow in the same large river red gum. Just over a week later, we heard an excited, ‘kak-kak-kak.’ Bob, my obsessive birdwatching partner, assured me that indeed our little friend had found a new mate.
A sure sign indeed that life goes on. Love had found its way.
I am now eighty-three years old, but I feel like I’m forty-three. I have always been adventurous, and when opportunity knocks, I open the door. As a result, I have had an exciting and wonderful life.
I have loved reliving my life by writing. Following in my mother’s footsteps and becoming a nurse has been one of the best things I have ever done, enabling me to meet wonderful people, patients and co-workers.
My advice?
Stay calm, don’t stress, weep when you must, but often laugh like there is no tomorrow. And always try to do something new—whether it be a course of study, travel, writing or even enjoying a later-in-life romance.
I really don’t know if I want to settle down because I might miss out on an adventure or two!
Thea and her family on the steps of the Wave Hill homestead on the day they left in 1979.
Thea’s husband Ralph serving customers at ‘The Corner Store’ in the early eighties.
Bidgi Park, Thea’s first property after Wave Hill, was a dairy farm in Toogoolawah, south-east Queensland.
Thea and a Holstein Friesian calf at Bidgi Park.
Bidgi Park Murray Grey ‘Colossus’ with Thea and Ralph at the Toogoolawah Show in 1986.
The Brisbane Valley Book Club at one of their monthly gatherings.
Thea and Ralph’s second farm, Murrawah, near Oakey on the Darling Downs.
Ralph with son Anthony and grandson Robert, before Ralph lost his battle with lung cancer in 1994.
After moving to Oakey, Thea began home nursing with the St Vincent de Paul Nursing Service.
The poster Thea prepared for the Bas Solais palliative care conference in Dublin, 2000. Bas Solais means ‘death with illumination’.
Touring England, aged sixty-five, while working as a nurse in a London hospice in 2000.
The staff in the palliative care unit at St Joseph’s Hospice, Hackney, in London. Thea is in the second row on the left.
Thea at the 2000 Wimbledon Championships in London.
Backpacking across the Continent on her days off from St Joseph’s Hospice.
The Hawkesbury Canoe Classic team with Thea and their land crew.
The palliative care team at Mt Olivet, Kangaroo Point, Brisbane, in 2005. Thea continued to work as a nurse here until the end of 2009.
Thea and her daughter on Penny’s wedding day in 2004, post-cyclone at Point Lookout, North Stradbroke Island.
Thea and her grandchildren at Cylinder Beach, North Stradbroke Island.
A quiet moment nursing Sam, her grandson, during one of Thea’s fortnightly babysitting trips to Sydney.
Thea and her partner Bob with their caravan during their ‘walkabout’ trip around Australia in 2010.
The ‘house on the prairie’ at Carraman, Narrandera, in the NSW Riverina.
Bob with one of the Yamba Angus Stud bulls at Carraman. (Photo by Lindsay Hayes)
Thea with her ‘beautiful’ dog Rupert, who lived with her and Bob at Carraman.
The Rocky Waterholes Bridge in Narrandera during its construction in 2011.
Thea holding her first book, An Outback Nurse, outside Wave Hill Station, thirty
-seven years after her departure.
Signing books at Yeppoon, Queensland, during the publicity tour for An Outback Nurse.
Thea with Jimmy Wavehill and his wife Biddy Wavehill Yamawurr at the fiftieth anniversary celebrations of Gurindji Freedom Day in 2016.
The Hon. Warren Snowden, the federal Member for Lingiari in the Northern Territory, addresses crowds at Kalkarindji for Gurindji Freedom Day in 2016.
Since leaving Carraman in 2014, Bob and Thea have continued to explore Australia in their caravan.
Thea, Bob, Penny and her children in Hobart, Tasmania, during Thea and Bob’s farm-sitting stint around the state.
Thea at the Taj Mahal, Agra, during her tour around India in 2017.
Thea working on her latest book at her new home at Carbean, near Goondiwindi in southern Queensland in 2019. (Photo by Melissa Carrigan)
Acknowledgements
First of all I would like to thank Claire Kingston, consultant publisher at Allen & Unwin, for publishing my second book. When Claire emailed me to say she had enjoyed reading my stories I was over the moon. And then to receive a contract to publish my book—wow! Thank you so much.
My sincere thanks to Tessa Feggans for being such a thoughtful and obliging editor. Kylie Westaway, Freda Marnie Nicholls and the team at Allen & Unwin for being so easy to work with.
Huge thanks to Jane Grieve for her wonderful poem about The Sturt Ladies Club and for agreeing to write the foreword for A Country Nurse. Again, thank you.
I would like to thank all my nursing mates who helped me remember how it was, especially Genia Moskowitz, Dr Pat Treston and Wendy Smith.
Thank you to my children Anthony, David, Jason and Penny for your opinions and advice.
To my son-in-law Patrick Joyce, thank you for legal advice.
I would also like to thank Peter Beale of Landcare Narrandera for providing details of the building of the Rocky Waterholes Bridge.
And a great big thank you to Bob Black, my partner, for being there, listening to every chapter as I read and asked, ‘Is this okay?’ I couldn’t have done it without you.
Thank you all.