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The Rock

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On Saturday, my beloved Dohn asked me to marry him.

I said yes.

The Rock.

The ring had been a while in the making. I am a ditherer. I am not good at making decisions. (When it comes to work I am, but when it comes to my life? Fuggedit.) First I had to choose a jeweller and settled on the remarkable David Taylor Master Jeweller in Cairns. Then David did some searching according to the criteria we’d decided on, and I had to select a diamond. (I has me standards, I does!) The diamond took two or three weeks for me to decide on, and then had to be imported so that added another week. There was much excitement when David told us it had arrived and was stunning. In the meantime, he had made a silver draft of the ring design I wanted, with a cubic zirconia. This is his fail-safe way of making sure the customer is going to be super-happy with the end result, and he will make as many adjustments as it takes. We drove down to Cairns to approve the diamond (as if I’d know if it wasn’t what it was professed to be! But the GIA certificate was also there) and try on the draft.

The diamond (which David referred to as a “stone” and we called “the rock”) was so white. Which it should be, with its D colour, but it really was very bright and sparkly. The silver draft was ok but I wanted a few adjustments, and later graphics of variations were to fly thick and fast between us. David was wonderful. Believe me, that man has the patience of a saint. He never let me feel for a moment that I was causing hassles or wasting his time with my dithering and chopping and changing. Such a professional.

A total of three drafts later, I was finally happy with the design and David, who may perhaps have been more relieved than any of us, made up the engagement ring and we picked it up on Saturday, 13th October, 2012.

It is exactly what I envisaged. The man is a genius.

Most importantly, though, Dohn and I could now tell people. We have been so happy together and we are looking forward to building a future in this “strange new land” in which we find ourselves. We are not sure when the wedding will be (both of us want to be married but the thought of a wedding fills our hearts with dread) but we do know we intend to spend the rest of our lives together.

Enter: Far North Queensland

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As I mentioned in Taking Cochlear Implants to the Depths, the man who was (and still is, for that matter) my dive instructor eventually took on an even more important role in my life and we remain as happy together as two pigs in mud.

An interstate move

Early this year, Dohn was invited to take up a position as Managing Director of a small mining company in Far North Queensland (FNQ). It was not on my agenda to move interstate and I had never even been to Queensland, but I could see how important it was to him, and agreed he should take the job and I would go too. After living in Perth all my life — with home, family and friends firmly established in that city — this was a big thing for me. Dohn didn’t care where he went, and indeed had recently returned from two years managing an engineering company in Saudi Arabia, but I had never lived anywhere other than Perth.

Atherton Tablelands

In February, the company flew us to Sydney so they could go over things with Dohn, then we were taken up to Mount Garnet in Queensland, where the mining company is based. Far North Queensland is another world! I felt like I was on a tropical holiday (well, I suppose I was) and I was taken aback by the beauty of it all. I had zero expectations, because I knew nothing about the area, and from the moment I saw the coastline as the plane came in to land at Cairns Airport, it was a case of “Wow. Wow. Wow.”

The road exiting the airport is edged with mangroves and swamp, and bears warnings about crocodile-infested waters — not something I’d seen before. Then the twisty drive up the range onto the Atherton Tablelands was stunning, with the rainforest rising directly upwards from each side of the narrow road and joining in a vivid green canopy overhead. Once past the town of Atherton, the scenery was truly spectacular. The countryside is steeply contoured and so, so green, and fringed with forest-covered volcanic (extinct of course) mountain ranges. Houses are, as often as not, typical Queenslanders; verandahed dwellings on poles and clad with weatherboard, perched high on ridges or down in valleys in choice spots beside any of the innumerable watercourses. The southern Tablelands are referred to as “Australia’s Tropical Dairyland” and we discovered that the hills are covered in the greenest pasture and dotted with cows. For a lover of the country, as I am, it was and is idyllic.

View over the Atherton Tablelands from McHugh Lookout, Millaa Millaa.

Mount Garnet

Mount Garnet, however, is a somewhat different kettle of fish. On the western edge of the Tablelands, it is part of the Savannah Way, and from Ravenshoe (45km before you get to Mount Garnet) westwards the landscape changes to grassy open eucalypt country: “Savannah woodlands”. It is beautiful in its own way but very different to most of the Tablelands.

To get to the mine, once in Mount Garnet turn right at the pub and follow the (very bad) unsealed roads 15km or so through the hilly open forest cattle stations, past many herds of cattle, the odd brumby or two, and several pretty dams, until you reach a group of unimposing dongas by the side of the road. Three hours after leaving Cairns, you have finally arrived! Drive in and follow the signs directing you to back up to the bunds, get out and receive a quick induction of the mine site, then allow yourself to be shown around.

The mine is in a lovely, if remote, setting beside a dam with eucalyptus trees, mostly lemon-scented gums, rising up the far side. The accommodation units have a great outlook over the “lake”. When I saw this, and that there was a vacant donga with an ensuite right at the end of the row, metres from the dam edge, I had a brilliant idea! Why don’t we live at the mine at first, instead of rushing around while on this visit, trying to find somewhere to live for when we moved permanently?

The COO of the parent company, who had brought us there, thought it could be helpful temporarily but gave me three weeks maximum before I couldn’t stand it anymore. In my naive optimism, I thought that was amusing. But I acknowledged even at the time that my biggest problem was likely to be the shared kitchen. I do love to cook.

So it was all settled and a month later Dohn and I were firmly ensconced at a tin mine in Mount Garnet and my life had irrevocably changed.

Making a new life

There is good and bad about the move, and one of the good things is that the location of the mine is undeniably beautiful and serene.

A beautiful winter morning. Photo taken from the doorstep of our room.

However, sharing a kitchen is worse than I could have dreamed (don’t get me started!) and together with my lack of control over the way the things important to me are handled and the remoteness, it’s next to impossible for me to make a fulfilling life for myself as things are. We are looking for a property to buy and when that eventuates, things should look up in many ways. Also, I miss my family horribly. It has been quite an emotional few months for me.

On the plus side, we can dedicate weekends to getting out and exploring. There are some amazing places out here and we are steadily taking them all in. I still ask myself, for example: how did I never know that Cobbold Gorge existed?

Silently making our way by barge down the length of Cobbold Gorge — a magical place.

I’ve also learned a lot about mining and met some extremely interesting people. I have enjoyed many wonderful experiences directly related to Dohn’s job. Just today, I was taken into the tunnels of old tin workings originally built in 1880 — worked by hand, of course. What these men did with brute strength, pick and shovel, has my utmost admiration.

1880s tin workings.

This is an amazing part of the country and I am grateful to have the opportunity to experience it.

Taking cochlear implants to the depths

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I know, I know, I’ve done it again. It’s two years, almost to the day, since I last wrote. Argh. I started this post a year ago… wow, what a lot has happened since then, but for now I’ll just get this post out of the way. :-)

General CI update

First of all, my cochlear implants have been going pretty well. I had a software upgrade early last year which, in general, made sounds clearer, and also improved my music experience. Yay! I shouldn’t have waited so long before going back to the audiologist. I do have issues with pain on some of the electrodes which tends to mean that, with each visit, these electrodes have the volume turned further down, which is psychologically unpleasant but isn’t noticeably detrimental to my hearing experience.

Scuba diving!

Me waving underwater

Me, the scuba diver

Ears aside, in my mind one of the really positive things that happened last year is that I learned to scuba dive. I did my Open Water Diver (OWD) course in May, 2011. Diving is something that has held an attraction for me since at least high school, however there has always been something else more important to spend my money on. Finally, however, at the ripe old age of cough, cough, I bit the bullet.

I started the process by dropping in at Perth Diving Academy in Balcatta, about a 3-minute drive from my place. I spent quite some time talking to the folks there, and they could not have been more helpful. I was so impressed with the service that I wasn’t even interested in looking at other dive shops.

The Dive Medical

As a pre-requisite to the OWD course, everyone must undertake a dive medical, to be carried out according to Australian standards. Even with cochlear implants, I didn’t expect this to be an issue. I’d contacted the Med-El representative in Australia, who told me that my particular implants have been tested to 50 metres depth, which is deeper than I anticipate I’ll ever want to go. So I turned up for my dive medical feeling quietly confident.

The first thing the nurse wanted to do was put me in a hearing booth for a hearing test. I laughed wryly. “Good luck with that,” I said. When all was explained to her, she said, “Oh. I haven’t come across this before. I’d better talk to the doctor.” She disappeared for a bit then said the doctor wanted to see me before she went any further, so I had to wait a while longer for the doctor to become free.

The doctor eventually told me that he hasn’t come across a wannabe diver with cochlear implants in his 30 years of doing dive medicals. It seems I was his guinea pig, but I was happy to be one in this instance. He’d contacted an audiologist who sometimes worked there about it, and was awaiting her call back. Lo and behold, it was my beloved Roberta, who had been with me since my CI (Cochlear Implant) assessment, through switch-on and beyond. She’d left the Lions Hearing Clinic to go into private practice a year earlier. She called within minutes and I got to talk to her (evil woman — she may have guessed how much the phone would stress me! ;-) ) and it was all very wonderful.

However, she didn’t throw any light on the doctor’s dilemma. He was happy that the implants themselves were safe to 50 metres but, thinking aloud, wondered if the wiring that ran from the implant (which is embedded in the skull) to the cochlea might somehow compromise the integrity of the structure of the inner ear. He said that even though my hearing couldn’t be damaged any further, the vestibular (balance) system was in that area and his concern was that it could be affected in some way. I did appreciate him thinking it through and considering every conceivable negative consequence, but it was a bit hairy for a while there, wondering if I was going to pass the medical.

Still, after putting me through all the usual testing (all good!) the doctor decided that he had no real reason not to give me the go-ahead, so I left feeling happy and warm and fuzzy, dive medical certificate in hand.

Stresssssssss

After a couple of course cancellations due to lack of numbers at the Balcatta dive shop (it was, after all, late autumn and getting chilly) I decided I’d travel the extra 20 minutes to Hillarys where a course was going ahead, just to get to do it.

So I dutifully turned up at the Hillarys dive shop on the designated date, and the course commenced. The first morning was in the classroom, going over the pre-course material. That was fine. I’d done my homework! But in the afternoon we did pool work and, oh my, that was stressful.

Although everyone is in the same boat underwater, and no one can talk to each other there, it was a little different for me. If I had any kind of issue, I could come to the surface and tell the instructor, Dohn, but I could not, of course, hear his advice on how to deal with it. At the best of times, I get stressed when I can’t hear and know (or worry) I’m missing something important. Here was I, engaging in a potentially life-endangering activity and being taught how to do it safely, yet not being able to hear… well, to say that “I didn’t find it easy” would be a gross understatement.

Day 2 was somewhat better, because Dohn brought a slate into the pool so he could write things down for me and was really understanding and encouraging, assuring me he’d get me up to speed and wouldn’t let me drown. And he is a man of his word!

That’s not north!

Probably the most humorous aspect of the dive course related to the navigation exercises. Before going into the ocean, we first took our compasses out to the carpark and were shown how to use them. I was a bit confused by mine. I knew where North was, but my compass seemed to be telling me something else. I showed Dohn who seemed a bit puzzled, but acknowledged there was something wrong so gave me his own compass to use. When this compass, too, failed to indicate the correct direction of North, I realised that the magnets of my cochlear implants were interfering with it. Ha! What we did learn, though, was that there would be no adverse effect underwater so it was evidently related to my speech processors rather than the implants themselves. That was a relief!

The princess

Having cochlear implants has not proved a barrier to diving itself, but I certainly have a different experience of it compared with hearing folks, especially on boats with other people around. Sure, no one can talk underwater, but hearing people can still hear bubbles, and fish. (Yes, they apparently make a noise.) Hearing people can hear if boats go overhead, or an emergency whistle, or their buddy, if experiencing some kind of difficulty, tapping his or her tank trying to get their attention. At the surface, if someone from the boat calls out to me, I have no idea what they’re saying. When I get onto the boat, I’m asked for depth and remaining cylinder pressure but at least I know what to expect there. But the divemaster and everyone concerned needs to know in advance that I won’t hear if spoken to.

Then, of course, I’m on the boat with wet hair and still can’t hear because as long as my hair is wet I can’t use my speech processors. (Water and electronic devices definitely don’t mix!) So I’ve taken to bringing a hair dryer with me so my speech processors can go back in. I have my normal, powerful one for boats that will accommodate it, and also a portable, rechargeable one for smaller boats and beach dives. I have had some strange looks, I can tell you! A hairdryer on a dive boat! I wouldn’t be surprised it was previously unheard of, but even if other folks think I’m a princess, then so be it. I don’t want to be hours without my “ears”.

A magical new world

a majestic bull ray sweeps past

A stingray at Rottnest Island near Perth, Western Australia

Diving literally opens up a whole, magical new world. The underwater landscape is surreal, and the inhabitants are too. I love this world and feel far more protective of marine life than I was before. As a result, not just over-fishing and ocean dredging the world over causes me concern, but eating seafood at all creates something of a quandary. I like to swim with those creatures, not eat them! I find the concept quite confronting.

As with most things, the more you know, the more you realise you don’t know. The more I dive, the more respect I have for those who are Instructors and Dive Masters, because they are true masters of their crafts and I have such a long way to go! As a new diver, it has been fantastic to have an experienced dive buddy in Dohn, who was my instructor and then great friend, and now my beloved partner.

I’ve also been collecting specialties at a great rate. So far I have — in addition to OWD and Advanced — Nitrox, Night, Deep, Wreck and EFR/Rescue Diver. Now I just need to finish Dive Theory to attain Master Scuba Diver (MSD) level. I’m on my way! :-)