City of Kwinana: built on the shore of a shipwreck

"She Who Carries Horses"... the true story of a ship called Kwinana.

I am going to tell you the story of Kwinana. On the train, I sometimes hear the  kids call it "Banana". "Gorgeous maiden" or "young girl"…that is what the name Kwinana means in the traditional tongue of the  Kimberly Aboriginals. According to sea lore, renaming a ship brings ill fate. In 1922 a damaged ship, the 'SS Kwinana' was beached on a semi-inhabited, lonely coast. The 'SS Kwinana' was built in 1892. A beautiful vessel, she boasted a  frosted glass window skylight  with an image of Darius on his throne, having originally being named after the Persian King. Sailing between Australia and Calcutta, she carried cargoes of horses. For 28 years she sailed,  enduring leaks, hitting rocks and,  finally,  suffering severe fire damage in her hold on Christmas Day of 1920. As a final insult, she was nearly forced to sail while in a state of semi-repair. After failed negotiations to pay the sailors a $50.00 bonus, to make  a risky  trip from Canarvon to Freemantle port, every member of the crew refused to sail her. After being towed to Garden Island, she broke her moorings during gale-force winds and the wreck came to rest on what is now called Kwinana beach in 1922.  My God, the town has  changed but the silent influence of the steam ship still lives on.  Kwinana became a city in 2012.

Kwinana is a crucible. It is an industrial area with it's own issues and  initiatives. Kwinana sails it's own ship. "Shipwreck City" is about  to be forced into merging with other councils and will be renamed "The City of Jervois". Here  is where the toughest and the most beautiful girls live, second to the Maori shearing girls in Gnowangerup. Our crime rate is high and the sound of industrial sirens sometimes ride over the wail of police sirens. Unemployment is a heart-breaker. The Aboriginal community have a unique voice in the history of Kwinana while the  area has  it's own preservation issues concerning native species and endangered fauna.  Kwinana City  is about to be reduced to the title of an unfortunate ugly sister suburb. Government is about to sacrifice a queen and call her someone else. 

* The fire of Christmas 1920 occurred between Geraldton and Shark Bay, Western Australia. After being  contained, at first, it broke  out a second time.  Enduring unbearably hot weather conditions, the crew sailed a distance of 330 km, with fire in the bowels of the ship, to seek help at Canarvan. With only hand pumps to fight the fire, it burned  in the holds of the steam ship  for twelve days.

Little squeaky noises in the mornings...

Farmers often shoot these birds but the pink Gallah is a gentle and intelligent Australian wild parrot that is a common sight in Western Australia. They make a racket when flying over but make a more polite, soft sound when they just stop for a drink or a brief visit.

Ebola and Ebola-free nations...

When I lived in Africa, Ebola and Congo Fever were possibly two of our greatest fears…above and beyond both  the civil wars of surrounding countries and the civil war within our own. When a nurse died after caring for a patient, in Cape Town, if my memory serves me right, intense medical discussion brought an Ebola plan to every hospital. Value was granted to that one life in a hell-ridden society that was almost immune to the mind-numbing political crime and "muti-killings". You could almost say that people died like flies. Believe me…Ebola is an insidious but cruel thing. This morning, I read a regional document that included instructions for an Ebola patient's 'visitors'. "Visitors?" I repeated to anyone that would listen, "Visitors…are you kidding me? A quarantined Ebola patient won't be having any visitors!". I still remember discussing how to bring an Ebola patient into ICU in 1987, without exposing anybody, and the possibility of 2 allocated nurses remaining on the premises for the whole containment period of care. Today, on another continent, a manager flippantly said, "Things really have changed today". Easy words from someone that hasn't  even seen a case of Cholera or been exposed to the diseases of Africa. 

As a nurse, I feel that we should look at what the South African (South Africa is a country, if you weren't aware) government is putting in place. In August this year, eleven hospitals were designated to receive  Ebola cases for care. A military medical  team has been trained in special isolation techniques. An aeromedical evacuation team with a transport isolator and ICU equipment is ready. They are not taking any chances and are not assuming that "it is never going to happen". It is happening. Listen to what is coming from a country that has trialled new drugs twenty years before Australia; listen to what is coming from a country that has been a leader in Aids research. The South Africans are not as stupid as they look. They are experts at working with little for a lot less. Nations  could fall into the trap of basing their decisions on their own ethnocentric cultures. Australia's health system is gorgeous. Ebola won't care.

Final moments... 09 October 2014 Western Australia. 'Blood Moon' eclipse.

A steamy cloud edge begins to conceal the moon. The sun is threatening to rise from the other side of the sky. These are the last views of the moon following the night's lunar eclipse, as seen from Leda Nature Reserve, Western Australia. 09 October 2104.

Driving to work with insects on my windscreen