On Our Walks
A while back there was a lovely thread of sunrises that the early risers among us posted. I loved it, so I thought I'd broaden it to a thread for all the lovely sights we see as we do our slow stagger...
Forum Discussion
@Zoffiel
My mother often talked of her evacuation trip from Darwin to Perth. Of the forcible evacuation of the women and children, no choice, of not really knowing where they were going.
Of not being able to say goodbye to their menfolk, or not being able to leave notes for their men, in case the Japanese invaded. It took my father 5 months to find my mother and baby sister.
She talked of 8 women and children being crammed in 4 berth cabins. Of waiting on the Darwin Wharf, in the December wet season heat and humidity from 7:00am to 4:00pm to board the Koolinda.
My mother mentioned that the Koolinda was accompanied from Darwin to Carnavon by a minesweeper, and she spoke of how the women slept on deck at night wearing lifejackets.
The most memorable event she often mentioned was how seasick she was. She said that she was so seasick she could cheerfully have pushed my 3 week old sister through the port hole whenever she cried! I have this vision of my older sister dressed in a nappy and singlet being bundled through the port hole of the cabin.
I do think that it was these experiences that made my mother the hard tough unemotional woman that she was.
It is indeed a small world. Your father an engineer on the Koolinda, @arpie father an army dentist in Darwin during those times and my father working for the Public Works Department building the airstrips along the Stuart Highway.
My mother often talked of her evacuation trip from Darwin to Perth. Of the forcible evacuation of the women and children, no choice, of not really knowing where they were going.
Of not being able to say goodbye to their menfolk, or not being able to leave notes for their men, in case the Japanese invaded. It took my father 5 months to find my mother and baby sister.
She talked of 8 women and children being crammed in 4 berth cabins. Of waiting on the Darwin Wharf, in the December wet season heat and humidity from 7:00am to 4:00pm to board the Koolinda.
My mother mentioned that the Koolinda was accompanied from Darwin to Carnavon by a minesweeper, and she spoke of how the women slept on deck at night wearing lifejackets.
The most memorable event she often mentioned was how seasick she was. She said that she was so seasick she could cheerfully have pushed my 3 week old sister through the port hole whenever she cried! I have this vision of my older sister dressed in a nappy and singlet being bundled through the port hole of the cabin.
I do think that it was these experiences that made my mother the hard tough unemotional woman that she was.
It is indeed a small world. Your father an engineer on the Koolinda, @arpie father an army dentist in Darwin during those times and my father working for the Public Works Department building the airstrips along the Stuart Highway.