For two days there were no flights from the mainland to Flinders Island as the storm raged. We walked around intermittently and carefully. We investigated the town.
There aren’t many shops on the main street of Whitemark,so named from the times when a white mark was placed on a beach rock so that fishermen and other sea traffic could be guided to the wharf and beach. Lady Barron is the other shopping centre, further down the island.
The general store in Whitemark stocks just about anything you could need. One of the most enchanting things is a little corner where they carefully tend to any baby orphaned wombats. They are just like babies as you hold them. Hard to tear yourself away!
Community libraries are always a wonderful resource, and the Whitemark one is no exception. I was thrilled to get an Australian library card, which I still occasionally look at with a sigh of longing.
Aftermath of the storm
Well at Trousers Point that day workers were busy chainsawing, and trying to make an access path through the fallen trees. The devastation was amazing. I've often thought about it since, wondering how long it would take for those trees to come back again. But come back I know they will . . .
Our Dancing Teacher
Well, that came to be one of our highlights of our stay, an experience that was extraordinary in many different ways.
For those of you who don't know, Scottish country dancing takes many twists and turns, and is an extremely vigorous form of exercise.
Well that came to be one of the highlights of our stay, an experience that was extraordinary in many different ways.
For those of you who don't know, Scottish country dancing takes many twists and turns, and is an extremely vigorous form of exercise.
Imagine my surprise when our dancing instructor turned out to be 95 years of age! She was slim and graceful moving easily, taking command of the music CDs, encouraging, tolerating the clumsiness of others. including myself, with great kindness.
I was mesmerized and thought, "This is who I want to be when I grow up!"
She has just decided to leave the dancing in the care of two trained young students.
I see from the above link she is now a spectator at the dancing.
Mary used to own a 60 acre sheep farm. She had left the farm in care of her son two years before we arrived.
She bought two acres of land in town, supervised the building of a nice home, and with a mattock in her hands, and her dog Jinks by her side, proceeded to plant more than 100 trees as a windbreak. Then she established a beautiful garden.
After the storm we went to see if she was safe. Her garden shed had blown away. Her greenhouse was fine though. And Mary was was collecting all kinds of branches, and feeding them into a 30-year-old shredder. She didn't complain. She just did what had to be done.
This year the community in Whitemark set up a large wall, that everyone could write on. Its title is Things I Want To Do Before I Die. Mary was chosen to cut the ribbon at the opening ceremony.
She felt very sorry for the snake.
"He only wanted to escape from the hot ground, poor thing."
Nonetheless, her son killed it. After that, she told me things had happened very quickly. She had an emergency trip in the flying doctor plane to the mainland, and she remembered every detail of that trip with gleeful interest.
Mary had a SUV. She delivered Meals On Wheels to "elderly people" a couple of times a week. Once, arriving at her home, my senses were assailed by the incredible perfume of lavender. She had picked and spread out her lavender flowers to dry on her entire porch. It was so beautiful.
I thought how many storms Mary must have endured in her life. There was a serenity about her; a certainty that good times would ultimately come, no matter what had to be endured. She seemed to have a determination to enjoy every day to the fullest, and it showed in all her actions.
Dear Mary, I'm so privileged to have known your words of wisdom and pure common sense.
Before you go ...
Also, if you haven't read it, Monday's edition of From Loss to Living is beautiful and inspirational work by our guest writer, crazyhorseladycx.
And as we know, inspiration in our lives is always really worthwhile!
Vicki