In July 1980 we took up the offer of a 12 month contract working in NUMBULWAR – a remote Indigenous Community in the Northern Territory of Australia. I had two sons – one was 4 years old and the other was just over 6 months old.

The climate was tropical so we had mild weather in June, July and August and very HOT for the rest of the year.

I have scanned a selection of photos from our time in Numbulwar.

The first one is of a house similar to what we lived in. The street/road you see was the main street!

The tree with the yellow flowers is called Golden Shower

The single story building is the Nursing Post. There were no doctors on site so this meant people were evacuated by plane if needing urgent treatment.

The billabong was some distance from the community. We traveled there in a four-wheel drive over very rough country, with wild buffaloes in the vicinity.

The next photo is of A WILD BUFFALO! It was quite threatening really and was making like it was going to charge right into our vehicle – SCARY!

Once there was a market garden but it was overgrown and became a mini jungle with abundant bananas.

The photo on the beach shows the children excitedly running out to meet Santa who just arrived on a boat.

The pink flowers are Bougainvillea.

The photos are fading and so are the memories, and no wonder – it was 32 years ago 🙂

Numbulwar location map in Northern Territory (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Lorraine

PS I went through a phase of cutting photos in different shapes – I can’t remember WHY!