Snap and Scribble

 

Jo had very kindly offered to drive me to the airport in Brisbane, so i didn’t have to cart my bags to and from the train for a change. And the flight to Darwin went smoothly, arriving pretty much on time. I caught the airport shuttle bus to the Paravista motel, which is just down the road from Rohan and Liza’s, where i was staying, and i was back at their place by about half past one on Saturday morning.

After not quite enough sleep, i had breakfast at Parap markets as usual on a Saturday. I had baramundi curry and rice for a change, rather than the vegie laksa which i often have there. The market was quieter than it had been when i was there last. The wet season was due to start, which meant the tourist season was over and a significant proportion of the non-tourist population had headed south too.

That afternoon, i visited Sharna, a friend i’d met at yoga sessions in Kabul. She’d had enough of Afghanistan and was living in Darwin now, just round the corner from where i was staying. It was funny seeing her again, so far from where we’d met – both geographically and culturally.

Rohan and Liza had a large tree in their garden that they wanted removed. They’d had a quote from a tree lopper, but it was too expensive. Liza’s dad, Alex, who was visiting them for a while, had started cutting bits off it, but he wasn’t going to get anywhere near taking the whole tree down. It was higher than a two story house, quite wide, and had a complicated array of crossing branches, but i decided i’d have a go at it myself. So i went to my storage shed and got my climbing gear.

I started off really not having much of a clue what i was doing. I was very out of practice as i hadn’t done this stuff for nearly two and a half years, apart from one day last year, when i’d done the assessment for the final module in my arboriculture course. The first day i had a go at it i only managed to cut off a couple of branches. I was using a hand saw, rather than my chainsaw, as i didn’t feel comfortable working up the tree with a chainsaw without someone on the ground with a bit of tree work experience. A hand saw’s also less stressful, quieter, and lighter to carry.

By the second day, Tuesday, i was getting back into the swing of climbing a bit more and i was starting to get a grip on what i was doing. I cut a few more branches off, more quickly than the previous day. And i used my chainsaw on the ground, to cut up the bigger limbs.

But on Wednesday, my old friend Adam (aka “Dingo”) came round for a visit. He’d done a bit of tree work himself and i put him to use as my ground crew while i climbed the tree and seriously started to remove it – using the chainsaw this time. There was one very high limb that had looked really tricky and i wasn’t sure if i could do it, but talking about it with Dingo helped me work out how to tackle it.

In the end, after two or three hours, i had the whole thing down, apart from about three metres of a couple of main trunks, which i decided to leave for someone who had a bigger saw than mine. My saw’s a small climber’s saw and these trunks were a bit too thick for it. It would be easy enough to fell them from the ground with a larger saw though.

The yard was pile up with branches and leaves and i started cutting up the bigger ones. But i didn’t finish the job because i hit a steel star picket that was hidden under one of the branches and that was that until i sharpened the chain. I couldn’t be bothered doing it that day, as i would have had to go to the storage shed and try and find the file. Anyway, most of the job was done and it would be easy enough for someone to finish it in half an hour or so.

That was my last full day in Darwin. The following day, Thursday, i was leaving Australia again.

Liza gave me a ride to the airport, but we went via my storage shed as i had to put my bicycle back in there and a few other things that i wasn’t taking to England with me. Locking the bike – and pretty much my whole life – back up in that shed, i felt really sad to be leaving again. It had been great being in Darwin and i was sorry to have to go.

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