Very little of the last few days has looked anything like I’d expected.
That’s probably just as well, as I’d expected a weekend without sensible transport and almost entirely alone and without activity or external focus. Having a couple of quiet days may have left me long enough to really stew about a few hurdles that could have (and still could) trip me up on getting to Timor. The entire Melbourne to London adventure ride hangs in the balance on getting on this plane in Darwin and off it in Dili. There’s a few stories buried in there that’ll stay unpublished for a few months at least, but I’ll talk about it privately if you’re interested.
I’m now sitting at the airport, in past security, with a boarding pass, just outside the yet-to-be-opened International Departure gates. The adventure “for real” will be under way on the other side of Customs and Boarding at this end, an 80-minute flight, and Customs in Timor Leste.
Saturday morning it was great to meet up with a dozen quality blokes over a bit of breakkie. One of our number was moving house that day, and so breakfast turned into an unscheduled house-moving party. Anthony (I think?) said he’d got a bit distressed at having no way to get done what he needed to achieve that day, so I suspect it was a great blessing to have the 4 or 5 of us sweating it out getting beds and boxes downstairs and into cars and trucks. Working shoulder to shoulder with a couple of others was a far better way to spend the morning than looking at my house-sit ceiling!
The moving day also evolved into a very generous offer of a borrowed car, significantly simplifying the process of the PCR test that most of the world has forgotten about, but that us great unwashed (oops… I mean “unvaxed”) still “require” for much international travel. So we don’t infect those who are protected by the vaccine. I’ve never really quite understood that. Oh well.
I dropped in back at Frances Bay to see Allan at the yacht club, both Saturday and yesterday. Whatever my challenges are and have been, I feel heavy for Allan spending the whole weekend waiting to hear (presumably today) results from Saturday morning’s fresh barrage of cancer tests after Friday night’s preliminary diagnosis. There’s nothing practical I can do to help, but even now I’d run the gauntlet and redo the flight and boarding shenanigans if there’s news of an imminent cancer operation. Allan has no one else here in Darwin to sit with him before and after that event.
All in all it remains, even now, a strange moment. Sitting here just outside the Departure gate, right on the cusp of… who knows what. It has snuck up on me without warning; but right here and now (if all goes to plan) is the fulcrum of a plan conceived over six months ago, that’ll take me through 20 countries over the next 5-6 months. And that plan sits as one of the most significant fulcrum points in a journey of (so far) almost 50 years. Right here and now. With hundreds of people milling past on and off their own flights and journeys, each with their own story. All, no doubt, carrying their own scars. All of us completely unaware of what adventures sit behind the hundreds of other characters passing this way and that.
Life is a strange phenomenon.
My diary notes have been flavoured with a hint of frustration, being stuck unscheduled in Darwin for two months. Since I’ve had the bike passage and my flights booked, I’ve found a bit more peace about that timing. It still isn’t how I’d have planned it, but I’m definitely in a better place now than November, with a deeper peace, and far more ready to roll with the punches as this adventure takes whatever twists and turns are yet to come. Already the 3 weeks in Timor waiting for the bike appear to have turned into 4. That, again, is disappointing. But if I can learn anything from my time in Darwin, I’ll endeavour to embrace my upcoming month in Timor, and explore all that life brings my way in the meantime.
There is an incredibly long list of people in Darwin to whom I owe a debt of gratitude. I have been welcomed, generously hosted, and quickly and deeply engaged in this beautiful community. Each of you whom I’ve met here have contributed to my journey, and you have been God’s blessing and a great help in finding my positive posture into the rest of this adventure. Thank you!
Lars said at church yesterday that when he moved up north ten years ago from Adelaide, he encountered two distinct groups of responses. The first: “oh, you’re going to love it”. The second: “why would you move to Darwin?” That was unsurprising enough in itself, until it began to dawn on Lars that the first group were those who had lived in Darwin themselves. And the second had not. Reflecting back on these hot, sticky, sweaty last two months of my own time in Darwin, I think I can see something of why Lars could share that observation.
Now… onwards through that Departure gate that represent so much more than a bit of glass or a security measure. I’ll be pondering what I leave behind, what I take with me, and perhaps what I pick up for the first time… all on the other side of those sliding doors.