Travels in the West Island
Travels in the West Island
I wrote this story in our in-house magazine for the hospital staff. As many of them would have known, I had recently had occasion to go to Australia when our son, Gareth, was selected for the New Zealand U16 ice hockey team. The boys had six games scheduled in the greater Sydney area, mainly against club teams and regional selections. Joan and I decided to follow the team with our daughter Melanie. We also took the opportunity while we were there to look around the areas where the team was playing.
I have never been in a hurry to visit Australia. I have always thought of it as populated by Australians and spiders and snakes (though I could probably get used to the spiders and snakes). In the past, I flew over it four times, on my way to more appealing places, before landing there. On one of these earlier trips, I remember sitting near two English tourists. One of them bothered to look out the window of the plane. “What can you see?” his mate asked. “Nothing.” He replied. “I have never seen so much nothing in all my life.”
Finally, the urge to see Australians getting beaten at sport, located deep within the pleasure centre of my brain, got the better of me.
I wasn’t supposed to be doing any medical work or study. However, about one hour out from Christchurch, they asked if there was a doctor on the plane. Two of us New Zealanders (we vaguely recognised each other from different classes at medical school—it was thirty years ago) and a German couple got up. A lady in her 60s who had been unwell for a few days had lost consciousness and gone blue. She had a pulse of 120, a systolic BP (by palpation) of 100 and her JVP (Garry would be pleased with me for noticing this) was up five cm. Her breath sounds in both lungs sounded like jet engines (which were actually nearby). There was no obvious pneumothorax.
The committee decided, fairly quickly, to give her some oxygen, which restored her to consciousness. We also put in an IV and started some fluid. The Germans had some clexane for their own use so, after some discussion with the lady and her husband and more careful deliberation by the committee, we gave her that as well. We never did find out if she really did have a pulmonary embolus, or how she got on.
We had some free time in Sydney before the first game in Blacktown, on the western edge of the city. It was great to see the boys in their New Zealand uniforms, standing for the national anthems, and especially doing the haka on ice. They were all fired up and won the game easily.
From the rink it was a relatively short drive to the Blue Mountains, where we were booked to stay the night. The navigation team had only a vague idea of how to get there, so we headed towards the sun, which we figured was setting over the right mountains in the west, and reached the motorway to Katoomba, just before it got dark. The other supporters, we later realised, had GPS systems in their cars, and were quite impressed that we had managed to find our way using slightly older methods.
The Blue Mountains, at first sight, are just like Rough Ridge would be if it were an hour or two from Sydney: thousands of tourists, shops and restaurants, boardwalks to everything, rocks lit up at night, and every group of more than three trees labelled a “rainforest”. Getting out of the car and walking round a bit, I must admit, does help to appreciate them. Apparently, it took the first settlers in Sydney, from whom even the more resourceful modern Australians are descended, about 30 years to work out how to cross these mountains. Imagine their disappointment when they got to the other side.
The boys’ next game was back up the coast near Gosford. Again, it was a bit one-sided in our favour. We stayed in a lovely bed-and-breakfast down at the beach. It was the night of the NRL final so we had to find a place to eat that didn’t have a TV screen and hordes of drunken Australians. It was also the Labour Weekend holiday, so half of Sydney was there. The next day we felt we had to flee the beach, which was already packed at 10am. On the way out we passed a 3km nose-to-tail line of cars heading towards it. I have no idea where they were all going to lie down.
The next two games south of Newcastle, against a regional selection with some older players, were more closely contested, but our boys still drew one and won the other. We stayed at Lake Macquarie and didn’t bother going in to the middle of Newcastle.
The following day we drove back down to Sydney, stopping on the way down for a walk in one of their national parks, and a discussion about possums, which are protected, as they are not a threat to their native vegetation, but are wrecking people’s gardens and even houses.
It was good having Melanie to show round in Sydney as we could go to all the tourist attractions – the tower, the bridge, the opera house, across on the ferry to Manly, the markets, the gardens – without feeling too stupid. We must have spent some time in the shops because we had to buy another small suitcase before coming home. The team had two more games against Sydney club sides, which they won, completing a clean sweep.
Although the games were too easy, it was a great experience for the team. We were on the tour as spectators, had little to do with the team, and heard more about it when we got back. They had a camp together in Christchurch prior to the trip where they were mainly self-catering, and then of course they stayed as a group and were sightseeing as a group all the way round. They have played against each other for years and it was useful to get them living and playing together, as many of them will be together in older age-groups playing against other national sides.
There were no further medical events on the trip back. Luckily Queenstown airport was open (it had been closed the same afternoon when Matt and Garry had tried to get out) so I was able to get back to work the next day to do the weekend. Thanks to the other doctors for juggling the roster to allow me the time off.