The Strength of Our Dreams Read online

  I was only home for nine days this time, then it was off to Noumea. During the early years of learning to control this ‘fame’ thing, I was never home for more than ten days at a time. So it was not unrealistic to predict that a conference engagement and a cyclone were bound to clash. They did!

  The bad weather came in quickly. The front was approaching from the north-west tip of Western Australia from the Indian Ocean. Marlee, Franz and I had a weather conference and decided if I was to get out, Franz and I had better leave soon.

  I hurriedly packed and we took off with the sky to the west getting blacker by the minute. As we flew up the coast, dark clouds rolled in at an alarming pace.

  Halfway to Darwin, with still around forty minutes flying time, it didn’t look good. We couldn’t see the top of the clouds so we couldn’t climb, or we would have ended up in the thick of it not being able to see, or running out of oxygen from being too high. The front was moving in so fast behind us that we couldn’t go back, and it had moved so far inland we couldn’t go south. Darwin weather, we were told, was still clear. We had nowhere to go but straight ahead and race the weather closing in all around us.

  Thirty miles out, we were down to five hundred feet (when we usually fly at 2000 feet) and worried. We were flying through scattered cloud, with a solid ceiling of black above us. Identifying landmarks through the clouds was almost impossible, and we glimpsed the ground only now and then. Just around the area is a fairly wide hill which is a little higher than five hundred feet and we couldn’t find it! Periodically we flew blind through flimsy clouds and really didn’t want to come across the hill in those few seconds. Our eyes worked overtime, scanning the countryside and the ceiling seemed to get lower by the minute.

  Franz checked regularly with Darwin where it was still fine with a cloud ceiling of one thousand feet. So we knew there was clear weather up ahead, if only we could just find that hill!

  In the next ten minutes I experienced some record surges of adrenalin, right up there with the charging bull variety. I saw at least forty-five hills in that ten minutes, each sighting accompanied by an adrenalin surge and a few skipped heartbeats. Franz was working overtime following the direction of my frantically darting finger.

  The cloud ceiling pushed us down to four-hundred feet—one hundred below the hilltop. We were running out of air space, fast. If we didn’t break out of the bad weather soon, we would have to find a bush strip and land and there was still the dreaded hill to worry about.

  ‘Look!’ I pointed ahead, laughter bubbling over. The Daly River was just ahead of us which meant we had passed the hill somewhere back there in the murk. God knows how close we came to it, or if we came close at all.

  As soon as we knew the hill was behind us, our problems vanished. Four hundred feet, with no five-hundred foot hill around, was suddenly a lot of air space. As we crossed the Daly River the bad weather parted like stage curtains to reveal Darwin further up ahead. As we circled the airport to land, the surrounding ocean sparkled in the sunlight—such a wonderful sight when you are up in a plane and want to land.

  When I left for Sydney in a jet a few hours later, I noticed the bad weather had arrived and Darwin was well and truly cloudbound. But the jet experienced just a few minutes of mild turbulence as it flew through the thick cloud layer, then broke out at around twenty thousand feet into bright sunshine. I didn’t have to be a lookout or copilot on this flight so I relaxed.

  When I accepted the conference in Noumea on the boat Club Med II, I did so because I thought it would mean only a short hop from Darwin over to New Caledonia. How wrong I was. Too late I found out that there are no flights out of Darwin to Noumea. To get there I had to fly Darwin-Sydney-Noumea. But it wasn’t that bad as the conference was on board the Club Med II and involved cruising around the islands for four days. So I told my booking agent, ‘Well, there are some things you just have to suffer … I’ll do it!’

  It was a great conference with the whole boat taken over by the event. I spoke then had days of just enjoying the cruise. Rhonda Burchmore was on board and provided great entertainment just days before she flew to London for Hot Shoe Shuffle.

  Whenever I set foot on board a boat the weather turns rough, and this time was no exception. The weather was pleasant during each day, but at night there was quite a swell. This was not enough to be bothersome to anyone except a dancer. But being the true professional she is, Rhonda put on a great show and we heard some great singing that night. With a London opening within the week, I know I would be worried about a lurching dance floor too!

  Noumea airport didn’t really have the facilities to handle such a large group of tourists, and there were long lines and lots of waiting before our departure. In these situations I often tune in to the conversations around me. Two men in front of me were talking:

  ‘Just look over there at our wives, they haven’t drawn breath for half an hour!’ said man number one.

  ‘Gossiping,’ was the reply of man number two.

  ‘Yeh, I suppose you’re right. They haven’t seen each other since last night so I suppose they’ve got a lot to catch up on!’

  They both laughed heartily. Then realising I was standing behind them turned and had the look of two little boys caught out. I smiled at them sweetly, but there was an awkward silence as they tried desperately to think of some way to explain their conversation.

  I felt sorry for them so said, ‘Your wives are not gossiping, they are networking.’

  They smiled, relieved they had been let off the hook so lightly.

  When they were joined by their wives, one wife said, ‘I just mentioned to Betty you were looking for that travelling bag you saw advertised. You know that imported one you couldn’t find anywhere? Well, Betty knows where we can get it! Isn’t that great!’

  Both women talked at once, bringing their husbands up to date on the information they had just exchanged.

  The men listened dutifully, then as they were going through the door into customs they sheepishly turned around and looked at me, and I said, ‘See, networking.’

  They both smiled and disappeared through the door.

  I arrived back at Bullo to days filled with office work, mounds of letters from readers and the operation of the station. I was also starting my next book Some of My Friends Have Tails. The manuscript wasn’t due until March 1995 but the wet season is the only time I have free to write and I knew I wouldn’t possible be able to get this book finished in the few months of the ’95 wet season.

  The problem with writing so far ahead of deadline is that there is no pressure to finish. I seem to work well under pressure and only write consistently when I am close to the handover date for a manuscript.

  With twelve months up my sleeve, I was coasting along saying to myself, ‘I’ll start the book next week.’

  Some days stories just start moving through my brain, and won’t go away. I have learned in this short writing career of mine that is the time to stop whatever I am doing and write. If I ignore the story going through my brain, I regret it, because it is lost forever. So apart from some disconnected stories, I only had a sketchy outline of what form the next book would take. I knew I had to get into it soon, or I’d again be down to a few months with still half the book to go. Just looking at my diary told me the year was getting busier as it progressed.

  The next conference was a very big, international one held at Darling Harbour in Sydney with over twenty speakers. On the first day all the speakers were asked to go to the green room and arrange the electronic side of their presentation with the technicians. Mine was simple. I was just going to show slides as I talked about Bullo. But some speakers were combining slides, videos, and other machines for graphs. As we sat waiting for a technician to become available, I busied myself jotting down questions I wanted to ask about the company and watching people—my favourite pastime. A man walked over to me—the only female speaker—and in a very thick American accent said, ‘Ah have mah coffee strong, Ah do
n’t like instant, and Ah have one sugar and a little skim milk, thanks. When Ah’m here waiting each day, Ah like a coffee about every three hours, but don’t bother keeping track, Ah’ll just tell you when Ah need it.

  ‘Could Ah have a cup now, please.’ And he walked off to direct a technician, but not before glancing back at me, with the expression of, ‘Why are you still sitting there, get mah coffee.’

  I couldn’t help thinking, I pity your poor wife. I found the refreshments in the next room and noticed the other men taking care of their own coffee. I returned to the room and put the perculated coffee next to our American who hardly noticed the delivery, as all his attention was focused on the technician. I received an officious ‘Thank you’ as I went back to my chair.

  After lunch I looked up and my American was descending upon me again. ‘Oh dear,’ I thought, ‘not again.’ But this time he looked upset and extremely flustered. I was sure this order would be for a double Scotch.

  I have to pause here to set the scene. I consider speaking on the circuit as an off the farm job, not my complete career. I enjoy meeting people immensely, I would never tire of that part, I just hate standing up in front of an audience and speaking. Even after all these years, and I don’t know how many speeches, I still get nervous and am only happy when it is over. But full-time professional speakers are very dedicated and keen to be the best. This American guy put a questionnaire on every seat in the convention centre—about twelve hundred people attended—asking the delegates where they would rank his speech out of the twenty-five speakers. This was followed by a whole page of questions.

  So having given you this inside information, you might find the following exchange as amusing as I did. He continued his flustered approach. Gone was Mr Efficiency: he stammered, he stumbled, he bumbled. The cause of all this? He had just found out he had instructed the keynote speaker to get his coffee.

  He blustered on and finally managed to blurt out, ‘Ah thought you were the tea lady!’ in a truly agonising moan.

  I tried to put him out of his misery by saying, ‘Please, stop worrying, this is such a minor thing, you didn’t upset me in the least.’

  But he didn’t seem to hear and continued his tirade. I then mustered together my most official tone, looked seriously into his eyes, and said, ‘I can assure you …’ a long pause followed to get his attention, ‘if I didn’t want to get you coffee, I wouldn’t have been the least bit embarrassed to tell you.’

  I continued staring intently and he backed away, thanking me and bobbing repeatedly as he retreated. In the professional world of speaking, he had apparently just committed a cardinal sin!

  It must be something with Americans and me. The next one I met was also a speaker at the conference. As I waited to hand my slides over to the technician for my presentation, I watched as this guy ran up and down the rows placing the questionnaires on each seat. I was immediately reminded of Mr Efficiency. Once he’d finished, he walked over to me, put out his hand and welcomed me to the conference and handed me a questionnaire. He told me he was speaking midweek, would love me to attend his session and would be mighty pleased if I would fill in the questionnaire afterwards. Then with the widest smile to come out of the Americas, he said, ‘Do you think you could do that for little ol’ me?’

  In my sweetest American accent I told him I couldn’t because I was also a speaker and I was opening the conference and would unfortunately be gone before he spoke.

  The shock registered, he didn’t say it, but I could read his mind clearly, and it was saying, ‘But you’re a woman … Opening speaker and you’re a woman!’

  He could see I knew what he was thinking by my smile, so he hurriedly departed.

  The next morning I was sitting in the green room having coffee when in he came.

  ‘I’ve been doing some research on you.’ He went on to give me a rundown on the business side of my life. I think he had to do this to justify in his mind why I was guest speaker. Then he said he’d spoken to his wife on the phone, and said, ‘Guess what, the opening speaker is this woman who lives on a cattle station in the Outback.’

  His wife’s reply was, ‘Oh I’ve read her book and if she speaks as well as she writes, you’re dead.’

  This remark stemmed back to the questionnaires and how the audience rates the speakers. This seems to be the important factor most times Americans speak.

  So, as you can imagine, his wife’s remark had him worried. ‘Have you written a book called From Strength to Strength?’ he asked hesitantly.

  When I replied, ‘Yes, I have,’ he walked away quite crestfallen.

  When I walked offstage after my speech and a lengthy question time, he walked over to me and shook hands and told me it was a great story to listen to. He said he was going out to buy all my books, and that his wife was right, he was dead!

  Marlee’s shoulder was still really causing her trouble and her doctor said she needed at least a week of regular, daily work by a physio to get the shoulder on a recovery path. So the first week of April found Marlee in Darwin and Franz venturing out on the road for the first time since December, leaving Jacqui and me to hold the fort.

  The wet season was officially over on Bullo with the last light storm around the beginning of March. During the season we had lots of bad weather and low clouds but no heavy falls of rain. Franz had decided to try to drive out our road, not just for a joy-ride—mind you he was very excited—he was off to pick up a brand new hay baler.

  If you saw the baler we had been working with, you would understand his excitement. When Dick Wicks, alias ‘Uncle Dick’—our mechanic in the seventies and eighties—saw this baler heading towards the workshop, he went cross-eyed. At just the mention of it he would disappear on a bender, sometimes for months, hoping that when he returned the hay baling would be over and the dreaded machine would be sitting in the shed. This dread passed onto Franz and any other mechanic we had here during its time. The previous year Franz and a fairly cluey mechanic did some extensive work on the terrible baler. The verdict was it would do the job that season, but would need to be replaced soon or thrown on the junk heap. This was something Uncle Dick, then Franz, had dearly wanted to do many times. Franz had spent more time inside it clearing blockages of hay and in the workshop fixing it than he had out in the field using it. So in March when the rains stopped, the skies cleared and the hay crop swayed in the gentle breeze and was ready to harvest, thoughts had turned once more to the dreaded baler!

  We had planted double the acreage this year so there was a lot of hay to harvest. Calculating the time for our very slow machine to bale all the hay, plus time for breakdowns, it was obvious we couldn’t get it done.

  Franz called from Timber Creek after he had made it out on our road and said the road was in fairly good condition. There were quite a few wash aways, he got bogged a few times but he thought those areas would dry out by the time he returned. It would be a slow trip back towing the baler from Katherine and he was also driving up to Darwin to pick up Marlee.

  For the week after their return we saw nothing on TV except the video on the baling machine. When Franz learns about something new, he really covers the subject. And during hay-baling season we had a very happy Franz—he returned to the house each day with a broad grin on his face due to no breakdowns and hay bale numbers ticking up at an amazing rate.

  With the month ticking by it was time to start the mustering season. Marlee was onto the grader and out fixing up the road the morning after they arrived home, and when she wasn’t grading was on the phone interviewing the new team for the season. We had fencing to be done, the hay to cart and stockpile, lots of machines to service before the season and cattle to muster.

  The phone was running hot because I was off on two book tours in May so there were endless phone calls from radio stations and newspapers all around Australia and New Zealand. These were interviews arranged by my publishers to give advance notice that I would be in a particular town the next month. Even with al
l this publicity I still get letters after I return from these exhausting coast-to-coast tours, saying, ‘I missed you when you came to our town. I didn’t know you were here. I’m so disappointed I missed you!’ This amazes me when you look at the pages of publicity appointments I do in the months leading up to the launch of one of my books.

  Marlee’s birthday found her grading the road, but that Sunday she had breakfast in bed and I cooked a birthday lunch and dinner for her for a change.

  I was leaving for Sydney at the end of April for a round of conferences, a few days with my sister Sue in Caloundra then book tours around Australia and New Zealand and would not be home until the end of May. But in the three weeks before I left what I had to achieve in the form of work was near impossible. But I started anyhow. In the middle of this intensive program of interviews and office work I had a quick trip to Perth for a conference, then it was back home to more interviews, work and packing for a month on the road, or in the air, I should say.

  Having travelled extensively for three years I was now sick of the sight of suitcases, and had vowed to myself I would take only one suitcase on this trip, no matter what! But the big problem with going around Australia in May is that you need clothes for three seasons. Then I had to consider the South Island of New Zealand which meant packing some woollens. Out the door went my one suitcase vow!

  This tour was for the sequel, the dreaded sequel. I had no idea if this book, The Strength in Us All, was any good; I never do. I always wait and first watch my publishers’ reaction, then the readers’. It’s a painful process for me—much like having a baby. There are the months of long hours of work to produce the manuscript, then more months of work with the editor. This is followed by months of worry about what I haven’t put in and what I should have changed. Then there’s the long wait for printing and finally you have the finished book in your hands.