Page 1 of Andrew’s Outback Love

CHAPTER ONE

One Week Earlier

Dubbo – NSW

I hurried across the tarmac to the offices of the Flying Doctor Service and when I pushed the door open and entered the building, a welcome gust of cold air greeted me. I figured it must have been at least a thousand degrees in the shade outside.

Rachel, one of the radio operators, glanced up from her computer and smiled before handing me the bug spray to kill off the zillion flies which had hitched a lift into the building via my back. I sprayed it around liberally, causing a couple of other staff members to let out a curse and start coughing. The looks directed my way were enough to melt icebergs.

“What?” I spun around.

“Ignore them, Andrew, we all know it’s non-allergenic. It doesn’t even have an odour. They do it just to get under your skin. You’ve been coming here long enough to know it.”

“I know, Rachel, but I still hate the thought that one of them might be affected by it even if we aren’t. Team here?”

“In the back enjoying a cold drink.”

“Who’s our pilot?”

“James.”

I nodded before striding towards the back room which was in fact a kitchen. When I entered I found James Rigon - a fully qualified doctor in emergency medicine, paramedic and pilot with the RFDS. The other occupants were Cameron O’Brien who was a notorious playboy but an extremely talented and serious anesthetist, and nurse Allison Sykes - who we were to lose in a week’s time due to her advancing pregnancy.

My favorite person on Earth – aboriginal nurse, Ruby Waters would meet us at the sight of our first stop. Ruby was as round as she was high with a belly laugh I couldn’t get enough of. She didn’t know her age. It wasn’t important to the people she’d grown up with in a settlement on the outskirts of Bourke. We figured she was probably in her early thirties but it was anyone’s guess. Her chestnut colored skin was flawless, her eyes as bright as the night stars shining in the outback sky. She wasn’t married, and from the way she spoke – had no intentions of ever doing so. All men were wamba (stupid) as far as she was concerned.

Ruby had trained in Sydney to be a Nurse but wasn’t content with just a degree as she put it. She’d gone on to obtain a Doctorate with Honors. When her training was done, she’d turned up at the Flying Doctor offices and demanded a job helping ‘her’ people in the outback. I’d been in the office on that day two years ago and instantly taken her on as one of my team. She’d proven invaluable. While Ruby was one to call things as she saw them, her caring, compassionate nature broke down the barriers when patients from an isolated community came to us for the first time. She was able to reassure the indigenous parents, we were there to help their children, not harm them.

I’d only been doing the work for around six months when I met Ruby and had been struggling to break down the walls of suspicion and distrust we’d encountered in the isolated communities. From the first time Ruby joined us, around ten months ago, everything changed. Parents now walked kilometres with their young ones, who were suffering with vision problems, when they heard we would be at a nearby cattle station. We treated babies through to the very old, it didn’t make any difference to me. If they had a vision problem and were living in darkness, my goal was to bring them back into the light.

Together, the four of us had done more eye surgeries and consults than I could count. We’d treated hundreds of eye problems, which if left, would have caused blindness and I felt a deep satisfaction in the work we were doing. It was life changing for the indigenous people and other severely underprivileged children and adults.

I accepted the glass of iced water Allison held out to me and drank rapidly, needing to quench the thirst brought on by the short time in the furnace like heat.

“Plane ready?” I asked James.

“Almost, just finishing the fueling.”

He’d barely finished speaking when a maintenance engineer poked his head in the door and announced our aircraft was ready. As Allison passed me to leave the kitchen, she handed me a file. I’d catch up on the patient information on the plane trip out to Barrawon Station, an enormous cattle property around three hours south east of Bourke. I smiled at the thought of seeing Ruby when we arrived.

First up after our arrival would be surgeries, which had been scheduled two weeks before, followed by a clinic and scheduling of surgeries for the week after next. The routine didn’t change much. We’d all stay the night and catch up on the local gossip with Viv, Gary and their station hands, over a barbeque. The following day, we’d be taken to Bourke via two four-wheel drive vehicles. James, who’d also stay the night, would return to Dubbo with the plane.

We’d spend two days in Bourke where I’d have a mix of post-op consults, new patients and surgeries. I’d also catch up with Dr. Barry Bright who, together with Ruby -his Nurse Manager, took care of my patients in town while I was gone. Two more four-wheel drive vehicles would then transport us to Tarara Station, which ran both cattle and emus, around four hours or so north east of Bourke. One of the pilots would meet us at the station on Thursday afternoon, spend the night and fly us back to Dubbo first thing on Friday. I’d spend the weekend around the town before returning to Sydney where I’d perform eye surgery the following week.

Ruby would normally be taken back to Bourke by one of the station hands but this week she was returning to Dubbo with us. There was to be a surprise farewell party for Allison on Saturday night and after that, Ruby would be flown back with the team who had a dental clinic in Bourke on Monday.

I had one week in the outback, one week in Sydney rotation. During the time I was away, Cam worked in Dubbo at the hospital while Allison was a member of the RFDS. The routine worked well.

I loved the outback. The endless blue skies, star filled nights and the silence of everything but nature. It was where I was meant to be, away from the politics and arguments of medicine in the city. I was passionate about giving eyesight back to those who had lost it and preventing others from losing it because of treatable disease.

I pushed open the door, breathed in a lungful of Dubbo’s stifling hot air and climbed the steps to the King Air plane which the others had already boarded. As I stepped through the door, the propellers kicked into life and I hurriedly took a seat. James left the cockpit to secure the cabin hatch and ensure we were all strapped in and ready for lift off.

***

I SHOULD HAVE BEEN reading the file in my hand, but no matter how many times I came out here, I was still captivated by the Australian outback and watched out the window instead. Cattle and sheep were mere dots on the landscape below. The land still showed signs of green after an unusually wet winter, but with the searing heat which had returned with a vengeance, it wouldn’t last long. Property owners would be forced to bring in feed to sustain their herds.

People out here were bred tough but compassionate. For the most part they worked with the environment, not against it like those who lived in the cities. I knew my future would eventually be out here somewhere which is why I’d had no interest in women. Those in the circles I was forced to occasionally move in were high maintenance, social butterflies. They would be horrified if I even suggested they visit the outback. No, they weren’t the type of women who would happily fit into the lifestyle I had planned. At thirty-six years old, I was fast running out of time to make huge, life changing decisions. Decisions a lot of people I knew would be unhappy about.

The ground rushed by beneath us, becoming drier as we approached Bourke – ‘Gateway to the Real Outback’ as they liked to be known.