50 degrees, then rain!
February 9th, 2012 | Locum news | 0 Comments
One of the challenges working as a locum nurse on the APY Lands at the north western tip of SA is the weather. One of our RN's Ros experienced this first hand.
Beautiful summer days can have temperatures in excess of 50 degrees. Winter's sunny days, with more moderate temperatures, often end in bitterly cold nights with temperatures dropping to zero or below. Then of course there is the rain – from brief squalls to torrential downpours with thunder and lightning displays the sort you would never see in NZ.
With the end of a contract approaching an all important watch goes on the weather. Almost everything on the Lands is dependent on the weather; the weekly mail plane which is also the quickest transport covering the 550km to Alice Springs, the weekly road train with fresh food and supplies, the RFDS who use the local airstrips to evacuate patients, the weekly bus services from AS called the Bush Bus and the Bush Bee respectively and finally the residents and workers who use the dirt roads to travel between the communities. Heavy torrential rain quickly saturates the sandy dirt roads leaving huge quantities of water flooding the surfaces as well as making them boggy. As most of the airstrips on the Lands are made of red dirt they also succumb.
I seldom arrange to stop anywhere on my trip back to NZ; after a few weeks away I am anxious to get home. In October last year after torrential rain for the final 3 days of my contract l could see that my pleasant little weekend in Sydney along with the Jersey Boys show looked like a no goer. By Tuesday the roads were deemed impassable and still it rained, on Wednesday though the rain was lessening. Road conditions were checked by ringing around the other communities and the more experienced drivers discussed whether they thought a four wheel drive vehicle could be driven to the Stuart Highway via one of the three routes available. After two days of delays two of the Psychiatric Nurses decided that they would be leaving at lunchtime to try and get to AS. It had not rained for two days and there was one spare seat on offer if I wanted it.
The full extent of the rain became evident shortly after leaving Pukatja as we followed in the rutted tracks left by vehicles which preceded us. Four wheel drive vehicles certainly come into their own in these conditions – nothing like the Remuera taxis which you see being driven along the Auckland motorways. We started to come across huge pools of water across the road; in some cases the end could not be seen. The rules for four wheel driving are simple for conditions such as this to prevent getting bogged; stop and look for the best route through the water or mud, keep to the road and don't be tempted to leave it and drive up along the bank, use low four wheel drive, put the vehicle in 2nd gear and drive steadily through the water without changing gear. If water has pooled on the road it is usually because there is rock beneath preventing the water from draining through the porous sandy soil. After navigating through 2 bodies of water and reaching a third it became obvious that we would have to leave the road and follow a track that had been made by other vehicles. Discussion ensued – should we risk it or attempt to drive through the water? Consensus reached and we left the road; fortunately we were not bogged.
We arrived at the Victory Downs Road intersection after travelling 60 kms. Still water covered the road in both directions as far as the eye could see; it seemed strange to see the beautiful blue sky overhead reflected on the surface. The route was chosen and off we drove. Water lapped up to the head lights and sprayed off the sides of the car as we drove through it. The huge pools, some as long as 1.5kms in length meant multiple crossings of the water in a zigzag fashion to find the safest routes through. This became the driving pattern until we reached the slightly elevated section of the road near the Stuart Highway just south of Kulgera – 3 ½ hours later after a journey which would normally take 1 ½ hours. The Stuart Highway had also not escaped the rain – in places there were large areas of surface flooding alongside the road and scattered debris on the bitumen where some of the creeks had over flowed. A further 3 hours on and we reached Alice Springs. Thanks to the good driving of my co-workers I caught the afternoon flight to Sydney the next day reaching the theatre as the orchestra began the opening bars to Jersey Boys.
