Seal Rocks - 14th September 2009

G'day!

Last weekend's call was just too busy and something had to give. It was a tough decision between giving you all an update or giving Bron, Matt and Jen some of my time but in my best longterm interests...........

This week's picture - the place is Seal Rocks and the people are Matt, Elena, Bianca and Alexa Khoury and Jen. Sean called on Thursday to say that he and Carolina had rented a house at Seal Rocks ( 85 km / 1 hour 15 minutes south of Taree ) and hoped we would be able to join them at some stage over the weekend. Yesterday was full of hockey and a fundraiser for the Manning Valley Art Gallery but we had nothing planned for today so off we went.

As I had been told, Seal Rocks is really special - quiet and invitingly beautiful. After a barbecued lunch including boerewors we headed off to the beach just below Sugarloaf Point Lighthouse. The sea was calm and transparent and we had kilometres of beach to ourselves. Sugarloaf Point was named by Matthew Flinders when he circumnavigated Australia between 1801 and 1803. I presume it looks like a sugarloaf but I must confess to not having seen one before. I'm not sure what he called all the other points which looked like sugarloaves between his starting point at the southern part of Western Australia and Sugarloaf Point either - perhaps he'd run out of names of people. Matthew Flinders certainly is an icon of Australian history and his cat, Trim who accompanied him shares his / her fair share of fame too.

I have obviously enjoyed this year's Tri-Nations which the Springboks deserved to win. I have heard of ,but have not actually heard any of Peter de Villiers post match interviews but I do hope that the win means as much to all South Africans as he claims.

Until next week.....

Dylan, Bronwyn, Matthew and Jennifer

Oops.......I did it again - 30th August 2009

G'day !

Australia has a Public and a Private Healthcare system. In a nutshell, the Public system is National Health with the States / Territories responsible for Hospitals and In-Hospital care and the Federal Government responsible for Outpatient funding - appointments, medication etc. Why do people choose to have Private Health Insurance if they can afford it? Well, things can usually get done quicker and the " gap " between what Medicare pays and Doctors charge can usually be covered, at least in part. It is not quite as simple as that - in fact, there are some real complexities but............some other time perhaps.

We have to have Private Insurance given that we are not elligible for Medicare ( or Government School fees, or Private School Scholarships, or any government benefits essentially ) as Temporary Residents - a topic of much debate.

As you can tell from this week's picture we needed to make use of medical services this week. Many people complain about the state of the Public Health system and I must confess, we do have long waiting lists but I thought the care we received was excellent. When Bron phoned me on Monday evening to say that she was worried about Jen's arm after a fall off her scooter I knew it would be our chance to put the system to the test. I phoned my friend the radiographer who did an Xray immediately. A greenstick fracture of her distal radius was confirmed and I phoned my friend the Orthopaedic Surgeon who came around to ED on his way home, suggested a backslab and asked another friend ( ED Doctor ) if he would mind applying a temporary backslab................turn around time from injury to home - 90 minutes !!!!! She now has a fibreglass short arm cast ( " hot pink " ) which was applied by my friend the Physiotherapist on Friday at a time that was mutually acceptable.

I have indulged in a bit of poetic licence and it wasn't quite as smoothe as all that - not quite. Overall, my observations over the time we have been here leave me really impressed with the medical care that people in the Manning Valley and Great Lakes area have at their disposal. The facilities really are more than adequate and the quality of medical and allied staff is very high.

Matt's Debating Team won their debate against St Philip's in Newcastle on Friday. He also managed to convince me to overule Bron's decision not to let him play an interschool Rugby League match in a few weeks time. Please hold thumbs that it doesn't result in another Hospital visit - for my sake, not Matt's..............

We had another new experience this week - last night we went to the Manning River Hotel for a friend's 23rd Birthday Dinner ( Matt Pullen - A Grade Goalkeeper and B Grade coach - ironic that he shares a surname with one of South Africa's finest hockey strikers, Robbie Pullen). A good meal, much beer, live music ( played Oasis, Violent Femmes and the like - fantastic ! ), a few games of pool, the Springboks toying with the Wallabies on a TV in the background - all in all, a most enjoyable evening and one which reminded us of the essentially similar culture we have settled into.

Who knows what the week ahead will bring?

Dyl, Bron, Matt and Jen