Here We Go Again - Chapter 54 - Mataranka Day 2

Like the other birds of prey we are up early. Aided by Silver Leader and Rose we are on the prowl for a powered site and we are not the only ones. It seems like everyone in our section, the unpowered section, has hooked up or are in the process of hooking up. There is a cloud of dust beginning to rise around the powered section as the “vultures” swarm.

We have an advantage. Silver Leader, as is his want, has been gas bagging again and has ascertained the van diagonally opposite them are going early. He has already placed chairs strategically close to the site ready to stake a claim, and its only 6.00am.

These people are not mucking around. They have already started to ready the van for a plethora of kilometres towards either Kakadu or Darwin. Understanding what we are attempting to do, they allow us to start the transition process around them. By 7.30am they are ready to go and I am waiting with the van attached to replace theirs with ours. I thank them profusely but they acknowledge they were getting on the road early and head off.

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Part 1 of the job done we need now to add 2 more days to our site fees and we are then OK. First though a top up of the water tanks, to replace the water used last night (and this morning) and hook up power.

Of course Silver Leader has not let his gas bagging pursuits go to waste on just site procurement. Always up for a chat, especially where fishing is the subject, Silver Leader has gleaned several potential spots as his procurement duties have taken him around the sites. The biggest piece of information gleaned is that apparently there are no salt water crocodiles here, only fresh water ones, making the procurement of barramundi less challenging in the life threatening stakes. 

He has heard Bitter Creek, a spot just on the other side of the township proper, is the hot spot for the moment. Easy access, no crocodiles, it sounds idyllic. Into the repository of knowledge this information goes, and back to repositioning the van. The plan is to stay three more nights here, but for now, keeping our options open we pay for 2.

Now our biggest issue is sorted, I need to deal with the other looming over the webinar we are presenting tonight. The fall back position is the run to Katherine. Not a savouring thought, drive in at dusk for the 6.30pm local time start and then an after dark run back to Mataranka. The road kill numbers are a sobering thought, and its not the death and carnage we might inflict on the fauna as much as the potential damage to the Cruiser that could be inflicted should there be an encounter at speed, with a kangaroo, cattle or an immovable object like a buffalo that is more the worry. Selfish I know but life is life.

There must be options in Mataranka, is my thought. A trip to Katherine would also allow dealing with some other issues like securing a filtration solution for the water tanks. The water is getting harder and harder as we travel, so much so, lathering up is more and more difficult to achieve in the shower. The toll on the filters and inner workings in the van will be rising.

Katherine also allows for a lowering of anxiety levels of the performance of the team to produce the webinar. It will be their first time without me as the anchor. I have left much to them and from the glimpses I have been able to get, can see their attention to the details I find important is not as stringent as mine.

Before I make the final decision on Katherine I will do laps of Matanaka  and check out coverage.

Armed with my laptop, I trek the 8 kilometres into the township. My first thought is the police station should have decent internet. I was wrong. Watching the phone coverage dials on the GPS, I am dismayed to see only 1 bar of coverage as I pass it. 

All of a sudden it jumps to three bars of coverage. I hit the anchors. Why would coverage be better just here. Looking around quickly gives me the answer. I pull off the highway and find the shade of a tree. I am sitting across the road from the local school.

Now to see if the phone coverage manifests itself in internet. The laptop does its normal thing and rejects internet connection the first time. Why I put up with this is beyond me but to update the laptop becomes a “devil you know” debate. Restarted the laptop accepts the connection and I rejoice that travel to Katherine is not required, at least not today anyway.

The emails and other downloads fill the three inboxes I have. In the time I have been unable to connect there have been more than 200 relevant communications (let alone the unsolicited ones). Looking at the most important one for now, the registration inbox for the webinar, brings anxiety. There are no emails here, which is very unusual. The webinars are very popular and with some we have had in excess of 200 registrations.

Apparently in the period I have been unable to check my emails, our web designers decided to change the landing page address. Whilst in theory this should not have been an issue – they forgot that all our marketing material points to the old one. The marketing of course was all in place prior to me going “dark”, which means it was all ineffective. There will be words spoken, words of annoyance, but that is later. For now I am happy I have suitable connection strength to be a participant in the webinar, touch wood the internet here is stable.

Back to the homestead, a huge weight off my mind, its time to be depressed again by the NSW Premiers update on the Covid outbreak. We congregate in the beer garden adjacent the TV screen from where last night we watched the State of Origin. The crowd today is much sparcer than last night, but we are not the only ones here.

Our Premier and her Chief Medical Officer are drilled  by the journalists. The patience of the public servants in the face of a barrage of questions from the media makes you wonder why you would rise to these positions. The journalists continue pushing their agenda, trying to score “brownie points” by being rude and continuing to ask answered questions, just because they didn’t appear to ask it, it seems. 

The entire interview is a disgraceful piece of journalistic lunacy. Pushing their own agendas, regardless of the facts, attempting to “one up” those from other networks, let alone stressing their anti government views, leaves you very proud of the patience of the politicians.

Enough said.

Lets go for a swim. After the reports from Rose and Silver Leader of the greenness of the water in yesterday’s report, we are a little trepidatious as to what we might find. The park is “overfull”, and as I found as I drove back from the township, not only are there a full complement of residents, the day tripper car park was also full. 

Thankfully there appears to be more people leaving the pool than arriving with us. Whilst there is a large number of patrons swimming and the inevitable kids, diving and bombing around the place, we can slip into the warm water and float about on our noodles without fear of breaching the 1.5 metre social distancing rules. 

We can for now. As we drift around, conversations begin. Places seen, experiences had. All different, all the same in that we are all circulating this great country and for now are in the one place enjoying the same natural resource. Even then, some simply wallow against the wall of the pool, while others swim between those noodling around. 

Its this diversity of experiences that make the stories of the same outing different.

Having said that there is only so much social distancing, or lack of as the case may be, one can handle. The hands are beginning to “prune”. Its time to get out.

Lunch sorted, Silver Leader suggests a wander to the Little Roper River behind the thermal pools for a fish. He has heard from one of the bar staff that the walk is easy and fish have been caught. Unlike him, I can be ready for something like this in a flash, as I have a light gear rod in the Cruiser, set up for “emergencies”. All that is needed is the appropriate lure, several of which I keep in a “go bag”, also in the Cruiser. 

There is a gate at the edge of the park. We go through and head to the river. Its only a short walk to a beach surrounded by palms and gums. At our entry point we split up. Silver Leader goes one way and I the other. Lures hit the water against the bank at the other side and are manipulated back to the launch point. Now and again a snag is snared, but each time I am able to retrieve the lure without breaking the line.

But that is the only thing I catch. Silver Leader has the same luck. Whilst the location is idyllic, today it lacks one very important aspect, biting fish. Whilst we are fishing another camper joins us. He was in the pool at the same time we were swimming and remembering part of the conversation (Silver Leader can talk), thought it might be fun to come and watch. Unfortunately he only bought his own libation and enjoys the banter of fisherman,enjoying the surroundings if not the outcome.

We head back to the vans – fish 1, fisherman 0.

As we are returning , Silver Leader engages in a conversation with yet another “expert”. With the webinar on my mind I continue back to the van and leave him to do what he does best.

Its time to head into Mataranka, to park under that tree and sit back and “relax” and watch my team produce the webinar planned for this evening. Just to keep me “on my toes” internet connection is less stable than this morning but I need to set myself up a little better than simply the laptop actually on my lap anyway.

With the laptop on the bonnet of the Cruiser, and the setting sun providing light, I join the broadcast. I see immediately what I perceive as the effects of the marketing boo boo. There are only me and my business partner on the Zoom meeting. Not even the special guest appears to be ready.

I call him and he suggests he is in the waiting room of the meeting. This cant be as according to the screen in front of me, no one is waiting. 

Panic – why is this happening. Why has technology attempted to thwart our endeavours. Then, by sheer luck, we realise all those (and there are many) sitting in the “waiting room” are attached to a different meeting, and instead of Zoom are sitting in Google Meets.

Again because I was unable to supervise, staff had sent the incorrect link to all those registered for the webinar. Shaun, my business partner, makes fun of the issues, taking it in his stride. He is a good performer and although he was nervous about presenting tonight potentially on his own, from an attendees point of view the product was professional if not technically brilliant.

Having said that there will be words tomorrow, harsh words over the results of this webinar.

My anxiety and my dinner collide in a bout of diverticulitis. Shaun and our guest are doing brilliantly, I am more than happy to leave them just prior to the end of the main presentation. I will catch up with them later.

To say I am livid with what has just occurred would be an understatement. Although Shaun’s apparent mirth at the technical “difficulties” we experienced, they all could have been avoided. That is not something for  tonight. Retributions will come tomorrow. For now my only concerns are the guest’s impressions and congratulating Shaun on his performance.

I find it difficult to get in touch with both after the appointed finish time. I find out later the question time went almost half an hour over which is a testament to the material of the guest, Gilbert Francios and Shaun’s lively banter. 

When you are trying to present a professional business, able to encounter and overcome adversity, then tonight was a great testament to that. If however that professionalism extends to looking after client apprehension because we know what we are doing, we failed miserably.

Why we failed is a job for tomorrow. Now, the attack over I can go to bed in the knowledge we have improvements to make.