Here We Go Again - Chapter 68 - Lake Argyle Day 2

My Cpap machine says I have slept for 9 hours but it is still 4.30am in the morning according to the adjusted clocks. The water well is dray and I need to top it up and try and go back to sleep. Bloody “van lag”, and we only drove around 400 kilometres yesterday.

I cannot lay in bed once the sun starts to crack against the darkness. Most of the local fauna is rustling or creaming in the trees in any event. I throw on some shorts and shoes and head out. The sunrises against the rocky cliffs of the dam wall can be magic. This morning does not let me down.

I head to the infinity pool for shots across it and onto the lake proper. There is not a breath of wind. The infinity pool, like the lake, is like glass, grey for the moment in the pre dawn light. In the distance you can see the effects of the sun, blocked by the adjacent walls of the dam, where the light striked distant cliffs and hills prior to becoming the “in your face” sunrise we are about to encounter. 

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The greyness of the still to be sunsoaked cliffs in view is contrasted by the brilliant orange of this in full sun. In time the harshness of the day will envelope the entire vista, but for now the changing of the time between night and day provides this slide show of colour changes.

In the olden days when cameras had film and you rationed the shots, guarding against the development costs sending you broke, one may have taken one or two shots this morning. With my phone, effectively a digital camera, and seemingly with inexhaustible storage potential, snap after snap, from every angle can be achieved – and is.

What you cant see from my present vantage point is the great expanse that is Lake Argyle. When here previously we were absolutely gobsmacked, when on an evening cruise, we cleared the battlements that are the encroaching cliffs to see the water stretch in either direction as far as the eye could see. 

There had been wonder in how they were to run the Argyle Marathon, a swimming event of some 20 kilometers I believe. From the vantage point at the caravan park the only was was to have many laps around buoys, but once you see the fullness (actually you cannot see it all from the cruise boat) of the impoundment, the true vision of the Durack family is understood. They gave up this land. 

Truly visionary.

Its not just me stirring in the morning light. Many other apparently as van lagged as I are out and about. The Yoga lady is setting up and I wonder if Robyn might like to join a class. I will ask on my return to the van. There is still plenty of time.

There is a Robinson helicopter here, ready for the early morning sightseers. The pilot is doing his ground checks as I walk past headed for the van on a mission for Robyn and Yoga. We brought her pilates accompaniments but for the almost three months we have been on the road, they have only served to be annoyances in the packing and unpacking of the Cruiser, especially where we add passengers.

Robyn is awake, but the thought of movement at this hour of the morning, she is obviously not as van lagged as I am, does not move to action. Maybe tomorrow. She rolls over and returns to reading her book. Cant rush these things, can we?

Given we are awake early there are some administration things we can do today. Our proximity to the laundry beckons a washing of the sheets and towels. The ordinary washing we can do “in house” as we have a washing machine (for small loads) in the ensuite area.

Robyn’s phone set with the new Telstra SIM card should now be working – it isn’t. The run from Darwin to here has been “outside” any potential coverage, so it not working was seen to be a product of that. It is well and truly outside the “up to 24 hours” for the porting to have occurred so we feel we are well and truly within our rights to call and enquire.

Footnote: So begins a saga which unbeknown to us would last for many days

For me, in these days of “plug and play” things should just work. The intricacies that you cannot see bore me to tears and simply increase my angst.

First port of call, the Telstra shop where we purchased the new SIM. It was, what seemed to be a Telstra owned facility in Palmerston in a suburb of Darwin. With the receipt for the port and the new “plan” they moved us to we ring. 

No answer. 

We check the time differences – all OK and ring again.

No answer.

This is silly. We ring again. I get to speak to someone. Now because the answerer was not the person who did the transaction, they will need to get them to call us back. In the mean time we are asked what is the issue. Clearly the phone is not working. She suggests she will check their system. On hold for a short time (and short here means only a few minutes), she comes back and informs us the port “failed”. 

OK we know that so what do we need to do about it. She suggests we go back to our original provider and see what the issue was and confirm the account details etc. Sounds like a reasonable move, but at the time of the “sale” we were reliably informed Telstra would do all of that, given it was a simple port from a Telstra reseller to Telstra. Evidently not.

The call is made. We quote the account number from our monthly bill (which we gave to Telstra – at their suggestion) and are informed each phone on the bill (and we have multiple phones and internet services with them) has its own account number and we should have known we needed to quote that account number in any porting exercise.

OK we will know better next time.

With this new and “improved” information in hand we call the Telstra shop.

No answer

We call again

No answer, other than the answer machine saying the shop is closed.

You can feel my frustration levels rising – it isn’t even noon yet in either location and yes its Friday.

We call again. This time we got an answer. I tell the girl we have done what they requested and I have the relevant information but she cannot deal with it, she will need to get the original sales person to call us. Yes, that will be today.

Footnote: We are still waiting on the return call from this business

Needless to say during the rest of the day we went about our business expecting a call which never came.

It reminds me of all the varying marketing we have seen lately like “free Wifi” – yes it might be free but getting it when more than one person is trying to access it, let alone the demands that must be placed on a caravan park site, over full with Grey Nomads and home schooled children. The marketing and the reality are often very different.

Service is a thing of importance, not something that is a consequence of business. Here in the Kimberley the supply and demand of tourists runs the economy. Operators struggle with the whims of our politicians playing one upmanship, closing borders and slamming lockdowns into place. The understanding around the lockdown process is valid BUT in the real world where states are blocks of land thousands of square kilometers in size, an outbreak in Perth does not really effect an area 4,000 kilometers away.

The argument will of course be centred around the “general good” and more so, you cannot legislate for the idiot, but regardless of the lockdowns, businesses need to survive. Right now, here in the Kimberley (as I am certain it is in many tourist type areas), demand for services far outstrips the supply. Rather than cash, perhaps incentives for staffing, so the fish and chips truck at Cooinda can be open or the queues for food and drink are not such that the waiting is measured in how many drinks you need to consume.

One might laugh but if the fight against Covid is here to stay then our leaders need to take a far different approach to locking down areas and ensuring the “idiots” and the conspiracy theorists don’t spread the virus. Until we get away from the “what is in it for me” mentality, we will never truly be able to fight something like a pandemic.

Its there where the issues of fighting such a fight falls down.  Failure in a capitalistic society is measured at a global level whereas success is borne out of individuality. Am I right?