cupkatespace: Writing from Flinders!

There were 5 girls and a van
To Flinders they went with a plan
They travelled the land
Walked on the sand
And gave the locals some bags

The van!

The bags!

What could be better – a week of normal uni, or travelling a beautiful island, meeting people and talking about what we do? After a week of the latter, I know my choice! Flinders Island is a beautiful island – there are many picturesque bays, inlets, lagoons, and beaches, all with the ‘East Coast’ orange lichen on the rocks and light blue-green water. Although I very much enjoyed trying to capture these sights with a camera, there is much more to Flinders than the landscape. We have been privileged to meet ‘locals’ along the way who have given us a glimpse of ‘island life’. There are some aspects that are just like anywhere – there is good internet, people watch TV, listen to the radio and mow their lawns. Other parts are what you make of it – you can live in your own kingdom, visiting town once a month, and enjoying your own company, you can retire to a fabulous house, entertaining guests regularly, and getting groceries every week, or you can run the shop. In this particular rural community, people are friendly, everyone knows everyone, and kids and dogs are safe to roam. I enjoyed the sense of community – by show day I could bump into a handful of people and say hi, and easily chat to others I hadn’t met. I could even pick out some of the prize-winning artists, sculptors and chutney makers as kids we’d met and ladies we’d Scottish Danced with! For me, the trip was a success – we shared our interest in rural health, we met some real rurals, we climbed a mountain and we patted not one but two wombats.