Bourke

My job sees me going to unconventional places at times. For the next two weeks, I have been posted at Bourke.

Apparently, Bourke is the quintessential outback of Australia. "If you've never been to Bourke, you've not been to Australia", was what my colleague told me. This place was where all the farming and agriculture started for those voyagers who came to settle here centuries ago.

Travelling here on the first day was quite eventful to say the least! Waking up at 4.30am was definitely not pleasant just to catch a 6.30am flight. As this is a regional area, I ended up on a regional plane (propeller planes).

I was still hungrily waiting to board the plane when the clock on the wall was pointing 6.32am! What?? Finally, half an hour later, we boarded the plane. I didn't really expect a propeller plane! Check out how small it is. Then, we were told to dis-embark as there was something wrong with it and we had to travel all the way back to the boarding area and go through security screening again.

While we put our laptops and bags through the x-ray machine (for the second time) and waiting for it to come out at the other end, an officer approached my colleague and metioned, "Can I please scan you while you're waiting."

Haha...I was laughing! As if we can somehow manage to breach any security when we had already been screened previously and all we did was board and dis-embark the plane. The expression my colleague gave was just priceless! I had to quickly walk away as I was no longer able to control my laughter when he was stopped again after he picked up his bag as the officer needed to scan his bag too!

Anyway, we finally were on our way at 10 past 8 in the morning. All those lost precious hours could have been used for sleeping. sigh~

This was the size of my 2nd and 3rd airplane rides. Propeller again and the size is even smaller than the first one I took.

Finally arrived at Bourke after taking 3 airplane rides and changing in between. Hello to the insects and sting beetles in Bourke as they are just everywhere here.

Yikes..where is my insect repellent!