Desert Vets - 1. DV Ch 1 - Pre Wedding

After the unexpected proposal and the engagement party that happened a few days later at the house, located behind the vet hospital and the aircraft hanger, everything went on fast. With it being the dry season, we decided to have the wedding in August, to be held at the families Inverway Station, before the end of the season, and we decided to have a short honeymoon at Lord Howe Island.

I organised to charter a four-wheel drive charter vehicle to drive the wedding guests the 410 kilometres from Kununurra down to the station, which is a six hour journey, with a rest stop at Waterloo Station homestead, which is approximately one third off the way.

To accommodate all of the guests, space was made available at neighbouring Limbunya and Riveren Stations, with guests including owners and staff of six neighbouring stations, as well as all of the staff of the three family stations and all of my business staff and even some of the RFDS staff based in Kununurra, who would be flying Marcus to the wedding.

I would be arriving in my Bi Plane, along with my brother and best man Rhodes, as we would be spending the night at our former home at the airbase, which Marcus and I had decided just the month earlier, to make our new home.

We had notified our competitors, that we were giving up our practice in Derby, so as to concentrate on our main practice base in Kununurra, and they agreed to provide a more regular veterinary service to the district, that includes Fitzroy Crossing.

With that decision made and with Marcus and I to be based at Marble Bar, and with the Derby practice closing down, I had already started work on setting up a new base, located just south of Warmun, which is mostly an Aboriginal community, with some basic government services plus located on the north side of the highway is a roadhouse and caravan park.

About a kilometres south of the main road into the community, is the 1.5 kilometre long airfield, and with the permission from the elders of the community, I was building a two aircraft hanger, a shed able to have 6 vehicle parked inside, away from the blistering heat during summer, as well as two good sized modular buildings, one as a veterinary practice, the other as a social and recreation area for the staff, and four cabins for accommodating Jessica and her three staff.

Jessica and her staff would provide veterinary services to the Warmun community, as well as to Halls Creek, 160 kilometres to the south and also Wyndham, 190 kilometres to the north. Auggie and his two Vet Nurses would take care of everything at Kununurra, and Marcus and I would handle Marble Bar and Station Visits, plus the District Veterinary Officer contract work, with Marcus beginning to train to gain his commercial pilot’s licence.

I managed to convince the Victoria Daly Regional Council and the Wyndham East Kimberly Shire Council to build an airfield on the north side of the Victoria Highway, that crosses both the state and territory borders, as an emergency airfield, that can be used by the NT Dep Primary Industry, WA Dep Agriculture, the RFDS and by me as the District Vet Officer.

As a sweetener to get it done, I agreed to pay for the construction of an aircraft hanger, and for a multi use modular building next to the hanger, which will provide four large office suites, showers and toilets, and a meals crib room. I would take up one of the office suites as the DVO, and I would include two bar fridges for storage of veterinary medicines, and each office suite would have two desks, two chairs a filing cabinet and a small book case each.

As well as the two bar fridges my office would include a two seater lounge and a coffee table, for some additional comfort, as I had a feeling that I would be spending a lot of time there at the state border, especially now that I have established an animal quarantine station just down the road.

The modular building and the aircraft hanger, both have solar panels on the roof, to provide a plentiful supply of power, plus the complex also has a biodegradable sewerage system, and two large fresh water tanks, to keep the complex well supplied with water.

In the end, the airfield was built on the Western Australian side of the border, due to the NT side of the border being part of the Keep River National Park, so I provided some additional money to have the airfield made one kilometre longer, to 2.5 kilometres and to have it sealed, along with a parking apron, with the buildings to be built between the airfield and the highway.

I had also decided to set up a part time practice near the town of Timber Creek, with the local council giving me permission to have a modular building set up next to the airfield that is four kilometres west of the town and sixteen kilometres from the hotel.

I also received permission to have the Timber Creek airfield extended from 1.1 kilometres to 1.5 kilometres long, and also to have it sealed, at my expense, so as to provide less wear and damage to my plane. For the work plane it is a 2 hour journey from Marble Bar to either Timber Creek or Kununurra, and if I go to the latter first, it is another 45 minute flight to Timber Creek.

In the western half of the Victoria River District, that I am responsible for, there are a total of fifteen stations in that region, of which three are owned by our family, plus there are eleven stations in the Wyndham East Kimberly Shire region, and twenty two stations in the Halls Creek Shire, who all have become potential clients if any veterinary emergencies happen, now that they know that there is a flying vet in the region.

With all of these changes to take place straight after the wedding, most of the staff are looking forward to the changes, although I think that Jessica was not really pleased about being stuck in such a small community like Warmun, with just a roadhouse & caravan park, police complex, small medical centre, a small supermarket and a large aboriginal community.

I assured her and her staff, that there will be opportunities to work in other areas of the business, once we have all settled into a new routine, and that seemed to be agreeable by all. On days that I would be needed to go to either Timber Creek or the State border for work, I would drop Marcus off at Kununurra, so he can assist with the growing workload at the main practice.

Just a few days before the wedding, and the day before Rhodes and I were due to fly out to Corunna Airbase, where we would be spending just under two days, I pulled Auggie aside after a staff meeting, to ask him a question. “Just a quick question, do you know of anyone maybe one of our old classmates from Uni, who would be interested in working for us?” I asked.

“Don’t you mean working for you?” Auggie replied, “Yes, well it will be us once Marcus and I are married, as he will be an equal partner in the business, in a few days time,” I said. “Yes of course, lucky him. To answer your question, I still keep in touch with a few of our Uni classmates, so I will send out a text message and see what response I get,” Auggie responded.

“Great, thanks mate, with all the extra District Vet work and the bit of extra travelling that Marcus and I will be doing, we need another Vet, to help with the workload, especially here in Kununurra,” I responded.

“That is good to hear, I was going to bring up that very subject, when you guys get back from your Man Moon,” Auggie said and I laughed at the term he used for honeymoon.

Jessica was current working at the Kununurra clinic, until the new clinic and associated buildings are completed down at Warmun, and the extra staff, were keeping busy with the rescue and rehabilitation side of the business, and I had two cabins added to the complex, to be able to accommodate the extra staff, who are all originally from Derby or Perth.

On the morning that Rhodes and I were to fly to Corunna, I had made all the final arrangements for the wedding, including the transport, and also with notifying our regular clients that all clinics would be closed for three days, for the wedding at Inverway Station.

Auggie was now moving into my home at the back of the Kununurra practice, so as to make way for the newest vet, when he or she has been selected, and I had finished finalising the few legal changes that I needed to be done before the wedding.

The legal changes I had made to the practice, include Marcus being a 40% partner in the business and Auggie becoming a 18% partner, with the stipulation that if either one of them should wish to sell their share of the partnership, then it was the senior partner, that being me with 42% share, has first option to buy.

With all of the guests travelling down to Inverway Station the day before the wedding, it would be just Marcus, and the minister who would be travelling down with the RFDS from Kununurra on the morning of the big event.

When I woke on the morning of my wedding, I soon smelt cooking coming from the main part of the complex, as Rhodes was cooking a full breakfast for the both of us.

After a huge breakfast, I had to take a walk to try and burn off some of the meal, before returning and having a shower, and dressed in my wedding suit, while Rhodes impatiently waited for me, as he tried to make me go faster, as we walked over to the runway, where my Bi plane was sitting.

After completing all the checks, and making a call to register my flight plan from Corunna to Inverway Station, which would take us two and a half hours to get there, we set off down the runway, and once in the air, I circled the base, before heading towards Inverway.

We had a beautiful sunny day for the wedding, and the flight was going great, until I started getting spluttering noises coming from the plane, and after a quick look at the gauges, not sure what the problem was, my main concern was to get onto the ground in once piece, so I began looking around for a suitable landing place, and smiled when I sighted the Halls Creek airfield, to the west north-west of my current position.

“Kununurra Traffic Control, this is Jexon Kendrik, I am currently west north-west of Halls Creek and experiencing some engine troubles, I am going to land at Halls Creek, over,” I said into the radio, “Message received. Would you like the RFDS to collect you on the way through? Over” came a response.

I looked at my watch to see what the time is, and how much time before the ceremony is due to start, which was just over two hours away. “Let me get on the ground first and I will get back to you on that, over,” I replied, and I adjusted my course slightly to line up with the Halls Creek runway, which is a sealed airfield.

When we safely landed on the runway, I taxied to the parking apron, where I stopped the plane, and shut it down, before indicating to Rhodes to climb out. Once I had switched everything off, I also climbed out, and we both began to unload the plane of our luggage. Rhodes only had a small bag with a few days of clothing for the stay at Corunna, while I had a suitcase, with my luggage for my holiday to Lord Howe Island, with my soon to be husband.

As I was retrieving my luggage I was thinking about how we were going to get to Inverway in time for the wedding, when a vehicle came onto the parking apron. “Hello Dr Kendrik, I am Pete Shoal from Shoal Air, I will be taking you to the wedding location,” he said to me, and my mouth dropped open in surprise at this announcement and Pete just smiled.

“Compliments from my father and boss,” he said to me, as we began to load up the luggage, and climbed into the vehicle, were we drove to the Shoal Air aircraft hanger, where we could see the Piper PA 31 been prepared for a flight, and we pulled up alongside the plane, so the luggage could be loaded on.

Once we were ready, the pilot taxied to the runway and took off, before heading east to Inverway, which is a 45 minute flight away, and as I looked at my watch, I saw that we would arrive with an hour to spare. When we approached the Inverway airfield, we saw about half a dozen light aircraft lined up on the road just off the airfield, which I was not expecting.

“Looks like you have a big wedding lined up,” the pilot said to me, as he turned the plane to line up for landing, which was a little bumpy, as I saw a vehicle racing towards us, and it was our sister Mary who was driving. “Thank goodness you have made it, you have Marcus and our Mum very worried that you would be stuck in Halls Creek,” she said to me, when she jumped out of the vehicle and gave me a big hug.

“Steady on Sis, I am here now, so let’s get unloaded so we can get to the homestead. I have invited Pete to attend the wedding, since he was kind enough to fly me to the station and he happily accepted the invite,” I said to Mary, who was helping me get the luggage out of the plane and into the vehicle.

When we arrived at the homestead, I saw that there is a giant marquee set up out on the lawn between the homestead and the three staff cottages, and that verandah of the homestead has been set up as the stage area for the ceremony.

Mum gave me a hug, and told me to go to Rhodes room to tidy up a bit and that the RFDS plane is due to arrive in half an hour. When I heard the RFDS plane land, I wanted to look out and get a glimpse of Marcus, but Rhode insisted that I not do that.

“Mum says we have over two hundred guests, including all the owners and staff of the neighbouring stations, so most of them will fly back to their stations after the reception,” Rhodes informed me, when he returned after going to get us both a cup of tea. “I wondered why there was so many aircraft near the runway, must be a record number for this station, or any station in this region,” I commented smiling.