Travelling Vets - 4. TV Chapter 4

Two days later, as we were finishing our lunch break, my mobile rang, and it was the home business number calling. “Excuse me, I have to take this call outside… Hello, can you hold for a moment please,” I said as I headed for the back door of the property.

After ten minutes on the phone with Auggie, I was furious after the call ended, and I stayed outside to try and calm down, as I sent a text message to Marcus, to come out and join me. After explaining everything that Auggie had told me, about the two exchange vets at home, who were taking a lot of extra time with each patient, requesting too many scans and x-rays, prescribing incorrect medication, and sometimes misdiagnosing the problem with the patients.

We walked back inside the practice and found Adam in his office, which was perfect, and we stormed in and slammed the door shut behind us. “What the hell did you do that for, are you trying to scare the patients and their owners to death?” Adam shouted at us as he stood up, “No, but you will shut up and listen to what we have to say, and if we do not get a satisfactory response, we are walking out of here, and your two exchange vets will be set packing back to Perth,” Marcus said in response.

After a moment, Adam sat down again and we sat in the chairs available in the office, and we spent the next ten minutes informing him of everything that has been happening back at Kununurra. We told Adam that both of us have given our very best to this practice during this work exchange, but that is not what has been happening back in Kununurra.

I told Adam, that he needs to speak to his two staff members today, preferably now, since it is after 9 pm over in Western Australia, and that they have the option of doing a proper job as per our agreement, or packing up and getting the hell out of Kununurra. Marcus added that since we are both not in the mood, we are taking the rest of the day off, all because of his staff’s behaviour, and with that said, we left the building.

Back at the hotel, we relaxed as much as we could with what was happening back home heavy on our minds. “I think we should just walk out of this deal, and go and do some volunteer work as we travel around the UK for the next few weeks,” Marcus suggested. “I am thinking that is probably a very good idea,” I replied.

On our fifth official day at the Vet practice, we were informed on arrival, that we would each be pairing up with a local vet, and going out on-farm visits, in separate directions, which caught both of us totally by surprise, with no warning of this happening yesterday when we ended our shifts. Marcus ended up spending the day at two separate horse stables, doing check-ups on the race horses, while I spent the day travelling all over the countryside, visiting a lot of farms, and dealing with sheep, pigs, goats and cattle.

On arrival back at the clinic, Marcus was looking very tired as he sat in the staff room drinking a cup of tea. “Been a long day for you too, has it?” I asked, as I made a cup of tea for myself and sat down on the lounge next to my husband. “Yes, you could say that. I spent a good part of the day trying to avoid being kicked, nipped, tail swatted or bitten by racehorses,” Marcus replied.

“You are lucky, I did get stomped on the foot by cattle, bitten by goats, head-butted by sheep and charged at by pigs, all of my time,” I responded. Marcus gave a slight smile, “I guess the vet and farmer just laughed at you, as the stables manager did with me?” he said to me, and I nodded my head yes.

As we were getting ready for a new day at work the following morning, I was in the shower when I heard a mobile ring, and Marcus answered it. Moments later he stepped into the bathroom just as I shut off the water, and I could hear the call on speaker. “Ok, he is here now, go ahead Aussie,” Marcus said and I groaned.

“Good morning to you both sorry to spoil the start of your day, but I have a situation…” Auggie began, and the more he explained the situation, the angrier I became, as I dried off and dressed ready for work. “Ok, well as far as I am concerned, there is nothing in the agreement regarding getting into legal strife, so my advice is to not do a single thing, well… if you really must, maybe arrange for a lawyer to see them both, but make sure that it is at their expense and not ours.

I will let Adam know as soon as we get in to work, and let him deal with the situation from there. It is almost 4 pm there now, right? Maybe we should let them stay in the lockup for another night, by letting Adam know after 5 pm Perth time,” I said to Auggie, and both he and Marcus laughed at my suggestion.

“I tell you what, how about I give you a call at 9 am your time, and then it will be after 5 pm here, and Adam won’t be able to do anything until 8 am Perth time,” Auggie suggested, and after a bit of thought, I agreed to this.

A little over an hour later, after having a meeting with Adam, where he was trying to extend our work day from half a Saturday to a full day, our discussions were interrupted by my mobile ringing and seeing that it was Auggie, I answered it. “Hey buddy, how are things in Kununurra? Is everything running smoothly?” I asked, and Auggie told me that nothing had changed since we last spoke.

“Really? Is that so? Well, there is nothing that I can do about it, except notify their boss and let them deal with the situation,” I said in response, and Auggie said that he had received another call from the police station, asking what is happening about getting legal assistance for the two foreigners. I glanced at my watch and frowned.

“Well, I guess it is too late now, they will be closed, give me the contact information and I will pass it on… Ok thanks, Auggie, keep me posted on the situation, bye for now,” I said before ending the call and sighing. “It appears that your two exchange vets have got themselves into some strife, and they are currently in police lockup. They are charged with drunk and disorderly, criminal damage, and assault of a public officer,” I informed Adam.

“What! How can that be? Can you get them out of there?” Adam said in shock as he jumped up, “Well, that is where it is a problem. It is now after 5 pm Saturday over there, so they won’t have access to a lawyer until the morning, and they will be held in lockup until Monday morning Perth time,” I informed Adam.

“Well, that is marvellous, I thought there would be no issues with those two being on the exchange. What can you do about a lawyer?” Adam responded. “I have contact details for two lawyers in town there, but because of the time difference, it will be 8 am Perth time before you can call them, which is midnight here tonight. I will leave it up to you to arrange that since they are your staff,” I said to Adam.

“Since they are currently been detained and charged with three serious offences, this now voids our exchange agreement, and we are ending our work with your company as of now. We thank you for the experience of working for your company, and I wish you all the best with working out the issues with your two staff,” Marcus added, and with that said, we stood and left the office and the building. We stopped at a café for an early morning tea, where we discussed what to do now.

“I have done a bit of research on other zoos around the UK, and I came across something that may be of great interest to you… Heythorp Zoological Gardens is located in Oxfordshire, England, and has the largest collection of exotic animals in the UK, and they provide animals for the film industry,” Marcus said to me after we made our orders at the café.

“You are determined to see more zoos while we are here?” I asked, “Yes, I think that it would be an opportunity missed if we did not check out as many as possible while in the UK, as there are so many of them, and they are all varied. As well as Heythorp, there is also the nearby Cotswold Wildlife Park and Gardens, which is a whopping 160 acres in area,” Marcus added.

“Well, that one is worth looking at,” I replied, hearing that it is so large in area. After a bit of research on my iPad, which I always carry with me, we discovered that it is only a 1 ½ hour drive to Bradwell Village where the Wildlife Park is located, and we investigated what accommodation is available in the area, and we booked into a manor located in Buckland.

After that, we continued to research what is around the region and discovered quite a lot of things to explore, so we decided that we would possibly extend our three days stay a bit longer to be able to see everything in the area, which includes historical locations, like the Broadway Tower, Kiftsgate Stone, Sudely Castle, and the famous Blenheim Palace, the birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill and the stately home of the Duke of Marlborough.

In the end, we spent a whole week in the region, as there was so much to see and do, and on our second last day, we spent a good five hours at the Chester Zoo, just as visitors, although by the end of our visit, some of the staff passing stared to give us strange looks. As we exited the Zoo, with a small note added to the back, I left my business card in the suggestion box. “My partner and I spent five wonderful hours at your Zoo, and we will be returning home full of ideas we thank you for your hospitality. Regards Dr Kendrick & Dr Sanderson,”

During our visit to the area, we received an update from Auggie, about the two visiting vets, who pleaded guilty to all three charges and were sentenced to one month of prison at the West Kimberley Regional Prison near Derby, before they are to be immediately deported, with a ten-year ban on returning to Australia.

At the end of our last day in the region, we began looking into what to do next, and Marcus suggested that we head north to Scotland, which I agreed was a good choice, and we began to look at places that we would like to visit in Scotland.