Alone again - but with hope

I made my way back to Kalgoorlie with a heavy heart. I had a lot to smile about. All my feelings were positive, but nonetheless tinged with the sadness of having to leave Claudia. We were both certain that we had something good and strong and we both felt that it was going to be worth every bit of effort that we put into it. This was the early days of e-mail and there were few internet cafes around. (Kalgoorlie only had public access at the library where you were still expected to book your time slot.) Back then phone calls were still dear and there was not the selection of cheap calling cards that there is now. Being on the mine for 28 days at a stretch was difficult to us both and we resorted to good old snail mail with me collecting my mail from the Post Office in Kal where Claudia sent them Poste Restante.

My letters to Claudia would have been grubby, reflecting the places they were written. Atop the diesel bunker while refilling the tanker for the rig; next to the rig waiting for rods to go down on the odd occasion that we had a spare man to do a bit of the grunt work or near the campfire. Blazing sun and freezing nights, I wrote my letters and studied my 'German in Five Minutes' with the single-minded determination of a man on a mission. Claudia would slip sweetly from my thoughts into my dreams at the end of each shift and my heart would cruise in overdrive through each day. It was wonderful.

Months past and it became time for me to leave. I could only work for one employer for three months at a time, it was a condition of my visa. I had made some good money and my reason for being in Australia was to travel and enjoy all of it. It was time to move on. And I did