We Wish You a Merry and Blessed Christmas
All of us from the Yaraka hotel wish you a happy and blessed Christmas and – hopefully – a New Year a little less complicated than 2021. Our Christmas celebrations here in Yaraka have already happened with our Christmas Church service at St Anne’s happening last Sunday where it was standing room only.
So, we are now ready for Christmas Day itself. We are actually closed on Christmas day but we will be having a private Christmas lunch here for people who would normally be on their own.
It seems to me that Christmases come around much more quickly these days; surely it was only a few months or so ago that we were wishing everyone Merry Christmas. I started pondering on ‘Why’ time appears to go faster for me as I get older. Time doesn’t change so it’s something to do with my mindset that causes the illusion of speed for me.
It’s interesting that a number of university studies, mainly in America and Europe, have researched age and seemingly faster time, resulting in diverse opinion papers.
My own reasoning (which is totally illogical but suits me) is that time starts ticking when we are born and continues ticking until we reach our destination. The closer to the destination we get the shorter the time to get there. As such everything’s happening far more quickly for me!
We are well and truly over Covid – or would like to be. We have been jabbed, willingly, and are happy to have our booster shot. The Covid analysts concerns over these remote regions created some difficult scenarios from what I’m told. The main one being that no hospitals in these remote regions are equipped or able to deal with a coronavirus outbreak. Those with the virus would have to be flown to city hospitals close to a thousand kilometres away, creating a logistical nightmare.
When a QANTAS hostess arrived on a passenger plane in Longreach in early July, and shortly after tested positive for coronavirus, the local powers put in place their action plan for such an event happening. All the local media outlets broke into their normal programmes advising people to report to the Longreach Showgrounds and get tested for the coronavirus.
This resulted in a huge exodus of the caravaners who made a speedy exit, not just from Longreach, but also from Barcaldine and Blackall. And they all headed west! A friend of ours was flying to Winton in his plane when this exodus was happening and he told us of the extraordinary sight below him, of a solid line of caravans, head to tail, heading toward Winton and beyond.
Longreach, and other town businesses, were decimated as customers disappeared. Food businesses, supermarkets in particular, were really hit hard with use by dates expiring on stock and having to be dumped. One supermarket owner told me that his business was down over forty per cent for a full fortnight.
After a fortnight had passed and it was learnt that the QANTAS hostess did not have coronavirus, the tourists and caravaners returned.
However, the coronavirus restrictions – especially for overseas travel – saw a huge increase in travellers to this region and Yaraka! We have had the busiest year ever and a large percentage of the arrivals were newcomers to the region, and it would seem that they enjoyed their experience. We had a lot of comments from people who said “If our plans had gone ahead we would be in (and I quote) ..Greece..Norway..Russia..Vanuatu..Canada etc…..now.”
A surprising number said they were enjoying their time discovering Australia and didn’t think they would bother with overseas trips any longer.
As a result of all this, the general opinion is that we will see increased travellers exploring these remote regions next year.
One of the disappointments for us this year was that a lot of our travellers here have become friends, who couldn’t get here as a result of travel restrictions, and we really did miss them.
And now to something completely different but a sign of the times. I declare here that I strongly believe in Climate Change. Here in Yaraka, climate changes feature strongly in our landscape. Our beautiful mesa hills and ranges are a legacy of the great inland sea that once covered us and flowed north. Our unique fossils and dinosaurs demonstrate another period of climate change. Our coal, oil and gas come from another climate of change. These changes happened without being aided and abetted by humans.
I understand that we humans are responsible for pumping out toxic waste and as ‘progress’ creates more pollution, and the world population increases by 200,000 per day, we are creating serious issues for this planet.
We don’t feel there is a lot that we can do about overcoming these issues so we are moving into ‘be prepared’ mode.
As such, the Yaraka Hotel is in strategic planning for changes for 2022 and into the future.
We all know that the Thwaites “Doomsday” glacier is going through the process of breaking up. This glacier is the size of Britain and contains enough water, when melted, to increase sea levels by 65 centimetres (25.5 inches) around the globe. When it breaks away within the next few years, it will expose and accelerate the melting of the remaining glaciers, increasing sea levels once again by a few feet.
Once upon a time I was a Boy Scout and we had to ‘Be Prepared’. (Back in those far distant days Boy Scouts raised money by doing ‘A Bob a Job’ and this is when at a young age I had my first experience of being done over like a dog’s dinner by spending two full days with a fork and spade, digging the back garden up for a rather wealthy couple. I worked furiously at it getting blisters and was complimented on the impressive job I had done, and was given a shilling.
My mother was apoplectic with rage when I arrived home with my shilling (Bob). My father had to almost restrain her as she was hell bent on telling the couple who gave me a Bob for the Job some home truths that would not have been at all ladylike. My father calmed her and my blisters healed. On reflection they did pay a bob for the job so they did the right thing but the thinking was that a job wouldn’t last longer than an hour. So my memories of scout hood are ‘BE PREPARED’ and being done over when I should have been paid at least ten shillings – according to my mother).
As such the Yaraka Hotel will “Be Prepared” for climate change and rising waters. So next year our dining room area will be named the ‘Sea Gulls Restaurant’ and to bring authenticity to the name we will have five Sea Gulls perched permanently on the hotel roof with one Sea Gull observing diners in the ‘restaurant’ area.
These beautifully handcrafted sea gulls have been donated to us by Ian Kinsey of Outback Chemist fame in Blackall where he and his staff are wonderful supporters of Yaraka. Ian is arranging to have a couple of sea gulls mounted in Blackall as well, advertising the Yaraka Sea Gulls Restaurant. Thank you again Ian!
And on that note, may we pass on our very best wishes to you all for a happy, blessed, peaceful Christmas and we hope we will be able to catch up with you all again next year in Yaraka.
Cheers
Chris and Gerry