Book: Redemption - Part VIII - Chapter 16

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Into the Unknown

June to December 1997

The day Ralph and Marita took the coach south, Steve and I headed north. We parked the car at Skyrail’s Caravonica Terminal and took the shuttle bus to Freshwater Railway Station. Seeing the spectacular Barron Gorge National Park and its famous waterfalls from an old steam train as it rattled its way through fifteen tunnels and thirty-seven bridges, spanning steep gorges and ravines, was an experience I’m glad I didn’t miss. It was a shame our companions did because it was high on their list of things to do in the north. From Kuranda Railway Station and accompanying museum, which honoured the extraordinary men whose courage and tenacity built the railroad, we admired merchandise offered by stallholders at the eclectic markets in Kuranda Village. From one stallholder I bought a T-shirt bearing the face of an ancient Aboriginal elder I felt a real connection with. When we were ready to leave we rode the Skyrail over the rainforest canopy back to Cairns. Unlike the train, the cableway’s gondolas ran at regular intervals throughout the day. Before catching the shuttle bus to where we parked the car, we checked out the Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park. So many wondrous things were for sale in the gift shop but I had to make do with a few postcards and a fridge magnet.

Skyrail over the rainforest Cairns to Kuranda, North Queensland

Our next stop was Port Douglas, another of the North’s famed tourist destinations. We wandered around for a few hours before having dinner and retiring for the night. The motel we checked into was neat and comfortable, but sleep eluded me. I was restless. So much had happened on that trip. So much that could have explained the readings I was getting, but I didn’t think so. I couldn’t shake the feeling the worst was yet to come. When I could take no more I drew one card to see what the morrow would bring. It was the Three of Wands. That wasn’t so bad, I thought. I told Steve we would require assistance or we would offer assistance to someone else. After breakfast, we were in the car again to continue our northern sojourn.

The road to Cooktown is now sealed but in 1997, it wasn’t. Its condition, Peter warned us, would depend on the weather and how much traffic it had endured since it was last graded. About fifteen kilometres out of Cooktown we came across a car on the side of the road. The contents of the boot, neatly stacked on the roadside, seemed to indicate they had punctured a tyre. But because of the Three of Wands, we stopped to lend a hand. Their tyres were fine, they said, so relieved someone had bothered to ask. A stone had ruptured their fuel tank. They were desperate. Their mobile phone wouldn’t work and no one would stop, no doubt thinking as we did. The man stayed with his vehicle while we took the woman into town to find a mechanic before driving her back to her husband. At dinner that evening, we learned the couple, from Mackay, had travelled around the country with no mishaps until they were just outside Cooktown, so close to home.

When we left home, Steve’s fishing rod was secured in a neat little cradle he had fashioned inside the car. He had a thing for station wagons. He also had a thing for his fishing rod. Station wagons were practical, he often told me, and when it came to his fishing rod he was determined to prove just how practical. It took him a day to come up with the design but weeks to get it right. Ralph told him he was crazy. All he had to do was get roof racks. But no, Steve didn’t trust his rod to a roof rack. Someone could steal it. His grand plan of catching a barramundi would not be thwarted by a roof rack thief. In Cooktown, he finally took his precious rod from its cradle. “It’s windy in Cooktown”, Peter had warned. “Ha!” said Steve. “How windy can it be?” No matter how many times he cast that line it came back again like a boomerang. When he’d had enough he stowed his rod back in its cradle and shrugged his shoulders. It was so funny.

Before continuing our travels north, we doubled back a little to check out the historic Lion’s Den Hotel, south of Cooktown. Peter said we couldn’t go to Cooktown without seeing it. One of Queensland’s oldest working pubs, the Lion’s Den is a relic of the gold rush, a place where time stood still. Besides its historic value, the timber and corrugated iron pub was unique for another reason. Its bar and walls bore the jottings, in pen and blade, of travellers from all over the world. Stickers and posters lined remaining wall space and football jerseys hung from the ceiling above the bar. The Lion’s Den was definitely not your average country pub. We concluded our northern trek by spending two days and nights at Daintree Village. A dairy farmer on hard times had established Riverview Cabins to attract the tourist dollar. It was a wise decision because it was so beautiful one night was never enough. From the back porch we had an uninterrupted view of cattle grazing in grassy paddocks, the Daintree River and the misty, rainforest clad mountains beyond.

On our return to Mareeba we stopped to check out Emerald Creek Falls, a series of waterfalls that cascaded over granite boulders. It was a beautiful place, but on the way up the steep and winding gravel road to reach it we had another near miss. I could certainly understand why a sign at the bottom said the road was not suitable for caravans. It should have included everything bar four-wheel drives. Our car’s tyres lost traction on a sharp bend and we nearly spun off the edge into oblivion. Driving back to Peter’s we passed a sign advertising a place called Granite Gorge. We hadn’t noticed it before and although curious, we didn’t mention it to Peter because we had more important things to talk about when he got home. Peter may have started out as a plumber by default, but he ended up a highly respected building inspector for the Mareeba Shire Council. The trouble was he was always so busy. His job saw him travel hundreds of kilometres in the course of a single week, and when he was in his office he was up to his ears in paperwork.

As June 21^st was to be our last Saturday at Peter's place, we decided to satisfy our curiosity when we passed the sign again. The moment I laid eyes on Granite Gorge, twelve kilometres south-west of Mareeba, I knew that was where my accident would happen. I also knew I had a choice. That was very clear and it had nothing to do with the cards. It was a knowing that came from somewhere deep within my soul. I could turn around, get back in the car, and drive away, or I could go forward, trusting that the plans life had for me were indeed greater than those I had for myself.

One view of Granite Gorge

When Steve asked if I wanted to go in and see what it was about I found myself putting one foot in front of the other, each step taking me closer to the point of no return. Because Steve had no inkling of what awaited me I have to believe he was prevented from ‘seeing’ for the choice was mine – not his. Climbing around huge granite boulders shaped like animals was exhilarating and extremely challenging. I happily obeyed Steve’s instructions to walk only where he did, do only as he said, and be aware of my surroundings at all times. Occasionally, we stopped to enjoy the views from the outcrops. They were spectacular and well worth the effort required to reach them. The gorge was part of a local farm and, like the people who established Riverview Cabins in the Daintree, the attraction was marketed to attract the tourist dollar as a means of staying fiscally viable in tough times. It seemed to be working because several cars were parked out front when we arrived.

The accident happened in the least likely spot. The worst was behind us and we found ourselves on a relatively flat stretch of ground. Steve told me to watch where I put my feet, and although I did as instructed, I made the mistake of relaxing. My right foot slid on some loose gravel and down I went. I knew my left ankle was broken because of the angle of my foot. But I felt no pain, unlike the time eight years earlier when I broke my wrist. Steve panicked and I couldn’t understand why. I felt great and I told him so. Nevertheless, after gently easing me back so I could rest against the rock, he told me not to move. I could tell he was reluctant to leave me sitting there, but he had no choice. He left me with the water bottle he was carrying and told me he would be back as soon as possible.

I felt remarkably calm as I sat there envisioning blue healing light around my ankle. The sense of absolute peace that enveloped me felt like an angel had encased me in its wings. It was only when I was being lifted up by those Steve had summoned did I see why he looked so panic-stricken. Below the narrow ledge I was sitting on was a drop of at least forty feet. Had I been wearing something more suitable for the activity I had undertaken I may have tumbled onto the rocks below, possibly even to my death. As it was, the fabric of my track suit acted like Velcro on the granite and held me fast.

Getting me to the hospital was a comedy of errors. After people made sure I was alright, I was hauled up over the boulders behind me to a waiting a farm utility. A rug was placed around my shoulders and a pillow was placed under my leg. Steve sat beside me, holding me tightly to prevent any further mishaps as the vehicle lurched its way to the homestead where an ambulance was waiting. I was given a check-up and after being placed into the back, the ambulance personnel chided all and sundry for not calling them before hauling me out of the gorge. Did they not realise I could have suffered further injury? It was all so serious, but I couldn't help but laugh at the circus I had created. 

On arrival at Mareeba Hospital we were told the “X-Ray man doesn’t work weekends” and that I would be made as comfortable as possible until Monday. Five minutes later, the man came in to get something out of his desk. It was just one of the many extraordinary things that happened to me following my encounter with Granite Gorge. When the X-Rays were taken the nurse who told me I would have to wait said I would have to go to Cairns because I had a “crappy ankle”. A crappy ankle, I discovered on my arrival at Cairns Base Hospital, consists of two broken bones requiring surgery. Mareeba Hospital was not equipped for that. Somebody later said I could have sued the people who owned the property for just about everything. Yes, I could have, but I chose not to. It was my choice to enter Granite Gorge knowing full well that something unpleasant was going to happen.

Cairns was the one place Steve had no intention of staying any length of time in for it was a pet hate of his. Another was hospitals. I told him he should consider himself lucky our niece lived in Cairns and was willing to put up with him. In spite of all that he was amazing. I was in Cairns Base Hospital for five days and he came to see me twice a day for those five days. During the last three days I had to get used to walking on crutches. My first attempt didn’t auger well but by the second day I had mastered getting to and from the bathroom. Once back at Peter’s, Steve was as caring as any nurse. I was only given a back-slab because I had to get my stitches out before getting my full cast. A back-slab is basically what it sounds like: a slab of plaster extending from under my foot to the back of my calf and held in place with bandages. 

On Thursday 26th June, I left hospital with Steve joking how lucky I was to be going home by car for I wouldn't get through metal detectors at Cairns airport if it was equipped with them. Several screws held a four-inch metal plate in place on one fractured bone while two screws supported the other. The getting me back home had initially been deemed a major problem until Steve realised the front passenger seat went all the way back. I don't know what we would have done if I had broken the right ankle. The next day, I hobbled onto Peter’s verandah to sit on the front steps in the winter sun and watch Steve pack the car. Our unplanned week in the north was not doing our finances any favours. Steve had to get back to work and I had to get home. Before heading to Brisbane, however, we had to stop in Cairns for my post-operative appointment. I was to get my stitches out and have a full cast applied.

Getting to sleep had been a problem since the accident. I couldn’t get comfortable. But the night before we were to leave I kept waking up with a stinging sensation. I chided myself for sitting for so long in the sun the day before. The top of my foot felt like it was burning. Yet, instead of going inside like I should have, all I did was cover my foot with the magazine I had been reading. I wanted Steve to look at it for me but he refused. If it was infected he said he wasn't running the risk of further contamination so he took me to Mareeba hospital.

A blister was weeping, but as nearby the incision looked fine, the dressing was changed and I was sent home. I was asked to return every day for the next week to have the area checked and to get the dressing changed. Because of that I had to postpone my appointment in Cairns. But there was an upside. I learned a lot about a man I realised I didn’t know much about at all – my father. It was from Peter that I learned of Dad’s obsession for politics and his frequent ejections from Parliament. It was from Peter that I learned Dad waited in line for hours to buy tickets to The Beatles concert, something that still gnawed at him. “You were only eleven!” I said in Dad’s defence. “There was no way he was letting an eleven-year-old go to a Beatles concert!” It was Peter who reminded me of the billycart incident and it was Peter who told me he still felt badly done by the day Mum told him to ride to Lutwyche to buy a certain brand of hair dye. When I asked him about the box of stuff he got from Aunty Glady he said he would haul it out when he got the time. It would be nine more years and two more visits before I got to see the contents of that box. It wasn’t that Peter didn’t want to share it, it was just that he couldn’t remember where he put it.

After finally leaving Peter’s, we headed to Cairns Base Hospital where I was looking forward to getting a proper cast. It didn't happen. The doctor took the stitches out of one incision but not the other, the one near the infected blister. He pricked the blister to release the remaining fluid, replaced my dressing and back-slab, and provided me with a course of antibiotics. I was told to go to Royal Brisbane Hospital on my return home to have the stitches removed and a full cast applied. Sitting in the middle of the back seat with my leg resting on the backrest of the front passenger seat meant I was able to travel in reasonable comfort. Still, I appreciated breaking the journey in Ayr and again in Rockhampton. For the two days we stayed with Kristen, Steve bathed my wound twice a day as instructed and changed the dressing. Danny still didn’t like me but he seemed very interested in these goings-on. Kristen fussed over me like a mother hen and little Tianni wasn’t sure what to make of any of it. She had forgotten who I was and by the time I had to leave again she was just getting used to me. At twenty-seven months she had not a trace of the illness that almost claimed her life.

On Monday, July 7^th, sixteen days after breaking my ankle, I finally got my full cast.  Later in the week I received a visit from Jo, who had lots to tell me and none of it encouraging. When Jan moved into my job Sandra had to hire someone to do her job and from all accounts, she was far from happy with her. As for me, I was only too happy to be out of the maelstrom. On August 11^th, I returned to hospital to have my cast removed. Alas, my freedom was short-lived. X-Rays showed the bone around the troublesome incision had not properly knitted so a new cast was applied. By the time it was removed I was well and truly over it.

At the first psychic fair I attended in July 1996, I bought a single terminated clear quartz crystal. I had no idea what to do with it so it sat in a drawer, still in its plastic bag. Prior to my accident I had been attending the Brisbane Spiritual Church’s spiritual development circle on Wednesday mornings. They also had a healing circle on Monday evenings, but I couldn’t get to that one. The more I heard about spiritual healing the more I wanted to know. When I saw Ann Ann in February, she told me the Windsor Spiritual Church had an evening circle that combined spiritual development with spiritual healing. I went a few times but wasn’t comfortable so I stopped going. Something about it, or more precisely the couple running it, bothered me. When I did go back I took Tamara with me, only she felt the same.

Psychometry was their mainstay. Unfortunately, my experiences there put me off psychometry for years. I was much happier with spiritual healing. The first time I actually experienced it, I understood why it drew me like a moth to a flame. A few people were asked to lie on massage tables while the rest of us took turns running our hands above their bodies to see what we could ‘pick up on’. When my turn came I didn’t notice anything specific, but the person on the table told me she tingled all over. During another exercise, someone sat in a chair while the rest of us took turns dowsing with a clear quartz crystal pendent. When my turn came, the vertically suspended crystal suddenly turned horizontal at the back of the person’s neck. That freaked me out, but others calmly asked the lady if she had any neck pain or was having headaches. When the woman said she had I was told I had healing potential and should develop it.

All this was going through my mind as I sat in the lounge room feeling sorry for myself. I was sick of reading books and magazines, playing patience, or doing Tarot spreads so I hobbled into the bedroom to get the crystal from its hiding place. I don’t know what I expected to happen but when nothing did happen I was disappointed. The following week I got some books on crystals from the library. Not only did I have to clean my crystal first, I discovered, I had to programme it to do what I wanted it to help me with. Well, who would have guessed! Another book suggested I put the crystal under my pillow to help me ‘bond’ with it. I thought this rather odd, too, but nonetheless, I did as instructed. In the wee hours of the morning, I woke suddenly because someone, my maternal grandmother I now accept, was relating stories told to her by her brother. While I knew he was a Gallipoli veteran and that she tended to him on his return, I knew none the details I was hearing in the early hours as I sat stone-still in bed, hoping against hope I wasn’t going mad.

Years before, when my Aunty Kathleen and I were getting reacquainted, I asked her about her mother. I wanted to know if the stories John told me about her being committed were true. They were, she said sadly, and it was primarily due to the horrific tales her brother brought back from the Great War. They were very close, she and her brother. She let him talk, soothed him when the night terrors came, sat with him for hours as he cried like a baby in her arms. In time, the memories faded and she got on with her life until the day of Jack Walsh’s visit.

Ten weeks in a cast is a long time, but with the cast gone the excruciating pain of physiotherapy began. Around this time I stopped received sickness benefits and was advised to ring Commonwealth Rehabilitation Services (CRS) and get on their waiting list. Shortly afterwards, my superannuation plan’s salary continuance policy kicked in. This entitled me to seventy-five percent of my income for as long as I was able to produce a doctor’s certificate stating I was incapable of working. We never missed a payment on the car and I certainly never missed my job. In the meantime, my physiotherapy sessions were starting to show something for the agony I endured, and with each passing week, I grew stronger and more confident. Finally, I was confident enough to ask the cards this question: When will I return to my workplace?

Using a timing method advocated by Eileen Connolly, the author of several books on the Tarot, I calculated I would return to my workplace at the end of September. This, I deduced  from the Ace of Pentacles (Season: winter) in the sixth position of a Celtic Cross spread and The Star (Card #17) in the Outcome position. Seventeen weeks after the first week of winter I did indeed return to Cooper House. I went to see Barbara. She had called to request the meeting at which she told me, by law, she only had to keep my job open for twelve weeks. As that time had long past, she wanted to know my plans. I told her to fill the job if she had to, thereby taking away any power she felt she had over me. Later on, when re-reading the book, I realised I had misread the instructions. I should have added the two digits together. But I did not return to my workplace in the eighth week, I returned in the seventeenth week. This experience taught me a very important lesson about timing and the Tarot. Timing is relative. It depends more on what we believe the calculations to be rather than the calculations themselves. 

At the end of October, I went back again, this time for a very different meeting, one that decided I had no future outside the laundry. Shortly afterwards, I received a letter from Central Management inquiring about my health. It was obvious they didn’t want me back any more than I wanted to go back so I tendered my resignation.

On October 5^th, in what I initially thought was a simple dream, my mother visited me. I now realise it was a direct spirit communication. In the 'dream' I was surprised to see her. When I said something to her about her being dead, she said she wasn’t really, she was just “away”. I was sitting at the kitchen table, but not the octagonal table we had. The table was rectangular. Tarot cards were in a spread in front of me. She sat opposite me and listened as I told her about delving into the psychic realm, my Tarot cards, and Aunty Kathleen’s feelings about it all. Somehow Peter and John, as well as Kristen, were involved in some way but I cannot remember how. Something was said about Dad also. Mum said I was doing what I was supposed to be doing and to keep it up.

More dreams followed, but these were very different. It took me a long time to realise their message, but I knew who they were directed at - a former workmate of mine who had left the previous year to study Naturopathy. She was a fully-qualified masseuse, so after re-connecting at Chermside Shopping Centre, we reached an agreement. I would do readings for her in exchange for massage sessions to augment my hospital physiotherapy sessions. The dreams, always about blood, were warning me the woman was an ‘energy vampire’ who was bleeding me dry, sucking the life-force out of me. She may have been an excellent masseuse and reflexologist, but she had no confidence in her ability as a Natural Therapist. In building her up I was effectively tearing myself down and I knew I had to end our association.