There hasn't been much action on the blog lately. It's not really for lack of action here - we've been racing around - enjoyed a two-week visit from my parents, saw the symphony, Taylor Swift, Annie and Duran Duran. Had a great night out eating bush tucker. Applied for and didn't get my dream job of Director of the International Office back home in Norway. All blogworthy events.
My daughter and I had a long trip today and I said, "Well, at least I can blog about this. Are you still blogging?" "No," she replied. "There was more to blog about when we first got here and now it is almost the same as living in Norway." True, Brisbane is starting to feel like home now that we are preparing to leave. We went on to talk about how we had actually seen and done most of what there is to see and do in Brisbane now, and that going to town for the day is about the same as going to Kristiansand for the day. This is why we had ventured out to the Gold Coast today, Australian Labour Day, despite not having a car.
While public transportation from where we live to the city is excellent, and the CityCat ferries cheap, convenient and fun, trying to get FROM Brisbane to anywhere else without a car has proven to always be an adventure. Even the advertised travel times are twice that of using a car, and the trains and buses don't tend to stick to their advertised times very well.
It was a gorgeous day, so we set out walking to the train station at 10 am, arriving with a comfy 10 minutes to spare, prepared for an hour on the train and another 45 minutes to cover the 15 km from the train station to our final destination, Seaworld (more specifically, the dolphin show at Seaworld). The train arrived on time and I began to relax as we stayed on the train past points where we had previously been moved to a bus due to work on the tracks. About 25 minutes into our journey I realized that we had been stopped for 5 minutes, but there was no station.
The bus driver's voice was scratchy over the intercom: "There has been an incident requiring the police. We will be stopped here until the police arrive. We will give you further instructions then." I figured that someone was getting fined for something - drugs or disorderly conduct or something similar. There is no end to the number of "breaches" for which you can be fined. Then, I saw an ambulance. Soon, police were alongside the train, and a fire engine arrived. A policewoman came through the train asking everyone if they had seen anything that she should know about. No one had. We asked what had happened. "There has been an incident," she replied. Another woman from rescue services came through the train, asking if everyone was OK and if anyone needed to talk to her or felt traumatized. No one did. We asked again what had happened. "There has been an incident," she said. More fire engines and police cars arrived, and we watched the firemen cut the fence open in two places alongside the train. People were incredibly calm, some making phone calls to say they would be late, others working out whether or not they would be at their destination before lunch service ended.
An hour after the train stopped, we were told it would be evacuated and buses would take us further up the line. Now I could see a man wearing a "forensics" shirt on the track. There was something that looked like a tea towel, anchored by a rock, covering a lump on the track. We were helped down a ladder onto the tracks, where my daughter saw a sheet covering what we now assumed was a body. She told me this just after we stepped off the tracks. I had not noticed the sheet. None of the emergency workers said anything more about "the incident," but we all now knew what had happened. I couldn't believe we had hit a person and I hadn't even felt a tug from the train.
They put up tents for shade, handed out bottles of water, and brought chairs for the elderly. We waited another hour for the buses to arrive, and had to take two trains and two buses to get to our destination. Everything was delayed, and it was 2:30 by the time we got on our final bus. I was guessing the dolphin show was at 3, and there was no way we could get there before 3:15. When we arrived at Seaworld, I asked if we had missed it. "It starts in 10 minutes," the woman at the counter said. We crossed the park in a light jog and just made it for the start of the show. When the dolphins leapt into the air, tears filled my eyes.
Yes, our trip had been delayed and our day off ruined, but what of this person, their family? The poor train driver?
It hasn't made the paper. Suicides rarely do.
And I still can't quite get to grips with the fact that my daughter has seen her first dead body, and I didn't even notice it.
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