In mid-November Jean took a 6-month assignment as an
internal medicine consultant at Toowoomba hospital in Queensland,
Australia. Bert joined her in mid-December. This year we'll unwrap our
Christmas presents on the beach. During the holidays we've started being
tourists. Yesterday we posed with this mother and child at a petting zoo
near Brisbane. Note that the little "Joey" is head-down in the pouch.
Only his giant feet are sticking out.
Toowoomba is called "The Garden City" because of its
flower gardens. In the spring (September/October) there's a garden
festival that fills the local hotels and motels with visitors. When Jean
arrived in November, the jacaranda trees shown here were in bloom.
(tojoctre.jpg)
Toowoomba is 75 miles (120 km) inland from Brisbane on
a main road to the outback. The town sits on top of a hilly region
called the Dividing Range at an elevation of about 2000 feet (600m). This
picture was taken from our front door. The altitude, dry air and
steady breezes make for an easy climate. There are large diurnal
(day/night) temperature variations and small seasonal variations. In midsummer
it's now typically 80F (27C) in the afternoons, but cools down to 50F
(10C) at night. In the winter it sometimes gets close to freezing at
night, but warms to the 60s (15C) at midday. Palm trees thrive, as do the
eucalyptus and Norfolk Island pines.
The town of Toowoomba has a population of about
100,000. It looks and feels like a mid-western town from the 1960s. Darwin
is the next town of this size to the west and it is 3400 km (2100 miles)
down the road. There's little in between. The total population of
Australia is less than one tenth of the US (about 20 million) in a
landmass the size of the lower 48 states. Most people live in the big urban
centers on the coast. The last time the US was this empty was in the
1850s.
We live in a three-bedroom house supplied by the
hospital that is on the edge of town. This type of house is called a
Queenslander. To keep cool, the living space is raised. Underneath there is
a one-story breezeway open to the winds. The walls are wood. There's
no trace of insulation and the single-pane windows have huge gaps.
Jean likes her job at Toowoomba hospital (shown here).
The other doctors and staff are friendly. There are no insurance
issues. This is a public hospital in a country where everyone has coverage
from the government--although there are private hospitals with more
conveniences. Toowoomba is family-oriented community. In general,
Australians don't work as many hours as Americans. Because there are fewer
sub-specialists, Jean has to do more cardiology, neurology, and
intensive care medicine than she did in the US. This has meant more time
studying at nights and weekends.
In addition to the kangaroos shown that the beginning
of this page, the little zoo we visited had emus (left) and cassowaries
(right). Cassowaries are almost as big as emus and can be quite
aggressive. They are native to this part of Australia. We saw flying foxes
(giant bats), and wombats, which are rodents the size of a fox. Don't
ask, me, I didn't do the naming.
The zoo also had local lizards and snakes. Here is a
typical example. Fortunately, we haven't seen any of these around the
house. We have seen birds of various types, some with exotic colors.
There is a large green frog that visits by coming up the toilet. We
have opossums that live in our attic. We hear them, but they haven't
introduced themselves yet.
That's our story so far, it's time for us to be like these koalas and
call it a day.
This page was last updated on 12/24/02.