Some more photos of "Hurricane Alice" or "Desert Storm"

Are we a local yet?

This one of Belinda's friends who is always in for a pop in visit or text message conversation. Anita (Pathways Coordinator at Yirara; husband Sean is assistant in charge of Boarding House. These are their 2 kids Lachlan and Courtney)
Craig and Sharon Collins "popped in" for a visit. Gave us a ring from Tennant Creek and said they were passing through. A complete surprise, but a welcome one for us. What absolute legends!

Up on ANZAC Hill with the family and sister Karyn.
Lattes at the Flying Doctors.
Beautiful Belinda and serious Joseph.
The Modlin boys.

I didn't get too excited on Elijah's sports day. Until he WON!! First place in the sprint. Look at him proudly wearing his first place ribbon. He got to stay up past 7 o'clock that night!!


Finally I bought a bike. No hills around here. The boys love it!
Elijah's 5th birthday. On AFL Grand Final day. Birthday party was finished by 11am so I could settle down to my four 'n twenty pies, my beer and drumstick.

Belinda is VERY excited....can you see why? (A little too excited for my liking)

Tourist season is mad around here. They take my favourite parking spots and fill up my favourite restaurants and cafes. Being a teacher means I don’t have to rely on them for the majority of my income for the year, so I tend to be much more friendly to people who I can just tell are locals. I like to walk through the mall or shopping centres and say hello to people I know, indigenous kids who I chat with and then realise I should be asking them why they aren’t back at Yirara yet, and just trying to give off that air of “Watch out, I’m a local.” Belinda and I are trying to establish ourselves as local, but most of the word on the street continues to be that you have to see the Todd River flow 3 times to be considered a local. It has been extremely dry out here this year and we are now worried we will not be here long enough to experience the flowing of the Todd River. A teaching colleague of mine at Yirara (Dr K) from Kenya, arrived last year and saw the Todd River flow 3 times in a month. We NEED that to happen or we might have to write a letter to the paper advocating for our criteria to be adopted- at least we seem to visit most of the attractions- surely that counts for something?
We have now slowed down and don’t go to EVERYTHING that happens, but it sure is tempting. We have had our own private boycott of some events thinking that surely they will be on again next year and we’ll just commit to participating in the event and being “seen” at the event some other time. So I am sorry to the tireless workers and promoters of the “Alice Desert Festival”, you will see the Modlins next year.
(I wrote this 3 days ago and since then we have had “Hurricane Alice” or “Desert Storm” (media terms) come through on Monday 22nd September. Winds at 120km/h whipped through the place and brought a big dump of rain and hail. As you can see by the pictures, we had an incredible dust storm as well. Quite a bit of damage and we had water in the Todd...not really flowing, but we might count this as our Todd River flowing thingy.)

Water in the Todd River- How exciting!!

Desert Storm rolls across the Alice.

The Sunday Markets every couple of weeks. The sights, the smells, the frozen mango smoothies!!

A couple of photos of my Mum and Dad with the boys. Just to see if they are still reading the blog!! And letting them know it has been 6 weeks since they have been out here. Must be due for another visit!!

Football news and Football final

Footy season has come and gone for me yet again. For those in the know, Aspley Hornets Reserves won the flag this year without me. I may be destined never to play in a premiership.

We had our South Alice Springs Under 17s and B Grade make the Grand Final and the 17s lost and the B Grade won. I played A grade this year and we did not make the finals. Looks like ONE more year for me.

The A Grade final was an excellent match between town side Pioneer and community side Yuendemu. It was a battle of structure and strength versus speed, skill and incredible natural ability. Yuendemu Magpies took out the game in emphatic fashion. All square at half time and they just put on the after burners about half way through the 3rd quarter and controlled the game superbly. Some of the Yuendemu players have the ability to play AFL football and one name to possibly to look out for is an ex-Yirara student Liam Jurrah. He went to Collingwood VFL side for 2 months, played four games. He is lean, fit and took an absolute screamer to virtually seal the game for the ‘Pies and is a freak. An AFL club would be silly not to at least try and draft him, and could easily take a few of his mates with him.

For me, footy training has continued as I prepare for the upcoming Masters match for over 35s. I am playing for the Central Australian Legends and we play the Darwin Buffaloes. This match is happening very soon and there are rumours that Michael Long and Michael Mclean will play for Darwin...could be another T.I.A moment though. Report to follow very soon.