In the last post, I invited you along on our journey as migrants in Australia, having arrived from India on a Permanent Resident Visa in 2014. I also gave you a glimpse of where we are at the moment, living a comfortable life with our two kids in the remote mining town of Port Hedland in Western Australia. In case you’ve missed it, here is the link to the post – LINK
In this post, I retrace my steps back to 2018, when I was still fairly new in my job at Port Hedland, and to the time when our daughter was born.
Work pressures was intense and living in a remote town took some adjustment after having sampled city living in Brisbane, but the biggest adjustment we had to make was to deal with the harsh climate of this region. The extreme heat during the summer months is something we had never experienced before and after three years we are still acclimatizing. The Pilbara region borders the immense Great Sandy desert, and the searing heat makes life an ordeal in the summers.
But all in all we were in a happy place as a family. We are provided with a spacious house with spectacular ocean views and sprawling outdoor spaces – a far cry from our pokey rental unit in Brisbane. Out here we also do not have any big city woes plus we have the luxury of time and a closeness to nature.
Renée’s arrival harkened a new chapter in our lives. I still remember vividly how I hugged the doctor tight when she broke the news that we were going to have a girl. For a person who was content living my life as a mariner and a solo backpacker, I was blessed to have a loving wife and a homemaker in Ambika and to have two beautiful kids in our lives – a pigeon pair as some would call a boy and girl combination. Our family unit was now complete.
Our daughter is a Pilbara girl … born and bred in the land of the iconic Red Dog. She doesn’t know it yet, but when she grows up to have kids of her own I’m sure she will talk about the Pilbara Wanderer and of the unique experiences she’s had in this town.
These past few years we’ve been lucky to enjoy the pristine landscapes this part of the world has to offer. We’ve done a few camping trips, visited regional tourist spots, have undertaken an extended road trip in the South West of Western Australia. We also managed to visit India with the kids on a few occasions, until the pandemic came along.
We hope that exposing our kids to a life on the road at this early stage will make them resilient and more adaptable, but more importantly, we hope that they become intrepid travellers in time, eager to explore the world.
In my next post, I intend to take you back to early 2017 when I was offered a permanent job and the time we moved to Brisbane, the capital of Queensland. Stay tuned and I’ll see you on the East coast in my next post.
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