The jetty on Friday Island
From Victoria to the Cape By Meagan McKelvie James Cook University (VI) Meagan McKelvie, a sixth-year Medicine student from James Cook University, reflects on her recent eye-opening rural placement to Thursday Island and Cape York.
Ferrying across the jewel-blue skin of the Torres Strait, visiting its numerous islands, the tip of mainland Australia glimmering in the far distance. Gazing down at turtles and dugongs from the sky, breaching the surface of the ocean below. Driving through dense rainforest to Pajinka. These are just some of the highlights from my 10-week placement on Thursday Island and in the Bamaga/Northern Peninsula Area (NPA). Page 36 // From Victoria to the Cape // Meagan McKelvie
Arriving in January, amidst the thick of a humid wet season, was a shock to the system at first. Hailing from Gippsland, Victoria, it took me some time to get used to the frequent rain storms that hover over the coast. Nonetheless, the world up here is full of beauty and splendour. The rainforest of the Northern Cape envelops the communities of the NPA in an electric green, the earth below a rich, volcanic red. Metres-high termite mounds tower over the sides of the roads. Wild dogs and horses roam the township, slinking between the trees. In the Torres Strait, the islands are fringed with sprawling turquoise reefs, and the ocean sparkles under the glare of the equatorial sun.
