In 2007 I’d been single for a few years and had just returned from a year volunteering in a village in Bangladesh. Six months after arriving home in Sydney I decided to take up a teaching job in Mulan Aboriginal community in the Kimberley, halfway between Broome and Alice Springs, population 120.
The first term was difficult. I got along well with my housemate, Kylie, and we’d met friendly nurses and people from the surrounding communities. But we didn’t have access to a vehicle so spent our weekends working. I felt quite lonely and isolated.
I’d heard about Wade, the coordinator of the nearby Indigenous protected area program. Some of the women in the community had mentioned he was working with the Paruku rangers – but he wasn’t around for my first term.
I returned to Sydney for the school holidays and wasn’t convinced that I wanted to go back to the desert, but I had committed to the job for two years. A couple of days into term two, I bumped into Wade at the community store. He had wild red hair and seemed friendly and kind. He invited us to have afternoon tea at his place on a Saturday afternoon.
When we arrived a few things immediately clicked. He had his own little veggie garden and was playing the Cat Empire and French music – my kind of playlist. He told me he’d volunteered in Timor-Leste and studied a postgrad in community development. And he was baking banana bread. The bread was terrible but the wholesome act of baking and sharing it, along with everything else I’d seen and heard, made me start to fall for him.
I realised then that Wade was capable and independent, and we had so much in common.
After that, he offered to take Kylie and me out to the nearby lake with his Troopy and a kayak. We had a picnic and watched the sun set over the lake. The lake system there almost completely dries up in some years but that year it was full and teeming with bird life. It was absolutely beautiful. We’d kayak to magical spots to camp out and have sundowners.
One night I told Wade there was a documentary on TV I wanted to watch. He invited me over to his place, made some chai and we watched it together. He invited me over again the next day to watch videos, then there was a blackout. He lit candles and that was the first time we kissed.
I wasn’t expecting to find a partner at that time or place in my life but he was living a lifestyle I wanted to share.
One of the things I came to love about Wade is how he creates beautiful experiences for other people.
In Mulan, he set up these film nights where we’d go camping at the lake and he’d set up a big screen with a generator. He’s a bit of an introvert but doing these sorts of things is his love language. I ended up staying in the desert for two more years because of how beautiful he made life there.
In 2009 Wade got a job working in a remote part of Timor-Leste called Oecusse. That was where I became pregnant, so we moved to Broome to raise our little boy, Bertie. We ended up living there for 12 years before we moved to Fremantle, where we live now.
Wade is an amazing dad. He built this massive jungle playground with swings and rope bridges across the bamboo in our back yard. He’s hands on and very fun. It never ceases to amaze me how resourceful he is. He can fix things and make something out of nothing. He’s a bit like MacGyver.
Soon we’ll be celebrating 20 years together. We share the same commitment to social justice and environmental sustainability, and we are both passionate about creating a sense of community. We’ve always supported each other to do what we want to do. I’ve always felt very trusting of Wade and secure in our relationship.
We were never going to find each other in a bar in the city. The fact that we found each other in a community of 120 people feels as though it was meant to be.