Belated Catch-up

Sorry about the lack of email last week. One only goes out if I add new material to the blog, but I came home from the Darwin Conference carrying some nasty tropical bug, which has laid me low for just over a week. But I’m on the mend now, so on to blogging as usual.

To start with I’ll share a few photos from the Romance Writers of Australia Conference, which this year was in Darwin. Darwin is in the far north of Australia, in the region known as “the top end.” The conference organizers chose the theme of  “Queens of the Desert” — which was a bit strange as the city is a tropical one, and surrounded by water. Here’s a photo from the plane as we arrived. I guess the organizers didn’t know their geography very well. <g>

As usual the conference kicked off on the Friday night with a costume cocktail party — the theme was, you guessed it, “Queens of the Desert.” The range of costumes was quite wide, and the interpretation of “queen” also varied a great deal.

I think the organizers were hoping for some”Priscilla Queen of the Desert” look-alikes, but I didn’t see many of those at all — just one, really — Melanie Milburne’s husband who always joins in the fun.<g>

There were a few Cleopatras.

And then there were costumes that were wide open to interpretation.  AmyAndrews glittered beautifully in her sparkly cloak.

Ally Blake (standing below with Annie Seaton) looked like a Thai Queen perhaps.

Savannah Blaze was, of course the Queen of Hearts.

I missed the winner of the costume of the night, but this group won the group prize. In case you don’t know Darwin is famous for crocodiles.

And finally, here am I, with author friend Penne Janu . My costume was just as obscure as some others, but there was reason to my choice: I was dressed as an Afghan Cameleer Queen of the Desert.

Quick history lesson. Did you know that Afghan cameleers (and camels) were brought to Australia from the 1830s onward to help explore and navigate Australia’s harsh desert interior. They they made a huge difference to opening up the interior of Australia to European settlement and breaking down the isolation of the outback.

They carried goods and helped build major projects like the Overland Telegraph Line, and the Transcontinental Railway — which these days is called The Ghan, (short for Afghan.) They also  established some of Australia’s first mosques, including structures in Adelaide, Perth, and Broken Hill. As they travelled they planted the stones of the dates they ate, and the palms that grew there in the desert still flourish today.  They also released some of the camels that then went wild, and years later Australia was exporting the pure-bred descendants  of these animals to various Arabian countries. Very good stock, apparently. We owe those Afghans a lot.

I’m not sure how many female cameleers there were (if any) but I wanted to honor them.  And that dress I was wearing is one I bought back in the year dot, when I was a university student — and lo! it  fitted! Which pleased me greatly as I’ve been on a long slow weight-loss journey.

I’ll post more about the conference in the next week or so, but that’s all for this week. Thanks for your patience.