Leaving Tatura

Friday 4th May is the last day working at Tatura and a bunch of us have a nice meal in the local pub. It's sad to say goodbye to a lovely group of people who welcomed me and made my time enjoyable. After a relaxed start to saturday I manage to visit the Tatura museum (up the road from the Practice and open for 2 hours each day!) This is surprisingly interesting- run by a knowlegable volunteer albeit slightly incoherent in her enthusiasm to impart everything! I learn about the war-time camps of which there were many in this area due to there being plenty of food, water and it being sufficiently far in-lan to deter escapes. I hadn't realised that many of those interned were sent from England, in the case of one unfortunate Jew he had left Germany for England but at the start of war been put on a boat to Canada which was sunk by a U-boat then rescued by a ship bound for Australia. But those interned were treated well, and mostly released in 1941 to fight and make way for Japanese and Italian POWs.

Today all's that's left are the cemetries and a low security prison. (The prison is a client of the practice and the dairy Vets visiting have to make sure not to wear blue overalls when visiting as this is the prison garb!)

Saturday night sees Cassie, Kate and I watching The Castle and Priscilla Queen of the Desert as they had discovered my woeful ignorance of Australian films. Ignorance lessened on Sunday Cassie gives me a lift to Shepparton and I board the train to Melbourne