Chapter 19

Late on Thursday afternoon an elated Weena arrived home. I'd just given Patrick a snack that she'd expressed and changed and powdered him, so I felt virtuous. I was watching a programme about the Mars missions. The screen read:

Spirit Arrival: January 3, 2004 PST
 (January 4, 2004 UTC)


Opportunity Arrival: January 24, 2004 PST 
(January 25, 2004 UTC)

but I switched it off, anyway.

"She worked it out right away! I hope you'll agree to it."

"Whatever you want, we'll at least try it."

"Well, it will foul up our weekends for a while."

"Would you like to tell me the plan?"

"With the warm weather, lots of girls don't like to work weekends or holidays. So, the plan is that I work a full shift on Fridays and half-shifts on Saturdays and Sundays. That would pay 40% of full salary. When there's a Monday holiday, I'll pick that up. And Boxing Day, too. It's a Tuesday."

"OK. So, beginning in mid-October you'll be working parts of the weekends, all day Fridays, and some holiday extras."

"Right. And we'll see how things are in the New Year. Maybe I can work a bit more."

"And Michiko?"

"She'll be happy. We'll trade off one of Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday against Friday."

"Saturday and Sunday mornings or afternoons?"

"We left it open, depending on her needs."

"Sounds pretty good."

"How's he been?"

"Fine. He slept, then I changed him and fed him. Then I told him about how the elephant got his trunk..."

"You read him the Kipling?"

"No, I just told the story. Then I changed him again and put him down."

"Did I tell you how much I love you?"

"Not since you got home..." She gave me a hug and a kiss. It was better than an American show about Mars without Dejah Thoris.

I had received input from five of the faculty about appointments. No two of them agreed on the chairmanship. On the other hand, three of them felt that the Centre needed someone who did real palaeontology — one of them referred to "grubbing away." I wondered whether there was someone working in the Kennedy Range. That was in Western Australia. And a National Park. No one volunteered to serve. I wasn't taken aback.

So I sent a memo to the Dean concerning the two committees and suggesting that someone from BHP Billiton serve on one of them and that someone from the wool or wheat interests serve on the other.

Friday morning there was a note scheduling me with the Dean for 9 o'clock on Monday.

"Can you explain?"

"Yes. Several faculty members thing we should acquire someone who does excavations. I think that's a great idea. I'd also like to keep things within this state. There have been fossils found in the Kennedy Range National Park and elsewhere around Gascoyne. That's mining and sheep country. There are also marine fossils around Mt. Augustus. We can get both knowledge and involvement out of an invitation."

The spectacular sandstone of the Kennedy Range lies north of Gascoyne Junction. This huge mesa, pushed up from an ancient sea bed, has dominated the surrounding plains for millions of years. The Kennedy Range is an eroded plateau on the rim of the Gascoyne River catchment, about 150 kilometres east of Carnarvon.

In Permian times, some 250 million years ago, the Gascoyne region was a shallow ocean basin off the edge of the ancient Australian continent. It filled with layer upon layer of sediment, which eventually became compressed by the weight of overlying layers. It was subsequently raised above sea level, where erosion has stripped away much of the rock. Today, marine fossils found in the range's sandstone strata reflect the park's early geological history. However, fossils from more recent times are just as significant. In the 1960s and 1970s, archaeologists collected a small number of fossilised plant specimens from the park's sandstones. These were formed in the Eocene era and represent the earliest known occurrence of Banksia in Australia.