Introduction
Hi, my name is Billy, and welcome to my website, bushsparkie.com. The reason for this site is to share tips and tricks of remote living in Cape York Peninsula, as well as to showcase the beauty and experiences that I come across almost daily while living and working as a self-employed electrical contractor in the Northern Peninsula Area of Cape York Peninsula. I am basically located right at the tip of Australia, approximately 1,000 km north of Cairns, QLD. Sharing this adventure with me is my female Kelpie/Labrador cross (I think?). Ya-Ah is her name, which means “big sister” in one of the local Aboriginal language groups.
Life Before
My life before returning here was pretty chaotic, to say the least. I was living in Cairns, QLD, and living a FIFO life. The FIFO lifestyle, for those not in the know, stands for Fly-In-Fly-Out. It sounds almost glamorous—jetting across half the continent for work—but the truth is far from the shiny facade. It was a life of long hours, isolation, and living out of a suitcase. I was constantly bouncing between Queensland and Western Australia on an 8/6 roster, which basically added up to a 116-hour work week when you added the eight 12-hour shifts a 20-hour commute time. And on top of all that, trying to have a normal life at home in the measly time I had left for days off.
Sickness and Salvation
Whilst at work on Christmas Eve 2016, my body eventually said no to all the years of physical and mental stress. I got a medivac with the Royal Flying Doctor Service—quite the Christmas present—to Royal Perth Hospital on Christmas Day. I was sent back to QLD on medical leave shortly thereafter for rest and recuperation. After my medical leave ran out, I was back on the FIFO circuit again, but I lasted one more month before I promptly chucked it all in. No more big money, no more security—no more of that life.
Having a Crack
Once I returned to settle down in Cairns, I had to face reality and earn a living in my new life. I did the only thing I knew, which was to take a chance and set up as a sole trader in my own electrical contracting business in 2017. I basically poured all of the last funds I had into getting things going.
Cape York Calling
2017 and into 2018 were financially desperate times. I soon discovered that I was outnumbered and outgunned by other electrical outfits in Cairns—the market was swamped, to say the least. In 2018, I was asked by another electrical company to accompany them in a consultant role into the remote Indigenous communities of Cape York Peninsula. During this serendipitous trip, I ended up back in my own traditional homelands of the Northern Peninsula Area and the five communities that make up this district. The rest is history now, as they say.
I now enjoy a blessed life here, maintaining an excellent work-life balance, surrounded by natural beauty and great weather. Today, I enjoy the life and freedom that I’d often dreamed of in the Qantas Club, surrounded by other tired, stressed, middle-aged men waiting for a late flight to Perth in winter—or some other long haul to somewhere else.
I hope you can learn something and enjoy my site, and that you’ll stick around to join me and Ya-Ah as we share this journey with you.