Government House(party)

I’ve said it before, I’ve even said it in this blog – but it bears repeating. The best part of travel is the unexpected experience and since I last posted on this blog, there has been a healthy dose of the unexpected. Recently I’ve been on the tiny island of Grand Turk a speedy 20minute flight over the Atlantic from Provo. This easternmost island in the Turks & Caicos chain, is both the tiniest if the major islands and also the home to the capital.

Now I’ve been to some places with humorous names in my life; Boring Oregon, Climax California, Moose Jaw Saskatchewan, but I’ve found a new all time classic. The capital city of the Turks & Caicos Islands is called… Cockburn. There’s no need to make a joke – it’s done.

So anyways here I am in Cockburn, doing my thing checking stuff out. And it’s a great little town, a real slice of old school Caribbean – narrow streets, lined with whitewashed walls, colonial houses painted wild colours and conch shacks selling the catch of the day. I wander into the tiny local museum and give it a good look, turns out to be a pretty cool place, with lots to see. After a bit of a wander I head out – as I’m walking out the door a middle aged guy stops me and asks how I’m doing. We chat for a bit and it turns out he’s the curator at the museum. When I tell him why I’m there, he invites me into the lab to show me something cool – a box, a big box filled with maybe 10 pirate cannons. Very cool stuff. We chat for a bit more and I get some great info about the Island. I say goodbye to Neal and continue on. I chalk it up to being a cool unexpected moment.

Later that day I was back at my hotel chilling out when there is a knock at my door. It’s Neal, “Hey do you want to go to a party tonight?” I’m a bit thrown, this guy from the museum is asking me to a party.

“What sort of party?”

“Well the Governor, as in the Queen’s representative, is having his annual Christmas party at Government house, and I thought it would be a cool event for you to see.”

It was a no brainer, “I’m in.”

So at 7pm Neal picked me up, I jumped into his van loaded with his wife and kids and we headed to the other end of the island to have nibbles with the head of the nation. I went to quite an effort, pulling out a clean button down, putting on my trousers for the first time since I left home and putting on my dress flip-flops.

Well make no mistake it was the social event of the season. Everybody who is anybody in the T&C was there, and I was too. the beer flowed like wine and the nibbles were particularly posh. The back yard was decorated with Christmas lights as we chatted away in the courtyard. It turned out to be a great party, I met lots of interesting folks and took full advantage of the open bar – it just isn’t fare when they pour glasses of red by the pint…

Early on in the night I shook the hand of the Governor and said g’day – nice chap. He seemed to enjoy himself too, later on in the evening I saw him stumbling around searching for the way to the bar.

The next day I woke up with a bit of a sore head, which was cured pretty quickly once I jumped into the ocean on my first scuba dive of the trip – but that’s a whole different episode.

There’s a great saying that you can never plan great journeys, you just have to be open to them unfolding in front of you. If you’d said to me that I was going to end up getting on the lash with the Governor I’d of laughed at you, but once it’s happened all of a sudden all of the other absurd possibilities don’t seem quite so fanciful.

Dream big – you never know what’s going to come true.
Cheers
~Scott