One of the things I hate about my job is this the amount of time I spend in the car. A couple of weeks ago, for instance, I had a 9am meeting in Wodonga, a 1030am meeting in Yackandandah, a 1230pm in Benalla and a 4 o’clock in Melbourne. However, one of the things that I love about my job is that I get to drive from Wodonga to Melbourne through the high country. My phone camera sucks arse, but these might give you an idea of the type of country I get to drive through. It’s actually quite breathtaking.

I really shouldn’t complain about being a rural worker among a whole lot of city workers. On the one hand, my managers sometimes forget that I can’t just arrange a meeting with my volunteers, since they may live as far as 500km away from each other (and will be 1100km from each other come February 2009), and so it may take me four days to do what my metropolitan colleagues can do in one. On the other, I have mates who work in WA’s Pilbara who have told me how they can’t get to meetings in the rain as they find it difficult to land the plane.

I do miss having nights at home though. I miss not being around all the time if AJ or Megan need me, and expense-paid meals and accommodation lost its appeal a little while ago. I wish my car didn’t use up so much fuel and I could get some work or study done while travelling for hours at a time. But getting around the place is a great experience, and my volunteers and police are the best. And a relative few people can say that they’ve driven as many kilometres as National Highway One is long in only seven months of work.

Click on the link above marked “paul at work” if you’d like to know what I do, and get involved yourself (sorry, Victorians only).