S
CATTERED CLOUD provides an unusual backdrop to
the Alice Springs Airport, where blue skies usually reign.
With the new day barely 30 minutes old, the desert
glows a soft straw colour thanks to parched, introduced
buffel grass that now supplants natives over much of
Central Australia’s red plains and ranges.
With a resonant grunt, the Reverend Colin Gordon drops a
shoulder towards the tarmac to lift a fuel hose as thick as his
forearm. Dressed in jeans, boots and a light jacket, he hauls the
black hose from the avgas bowser to a four-seater Cessna 1 82 Q,
which bears the Frontier Services logo on its fuselage. The pas-
tor climbs onto the starboard wing, feeds the fat nozzle into a
reservoir there and pulls the trigger, releasing a flow of fuel.
“Every day is different,” he calls from the ladder, taking a
moment to adjust his spectacles. “Getting out and seeing peo-
ple. Feeling fresh. I just enjoy it.” As becomes evident during
the day ahead, the Reverend grins as readily as he breathes.
This time it comes with a hearty laugh.
Officially, Colin Gordon is a Patrol Minister of the Uniting
Church’s Frontier Services, an outback mission charged with
providing spiritual, emotional and pastoral support to those
living in Australia’s remote heart. After almost five years
serving the Red Centre, however, the 55-year-old is better
known as the ‘flying padre’. His flock is scattered over some
640,000sq.km of arid and semi-arid land bounded by MarlaIn control. Levelling out
at 5500 feet gives Colin
an unforgettable view of
Australia’s Red Centre.36 Australian Geographicin South Australia, Barrow Creek in the north and stretching
east and west beyond state borders. Although his mission is
spiritual, the padre is just as likely to be found atop a windmill
grasping a pipe wrench, as he is in the pulpit brandishing a Bible.
Perhaps it’s his early days as a fitter and turner that are respon-
sible, or his time counselling troops in Afghanistan for the Royal
New Zealand Navy. Or maybe a no-fuss world view comes with
the territory for Patrol Ministers, for whom multi-skilling is
unofficially part of the job description.
In this regard, Colin agrees he is like his famed early
predecessor, the Presbyterian minister Reverend John Flynn.
Via a long history of name changes, Flynn is considered the
grandfather of Frontier Services, which began as the Australian
Inland Mission in 1912. Development of the pedal radio later
spawned Alice Springs School of the Air, which today broadcasts
classes to pupils across 1.3 million square kilometres of the inland
(see AG 70). Flynn’s mission also founded the Aerial MedicalGLENN MORRISON is an Alice Springs-based journalist whose stories
about Central Australia are widely published. He is presently working on
a book entitled: Songlines and Fault Lines: Six Walks that Shaped a Nation.BARRY SKIPSEY is a longtime AG photographer; his last story for us,
Heartland town, was in AG 124. As an Alice Springs resident for 30 years,
he is deeply connected to the region's colours, contours and people.