The disappearance and rescue of Carnarvon school girl Cleo Smith put her regional West Australian hometown in the global spotlight.
More than 500 days later the town, some 900 kilometres north of Perth, is preparing for heightened attention again with a solar eclipse bringing thousands of visitors from around the world to the region later this month.
But the jailing of Cleo's abductor Terence Darrell Kelly brought with it a moment of reflection and some sense of closure for locals, before tourists descend on the town ahead of the eclipse and the madness of school holidays begins.
Out at the remote Blowholes coastal campsite just north of Carnarvon, which serves as the southern entry to the Ningaloo Reef, coffee and food van owner Brett Kilgallon is expecting a wave of visitors.
Cleo's family was staying at the campsite, long-used as a weekend getaway for Carnarvon locals, when she was kidnapped.
But Mr Kilgallon, who lives out at the camp and runs his business there, said visitor numbers were starting to recover.
"A few people wouldn't like to camp here anymore because of what's happened, but, you know, it's a beautiful place, and they should have look at it," he said.
Coral Coast Helicopters chief pilot and chief executive Justin Borg was one of the many volunteers who were part of the massive community search effort for Cleo when she went missing.
Mr Borg said he thought the sentencing would help bring some closure to the town.
"Especially leading up to Easter and a time when we all like to holiday and frequent the Blowholes and and go camping," he said.
"But I think it will serve as a bit of a reminder just to be a bit more vigilant with our children and the goings on around us.
"The town's recovered well, I think everything's just back to normal — and it was back to normal quite some time ago."
Mr Borg said residents were happy to move on and leave what happened in the past.
"Hopefully it doesn't leave too much of a scar on the town as far as in the public's eye," he said.
Police reflect on miracle rescue
Seventeen months ago, then-Deputy Police Commissioner Col Blanch broke the news to the world that little Cleo had been found "alive and well" in a Carnarvon house.
He told ABC Perth's morning's program that the day of Kelly's sentencing was an important one in bringing closure to the little girl's family.
"My words are still echoing in my head from when we spoke about the recovery of Cleo and finding Cleo after 18 days," said Mr Blanch, who is now WA's Police Commissioner.
"It still remains and will remain for me in my career, the greatest moment of WA police history.
"I know many officers feel that way.
"We all came together ... we had a pandemic on and I think the community, the emergency services, the police, the world really came together united in a common purpose."
More than 100 police officers were involved in the search for Cleo, as well as hundreds of emergency service workers, volunteers and Carnarvon residents, who chipped in any way they could.
Mr Blanch said the sentencing was likely to have stirred up a lot of feelings and emotions for Cleo's family.
"So we have to be very mindful of how sensitive we need to be for Cleo and the extended family," he said.
Days after sentencing could be distressing
University of WA research fellow Alix Woolard specialises in childhood trauma research and said yesterday's sentencing had the potential to bring up distressing emotions for Carnarvon locals.
"It can be validating and reassuring for the community, but it can also bring up triggering emotions, a sadness and it can also lead to what we call vicarious trauma so being adjacent to a traumatic event," Dr Woolard said.
"Everyone just needs to be quite mindful of the fact that this is a very emotional time, although the sentencing has … passed, it doesn't mean that it’s all over or that all the emotions are done.
"People in the community might be feeling high emotions, high stress for a little while, and I think we’ve already seen that this community can be quite close, quite supportive, which is really great.
"I think leaning into that is a good idea."
