Two vets from regional Victoria have returned home after spending three weeks helping injured animals in war-torn Ukraine.
Long-time vet Emma Tomkins and vet nurse Pauline Lillie own and run Hepburn Veterinary Clinic in Daylesford.
In August the couple decided to use their skills to treat vulnerable animals in Ukraine through an initiative run by non-for-profit organisation, Worldwide Vets.
After a month-long fundraising campaign that saw the community raise $31,000 to cover flight costs, Ms Tomkins and Ms Lillie departed Australia on September 8.
"I was pretty nervous as I didn't know what to expect at the other end," Ms Lillie said.
The couple had to take two flights to get to Romania, then travelled by car to the Ukraine city of Vinnytsia, where they worked with a small team from Worldwide Vets, many of whom were ex-military.
"There was a curfew, so our driver was driving very fast," Ms Lillie said.
"There was little visibility, it was bucketing down.
"We were waiting for the car to aquaplane across the road."
Getting to work
After several hours, the couple arrived at the gated compound where they would live and work for three weeks.
"It was all a bit confronting and unknown," Ms Lillie said.
She described the site as an "enormous warehouse with some pine partitions and no doors".
After spending their first night in sleeping bags on pallets they began tending to a variety of injured animals, including cats, dogs and ferrets.
"That was familiar ground for us as we knew what we were doing and work well as a team," Ms Lillie said.
The main challenge was overcoming language barriers and inaccurate translations from the internet.
"Often staff would grab someone who was a bit more fluent in English," Ms Lillie said.
"But these people weren't always medical or vet staff … there was a lot that was lost in translation, so we just had to persist and be patient."
'Run or hide?'
Over the three weeks, Ms Tomkins and Ms Lillie had two half-days off.
Ms Tomkins said on one of the breaks they travelled to the shops in Vinnytsia, which is about six hours from the front line.
"You wouldn't think there was a war going on until you heard an air-raid siren go off," she said.
"When that first happened we thought, 'Do we need to run or hide?'"
Fortunately, the pair remained safe and away from direct conflict during their trip, but Vinnytsia, like all of Ukraine, has since been put on alert by emergency services due to the threat of missile strikes.
Mission accomplished
Ms Tomkins and Ms Lillie completed dozens of tests, health checks and surgeries as they achieved their goal of ensuring that every animal at the site was vaccinated and desexed by the end of their trip.
By the end of their near-month stay, the pair found it hard to say goodbye due to the strong bonds forged with the permanent team and animals at the compound.
"The guys didn't want us to go, so they tried all sorts of guilt trips and schemes to get us to stay longer, which we would've loved to have done if we didn't have the responsibilities back home," Ms Lillie said.
While it is back to business at their Daylesford vet clinic for now, the couple say they are keen to do another trip soon.
"Certainly we'd do something like this again, whether in Australia or overseas," Ms Tomkins said.
