It has been five months since Townsville veterinarian John Carr escaped Ukraine in the early days of Russia's invasion, but the sights and sounds of war are hard to get out of his mind.
"You shake your head because it's so unreal. I was in war, now I'm not in war. The world is very bizarre," he said.
A world away from Europe, the avid apiarist tends to his beehives as life goes on.
But Dr Carr said he was worried public attention had already drifted away from the horrors still unfolding in Ukraine.
"It's just about keeping the conversation going and keeping it in the front of people's minds there is a major conflict which still could bubble over," he said.
Planting the seed
Back on home soil in north Queensland, Dr Carr's experience prompted his beekeepers' club to make a small gesture to show solidarity with the people Ukraine and remind locals about the ongoing conflict.
"We decided to show some support by planting some sunflowers, which is the national flower of Ukraine," said Nick Smith, president of the Townsville & District Beekeepers Association.
"[For] some of them [beekeepers in Ukraine] it's their livelihood that's currently under threat."
Dr Carr said he hoped simple gesture would ensure the war in Ukraine remained a topic of discussion among north Queenslanders.
"It's the small things in life that make a difference."
A long way from home
For Dr Carr, it still seems like yesterday when he woke up in a hotel room in the central Ukrainian city of Uman to hear what sounded like fireworks in the distance and felt the walls around him rattle.
It was early in the morning and the war had just begun.
The 63-year-old British-born pig vet was used to travelling across the globe to treat animals on farms in Europe, Asia and Canada.
But this time, his job had landed him in the middle of an escalating international crisis.
"Everybody knew something was happening. It was just a shock because we didn't think the Russians would do it. We didn't think they would attack everywhere," he said.
What followed was a sleepless four-day journey to return home to Australia.
The great escape
On the morning of February 24, Dr Carr watched panic-stricken hotel guests quickly pack their cars and make plans to leave Uman.
"One of the first people to die was a poor lady cycling on the road near the hotel. She was taken out by a missile which missed the nearby miliary site," he said.
By the time he was on the road himself with the help of a driver, Dr Carr said the single road leading out of the city was clogged with kilometres of traffic.
A touch of British hospitality
After making it to the western city of Lviv, but with flights suspended, the vet was holed up in a hotel when he was woken by the wail of air-raid sirens.
Still dressed in his pyjamas, he was ushered into a school basement-turned-bomb shelter.
"It was dusty, there was nothing there just half a dozen chairs that people found," he said.
"The kids were panicking a bit. Most people were quiet, just looking at their hands."
Using the handful of tea bags he had brought with him, Dr Carr said he shared around cups of English breakfast when an old lady approached him.
Hope in the darkest times
Dr Carr finally made it to safety at the Slovakian border, grateful for the generosity of strangers.
"I never really slept in four days and I never felt tired; you're just full of adrenaline," he said.
"All the villages we went through, they came out and put trestle tables up full of bacon and sausage sandwiches.
He recalled local children jumping around like kangaroos and peppering him with questions about life in Australia.
"I feel almost a little bit of a fraud because I can get out on the bus or the train and I'll go back and I know I can get out again," he said.
An ongoing conflict
Dr Carr said Ukrainian apiarists were touched when word about north Queensland beekeepers planting sunflowers reached the conflict zone.
Despite the difficulty he had leaving Ukraine, Dr Carr hoped to return to the country next month to continue his work treating livestock.
He said many male farmers had left to enlist in the Ukrainian forces, leaving the responsibility to their wives.
"You just do your job. I don't think you can do anything else … I'll probably take a helmet with me," he said.
