Now I quite deliberately only commented on my experience and, in particular, with reference to the need to have a medical for working in the simulator in this part of the world.
The original poster gives his location as Broome. Is that the Broome in West Australia?
I just have it in the back of my mind (which is very defective nowadays) that I have read somewhere that there was no age limit for flying freight in OZ (or is it NZ) provided that a Class 1 Medical could be maintained?