God what *is* this place?? It's so *grey*, and filthy - gum and litter everywhere. And motorways - lanes of traffic all packed together and going 5mph (I'm back on miles again - I still don't know how fast 100kph is, I just know it was the speed limit on the aussie highways so 120kph was ok too). And when the hell is the sun going to come out? It's 8am and the sun should be blazing down by now. It's doubly upsetting because my body is assuming its late afternoon and this grim grey sky isn't doing anything to help reset my rhythms. And my place is a mess (at least compared to the neatly laundered hotel rooms I've been flitting to and from). In short - *wah* boo hoo sniff sob. I've made a terrible mistake. At least before this trip I could tolerate the mundanity of my existence because I knew no better - but now I do *waaah* <cracks open a tinnie - hell it's a perfectly acceptable time to start drinking in Queensland>

A fair amount of musical chairs happened on the Singapore to Manchester flight. I started out jammed next to an oldish plummy couple, but they only sat down for a short while then buggered off to some free seats elsewhere, perhaps cos I smell. Then after take off a lady flying from Auckland sat down on the opposite side of the three to me and said she'd just flown non-stop from Auckland and was sick with sleep deprivation, did I mind if she came and splayed out in the seats next to me? She was pleasant and had an interesting take on Queensland, kinda familiar but not, and kept hinting the New Zealand was an even bigger backwater than hinterland Oz (makes me shudder to think about it). She was going to a funeral and faced having to drive from Manchester to Brighton when she landed. Given all that, I figured she deserved a nap and I promised to stop anyone waking her for food, she didn't care about meals anymore.

Of course I thought it would be a happy relationship until she bedded down and it rapidly became apparent she was going to have her head practically in my lap the entire time and fidgit around a lot. As I desperately needed sleep too this wasn't what I needed so finally I moved seats as well, to the end of a three-er with a nice quiet Singaporian bloke who was clearly going to leave me alone the entire trip, and not invade my space. I told the kiwi woman I was doing it for her behalf to give her the full three chairs to sleep on, but I was lying through my teeth and really just ensuring my own sleep time. Either way I got away with it, and spent most of the trip having fevered dreams about turbulence, interdispered with ocassional bouts of wakefulness where I watched 'Crash' (disturbing film - v.good) and Kath and Kim. Immigation finally worked for me not against me at least cos I got to go through the EU fast channel, though the baggage handling was painfully slow. And then a quick whizz home in a taxi, just skimming rush hour, and here am I now at home, very dazed and confused.

Peace though. Stillness. Just the gentle creaks of my central heating (because I'm obviously freezing cold). And the ability to unpack my bag and not have to pack it again the next day...though I sort of don't want to unpack it yet because it'll break the spell.

I'm clearly feeling a bit emotional at the moment. I feel a bit like that Replicant at the end of Bladerunner. "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. Bioluminescent algae on the Great Barrier reef and Platypus gambling in the Eungella forests. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain. Time ... to die". It's sad to think it's all over now and will only survive in my poor pickled braincells until the next particularly intense Stella bender...Don't worry, I'm not going to top myself though. I might be a bit glum for a while of course and it's going to take a big effort to stay cheerful today. I think I'll have to go into town or something to keep my mind of stuff.

But on the plus side - What a holiday!! I look back on some of the stuff I managed to do and just grin. No regrets (even the dud bits were fascinating and make good tales), bloody glad I did it and I reckon doing this has opened up a whole new array of possibities for me. I also reckon that if anyone else out there has a dream to see a place and do something, they should blummin' well go out and do it and stop prevaricating!

Now I guess all I should do is simply get back into reality, knuckle under, and get saving for the next grand adventure. And the next. And the next.

This is ejk's oz adventure - tired, chilly, but triumphant - signing off.

*blip*

22:30 Singapore time, 15:30 UK time, 00:30 Brisbane and bodyclock time. Real time journey duration:- 9 hours.

Well nothing really eventful happened on my last day. I had a quick walk up and down the main shopping streets, bought a shed load of aussie crap (because I knew I didn't have to cart it around for very long) and taxied to the airport chatting to a guy who was originally born in Sussex but had been in Oz for 43 years now and was Ozzie through and through, having conveniently 'forgot' his immigrant status.

Checkin shenanigans - painfully familiar. Flight:- usual - perhaps a bit bumpy as we started to fly over sea. And now I'm a seasoned traveller, the 7 and a half hour flight to Singapore was nothing, it breezed by, especially as I'd insisted on an aisle seat so I could get up and come and go as I pleased. The movie selection is a bit poor this time though (unless you like Batman movies) - good motivation to sleep through this next leg of the journey if I possibly can. My poor 'go to sleep at 9pm and get up at 5am' Queensland style bodyclock is struggling seriously though, after all it's way past it's bedtime. The Manchester flight leaves at 23:50 Singapore time and I'm trying to stay awake by sitting under the air conditioning fans and drinking lots of coke. If I wind up falling asleep and getting stranded in Singapore though, I *won't* be pleased...

15 or so real time hours before I'm home in bed...

For once I was lateish up. I felt all snorkelled out, and had given all my wetsuit hire stuff back to the marine centre anyhow, so the point was just to have a slow calm breakfast and pack up at my own rate - my rucksack contents had sort of exploded despite the best efforts of the room cleaner who came in every day to mop the floor of sandy footprints and fold everything up, but it was also quite nice to repack everything from scratch again, a bit like spring cleaning, only for rucksacks.

The deal was that close to check-out time, you tagged your bag and left it outside your room, and then it rematerialised some hours later on Gladstone jetty at the end of your boat trip back. This I did, and was met by my neighbour/ex-snorkel buddy doing the same. It turns out he was also leaving today and very glum. He was going on to Sydney, then LA, then Montana where aparently it'll just be the start of the skiing season. He reckoned the LA stopover might just be enough to help him aclimatise, but it was going to be tough.

I went to reception to complete my check out and found out that the moniless existence had indeed resulted in the racking up of a vast room bill (though not as terrifying as some people's, especially the families who had been here a week). Needless to say, once I had paid my bills and handed back my metaphorical key, suddenly a second class citizen, 'Oh are you charging to your room madam? Oh. No. Paying *cash*, I see'. It disheartened me sufficiently to not want to buy anthing else on the island, and I survived on free drinking water, the buffet lunch which I was owed as part of my room fee, and blagging myself on a free bird spotting lecture to pass the time until the launch was due to leave.

The boat was late of course. I realised this when I went down to the jetty at the alloted 2pm rendevous and there was no boat at the jetty, and no boat to be seen in a full 180 degree scan of the horizon either. So unless it was sneaking up from the back of the island (which seemed unlikely) it was at least 40mins away.

I marched back to reception to see what was going on. Apparently a latecoming Qantas flight had held up the incoming launch by about an hour. This meant that their previous claim that the launch met flights out of Gladdie from 16:20 onwards was now a lie, many would miss their flights, and my own 17:15 flight looked in jeapordy too. The mob (and there was at least 60 of us) threatened to grow riotous for a while until reception grovelled to Qantas and got them to hold up some connecting flights for us. As the Brisbane flight I was catching was the same one I caught before that did Mackay/Rockie/Gladdie first, I was confident they could hold that up and only upset about 3 passengers, but some people were flying on to Sydney and Perth and it looked like Qantas were going to delay those flights too. Presumably the entire intricate web of scheduled flights subsequently crumbled around all of this - and all for a tinpot launch from a tiny island in the middle of nowhere - impressed!

Sure enough, the boat was about an hour late - it was a medium sized seacat thing and it wasn't there to be scenic, only to shuttle people to and from the island. Because of this, most of us either slept or read during the 2 hour journey, and were only jerked awake by the captain announcing on the tannoy that we were now entering Gladstone harbour.

Gladstone was, just as I thought, not the sort of place you'd want to visit as a tourist. When going out in the chopper he'd flown us over a vast vast coal burning power station surrounded by acres of coal heaps, and next door to it a huge line of moored tankers that shipped the coal from elsewhere. There was also a large aluminum smelt and yet more huge ships shifting things to and from. When we came back in on the boat the huge long breakwater was dotted with large tankers and vehicles for moving stuff and okay, the finally end marina where we moored was reasonable pretty but...I think I did right avoiding overnighting there.

Once we had disembarked there was a mad dash for the airport. About 30 of us had flights to catch, and the 16:20 Brisbane lot (including Montana man and his missus) were being put on the later flight, my flight, which had been sitting on the tarmac waiting for us for 20 minutes. We all scrambled to get our luggage on the coach that was transferring us (and it was a real free for all with people rugby tackling one another out of the way and standing on fallen bodies etc). Then we had a similar scrum trying to get checked in, though Gladdie airport didn't bother about silly little things like passport checks or security screenings so we shouldn't have worried. Mind you, me and my Montana friends were only going as far as Brissie. Some of the Sydney/Perth people were looking very anxious though - I was sitting next to one and he spent the whole flight either with his head in his hands, or rocking everso slightly backwards and forwards with his arms folded. He drank a lot of wine too. He reminded me of how I might of been when I thought my Cairns/Townsville connection was going wrong though he was very rude to push past me when they opened the front doors and shove everyone out of the way to get out. I guess he got his flight though cos they were paging someone by name from out flight when we got into the building.

Brisbane airport. Loud, noisy, full of stressed people all trying to get some place to the detriment of everyone else - not a place for the old or frail. I said goodbye to Montana guy and his missus (who had now been sitting next to me since the launch set off some hours ago) and took his card should I ever be in Montana and in need of a place to stay. After that, we parted and it was time for me to find my hotel.

...The taxi driver to the hotel turned out to work in IT for his day job and did taxis at night cos he 'had no life', bless him. Aussie born, he was surprised that Aus wasn't taking immigrant IT workers anymore and reckoned that was about to turn around again. I doubted he'd ever left the city and visited rural Oz though so perhaps his viewpoint was a little skewed. Still can't see what use a sugar cane farmer would have with a product manager...

We were both very surprised to see what hotel I was staying at - it was a big posh one in the city centre and here was I a greasy dirty backpacker with the dust of many deserts and beaches on my boots. I mean there was even a guy on the front step to take my luggage from the taxi (though you could tell he thought I didn't belong and did the service as sniffily as he could). I checked in behind a lass in a wedding dress and a guy in a suit, trying not to bring the tone down too much. Reception just thought it was great though and loved my tales of swags and campervans. They figured, just like the taxi driver, that if it was my last night in oz, why not live it in style? And I did with a huge room service meal, bottle of wine, and pay per view movie - all chiefly to distract me from the fact that the dream really was over now, and stop me from getting depressed.

For the first time in a very long time, I managed to stay up until midnight...I'm-a comin' home.

I've decided this place isn't The Prisoner, it's Westworld. All the people and animals are actually robots and the reason they gas us at night is so they can switch off all the machines and give them routine maintenance. The trick is to look at the palms of the hands...none of the staff have any fingerprints. The whole operation is controlled from a bunker in the heart of the island and one day one of the noddy terns is going to malfunction and go on a rampage and kill all the guests...

Anyhoo. I woke up early again just as the men in the scientists coats were putting all the machines back in place ready for switching on. I had one last try at getting my butt on the 9am dive boat but still couldn't face it and sat on Shark beach for a while getting my head together. I was a right as rain for the 11am dive though, and I was trusted to buddy up and dive without close supervision though it was a bit of a toughie cos currents kept bashing us against the coral (which of course was the last thing we wanted). I had another (slightly posher) underwater camera to keep me amused though it was bloody difficult to take pictures when we were being pushed around so much.

I was back in time for a sluice down, a quick cocktail, a leisurely lunch, and a quick sit down on my veranda. The noddy's had got used to me by now and parked down by my feet, their wings spread out and mouths gaping to try and stay cool. Of course why black birds choose to sit in hot white sand in full sun in the first place I don't know - one of them is going to melt a circuit and go on the rampage, you see.

Before I knew it, it was time for the 3pm snorkel boat - and this was a really fun dive because the tide had just turned and large (ish) waves were slapping at the reef edge carrying you along. My so called snorkel buddy fucked off immediately we hit the water but it just meant I could do my own thing so it wasn't so bad, and I made sure I stayed with the group. Finished off the film in my second camera and then said goodbye to all the GBR fishes. I must admit I clambered back on the boat with a bit of a lump in my throat (and a nasty rash on my inner thighs from the wet suit but the less said about that the better). I'm going to miss all these fish and watery shenanigans in land locked Manchester...

...Instead of simply drinking myself into a depressed stupour, after lunch I hooked up to a star gazing lecture on the helipad. It did seem that the southern hemisphere shared most of the stars we did, and some of it went a bit over my head but I was impressed with our lecturers laser pointer - it was clearly a bigger more powerful one than you can usually buy and it was like him pointing a big neon stick up at the sky.

After that? Well I intended to stay up and read for a while but the nerve gas they pumped in the room took effect pretty early and I woke up again on the top of the bed at 3am with a book over my face as usual...

It feels a bit like being in an episode of The Prisoner, staying on this island. Surely the reason I conked out so early must have been due to the fact I was gassed or they drugged me, plus whenever you order something you go by your room number so you quickly get used to calling yourself 'Number 6' or 'Number 12'. And it's all just too *perfect*, y'know? When I got up at 6am this morning I caught people raking the beaches to make them look 'just so', picking up all the leaves and vulgar tidal detritus, and moving all the terns and gulls around until they looked artistic. I bet if I made a run for it right now, a big beachball would chase me down the sand...

Seriously though, hidden in the centre of the island is a whole bunch of chalets that aren't spoken about which are where the staff live - the silent people that move around in the shadows and at night looking after the desalination plant and boat repairs and electricity supplies and things. And of course there are an army of people who clean the chalets and stock the bar and cook in the restaurant...but the aim is for only a few select people to actually be visible during working hours - the clean people, the ones who serve you drinks and arrange your trips for you, the over healthy dive instructors and the token eccentric looking nature expert kept locked away in the research centre and only wheel out for the ocassional lecture. And all so a bunch of sweaty pink people wrapped in beach towels can mooch around all day drinking cocktails while their squalling brats can cut themselves on coral and be sick in the pool.

I was booked on a 9 am dive, and I was reminded just how unready I can feel to scuba when I've just got up, there is a cold breeze blowing off the ocean, the sea is crisp and chill, and my breakfast is still sitting undigested in my guts. I'm really going to have to give in and acknowledge that whatever future scuba I do, I'm going to have to skip morning dives, my poor weak constitution just isn't up to it.

It was a good dive though. It was a small group and I got paired up with a dive master who was obsessed with getting great photos and so ambled along at a nice steady pace. Got my perfunctary nosebleed of course, so it looks like my nasal capillaries still haven't hardened anything up yet, oh well.

At 11am, I went on a snorkel ride. Now the rig at Heron Island is that as all the good dive sites are just 15mins away at the reef edge, or maybe just the next reef next door (the Wisteria reef), the 9am diveboat theoretically gets you back in time for the 11am dive/snorkel boat. This assumes you're prepared to sprint to your room and back if you need a wee, and you're confident you can get your wet suit off quickly. As soon as the dive boat moored on the jetty, at least 3 divers sprinted off down the jetty, another couple close behind at a brisk walking pace. We did, indeed, all make it back to the boat on time but it certainly was a close run thing for one or two individuals. Yes I know you *can* wee in your wet suit, but when you're wearing dive boots, its just as likely to hang around inside or come out the top - still not a particularly nice prospect if you still have the option of a proper toilet available to you.

The snorkelling kicked arse - and in my humble opinion was just as good as the scuba plus you got a little longer with snorkelling (about an hour) and far less pratting around with tanks and weights and things. It was over 'The coral canyons', a reef edge site with lots of caves and arches and things where you got a lot of brightly coloured coral on the top and big interesting fish in the caves. Of course these days they are safety concious about everything and even insist that you snorkel in buddy pairs, but I got threesomed up with a nice benign pair who were quite happy pootling along behind me so it was all fine and dandy. We all got gently pushed along by the current too so it was actually very little effort all in, and the chief challenge was staying warm because you weren't generating heat by trying to propel yourself anywhere.

The snorkel boat got back in good time for a shower, quick light lunch, and (because it was low tide) a short 'reef walk'. You see, because Heron Island is a coral cay, it remains uniformally shallow for a good distance from the shore until the drop off. At high tide, that whole area round the island is perfect for great snorkelling, and at low tide you can walk all the way to the drop off in calf high water and poke at coral with sticks.

The Island activity centre has a whole rack of old trainers drying in the sun and at any time you can pick up a pair and set off walking on the reef (it was drilled into us that only enclosed shoes were allowed on the reef). They also provided you with glass bottomed buckets so you could look at stuff, and sticks so you could poke stuff...er...I mean steady yourself as you walk. (I'm ashamed to admit it was actually pretty dull in comparison to snorkel and scuba, though a novel experience to be that far out from the shore in only ankle deep water).

I had a quick sit down with beer before the final dive/snorkel boat of the day. As the snorkelling was better value for money I swapped my dive for a snorkel and also got myself one of those new fangled underwater disposable snap cameras and this time (despite being buddied with a very scatty German who kept trying to free dive and choke herself, or bang into me) I ambled along taking inane snaps of all the fishies. I have been assured that these snap cameras are actually crap unless you are right next to your subject, so we'll just have to see how it all turns out - maybe I've just got 27 pictures of blurry nonsense. Well actually I only came back with 20 pictures taken so just to finish off the day I had a quick snorkel over to 'The Protector', an old warship that had been dumped on the breakwater near the jetty to a: be a nesting ground for birds, b: be a landmark for the ships and c: be a good centre of snorkelling attention for the visitors. For 5 mins paddle from the beach it was damn good I have to admit and I rattled off the last few pictures trying to capture a reef shark that was nearby.

I must admit, I was buggered by the end of my day. I had a quick cocktail at the bar to chill out (and was muggered by a Rail for my pineapple slice and cherry while I was taking a photo), and then finished up with dinner, a bottle of white, and waking up at 3am on the top of the bed with a book over my face. Damn it, what do they put in the drinks round here?

My flight to Gladstone left at 9:20am, thus calculating backwards, that meant I had to leave Eungella around 6am and get up predawn.

God the drive back to Mackay was wierd. I finally got to see what the wierd mist was in the dawn light and yes, we really were above the cloud layer which descended in the night to envelope the top tip of the Eungella rainforest. Not only that though, but when I drove through the wierd Derbyshire-like patch there were sprinklers everywhere, it was like a well kept english lawn - this explained the incongruous lushness of the area.

And it just got wierder as I descended into the flat plain at the foot of the mountain - all the sugar plantations were swathed in a thick fog - it was like all the moisture from the mountain had dewed in the night and was now burning off again in the heat of the accelerated dawn. It added a bizarre tinge to the day with this great long roads disappearing off into increasingly thicker patches of mists and slow cane trucks and goods lorries breaking out of the mist in swirling clouds with their headlights on in the orange yellow half light. Quite atmospheric actually.

Just as most Queenslandians wake up with the dawn and go to bed at sunset, they all seem all of a rush to do all the utilitarian things in the cool of the morning with a view to packing up about 11am and (maybe) resuming work again around 3pm. Thus all along the Mackay/Eungella road at dawn (as this was sugar cane country) there were loads of cane trucks and tractors and pickups - all the sort of stuff you never see moving around later in the day (they're usually in the fields harvesting by then and the only trucks you see on the roads are the ones shifting beer). Also, there were dairy vans moving to and from the strange Derbyshire area. I can see now why Oz doesn't need IT immigrants, it is essentially rural. Albeit, a rural that we UK people don't usually think of, but like in Queensland at least is basically just sugar cane or bananas or beef/dairy and computers are of little consequence, the Internet even less so as vast swathes of the population are out of broadband/televison/mobile phone range. Geeks are incredibly priviledged in the UK. Or perhaps its just that the UK is a breeding ground for geeks whereas Oz just can't support them and they become surfer dudes instead.

I got to Mackay in good time and refilled the car like a dutiful rentalee (boy did that thing guzzle diesel in comparison to the camper). Mackay airport was a bustle of activity - not. I got there and there was no one to give my car keys back to (I posted them in a drop box) and no-one at the checkin desks (they only bothered checking in 20mins before the flight) and a security check area that was full of bored aussies in yellow jackets lounging around and they looked surprised when I arrived and actually seemed to want my bag scanned.

It turns out my flight was a real locals flight. It stopped at Rockie (Rockhampton - 50mins flight), Gladdie (Gladstone - a further 15 mins flight) and Brissie (Brisbane - probable a further 40mins) and basically just shuttled businessmen from one place to another. Indeed the guy next to me lived in Rockie and had just finished business in Mackay (equivelant of a Manchester/London thing with an enforced overnight cos of flight times). It wasn't exactly a tinpot plane, it was still 4 seats across unlike the Lizard Island Cesna for instance, but the multistop gave it the feel of a bus service and sure enough our light snack was no frills and practically everyone got off at Rockie, leaving about 5 of us continuing on, and no-one got on to join the continuing flight. I was the only person who got off, 15 later, in Gladdie. I paused to try and send a quick email before being cut off on Heron Island, but it was so obvious that I was the one who'd ordered the helicopter flight in that deserted airport that the woman at the helicopter desk actually walked over to get me before I could finish.

I had booked a helicopter transfer to Heron Island. Partly this was because there was no way I could catch the 10am launch without overnighting in Gladdie which I simply wasn't prepared to do (cos I got the impression Gladdie was about as dull as Townsville and Mackay). Partly it was because I had never been in a helicopter before and it sounded like a cool/strange/scary thing to do.

The helicopter transfer service was run by a small charter company similar to the cesnas that shuttled people for the Spirit of Freedom trip. They had their own little office in Gladdie airport and once you had 'checked in' you were ushered to a little lounge where you were shown a safety video (and the safety procedures for a helicopter are radically different from those of a plane, as are the flying procedures - different safety belt, you have to wear a earmuff/headset, you aren't allowed anything that's loose etc). This done, a nice checkin girl escorted you to a tiny private chopper just outside, strapped you in, put on your headgear, introduced you to the pilot, then got the hell away as quickly as possible while he started the engine.

Helicopters are great! I once tried to fly one on a flight sim computer game so obviously I know all about them, but basically the dynamics are wierd and basically you have a number of warring forces - you got the blades spinning round at the top and you can tilt these to lessen or greaten the vertical lift, you got the rotor at the back which is essentially the rudder, you got the angle of the overal craft (e.g if angle yourself left, you'll travel left, and you've got the cockpit's overall desire to spin round and round madly which can be controlled (torque?). Practical upshot: when you've flown a bit you know planes take off by running sideways for a while until (it feels like) the wind catches under the wings and they take off. Helicopters (disturbingly) just, like, go vertically upwards, from a standstill, and it's very odd - like being in an out of control lift. Once they have risen to a set height and want to go in a particular direction, the whole thing simply tips wildly in that chosen direction, sort of in the way planes yaw from side to side though helicopters lean frontwards to go frontways and slantwards to go slantways, the whole thing is just crazy.

The helicopter does about the same speed as a cesna and flies about the same height, thus the meat of the journey felt very like The Spirit's scenic flight back to Cairns and you only knew you were in a chopper when it changed direction, oh and that it was so damn noisy.

When we landed (elevator down 30 floors sensation) someone came to greet me and I got to do the crouchy down sprint away from the chopper thing you see in movies a lot - that made me feel big. What made me feel bigger was that my luggage sort of evaporated and rematerialised in my room a bit later, and best of all I had got a complimentary upgrade from scum class studio room in the back of beyond to 'Reef Suite' with views of the sea, a stones throw from all the facilities.

I had paid for a luxury island resort and that was what I was getting. It was a keyless, moneyless society and you could leave all your doors and windows open (turned out to be useful later when you were stumbling in from a scuba/snorkel session) and charge everything to your room number (dangerous in the extreme). Noddy terns were everywhere, the trees were heavy with them, on the path in front of you was black with them, they stared in the window at you when you were having a pee and they didn't move when you poked them or nudged them with your foot. I got the impression that before the intervention of man, this had been a mass nesting place for the Noddy's and they were still somewhat resentful of our presence. The other prominent bird life was little Rail bird that skooted along the ground like a wader on Speed and would attempt to get in your room if you left your patio doors open. It appeared to have filled the rat/pigeon niche of the island. And the entire island was fully of raucous squeaks and cackles and clicks.

...I immediately went to the marine centre and tried to get myself on a dive trip (full) and snorkel trip (full) and eventually had to settle for simply being fitted for all my scuba/snorkel equipment and going for a trip in a glass bottomed boat around Heron Bommie.

Heron Bommie semi-submersible gave me a good preview of things to come. On the downside (as warned by Lonely Planet) despite claiming world class diving, a good deal of coral had got killed by silt from the new jetty. On the plus side, the island was surrounded by reef drop off full of lots of little nooks and crannies and some of them were lovely, teeming with life.

The tour lasted about an hour and was sufficiently motivating for me to immediately run back to my room, inject myself into my wetsuit gear (it was a very tight fit and the dive shop actually issued me with a special bit of old plastic bag to wrap around my foot and help get it on), and run to the beach.

I picked a lightweight spot right next to the bar/pool and was surprised to find that even in that unpromising spot there were large clams, parrot fish and sweetlips swimming about plus a reasonable amount of hard and soft coral. I managed to sneak a good hours worth of snorkelling in before dark and was nicely showered and clean again in time for dinner and a quick cocktail.

Dinner was ok - it's 'Perfectly sized portions so you could enjoy all three courses' were a bit on the tidgy size but the bottle of wine side order bulked things up and I was pleasantly tiddly by the end and wandered up to the top end of the island with a pleased grin on my face. The North beach was utterly empty and utterly dark, and I lay on the sand under a brilliantly clear sky, cursing again the fact that I didn't know any constelations apart from the big dipper.

What a strange place, by turns horrifyingly artificial and stunningly beautiful. The resort is, well, a resort with its pool and bar and complimentary shower caps - the closedness of the community is a bit stifling for me. You still get a sense of the island though too, which is what I was after.

Conked out v.early as usual. Big day tomorrow.

I got up pre-dawn, a now normal experience. I couldn't face much, e.g.showers and coffee seemed way too complicated for that time of day so I basically just threw my clothes on and stumbled out towards the platypus viewing areas, camera clutched in hand.

I was right, nearly no other bugger was insane enough to get up this early apart from one saddo with a thick bird identification book and large binoculars, and a foreign couple who'd I'd seen last night and looked like the sort who got up everyday at 5am, probably for a healthy jog and some museli.

We immedately formed a platty spotting comradery. Two of us staked out one platform and two another and when the first platty was spotted a scout rushed over and fetched the others. In the end we had two plattys working the upper end of the river feet below our feet and completely undeterred by our presence. It was great, not least because I finally got a photo that didn't look like a hurried snapshot of the Loch Ness Monster. We had a quality hour of platty activity before the lightweights started to arrive, and I had the pleasure of directing the italian guy with the big camera to the best spot for the day with a supercilious wink. Serves him right for turning up for the show an hour late.

I packed up in time for swift breakfast at the Retreat - the bridge was getting too crowded anyway. I'd ordered a packed lunch too, and took this away with me as a scooted off to Finch Hatton Gorge for the next planned activity in my packed day.

There is one road/highway that leads to (and stops at) Eungella/Broken River. A semi sealed road turns off from this road at the bottom of the mountain and leads to Finch Hatton - nominally a township (because there are 'School bus' signs down the track) but the deeper you get into the place (and nearer to the Finch Hatton Gorge National park) the more the road degrades until you really start understanding why everyone in rural Oz has a 4x4 or a beat up truck.

To get to the 'flying fox rainforest experience' in Finch Hatton I had to negociate 10km of part sealed road (dead easy, its like a dual carriageway only its just the strip down the middle thats sealed and the rest is dirt so you drive like its a single track road and if you meet an oncoming vehicle you have to pass one another with half your car on the dirt - Max speed 80kph 2WD), 10km of unsealed road (like driving on a dirt road max speed 50kph at risk to your windscreen and paintwork, 4WD useful), 5 creek crossings (like fords only with the potential of crocs and muddy potholed entry/exits - max speed 15kph 4WD sensible), two cart tracks plus gates (max speed 30kph 4WD) and one insane incline, only short but practically vertical, dirt track, and potholed and dusty (max speed 5kph 4WD essential). I nearly thought the car wasn't going to make it and I was going to upturn into a ditch but it pulled through and it was bloody good fun.

From the dirt-cattle track turn off, I'd been following faded 'Flying Fox' signs and as things progressed I became increasingly doubtful of the professionalism of the organisation. This doubt reached its pinnacle after I had struggled up the last hill only to find an overgrown carpark with a burnt out truck in it. There was one tiny little footpath leading off, and in a last effort to find these people I parked up the overheated car and walked down the path.

Finally I found the 'main office' (basically a crumbling shed full of climbing harnesses and things) and an additional search revealed a bunch of people just up the hill returning from their trip, plus supervisor.

Time for explanation. I had come to Eungella for two reasons: the platypuses and this place. A flying fox is a wire cable you whizz along in a harness - you know, one of those things rainforest researchers use to study the forest canopy. You sit in a sling, and you slide along a wire controlling your speed with a brake, or by pulling yourself along the wire with your hands on level bits. These guys offered the paying public to have a go on one of these rigs through a genuine bit of rainforest, and I must admit when I saw it in the Lonely Planet guide, I knew I had to do it no matter what.

It turns out that the rig was owned by an English couple who had bought a stretch of rainforest for $26k about 4 years ago and set up the cable there themselves. He was from Hull and clearly the climber, and she was from Yorkshire and the meet-and-greet person (with a toddler on a string). There was also a young aussie designed in the surfer dude mould and here was clearly the odd job guy.

As I said, they didn't have an office, just a ricketty shed at the bottom of the mountain (though they were in the process of building themselves an office just next door which looked like the half finished turret of a gothic castle). You got suited up in the shed and signed the 'I know it's dangerous' form. Then you waddled over in your climbing sling/nappy/harness to a 6ft high cable training area where you demonstrated to the Hull guy that that you weren't complelete clueless and a responsible individual really. Then all the staff walked you up the mountain (incl. toddler on a lead) and set you loose on the real thing.

Hull guy zipped down first on bad ass gear (a wooden swing carabina-ed to the cable and a piece of rubber he held against the wire with his hand as a brake), the our group were hitched up one by one by surfer dude and let down the wire to be greeted by Hull guy. There were actually two wires and Hull guy did the uncoupling and changeover at the intermediate platform while surfer dude did the inital hookup and Yorkshire lass kept all the waiting hopefuls amused with 'How was your holiday' chitchat. Only one person was allowed on the wire at a time, so as soon as they got to the intermediary platform the Hull guy walkie talkied to the surfer 'Clear for takeoff!' bless him. I hung around to go last cos I wanted to linger, and when everyone was set off but me the Yorkshire lass said to surfer dude 'I'll go back to the bottom now - do you think you're ok with the coupling procedure?' and that generated a whimper of horror in me and they had to admit that the lad had only been doing this 2 days. In the end the Yorkshire lass supervised the coupling before she left, just to reassure me, and then I felt bad about not trusting surfer dude so I tried to chat to make up, as I sat there dangling waiting for the takeoff clearance. I think he forgave me.

The wire was dead good. I've now been suspended above rainforest by cablecar, raised walkway, observation tower and zip wire and I saw different bits of the forest with each tour. With this one, it was a huge colony of fruit bats that had chosen to roost right around the wire so you could dangle at eye level with them, practically reach out and poke them with your finger. One had even recently given birth so you could see the baby fruitbat clutching on to mommy bat. When I got to the intemediate platform I asked Hull guy about it (trying not to look down as he uncoupled me and hooked me to the other wire) and he said that when they had first got the land there were no fruitbats but one year they decided to roost over the platform and actually it was a pain because it all got covered in bat shit which got really slippery when it rained. This year, thankfully, they had moved away a bit, but I still think it must have been a stroke of luck, those bats arriving.

When it was over I thanked the team heartily for a damn good experience. Yorkshire lass had been looking coverteously at my 4x4 and asked me how it was (I recommended it, but not the automatic version), and asked them to check later to see if it was upturned in the ditch beside that horrible slope and call the authorities as necessary. As it was, coming down the thing was fine.

Next up:- I attempted to take my lunch at Eungella dam by failed to find it, and ended up eating at a lookout point in Eungella 'village' (basically just a couple of cafes that were permanently shut), filling up at an unfriendly road house in Marian, and 4x4ing it back to Finch Hatton gorge to do the walk there. I also past the place I *nearly* stayed at, the tree house bush camp, and confirmed to myself that is was just a loud backpacker place and yes, the place WAS full of mozzies.

The gorge walk was pleasant and unchallenging, ascending theough the forest and ending in a little waterfall and swimming hole. The landscape, nerderly enough, was the spit of the LotR scene where Boromir tried to take the ring from Frod, with high trees and rocks that looked like ancie fall obilisqueses.

I met surfer dude from the flying fox rig on the way back to the car. It was nearly sunset by then and he asked me was the walk okay and how long. I guess not only had he just started his new job yesterday, but he'd also just moved here and was still exploring. So for him to (an Airlie beach kid) Eungella was one big adventure.

Back at camp I couldn't be bothered fighting with the platy twitchers and kinda knew nothing would better the morning sightings so I just enjoyed a lingering dinner instead with the possums (two adults and two babies came to the table this time), checked myself out ready for the early morning departure, and went to bed. What a day!

Well I'm back from Eungella and now on the exclusive Heron island which is
beautiful, almost unreal, and cut off from the outside world so this is
being typed in an obscenely expensive internet kiosk at $2 for 15 minutes.
Thus...this is just to say that I'm alive and well but you probably won't
be hearing a lot from me until I get back to Gladstone on the afternoon of
Oct 1st (and then fly to Brisbane to catch my plane home).

Last two days in brief:- Trip on a forest cable wire canopy ride, saw a
fruit bat being born in the canopy, more ace platypus watching, helicopter
ride to Heron island, trip in a semi-submersible then an hours snorkling
in lovely warm blue waters right of the beach. Going scuba-ing and reef
edge snorkeling tomoz, and drinking lots of cocktails. What an end to a
holiday...

I surprised myself by sleeping in this morning (8am) which was nice, though I had sort of intended to see the sunrise, oh well.

Today was a Monday, hurray! That meant shops were open again, at least in places that actually had shops. Not that there were any near me, but for the moment all I wanted was Diesel and that could be obtained from a roadhouse just up the road (albeit I had to go to the Roadtrain pump and my tiny weeny little 4x4 looked somewhat dwarfed in that huge space designed for vehicles 20m long). Mackay was a mere hour or so from Bowen along the same featureless roads I've described before, but the town itself was as unedifying as I expected it to be (the Lonely Planet was struggling for things to say about it other than 'compact town centre'). All the breakfast places looked quite shabby too so I ended up sampling a Happy Jack's burger out of curiosity. It's logo looked suspiciously like that of Wimpy but when I studied the wrapping of my bacon double cheese burger it turned out that Happy Jack's was actually a part of Burger King Inc. It still tasted like a Wimpy though, and the bacon in it was really cold sliced ham which was wierd and unexpected. At least there was no beetroot. Oh, something else I read in the (very) small print:- 'Hungry Jack's Vegie Supreme may contain traces of Dairy and/or animal products'. Heh.

Mackay lacked any sort of easily accessible beach or marina to linger on, so I set off for Eungella immediately after my brurgerfast. Eungella rainforest, or at least the bits that are open to the public, is on the top of a mountain range (and indeed Eungella means land of the clouds). Said mountain is visible for miles around and to get to it you pretty much locate it visually and point your car at it, it's as simple as that. And being on a mountain, it means that the temperature is somewhat cooler than down at the coast, the flora and fauna is subtly different, and that the road getting up to it is evil.

I'm really glad I wasn't taking the camper 4WD up to Eungella, I'm not sure it would have made it. Indeed just before the final ascent to the summit, the road was lined with huge warnings:- Do NOT take vehicles long than X metres beyond this point, Road ahead not suitable for caravans - turn back or proceed with caution etc etc. I must admit, it had been a bit of a bitch getting up some of the hills nr Daintree and Kuranda but this one won hands down for sheer incline and windingness. Thankfully my present hire vehicle had a bit of poke and the automaticability of the car coped better than I expected it would, it did more or less what I would have done and at about the speed I would have tried - clever. It gobbled fuel though, then again spending a solid half hour over revving probably does that.

I clumb through lovely sunlit forest with huge cyclads and palms overhead and those blue Emperor butterflies flittering around, juddering on the ocassional grid, skidding on the odd bit of road subsidence, and scaring myself on one or two near vertical 180 degree turns with sheer drops down the mountain face along the side. Then, all of a sudden, the crest of the hill was reached and...it was Derbyshire! I mean it! There were rolling green fields a cows and a dairy farm and dry stone wall - it was bizarre. How? I thought. Why? Perhaps it was just that this place that had the happy coincidence of rain and cool temperatures which permitted a dairy farm, or perhaps I was just hallucinating because I had been away from home too long. Either way, I passed through a brief patch of rural Britain landscape, then plunged back into the forest and to the Broken River Retreat.

What had attracted me to this place (apart from the mod cons) was its very grand claim that it was sited on *the* most reliable place on the planet to view wild platypuses. I'd arrived a little too early for check-in so I went hunting for this legendary site to kill time, and sure enough there were two platypii viewing platforms within minutes of the retreat: one under Broken River Bridge which is just outside the Retreat's front door, and one a further 200m along just down river. I paused for a while at each, half hoping for a basking platypus to dive off a rock for me and do its thing, but I saw nothing and wasn't too concerned as the quoted prime times for platypus activity are apparently the hours before dusk and the hours before sunrise - and this was dinnertime. It was interesting to view quality platypus real estate though - they seem to like similar things to voles actually i.e. soft banks, slow running water, and a nice silty bottom. Okay voles eat reeds and platypus eat worms that they find under rocks, but apart from that they are alarmingly similar. I knew I had some sort of affinity with these creatures...

Once I had checked in properly (under the watchful eye of the local Kookaburra), I had a quick drive around all the local viewing spots (all with extremely impressive views down the valley) and a quick look at our 'local shopping centre' (16km away at the bottom of the valley - Finch Hatton with it's single grocery store and place that sells petrol by the can). Then I rushed back to base and bagged myself a place on the platypus viewing platform. There was already a crowd gathering, some with sleeping bags and flasks, others had huge cameras set up who were testing the surroundings with light meters. This was twitcher country.

I knew the score though, I knew what I was up against. I had packed a wooly jumper, insect repellent, a book + head torch, my camera, and four beers + bottle opener. Thus I spent the first hour of non-platypus activity in a pleasant fug of DEET and alcohol fumes, and the crowd soon dwindled, first the families, then the parent and child couples, then the couples, until finally only the sad obsessive men with the expensive cameras remained (and me)...

As a plattyspotter you soon suss what to look out for, namely a telltale pocket of bubbles and ripples that are distinct from the bubbles produced by the very many terrapins that bob around the river, and distinct from the many ripples produced by the thousands of overfed water boatman that skitter about. As soon as you've figured it out, you start imparting the wisdom on your neighbours in an irritating condescending whisper, and they usual nod and thank you thinking 'what an irritating arsehole'...and then eventually go tell someone else what you told them. Thus the platypus inma is passed down through the generations...

Following this time honoured tradition, when the first platypus surfaced an elderly italian with a huge video camera on a tripod nudged me and shared with me The Knowledge. I thanked him, despite having figured out the Knowledge for myself by this time, and ended up pointed out the platty to a new-comer 10mins afterwards and telling him the very same Knowledge myself. They were grateful, I got to wink like I'd been platty spotting all my life, and everyone was happy. Funny old business.

Platypus are lovely. On Broken River it looks like about 4 platypii 'work' the stream, all with their own loosely overlapping patches. They bob up, have a quick breath of air (their legs moving fantically) then dive under and you can see them wiggling their head from side to side as they search under all the rocks for goodies. One bobbed up in front of our platform and then swum all around the edge of the bank we were on, looking under rocks. Everyone scrabbled for their cameras, and most realised milliseconds afterwards that it was too dark to get a decent picture plus the platty were moving too darn fast anyway, and gave up. For my own part, I have at least 5 very blurred, nearly black photos of a slow moving stream with a dark blodge in the middle that might have been a platypus. Some, I suspect, now have hours of video tape that is completely blank...

Personally though, I got a huge buzz out of seeing a real live wild duck billed platypus diving a foot away from me. It's a deeply silly and yet lovely little creature, otter-like in its behaviour. Also, unlike certain types of endangered species who almost seem to be making it deliberately difficult for themselves, the platypus does seem to be a nice honest practical creature that's just trying to do it's thing and not get endangered at all. I have a feeling all future Platypus protection charities has suddenly authomatically got my support...

When it finally got too dark to see anything, the crowd dispersed and I returned to my hotel/resort thing and a waiting evening meal in the restaurant. Just when I thought the evening couldn't get exciting enough they had one final trick up their sleeves, namely a possum feeding platform outside of the resturant window so we could sit eating our meals while wild possums ate kitchen scraps beside us.

What a brilliant place! I was so chuffed by the end of dinner...the only negative point about the whole place was that mobile phone reception cut just before the bizarre Derbyshire-like stretch on the plateau of the hill so I had to drive up the hill to send a blog entry. God it was wierd too, I set off up to the summit and suddenly the road was swathed in thick fog, or maybe it was cloud. Either way I parked in a deserted picnic spot in pitch black with swirling mist in my headlamps to send my blog, and I really got creeped out, half expected a werewolf to leap out at me at any second.

Mail sent, egg laying mammals spotted, I felt I had earned a rest. I headed back to my room and almost almost immediately hit the sack. It didn't fell too bad this time though, it had a noble purpose. After all, platypus are most active just after dawn they say, and no bugger is going to be stupid enough to get up pre-dawn except me are they...?

Well I was entering another free roaming section of my Walkabout, and this time I got a regular 4x4 (as opposed to a camper) booked at the Avis up the road from me. It all went smoothly, they had heard of me and didn't turn me away which was a plus, and I got the same surge of excitement I always get sitting in a vehicle that requires you to climb up into it...until I realised the damn thing was an automatic!

It was my first time with an automatic and I still think it's like driving a tonka toy. You put the thing into 'Drive' and it starts moving as soon as you take your foot off the brake pedal. I means you don't have to make handbrake starts, but inevitably its idea of acceleration and gear change is different to mine and it's just...not quite right. Very education though, especially the first couple of times I pressed the brake pedal with my left foot, expecting there to be a clutch there...

In practical terms though it was pretty easy to learn how to use, and it does make eating and driving a whole lot easier. And once you get on the highway you don't change gear much anyway, even with a manual shift so I can't really whinge. I wonder how it performs on big hills though? Especially considering its meant to be a 4x4.

Anyway, getting the car made me realise this is when I'm happiest, bimbling along exploring at my own rate, looking at what I want to see. Driving really gets you in touch with the place you are exploring, I reckon. The slopes, the road condition, the cryptic signs you don't understand, the unfathomable systems for obtaining fuel and food and toilet facilities. The tour bus came a close second, but I like it best of all when I've got an open road ahead of me and the radio blasting and the windows down - aaah.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. After I got the car I didn't immediately hit the road and start doing impressions of Thelma and Louise, no I went to look at Townsville Sunday Market. Townsville had been utterly dead yesterday - very surprising for a Saturday but I hadn't seen more than four people together on the streets all day if you discount Maggie Island. But I had woken up today, looked down from my balcony, and seen the mall below teeming with people, a welcome change to the surroundings. So I checked myself out and packed the car, then wandered around, expectations already adjusted for seeing a lot of worthless Ozzie tat, but completely unprepared for seeing precisely the same tat I see in craft markets in the UK that I had hitherto assumed was unique to us. I quote, as an example, something I saw at Grantham Game Show namely old drinks bottles that had been reheated, and flattened and turned into clocks and cheese boards. Thought they were the invention of an enterprising Brit but clearly its an international business. The whole craft stall market is probably part of a global syndicate touting croquetted toilet roll covers and doiley covered jam to every corner of the globe. Frightening.

I treated myself to another eggs benedict before I left, then struck out for Bowen (a random point picked between Townsville and Mackay to break the journey up and cited to have nice beaches). I finally got to witness a proper Aussie road - not a scenic one or a challenging one, but a proper long cornerless utility road that crossed flat featureless hinterland, broken up by only the ocassional road house and irritating truck that required overtaking. It certainly tested my ability to keep awake. I had to have the radio up particularly loud and the windows down particularly low. I wondered for a while if the car had cruise control but then deliberately didn't look for it because that was just making it too easy to fall asleep behind the wheel.

I meant to have a rest stop at Ayr but it was shut. I'm beginning to realise that the Aussies take their Sundays seriously, or perhaps that the Brits have just got used to being exploited into working 7 days a week now. Either way the whole of Australia seems to down tools at the weekend and you can't get food, fuel, nuthin'. I think the only things open are roadhouses and even then only very grudgingly and you're usual greeting with a sneering 'Waddayer want mate?'.

So yes, my planned shop and grub stop in Ayr was curtailed by the entire town being devoid of humans bar one dog, wandering around pretending to be a dingo. Thus I pressed determinedly on to Bowen and got there a couple of hours later, feeling a bit twitchy.

Bowen is a bit spread out. You get signs for Bowenshire a good 80km away from the town, and the town CBD is also miles from the outskirts and the initial faded 'Welcome to Bowen' sign. It appears to be based around a salt works, or at least there is a fair amount of heavy industry around and lots of flat open plains with drying water. It certainly isn't anything related to sugar cane, though there were a few plantations close by the township.

I drove around Bowen randomly for a bit and then finally admitted to myself that I had no idea where my motel was and I should have downloaded a map. Working it out from the address though, it was claiming to be directly on the Bruce Highway and Bowen was a turn off from it so I gambled and rejoined the highway for a bit longer, looking for signs. Sure enough, it was about 5km down the road from Bowen - hardly the nice central location it was claiming - and when I checked in I had to wake up the receptionist who had fallen asleep in front of the football with a small ratty little dog on his chest. He had a glass eye and a funny look about him, and when I got in my room and saw my bath/shower looked exactly like the one in Bates Motel I started to get a little scared. At least there was no view of a house on a hill, just a very windswept ocean peninsula. None the less,I immediately dumped my bags and headed off back into Bowen central.

I wanted something to eat, anything. I had been given a free advertisational map by Bate's one eyed receptionist and it listed about 5 Bowen restaurants - none of which opened on a Sunday. It also listed a number of take-out joints - most of which just served breakfast and closed before noon. I would have even settled for a packet of crisps but none of the grocers were open and the bottle shop doesn't serve anything with vitamins or protein in it - it's a company mission statement. So how the hell do people eat round here? I'll tell you - Bowen has three fabulous, drop dead gorgeous beaches, and slap bang on each one is a Butlins-esque resort full of loud drunk youths and working class aussie families, which supplies all-in deals so said youths and tired mothers get fed and watered gratis and don't have to worry about anything except getting laid or whether little Wayne and Muriel are going to swim too far out and drown themselves. It means that more maverick explorers like myself are utterly excluded and left to starve. We also get displaced onto the outer beaches with the pointier sand and slightly less blue water. I still had a quick swim though, though I was half expecting some burly resort guy to leapt out and shoo me away at any second.

By cruising down Bowens grid system in a systematic fashion, I finally found one lone food establishment open - a takeaway pizza - and I leapt on the opportunity though it was probably one of the worst pizza I've had in a long time. The only thing that improved it was that I took it to a secluded cove away from the Butlins camps, and me and a seagull shared it while I watched a truely beautiful sunset occur over the headlands. Bowen is very pretty. It's just a shame that it's a ghost town on a Sunday night and full of arseholes that's all.

When it got dark and me and the seagull had finished our pizza, I set off back to Bate's. I put a chain on the door to deter psycho-esque shower stabbings and tried to stay awake but couldn't, I was progammed to Queensland hours now and dark meant sleep, despite me having a good book to read and entertaining crap on tv. It also suggested that I'd be up at bloody dawn again, further confusing me - crikey in England I'd happily sleep til gone afternoon, what's going on here? Oh well, more time to spend at Eungella I suppose. Oh yes, I was meant to be staying in a open sided tree hut on a platypus filled creek in the Eungella rainforest on Mon/Tues but I had a last minute change of heart. This was based loosely around my previous experiences in swags being freezing cold and eaten alive by insects - I just couldn't face that again so I cancelled my treehouse booking and rang up a slightly more costly resort that offered you your own lodge with aircon and soft beds (and mozzie nets, and a restaurant that does you afternoon picnic hampers), and was minutes away from *the* most reliable viewing spot for platypuses. I feel slightly ashamed that I have chosen a comfortable mod-con chalet for a back to basics treehut commune with nature but...I have 25 mozzie bites on one leg alone, there must be more comfortable ways to commune with nature...

Okay, something had to go wrong at some point I guess, it was all going was too smoothly. It wasn't what I expected though - I thought the complicated flights yesterday would be my undoing but instead it was the next morning when the dive tour pickup van arrived to pick up a couple of people...and not me. I wasn't on the list, they hadn't heard of me. Bemused, I showed the van guy my internet receipt but he still shook his head and denied me entry to his bus, so I had to slink away back to my room, annoyed and not a little peeved that I had to get up at 5am to learn all this. My theory is that I should have rang yesterday to reconfirm. They didn't say it in the trip notes but it's something I did with The Spirit trip and it would have been a perfect time for me to drop off peoples official lists. It's a pain though because I couldn't have rung them really because I was in transit most of the time yesterday. I also really wanted to do the Yongala as well. Oh well, a further excuse to have to come back to Oz, and I'll just have to wait until I get back home to see if they charged me or not for what I thought I was booked on but didn't get to go to. I just knew something was going to go wrong in Townsville...

So. Well. Having been turned so shamefacedly away from the dive tour, that left me with a day in Townsville to kill. I wandered round all the (shut) shops and eventually cheered myself up with eggs benedict and a breakfast lager at 9am in the first cafe that opened, and I studied my Lonely Planet Guide for entertainment suggestions. It told me that (among other things to do) there was a big Aquarium in Townsville with a part model of the Yongala in it (so at least I could see fishes somehow) and next door was an iMax Dome - like a regular iMax only the screen is dome shaped over your head and the film is specially distorted to create the illusion of wrap aroundnessness. That sounded like a reasonable way to pass the time, so I walked on over.

iMax dome - not convinced. The dome screen itself was quite impressive and as you sat in the middle, the area of projection completely wrapped round your field of view. It looked to be made of individual curved square panels and kind of resembled an inverted Zepplin. The place was completely empty though apart from me and some guy who looked like he's slept there overnight, and so it was that the film itself was the usual iMax fare, i.e. a very pretty looking film about the ocean that was without any sort of educational substance - but it wasn't dark enough so you could see the dome panels behind the projection and it ruined the illusion. Or perhaps I was just feeling grumpy about the diving and being unfair...

Next: Reef HQ - it reminded me a great deal of the big aquarium in the Wirral (The Blue Planet) because it also has a great big long tube that you walk through while fish swim over your head. They weren't kidding about it having a model of the Yongala in it though - all along one side of said tube walkway was a fake sunken ship off which all sorts of coral and seaweed was stuck and various fish were swimming around. It was a massive tank, at least the size of your average open plan office environment, and superbely laid out with an Authetic Wave Making Machine (tm) that pushed water convincingly round all the environments and kept everything ticking along.

I had my first scuba nerd moments though. First off, round every corner I was seeing things and thinking 'I've seen that on a dive!'. Also though, the walkway and many other areas of the large tank were meant to recreate various particular areas of the great barrier reef including things you find on the sides of bommies, what you find in reef lagoons etc etc and in each case I recognised the general environment and thought 'I've swum through that!' but then noticed that some of the fish patterns were wrong and certain things were swimming in a way that I never saw them do when I was scubaing (or more to the point, they were just swimming around randomly instead of shoaling or hunting like they were meant to). That suddenly made me realise that aquariums, just like zoos, can be very very good but they are still artificial environments and the occupants can tell...even the fish. That it was affecting things as subtle as shoaling and swimming patterns shocked me however (chiefly because I thought fish were dumber than that). Some things were pretty obvious though like the parrot fish that was swimming round and round and round one window of the tank ceaselessly like one of those caged lions you used to see in poorly run zoos that just paced from one end of the cage to the other all day or rocked from side to side endlessly. There was also the turtle that was endlessly swimming from the bottom of the tank to a corner just above one tank window and back again - they don't do stuff like that in the wild. Perhaps fish don't have 30second memories after all. Or perhaps as soon as you've seen anything out in the wild, be it fish or beast, seeing it in captivity becomes a disturbing experience. Either way, the aquarium was very high quality but it didn't 'alf make me think.

One exhibit particulalry wowed me though, the glow in the dark fish. You see plenty of these programs about deep sea life and they usually wheel out those fish with bioluminescent patches under their eyes so they look, in the pitch black, like a couple of headlamps floating around. This exhibit was in a pitch black room and it was a tank of them! Me and all the kids in the room simultaneously went wild and pressed out noses against the tank. They got dragged off by their Mum's though whereas I could hang around until my eyes got used to the dark, and slowly I could discern the sandy bottom of the tank and then the sillouette of the fish that were moving around. There were even two types of fish in there - one with slightly duller and smaller headlamps that I had assumed earlier was an old or sick fish. It was dead good.

...Because I had got up so bloody early cos of that stupid dive trip, I had now already done one aquarium and one cinema trip and it was still only lunchtime. I couldn't be arsed going to a cafe, and stopped in a McDonald's instead and had a 'McOz' which is more or less your standard quarter pounder only - very bizarrely - with a huge slice of beetroot instead of gerkin (!). Then I found myself somehow at the ferry terminal to Magnetic Island (aka 'Maggie') and sort of...drifted onto it, without any serious purpose to go but also without any serious purpose to be anywhere else either.

The ferry ride is just 25 minutes and many residents of Townsville commute to Maggie and vice versa, indeed I could see it from my hotel balcony and its in spitting distance of the city. The ferry itself is a smallish seacat style thing, and the ferry terminal is a quiet domestic affair. When we disembarked, we quickly split down into our two main constituents namely the people who milled about like they were lost (tourists) and the people who immediately started marching purposefully in some random direction (locals). I was feeling playful so I followed the locals, and ended up in the short stay carpark near the only (as I later discovered) open supermarket on that half of the island. Amused, I looked for beer but found none and settled for bundaberg gingerbeer instead. Bundaberg is a big name in Oz, chiefly for its rum&cola mix in a can which I think is disgusting but lots of people drink it. I didn't know it did other stuff though. Perhaps it's an Aussie Schweps.

Anyhoo, I'd found a free map of the island at the ferry station and used it to navigate myself to the nearest beach,,just a short stroll from the ferry terminal. It was lovely too - deserted just like the rest of Townsville - and I walked the length of the palm fringed beach barefoot at the edges of the foamy blue waves with barely another soul in sight.

I like looking at things that get washed up. Around most of this area, bits of dead reef are two a penny and if you keep your eye out you can pick up lovely textured bits of bleached white coral - indeed I've already got a bag full. But on this particular beach I saw loads of cuttlefish bones, most odd. I didn't know there were that many alive, let alone so many to have one washed up every foot or so on the beach. I collected a bunch and arranged them in a sun-like pattern on the beach, just to confuse passers by. Didn't keep any though, I think they'd get crushed on the way back home.

I wandered up the beach until a rocky promontary and a backpacker hostel stopped my progress, and then turned round and walked back in the opposite direction. I didn't notice on the way there but I certainly noticed on the way back that a couple of said backpacker prats were buzzing up and down the esplanade mindlessly on a bright pink moke trying to express their manhood by wolf whistling all the women they past whilst dangling out of said vehicle and gesturing. A moke seems to be the local island transport - its basically a golfcart and it just about does the island max speed of 60km, you can hire them from Nelly bay (the township nearest the ferry terminal). It certainly beats walking the 10km to the other end of the island, but no matter how much you posture and whistle, there is no way any bloke can avoid looking gay while zipping down the road in a barbie pink golf cart. Consequently I met their exuberant calls with a cheerful and knowing wave.

I arrived a bit early back at the terminal so I went and stood next to a family who were feeding the fish off the marina. A huge shoal of various tropical reef fish had gathered and they were doing their best impression of a school of pirana by reducing a salad sandwich to a skeliton in less than a minute. They were a bit flummoxed by the orange though, and kicked it around like a football - they were still trying to work out what to do when we were called back on the ferry and it's probably still out there, now out to sea.

Got back to my hotel in time for sunset from my balcony and a beer from the local bottle shop, and then I treated my self to an Aussie Stockyard Steak from the restaurant and a nice hot *bath* (because most of these places just have showers these days and a bath is somewhat of a luxury). Conked out a 9pm again. God, jetlag isn't the thing you should worry about here, it's the whole up at sunrise, bed at sunset thing. I'm completely confused, wanting beer at breakfast and breakfast at supper - gah.

I'm getting a hire car tomorrow and driving down to Eungella - an ancient mountain rainforest rife with platypuses and I'm not leaving until I've spotted one! It's a big 4x4 again too hee hee hee (maniacal laughter)

This country is too goddamn big - all I did was travel today. I had to get to Townsville and the only way to fly to anywhere from Alice is to fly to Cairns or Brisbane, and then get a connecting flight. Thus I was going to Cairns, and my connecting flight to Townsville was 40mins later. I read all the rules for domestic flights and 40mins seemed an ok connection time, albeit cutting it a little fine perhaps. However what worried me was that it left no time for delays, and I'd always had this particular day marked as the day where things were most likely to go wrong.

Sure enough, I got to Alice and discovered the plane was running 15mins late, which then increased to 30mins as I waited. The check-in lass was quite cheerful about it though and assured me they'd probably make the time up in flight. I didn't believe her though and I was biting my nails all through the time we were in the air, even upsetting the woman next to me who turned out to be from Knutsford ('I travel half way round the globe only to meet someone who lives 10 miles away from me!'). She was also one of the people drinking champagne and getting in the way at the Uluru sunset the other day. Eee it's a small world and all that.

We finally got to Cairns a mere 25mins late, which meant I still had time to catch the boarding of my next flight if I sprinted. It was then that I learnt that the Townsville flight was delayed by 40mins because of a 'late inbound plane' (probably the one I was on so I needn't have worried). This delay increased to an hour as I hung around, and wound up absorbing another earlier flight to Townsville that had got cancelled.

I eventually got into Townsville at 7 in the evening v.pissed off with all the messing around. The only thing that cheered me up was that my hotel turned out to be a 20 story circular turret slap-bag in the middle of town, and my room was on the 11th floor with a balcony looking out over the town and the sea, and a spectacular view. Room service was a bit scabby though - my butter chicken curry with garlic naan looked exceedingly microwaved and was even in similar proportions (i.e. f*ck all) and in one of those little subdivided plastic trays. Oh, and one of the beers I ordered turned out to be filled with water, a standard scam for minibar screwtops. I complained needless to say, and didn't touch the minibar stuff.

Oh I tell a lie, I did manage to do one single constructive thing with my time that day - back at Alice I posted my jeans and coat plus some other sundries to myself. God the Aussie postal system is a paranoid one! All I had were two smallish innocent looking parcels and they refused to send them for me until I had shown them my passport and stated my reason for sending and filled in an in depth questionaire about the contents and submitted myself to a strip search. I bet they only gave me hassle cos I had a British accent, I bet they let Aussie citizens send drugs, endangered species and illegal weapons if they want to. All I wanted to send were a couple of pairs of trousers...

Anyway, this was a big event for me because my pack is suddenly a few pounds lighter and this represents a significant improvement in my quality of life.

Oh yes, other things of note: Armed with my new intimate knowledge of Outback roads I thought I'd take a more considered view of what I was seeing from the plane, and I now reckon there are slightly more roads than I had previously considered and the way you spot them (the sealed/part sealed roads anyhow) is that roads are always dead straight (because there isn't anything particularly that needs avoiding out there apart from Uluru) perhaps with the odd sweeping corner or odd right angle turn. Conversely, river beds wiggle a bit more, though when you start getting into the realms of the dirt tracks that lead to...well I never figured out what they led to but the highway is periodically dotted with dirt tracks disappearing off willy nilly...the dirt tracks tend to wiggle a whole lot more and it's still pretty difficult to tell them from creeks.

It was another early night for me because tomorrow I had a 6:30am pickup for the Yongala wreck dive trip. Bloody aussies. Why do they have to all be so god damned healthy and such early risers? Oh! Because they live somewhere fantastic that's why - grr).

I was awoken by the usual kick in the kidneys by Sally, and dawn chorus of one very confused bird that clearly hadn't noticed that dawn was still 2 hours away and it was pitch dark. Breakfast was a subdued affair as usual and we rolled up our swags and ate our toast and jam in silence, though this time there was a degree of extra faffing cos we had to gather together our things for leaving the bus tomorrow. One Irish lass commented that she was bound to leave something behind because 'this has become my home' she said and gestured to her seat on the bus. I hadn't spotted that, but yes, denied of the personal space of a tent because the swags, we had all now taken our seats as our own and every one was unique, just as if we'd put up some wallpaper and laid down new carpet. Mine was identifiable by the two cushions, book jammed down the back, festering walking boots underneath and secret stash of diet coke down the side. Other people had jumpers, cd's, footballs, sarongs, all sorts.

We didn't have time to go to an official sunrise viewing spot today so instead, in true cheap ass backpacker style, pulled up at the side of the road close to sunrise, sprinted up a nearby dune and watch it from there. It was still a nice view, and the dune had been untouched prior to our arrival and was all covered in lizard tracks and things.

Then...then there was simply hours and hours of dry earth. Hours. Hours and hours. Dry. Earth. Hours. At least it allowed some quality time for catching up on the moBlog.

We said goodbye to Sally at Jim's Place (we had now ceased to be amazed by Dinky the singing Dingo). She was taking the bunch that joined us from The Ghan to Rainbow valley (after a quick nap in the shade in her swag under a tree), and the rest of us had to swap bus to be taken back to Alice the 'quick' way. This was another 1 hours drive and it was an odd experience because suddenly the bus was all clean again, we all went instinctively to the same seats we'd occupied on the old bus but somehow it didn't feel the right...and the driver wasn't Sally, he was all uptight and formal and had a neat uniform and used the tour guide headset mic to tell us crap about Alice instead of Sally who would randomly pull up at the side of the road and turn round to speak to us, and then abuse us for being bloody poms or something when we asked awkward questions. We slowly realised we had lost a good 'un in Sally, and the only way from here was down.

Thankfully we were back in Alice in a jiffy (where the term 'jiffy' is employed relatived speaking and still employed the odd 100km). We said our goodbyes as we all got dropped off at hotels (with most getting dropped off at Melenka's - a backpacker place described in the Lonely planet book as 'a good place if you just want to fall into your bunk after a hard night's partying') and I finally arrived at my quiet little motel just round the back of Todd Mall about 12 noon.

God I was tired. It still wasn't the afternoon yet and I'd already been up over 6 hours and travelled +400km. I wanted so much just to shower and fall into bed but I couldn't, I still had things to do. With an immense amount of effort I forced myself out of my room again and onto a desert park transfer bus which left every hour and a half from Todd Mall. It (not surprisingly) took you to the Desert Park experience (tm), a nature park dedicated to the arid wastes of the outback. You got one of those self-guide audio tour things and you wandered round three themed areas - Sandy desert, Dry river bed & Desert Woodland - while the audio tour tried desperately to persuade you that the outback was a great place really honest and you tried not to knock your headphones off as you battled with the flies.

I'm usually pretty forgiving, but for once the audio tour failed to convince me of the beauty and richness of the local area. It increased my respect for a number of species of shrub though, like the spineflex which seems to survive off fresh air and gets rid of competing neighbouring by catching fire itself (by dint of being full of lots of flammable resins), torching everything else, then regenerating itself from its ashes. I still think the outback is a terrible hot, dry, prickly, itchy, dusty, nasty place though and my respect goes out to anyone/anything that manages to tolerate the place. That said, I reckon the residents of Alice have turned the fly swatting action into an unconcious reflex action and I bet if you took one of them and matter transported them to the Arctic they'd still be flicking the air around their face every 3 secs without even noticing they are doing it.

I got back from the Desert Park about 5 ish slightly fried from the sun and frazzled from all the fly attention, then I quickly nipped to the local bottle shop in the mall. After that I spent some quality time in the guest laundry washing red dust out of all my clothes and supping lager. I ended the day with a room service feast of camel steaks and emu with a croc confit starter, and a 9pm coma from which I never rose from until my alarm shook me awake the following day...

I was woken up at 4:50am by the now familar boot of Sally, our tour guide, in the middle of my back - it was a courtesy service she gave to everyone to ensure a prompt departure. Soon the air was full of yawns and hasking coughs (because a lot of us were either suffering from acute woodsmoke inhalation or emphasema caused by all the red dust). Whatever people say about sleeping under the stars being romantic, the painful truth is it's cold, dirty, and you get eaten alive. No mosquitos because there's no water my arse, I've now got +30 bites. I'm counting down the hours before I can get into a proper bed again.

We had a hasty breakfast, then drove to the Kaja Tjuta Sunrise Viewpoint (tm) which we shared with considerably less people than yesterday thankfully. You could see The Olgas/Kaja Tjatu on one side and Ayers Rock/Uluru on the other, and we were priviliged enough to watch the sun come up from behind The Rock in a blood red sky, and then light up Kaja Tjuta. It was absolutely fabulous (better than the sunset IMHO).

Once the show was over, we quickly buzzed over to Kaja Tjata. When the government was handing back the monuments, they insisted that one of either Uluru or Kaja Tjuta was to be open for the public to climb. The Anangu eventually chose to close Kaja Tjuta because it is more sacred. It is a 'men's place' where all the men's most sacred rituals (inma) take place. If women decide to sneak up and spy on the men's rituals and are caught, they can be killed, that's how sacred it is. Not only that, but only the appropriately initiated boys are permitted to be privvy too, and this initiation is done from elder to appropriate younger male relative by word of mouth only, and not spoken to anyone else - it's a bit like the Masons really except without the silly handshake. This 'learning' is done by the father taking the son along 20km walks around the rocks telling him names for things and how to find things and use things, and songs and stories related to the path, and if the son gets anything wrong they both have to go back to the beginning of the walk and start again. ...or maybe that *is* how the Mason's do it, I don't know.

Of course Sally's refreshing take on this is that Kaja Tjuta is a men's place because most of the Olgas look...um (considers the audience and gauges accordingly) ...they look an awful lot like womens bits. She's got a point actually - pornography on geology, you should look up some pictures and see what I mean. Especially when your stoned on gum tree leaves too.

Yes, we were also shown yet more plants that were hallucinagenic when eaten, or got you stoned (which explains something about the Anangu culture) and a whole bunch of things that could cure colds or cuts by being rubbed on the skin or burnt and the smoke inhaled, or boiled and the broth drunk. The Anangu were actually disease free until the white man arrived, and this is unsurprising really when the whole landscape is one giant cough sweet.

Another random fact - the Anangu of central australia don't actually play the digeridoo, only the northern clans do that. And according to their law, if women play the digeridoo they are made infertile. Christ, next they'll be saying the boomerangs actually come from Iceland and make you blind if you throw them too often...

Kaja Tjatu is a bunch of bumpy looking rocks that look like a whole bunch of bosoms made of red rock laid out in a field. Kings Creek had some of these features to but these things are huge, at least 1.5km tall, some even have scrub and trees on top. The centre is closed because its sacred, but you can walk around it and there is one walk permitted through it called The Valley of the Winds and it's said that it only hows a gale through it if you aren't a good spirit (it was quite gusty so clearly some of us had things on our conscience). Once we had got to the heart of the walk, Sally took the lightweights back, and the heavyweights (incl. myself) circumnavigated the rocks and got back to the bus an hour or two later.

Once we were all gathered together again the sun was just reaching it's zenith, so we fled back to the campsite and hide in the shade, some sleeping in the shade, some frying themselves by the pool, and some cowering in the darkest recesses of the covered areas to escape the scalding heat and viscious radiation levels. We hung around until the sun had swung round again and the sting had been taken out of it, then bused over to Uluru for a second time, this time parking up right at the base of it.

Uluru is a big bugger, it has to be said. Whether or not to climb Uluru though...there was a question. In truth, the council close the walk anyway for about 200 days of the year if it looks like rain, or it looks like its going to be too hot, or because a ritual is going on, or someone has died - so mostly the choice is made for you. And indeed loads of people fall off Uluru and the locals hate it because each death or 'Sorry Business' requires a period of about 4 weeks mourning and people cutting themselves as a sign of respect. In their culture is someone dies in a house they just up sticks and leave and never go back to the place (because wherever you are born or die you leave a little part of your spirit). Also in the cultural centre certain pictures in glossy booklets and billboards were taped over with a little note saying 'this photo has been covered as a mark of respect to the deceased as per Anangu law'.

For my own part, I took one look at it and said 'sod that!'. Its a path up an exposed face of the rock and no steps have been carved out, you just have to shuffle up a slippery sheer face clinging on to a chain, often 100s of metres up and totally exposed. Using my camera zoom I had a look at the people going up and some were looking very pale and scared, some were turning round and descending on their bums, and the rest were progressing very slowly and carefully. I'm not good with heights, so I stayed on terra firma. And at least I could then claim I didn't climb the rock to respect the Anangu's beliefs...

Of course there was other entertainment at Uluru other that the climb (which only three of our party decided to do). There was the extremely lightweight 1.6km Mala walk which took in a few caves and paintings, and then there was the full on 9.4km base walk which I did, allowing you to quietly walk all around the rock and stare at it intimately.

The base walk can get a bit frustrating sometimes. Many areas of it haven't just been cordoned off, but there is also a ban on photography (because the Anangu believe that if you photograph something you take a little part of it away - hence why you have to cover up pictures of the dead). Its annoying because the scared bits are also the best bits, all the interesting caves and exciting rock features.

I am sort of getting it in terms of the Anangu belief system now. Basically in ancient times, the times of creation, the land was filled with mythical beasts which were huge animals that behaved like people, and they sprung out of the rock and the earth and returned to it again at the end of it and formed all sorts of rock formations that look like creatures. This is why everything looks like something round here and has a tale. The most illustrative of this and the whole basis of the Tjukurpa (which translates sort of as 'the law' but is actually a set of stories, rituals and ways of behaving more akin to our Bible) is as follows:-

There is a green patch on the side of Uluru near a cave. The Tjukurpa for that feature is the a huge blue tongued lizard once lived there. One day it was hungry and went out hunting and came across an injured Emu with a spear in its side. Now it knew that the spear meant it was another mans kill and it would be wrong to take it and eat it itself, but the lizard did so anyway. Of course, soon the men whose kill it was came along and asked the Lizard had it seen an injured emu go by - the lizard quickly hid the carcass and said no. Then he cut it up and carried it back his cave, though he was in so much of a hurry that he dropped pieces as he went and the men found the pieces and knew it would be a trail to the thief, and so followed him back to his cave. There, they lit a fire at the base of the cave and choked to Lizard out, and the green mark is the mark it made on the rock as it fled the cave, though the men killed him anyway.

The story has a couple of layers. It explains a fundamental law i.e don't steal another mans kill, and it is also locked into a moralistic tale that is easy to remember and pass down, and is linked to a feature on the rock to remind people of the tale, and to remind them to pass the story on. Thus the whole land has stories linked to it and you can see various animals from the time of creation that have been turn to rock (like the turtle or the winking cat at Kings Creek) or marks of adventures (like the green mark on Uluru). Part of initiation was to be walked round all the sacred sites and learn all the stories and therefore all the law and wisdom. Not only that, but because there is so much to learn, the information had been cleverly split into mens learning and womens learning and each sex only has obligation to memorise and pass down their stories and songs. Not only that, but some inma have different versions with more information depending on how initated you are. These inma are different for each region and your birthright in that region carries an obligation the learn and pass on this knowledge, but only the knowledge of that region so each tribe has different inma and stories/dreamings - and this is the whole basic workings of the Tjukurpa.

Practical upshot: The basewalk was very pretty but I couldn't take photos of it because most of it was either a sacred men's area or women's area. Good stuff though and I was knackered by the end of it. Thankfully the sunset watching was much more lowkey this time and we saw it from the campsite lookout this time, enabling us to stroll back to our campsite when we'd had enough.

The problem with swags is no-one has personal space and this was starting to tell on some people now. The friendliness was fraying a bit and more people were hiding in corners reading books or wandering off. Thankfully we had to be up at 4:50am again for the long haul back to Alice and that gave most people the excuse to go to bed immediately after dinner/supper. There was a bit of digeridoo and guitar playing going on by the fire but only the really hardcore socialites hung on for any length of time.

Only one more night in the swag, thank god for that. Stars are very nice but remember,you can look out of a tent door at them just as effectively and at least tents have mossie nets. At least I haven't got any bite on my face yet I suppose...

Sleeping in the swag was a perculiar experience. I remember feeling a cold at one point, then warm at another. The fact was though that I set the alarm for 4:45am and when I saw that everyone was sleeping I made the mistake of lying there looking at the stars for a while, and the next thing I knew Sally was kicking me awake, I'd missed breakfast and the bus was about to go.

I leapt up and mobilised myself at hyperspeed, so in the end I wasn't the last one on the bus after all, another couple had overslept too (though they 'hadn't been sleeping' hinted Sally later).

We set off at 6am (still pitch black) and raced the dawn, making sure we were at the base on King's Canyon (which is only 32km from Kings Creek) when it arrived. The King's Canyon walk is only 6km long but was cited at taking three hours and there was all sorts of warnings on signposts everywhere about rememering to talk enough water, and to cover up and the dangers of sunstroke and dehydration. We were there at dawn though when it was lovely and cool and a refreshing breeze washed off the rocks. There was a sharp 150m climb but then everything was a lovely easy amble over baked red mustone, looking at all the geological features and down into this valley (all nicely set off by the rising sun).

Apparent the aborigines used to call this place the garden of eden, and the reason for this is the valley has been created from a collapse of the rock, and has resulted in some of the base of it being under the water table, thus hidden way in this terrible scorched desert is a cool blue pool, fed by underlying ground water and trapped rain, and protected from evaporation by the steep cliffs of the valley. The Aborigines used to save this place, and only hunt it during times of hardship because it was one of the few places that had food all year round and could be used as a reliable backup.

Other interesting Aboriginal facts: the rocks round here has been weathered into huge rounded lumps and the tribes have made up various stories about giant cats or turtles lying down to sleep and being turned to stone etc. though sometimes its a bit hard to spot the shapes and Sally reckons alot of it could be attributed to a local bush whose leaves, if eaten, make you hallucinate for a week. The tribes also used to have their own law enforcement in the form of men with feathers on their feet (to spread their tacks so they couldn't be tracked) who would sneak up on wrong doers and squeeze the sap of another type of bush in their eyes and blind them. This doesn't go on anymore but apparent if you look closely at tribe members you may see scars on the backs of their knees or in their elbows or perhaps even missing bits of fingers or toes - this is how the tribes keep order now. Wonder if they've considered administering papercuts to the bits of flesh between the fingers? That would keep me in line for sure anyway.

We did a circuit of the rim of the valley and then a look at the cool still pool in the middle that really was a welcome florish of life. Then we plodded back to the van, had an orange to spruce us up (it was still only 10am though the sun had started to get mean now) and began the long long slog to Uluru.

Uluru is a dry community, on request of the tribal women. This means the only waku (means liquor...or perhaps wakuma) you can get for miles is a road house 80km away and its vastly over priced. Still got some though because Sally reckoned it would be a "three tinnie sunset". First we went to the campsite (discreetly placed some distance from the very expensive Yulura resort) & set up our swags for the night. Then we drove to the Uluru cultural centre, all the while with the Aussie whinging about how they couldn't see why they had had to change the name of the rock and what a lot of hassle it had caused reprinting everything. The rock loomed, as well it had a right to what with being a 1.6km high red thing sticking out of completety flat surroundings. It loomed like a thing that knew it was being worshipped and jolly well enjoyed it. It loomed over us for our entire drive around it and even afterwards we still got a sense that it was looking over our shoulders constantly.

We had a look around (lots of stuff about the Anangu law & all the icky stuff they ate) then (because it was now just before sunset) quickly buzzed over to the Uluru Sunset Viewing Area (tm). It quickly became apparent that this is what everyone does, and the carpark was full of large coaches out of which were spilling fat aged pink people wearing sunvisors & safari shorts, all ready to drink champagne and eat club sandwiches while standing in the way of everyone else.

We were having none of this. As the token scummy poor people, we got out in our soiled hiking gear, tinnies in hand, and marched up some nearby sanddunes to look at the view there instead. There were still trillions of people but they were more 'our sort' and the wasn't a glass of champagne in sight. Having said that, as the crowd slowly dispersed once the initial sunset had occured, I found myself left alone except with an old guy from Huddersfield who was taking 5 min interval time lapse piccies just like me. He didn't give a damn about champagne and was just hanging out for the black-sky-orange-rock thing (which didn't happen). I wimped and left when I thought I saw my tour bus disappearing off but he looked set for the duration, bless him. I guess he didn't care about a bed for the night either.

Back at the camp we had a barbie and beers to cele