In Longreach, Outback Australia

We left Byron Thursday afternoon after stripping the car out and re-packing it, a very necessary action that was long overdue. Rubbish and sand and lost artifacts poured out of the vehicle. We repacked and headed off and managed to do about 400 km that evening staying at Dalby in a caravan for $36.

Yesterday I drove 700 km and when we finally pulled into Blackall at about 6:30 We stayed at a charming old hotel for $36 a double but I was too tired to appreciate the old pub downstairs. I lay on the bed and fell asleep. Even Evelyn's very sincire and very annoying attempts to wake me to go down for dinner were unsuccessfull. We have also defintely entered road-kill country. Evelyn wanted to start counting the dead kangaroos we saw but after a short while it became obvious that this was a futile excersise as there were dead kangaroos every 100 to 200 meters. I haven't seen any live ones yet but I assume they come out at night which makes driving after dark quite dangerous here.

The country is big and dry with a very obvious drought. Even though it is very empty the texture of the land keeps changing if even subtely. Grass lands, scrub lands, stumpy forests and red dirt, undulating hills and almost infinite plains with long straight roads. A slight bend is cause for entertainment and sometimes there is kilometers and kilometers of rollercoaster like bumps in the road which is fun.

Now we are at Longreach at will probably go to the Stockmans Hall of Fame which should be amusing and then we may head off again or just stay in Longreach. Darwin is still a very long way a way and the more kilometers we eat up now the less we have to do later. I'm very happy to be driving the Magna instead of an old car. It drives so smoothly and locked in on cruise control the only thing I have to do is watch out for bits of dead animal littering the road.

Evelyns is standing over my shoulder and wants to use the puter so I better go now.

B

Off to Darwin

We have sold Evelyn's surfboard and have packed the car and pointed it in the directions of Darwin. It was a hard decision to turn my back on the coast that I have so grown to love over the last few months but it is time for a change in scenery. The sand of the beach is being swapped for the dust of the outback. It will look funny when we are over a thousand km inland with a surfboard on the top of the car but eventually I will make it to the West Coast and do some more surfing there. It looks like I will be doing the big loop around Australia. I'll be missing the North Coast of Queensland but I have spent so much time on beaches and in rainforests here that I'm not sure it is worth traveling all the way up the East Coast when the West coast is so alien to me.

We are going to try to make it to Darwin reasonably quickly without messing around too much in Central but it is a long way and who knows what we will find out there. Evelyn's foot is getting better but there was no way she was going to get back in the salt water within two weeks.

B

Healing Feet and Localism

Evelyn's foot seems ok. We removed the dressing yesterday and cleaned it up. The wound is nasty and will take some time to heal but it doesn't look like it is swelling up too much and hopefully will begin to show some improvement in the next few days. Evelyn is obviously frustrated with the state of affairs and it can't be fun feeling helpless especially when there are so many things you want to do. I don't help either by trying to be do helpfull and running to get her things all the time. I'm sure that just makes her feel worse.

I left her in the internet Cafe this morning and went surfing down at Broken Head. The waves were small but clean fun to surf. However I somehow antagonised some guy. I dropped in on him but I bailed out as soon as I saw he had the wave and gave him plenty of room. There was never any danger. Still he came up to me and called me a 'fuckwit' and that he was going to 'burn me'. Hey I'm always the first to appologise when I screw up in the surf but the above attitude stinks a little. Still there are always a few bad characters around on the waves but for the most part people are pretty friendly.

I had a job interview today. Pretty strange affair it was. Ash, a guy from a recruitment agent I had talked to about a month ago and had all but forgotten about called me and said that a company from Melbourne wanted to interview me. I informed him that I was still in Byron Bay and not in Melbourne available for an interview. He rang me back and asked if I could do a phone interview in 5 minutes. So there I was in the middle of a park in Byron Bay talking to a couple of engineers in chilly Melbourne. The company was Air International and they wanted somebody to do a job that was pretty much what I was doing in the UK so I think the interview went well.

Ash just called me back whilst I was writing this and asked how the interview went. It's all very strange this business of recruitment consultants. I'm not sure that I'd put them in the same bag as Real Estate Agents as crafty and devious little buggers but I'm sure you have to keep your eyes open when dealing with them. Still we'll wait and see if they offer me the job and what they offer. I may still turn it down anyway. Life's good here up north and I'm in no hurry to get back behind a computer.

B

More Surf Injuries

Two days ago I went back into the surf and had a good moring down at Broken Head. The Lergie has lifted and I was back in good spirits again. The other day on impluse Evelyn and I decided to grab a nice motel room for the night. Living out of a tent for weeks at a time manages to get at you after a while. It was nice to have a big double bed, clean shower, television and be relatively warm at night. However the money we spent on the room was saved by having a cheap dinner of a bottle of wine and a bag of cheesy corn chips.

The surf though has not been kind to Evelyn. Two days ago she was back in the surf, doing really well, standing up almost everytime and generally ripping up the white water. Unfortunately yesterday things went really wrong. My back was sore and feeling not in the mood for surfing I donned my wet suit and watched Evelyn from the shallow water doing her stuff. After a time I became bored and went and lay on the beach, still keeping a lazy eye on her. A decent size wave came up behind her and picked her up. For a moment it appeared she was going to keep it together, get to her feet and ride triumphantly into the beach, into the adoring arms of her boyfriend. However the nose of the board dug deep into the water and she slid helplessly down the deck to be driven face first into the shallow water. The surfboard flew high in the air, recoiled off the leg rope and crashed straight on top of her.

At first she seemed ok as she immediately jumped back on the board and tried to paddle in. However her face displayed an agonised and wounded look which sprung me to my feet and caused me to run, forgetting my sore back, out into the water to help her. Upon arrival it was obvious her ankle had a very nasty cut where a fin had slashed her. Lots of blood was pumping out and she was muttering that the tendon had been cut. I wanted to get her to the beach quickly so I undid her leg rope, cast the board away and carried her into the shore. A quick (unprofessional) assesment certified that while very nasty no major structural damage had been done., All tendons seemed to be there and still solid. Everybody on the beach in the near vicinity was very quick to offer help. A girl went and rescued Evelyn's surfboard and carried it along the beach for us as a brilliant volunteer called Russels took turns with me carrying Evelyn the 500 meters or so up the beach and back to the car.

After quickly packing everything including a bleeding but very good spirited Evelyn into the car we drove off to Byron hospital and into the Emergency room. The doctors and nurses there were very good. Obviously they had seen so many surfboard injuries during their careers that the whole episode was almost amusing. They were also keen to share their own war wound stories and encourage that a nasty cut should never be an excuse for not going surfing again. The wound took about 8 stitches to sew up and I was very impressed that I was able to watch the whole bit of surgery without getting too faint.

So it will be a little while before Evelyn is back in the surf scaring the locals with her impressive aerial maneuvers.

So till next time. Cheerio

Brad

Got the LERGIE again....

Arghhh, Staying up late all night drinking beer and inhaling woodsmoke all night does not seem to agree with me. Two days ago came down with a nasty cough though I can say that I have heard lots of coughing coming from around the cmpsite and from around town. Worst was last night when I had a little fever. Evelyn is back though so I really milked the sympathy and feel much better today. Tis a pity though I am ill cause the surf has come back on again. Damn ....

Big Surf, Me Useless.

Main beach Byron was boiling this morning so headed over to Cosy Corner at Tallows. It looked really good. However I just wasn't on today. The current down the beach was fierce and the shore break relentless. I eventually made it out back but by this time I was 500 meters further down the beach than where I started. I finally got the nerve to drop into a wave. Eeek. It jacked right up and I swear the lip closed over my head and I got hammered. That destroyed my confidence for the day. To top it all off a dolphin scared the willies out of me by jumping fully out of the water to the left and just behind me. I didn't see it approaching and I bet it thought it was mightu clever giving me a scare. Cheeky Bugger!



A couple more attempts at getting out and getting washed back in and I gave up. I then spent the 10 Minutes watching a model doing a bikini photo shoot and finally decided to call it a day. Got to run and do the washing and have some lunch.

Dreamworld, Camping and No Sleep

Headed up to Dream World just North of the Queensland border with a handfull of friends from the Arts Factory. Not really something I'd normally do but thought 'what the hell it may be fun'. Unfortunately we had picked a day that unbeknowns to us was a Queensland public holiday and the queues and hordes of screaming children were horrendous. Still we made the most of it going on as many rides as possible till we turned a lighter shade of green.

The highlight of the park was probably the 'Vortex' otherwise known as the Gravitron. A really concept where you enter a large cylindrical chamber and lean your back to the wall and face the centre. The whole chamber starts spinning and you stick to the wall, can turn upside down and do all sorts of stupid things. It was the highlight not really because it was the most exciting but because of 4 large guys one of whom was in a terrible situation. He was the smaller of the four and was being positively bullied by his mates into going time and time again onto the ride. I've never seen somebody look so ill without alchohol as this guy did. His mates thought the situation was hilarious. As we exited the ride the poor bloke was being shephered back into the lineup for another go. The last thing we saw of him was at the end of the evening leaning out a car window, his eyes rolling and tongue dangling as he was driven away from his park nemesis.

However for the 56 dollars it cost to get into the park I don't really recommend it. Especially anybody who has been to places such as Alton Towers in the UK or other large theme parks. I'd rather go surfing any day.

The guys and girls I was with had to head to Brisbane but we decided to find a camping spot in the forest to spend the night. We stopped near Cananugra, got some food, a crate of beer, a load of wood and settled down to a night in front of the fire. And a fun night it was. We had scrounged enough wood to build a house and the fire was so hot it was cheerfully melting beer bottles ( I cleaned all the glass out in the morning ) Three of my friends decided to drop some acid ( LSD ). However I declined the offer to join them in an hallucineginec reverie. I have an overactive imagination at the best of times and pushing it into overdrive with LSD would likely break the engine somehow. Anyway the three trippers provided much amusement so I'm not sure who had more fun. Anyway I only caught an hours kip in the car where it got too cold and I got back up again to watch the sun rise and thaw out by the still red hot fire.

Drove back to Byron where I crashed out in the spa then played with all the juggling toys in the camp, had a go on a digeriidoo, made dinner, listened to some live music then crashed out completely. Unfortunately the night I really needed a good sleep was one of the coldest I have seen and I was frozen in my sleeping back even with my North Face down jacket on. Oh well. I think I'll go check out the surf and see if some cold water in my face sorts me out.

Cia B

Crappy Waves and Cold Wind

Evelyn's gone up to Noosa to visit friends and I have stayed in Byron to catch some waves. Unfortunately the weather is not being friendly and there are virtually no waves inside the bay to be had. Broken Head is sort of working but the wind is very strong and you get cold quickly. You can check out the wave conditions for Byron here.

Staying at the Arts Factory Backpacker Lodge in Byron at the moment. Pretty cheap at $7 a day for camping if you book a 10 day block.

And there is all sorts of entertainment going on each evening or just relax around the log fire with a beer and a book. I thouroughly recommend this place if you decide to head to Byron. They also have a first rate kitchen and large refridgerators to store all your food you need to eat after a hard day out on the waves.

Sharks Sharks Sharks

Went surfing yesterday down to Tallows Beach, Byron Bay. Everywhere else in Byron was completely flat and blown out but there were outstanding little lefthanders to be had from Cosy Corner down. However at one point during the day an Ambulence and two police cars screamed down the beach to the far end of Cosy Corner. I had no idea what they were doing and after a while lost interest in the commotion and went back in the water to catch a few more waves.

Today we went back to the same spot but before we hit the water Ursula, a friend of mine met us and told us there was a shark attack yesterday just off the rocks north of Cosy Corner. The shark had taken a chunk out of a spear fishermans leg. The man had speared one fish and was about to go for another whent the shark struck. It mustn't have liked the taste of neoprane rubber for from what we heard the attack was not fatal. Still to think that an attack had happened just 500 meters from where I was surfing was a little sobering. I didn't see any sharks yesterday myself but at one point there was a very large dark round shadow sitting on the bottom not far from my board. It then moved off at a reasonable speed in towards the beach. I guess it must have been a large sting ray. Harmless things unless you step on it's tail whereupon it will give you a nasty little puncture wound.

Shark attacks wounds Australia fisherman

The Associated Press 8/4/2004, 3:43 a.m. ET
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) — A shark attacked a spear fisherman who was hauling in a fish Wednesday and the man was sent to the hospital with a bite wound to his leg, an ambulance spokesman said.
The man, whose identity was not released, was in stable condition in Byron Bay Hospital with minor puncture wounds, the ambulance spokesman, speaking on usual condition of anonymity.
The type of shark that attacked the man was not immediately known.
Last month, a shark or sharks — a great white and possibly also a bronze whaler, authorities believe — attacked and killed a surfer off Australia's west coast, the first fatal shark attack in Australian waters in nearly a year.
Byron Bay is a popular coastal town about 435 miles north of Sydney.

Obviously the authories did not think the event serious enough to close the beach or warn anybody else on the beach there was a shark about. Everything was back to normal the next day. I even saw two spearfishermen heading off to the exact location the attack had happened. I went surfing as well and gave little heed to the past event.

Organic Pete, Tics and Big Trees

Am back in Byron Bay just south of the Queensland border. I was warned that Queensland is not as good as NSW and I have to agree. The coastal developments are all a little too highrise. The Sunshine Coast though nice is glutted with cheap and tacky apartments. Inland however the National Parks are beautiful with collections of waterfalls and rainforests to explore. Last Sunday after leaving Nambour we stayed at an Eco village called Crystal Waters, about halfway between Maleney and Donningvale. We were looking for some work in return for accomodation and food but none was available. The next day we headed for Kennilworth State forest to check out some huge trees we had heard of. We stopped by a river near the forest at which point I heard a cry of distress from Evelyn. She had discovered one of the downsides to rambling through rainforests, a tic, a tiny little parastic insect which burrows into your skin, sucks your blood and possibly leaves nasty diseases after it drops off. Then started a frantic bodily search for more of the little buggers. After about 3/4 of an hour we had discovered at least 15 on Evelyn and only one on me. Arghh


Kennilworth State Forest was amazing. We went on a short walk called fig tree walk where there were trees that must have been thousands of years old. Some of the trees had trunks with a girth larger than a double decker bus. Trully amazing stuff. We then spent Monday night in a camp site within the forest where I hardly got any sleep. We had cooked dinner and as usual I don't bother washing up till morning. I stacked all my dirty steel cooking equipment by a tree and we retired to the tent. As soon as we turned off the light I could hear movement outside the tent. The animals had awakened. Specifically a gang of pesky bush turkeys spent the next 10 hours or so doing their best to scrape whatever food they could find off my pots and pans. However in the process they put up such a racket I almost went mad. I got up in the morning to find stuff spread everywhere and our rubbish bag torn open and the contents strewn. One bush turkey was still hacking at a plastic container which in fact contained no food but the turkey was intent on destroying it and had in fact manage to crack the lid by hammering it for hours with it's sturdy beak. If Evelyn hadn't been Vegetarian we may have had strangled turkey for breakfast.


The next day we called in at Eumundi to stay with "Organic" Pete, a Vegan / Fruitarian surfer who was transforming a property back into rainforest. A trully nice guy who lent us surfboards and didn't work us too hard in the garden at all. We weeded and mulched, cleaned up and even built a primitive shed out of tree cuttings. However if you are a meat eater then beware, Pete pulls no punches in informing you of the evils of your ways. The food he cooks is delicious. I can thoroughly recommend taking a handfull of macadamia nuts and throwing them in a blender with a little bit of lemon juice and water to make a delicious sauce to go over salad or potatoes ( or dare I say a nice juicy steak. ) With the delicious food comes a history lesson in the culinary habits of people, whales, monkeys and anything else that walks or once did walk this fine planet of ours. A bit full on but his heart is in the right place. Four nights there was enough for me to feel guilty about coveting a meaty dinner so after some discussion decided to head on back to Byron where we are trying to find Evelyn a surfboard to come shredding with me.

Catchya all.

B