yes!! Koala's

we have now seen a lovely little koala, totally in the wild - so cute!
we where on magnetic island doing this hill walk, looking out for them, and sure we saw two of them (seperately), just clinging too the tree with his eyes shut, and his little black button nose popping through his fur - so nice!

they have the loveliest lives, they sleep for about 20 hours, then get up for a bit, eat some leaves, play for a bit - and then go back to bad! bit like being on the dole i guess, without the guilt!

golf

what was the tiger stuff about? we saw him cry but didn't know why - did heh win (actually, im on the internet now, so i should just check really - what a lazy arse!)

we had our own mini open here too - there was a free 7 hole (7 ???) golf course on the camp site we stayed so we had a mini tornament with some aussies, and we played for the 'Red jumper' - which juz had picked up for 50 cents - the aussies won, but we couldn't let go of the jumper, too attatched

So jim, i guess Hoylakes very own Flat foot sams didn;t make a come back then??

and Claire, if thats mums fave bar,then the italian restaraunt in Amsterdam is still the best ever then?? Mum, what do you reckon???

well, we aint seen one yet - but they are close

koala's:
apparently on a nearby island - chris and becky saw them on magnetic island recently so hopefully we can get over there and spot one - capture it, bring it back, and sell it to the highest bidder - any offers?

quick update

RIVER CAMP
camped for free back in julia creek by a little river crrek which was lovely - cooked up on the wook BBQ and payed zero dollars for the privelage - wonderful

BITES
we are both gettin bitten to buggery by some invisiable bugs that love our ankles - it itches so much, and then throbs for ages after - we aren;t getting much sleep but they seem to be clearing up now thank god

TRAINS HONKING
it get a little quite on the outback roads so we have taken to honking and waving madly the passing trains on the road (they run paralell) and we have made up cos all but one of the trains have honked back! so does that make us sad, boring, dull - or all three!!!

BRUCE
because we find a faux diamond encrusted letter B in the car, we have glued it to the bonnetof the car and christened him 'Bruce' - which is quite appropriate because we will soon be driving down the bruce highway

LIVING IN BRUCE
we have now left the campsite and will be kipping in the back of bruce for the next few nights - it looks great and we have a permanant bed set up in the back of the car now - which actaully looks well cosy!!!

some nice pics

was pretty amazing to see loads of wild rainbow lorikeets (juz told me the name) on the campsite - you just dont expect them to be outside little cages - so pretty
this is charters towers which we passed though - and very nice indeed - its an old gold rush town, and feels quite wild west too
and this is townsville where we are now - its massive and has lots of groovy bars, and nice scenery - we'll see how it goes here and may stay a little longer before heading off for work somewhere

even though they will never read this,

a big thanks to greg and sally who unwittingly stopped for breakfast next to us, when our car would not start at a deserterd rest stop in the outback

before you knew it, they had the air filter off, spark plugs out, a generator on our battery, borrowed someone elses jump leads for us - and then cleaned the spark plugs in petrol with THEIR toothbrush!

we were gutted cos we had no cash or bottles of whisky and all we could give them for their efforts was a can of JD and coke, and a million thanks!

nice to see people like that still exist though, truly helpful - and such nice people!

finally got on the internet

after passing through the remotest areas of the world i have ever seen - we drove 200k to a town on the main road that had 20 people, then another 200k to a town of 100, then another 200k to a roadhouse! its nuts, there is just nothing in the NT part of oz - but now we are in queensland where there is a little more excitement,

soooo, should be able to catch up on emails soon, apols for that - and we now have the phone charged too, at last - although we have two sim cards for one phone, so they are not always on

road trains!

are eveywhere here, thay are up to 4 carrages long and stop for no one - it takes about 1k to overtake them, and if they come behind you its like a scene from mad max - so bloody scary

they just cruise down the roads all day and night, and hate slowing down so if we see one we just pull over and let em go!

food glorius food!

have to admit we are eating well here, espesh with all the free barbies they have on campsites - we've got a bootfull of exotic condiments which accompany the garlic chicken, or tandorri potatoes every night - ive never enjoyed cooking so much - juz cant get a look in! im fighting her away from the bbq with my set of tongues

'we are the grey - AR-MY!'

well. theres not much chance of us 'getting are f***** heads kicked in here' the grey army as they are affectionately known are infact the retired caravanners of oz , and there are millions of them - 80% of traffic on the road is caravans in the outback

they also go by the name of grey nomads, or geriatric gypsies! its quite cool though cos everyone we meet is lovely and chilled, where as when we meet the young travellers they are always trying to impress and outdo etc, too much ego!

god, am i getting old!!!


and on the subject of the NOT grey army, my dad was 60 last week so a big happy birthday to 'och Dessy!' :-)

some pics

this is the daly waters pub, where we stayed for a night - its in the middle of nowhere, but they get loads of travellers (grey army) each day to sample the BBQ and the dodgy humour - pure outback!








and this is the 'gorge' mount isa where we are now, until the car gets fixed! its like bradford in the desert - all based around the copper and silver mines here, 3 blokes to every girl and lots of dodgy cowboy hats etc - enough to keep us entertained for a few days, but im getting itchy feet already!! hope the car is alright!

it

cars, football, and mobile phones

cheers for the car tips mels, you are right, we lowered the revs with the little widget, and its a lot smoother if we go to D before switiching to R - however, we now have another problem which the mechanic is currently looking at, i wont bore you with the details apart from i found myself yesterday underneath two tons of car changing a fuel filter and getting covered in petrol - havent done that for a while - was fun!!

and cant believe the italians have done it, aren't they all up for curruption charges when they get back too??

also, we've been out of range with no signal, and recently no charge - as we've been in the outback in the middle of nowhere passing through places with a population of 20, but we nabbed a charger last night and looks we are 'mobile' again at the mo - for a while!