Scone to Kookaburra Huts.

Monday 28 May : Scone to Timor

57.9km, 3h 33min, max 57.5km/hr.

What a crazy time I'm having.

Here are a selection of things I thought about or had to deal with over the course of this somewhat mixed up Monday.

1. At the Timor Hall where I stayed the night (I know I'm starting at the wrong end of the day) I was pleased to hear plenty of chirping and croaking from the creek about 20m away. I hadn't heard a lot of this in my travels strangely. Perhaps I am entering 'Frog Country'. I am quite fond of the old frog. If you've ever been to western Queensland (and other places no doubt) you'll be familiar with the incessant croaking from the green tree frogs that frequent the porcelain areas of your house. They stare at you as you stare back - with a mutual wondering of what the other is doing there and how to get rid of them.

2. The Scone area is under some serious flight paths. There seems to be the hum of a jet at least every half hour. Comforting when you have a beacon that relies on its signal being picked up by a aircraft, but odd after you've been in the bush camping not more than 50km away and not heard much at all. I'm thinking Brisbane to Sydney flight path here, but there'd have to be a heap of other commercial activity as well to account for the number of aircraft.

3. I nearly had a gravel dinner. A major gravel dinner. Not the regular 'oral' dinner either. I would have been soaking in the gravel for weeks through my skin if I hadn't fluked out of this one.

I was just cruising down this gentle hill looking about as you are prone to doing when the road is good. Got a bit of a sway happening (probably took my hand off the 'wheel') and was in a nice phase of acceleration thanks to the full load weight of the panniers (doing about 35km/hr). Some country roads are so advanced that they have big concrete pipes to allow water to flow under the road and this road was one of them. Felt the loose gravel under the front tyre and this snapped me out of my daydream quite promptly. It's amazing what you can process in your head in the milliseconds that these events are timed in. Heading straight for the drain I tried to control the bike, prepared for an abort of the vehicle, wondered how many different pieces the bike would fall into, contemplated why I didn't see this coming, and sort of winced towards the part of the road that I'd liked to have been traveling on. As luck would have it my front tyre caught a bit of solid ground about 3m from the pipe and it mega-jolted the whole bike and me onto the road and I continued perfectly balanced. The rear wheel must have missed the pipe's edge by about a foot. How? Dunno. I was so prepared for (and deserving) disaster that the adrenalin didn't subside for about 5 minutes. It was the funniest thing as I can't work out for the life of me how I didn't end up in a messy pile roadside. The whole event took about 2 seconds and I almost had to look back to see if it was real.

4. Earlier I'd struck a problem at Gundy. Cool name for a town. No complex multi syllable name that you can pronounce any which way. No complex spelling, not longer than 5 letters and pretty efficient on the vowels.

There I'd rung to ask permission to transverse the property of a person which the trail passed through. I copped an earful. She didn't. The trail had been rerouted and I was not aware. I was glad that the money ran out midway through our conversation. It threw a spanner in the works as I'd wanted to go through Barrington Tops N.P.. After some pondering and looking in the shop/servo there for a decent district map I got talking to a bloke from Belltrees called Scott. He said I could head up through Timor to Nundle and on to Walcha or Nowendoc from there. There was no map to show the way but decided this would be best. An hour or so later I had recovered from my earful and the change in direction and realised that this was the route I had planned to take 6 months ago anyway when I was looking through the guidebooks for the first time. Now I was riding mapless as my topos had included the Tops in the very corners and I had not been able to find a decent road map in Scone. A refreshing way to travel really but at first it made me uncomfortable.

These cows ran ahead of me parallel to the fence to the top of the hill. Some came from the other side of the paddock. They couldn't work out what the bike was and were very interested in it.

5. Got talking to an old bloke who I'd woken from dozing in his 4WD while he was minding his cattle on the road. This was about 6km from Timor so I asked him about the place and the district etc. We talked about properties and sheep and bores. Country sort of stuff. He told me that the hall would be ok to stay at in the locality of Timor - he was one of the committee who looked after it. H told me that Kerry Packer had bought in the area recently and so had another avid polo player from Argentina. Brought up the price of places and increased their rates etc. This bloke wasn't selling out. Apparently Kerry has a place which he flies into and has built some 'nice' polo fields . It also has (or is getting) a Greg Norman designed golf course. Out in the middle of the mountains. I'd like to be greenkeeper there please. This Argentinian fellow was a bit peeved that he couldn't land his Lear Jet at his new property. Had to land it in Scone and get an adjoining flight. How inconvenient. This old timer's parting words were "Don't burn the place down."

6. Raise your hand if you read the notes at the bottom of the page even though they're not directed to you. It's of no consequence to me if you do or not, but aren't we humans funny.

Now raise your hand if you didn't raise your hand when you were asked to because you thought you'd feel 'stoopid' or would embarrass yourself in front of someone else who was in the room. Thank you. You were busted.

7. Reading the emails that I received was one of the highlights for the day. A mixture of the good, unusually weird, and extremely funny from a mixture of people. Thanks for your efforts in pushing the 'send' button.

Tuesday 29 May : Timor to Ponderosa Forest Camp

71.1km, 5h 32km, max 47.5km/hr.

A story about a boy called Michael.

Once upon a time there was a boy on a bike. He was riding his bike a long way in a place called Australia. His name was Michael.

Michael got up one morning and packed up all his gear, for he had been camping. He loaded it on his bike and rolled northward. He had no idea what the day would hold. He had no maps and only knew that He would find Nundle somewhere up the road.

On this particular morning he was glad to have the gloves that a friend had sent him for it was a miserable day. Rain was going to fall soon and he had only just started. It was dark and overcast. It was cold too.

Michael rode through some grazing country and saw lots of sheep and cows and rolling hills with very few trees. Not very exciting he thought. He'd seen these things before and was getting tired of them. He trundled along anyway and kept his eyes mostly on the road for it was a but patchy.

Michael passed some horse riders who were coming from down a road marked "Timor Caves'. Michael was fond of caves but they were too far off the track and he had no idea what they would be like. A few km down the road he stopped to fix his riding apparel as he was getting a bit wet and muddy. The type of muddy your mother doesn't like. Sandy mud was being spat up the rear of his bike everywhere even though he was just poking along.

As he was re arranging stuff he noticed a few blackboy trees over the fence. "Hmmm" he thought "that's an odd place for them to grow". He parked his bike and went to the fence to have a look. These blackboy trees were infesting this hill. What a change! How weird. These trees swept right up the side of the hill and around the corner. There must have been hundreds and hundreds of them. It was like they had claimed this particular hill as their own. Michael took some photos and then cycled on with this oddity in his head.

A climb started soon after and Michael found that his chain kept on slipping on the teeth of the cogs. "How annoying" he thought. He stopped at a stream to wash the chain as best he could and then rode on. This problem didn't go away easily. "How annoying" he thought again.

Crawney's Pass was where he was headed the sign said and he rode the whole way up with only a short break to let a 4wd pass comfortably and to wipe the water from his visor. To amuse himself during this climb he toyed with the drops that formed on the visor of his helmet. This worked well.

It grew quite windy at the top of Crawney's Pass. This just made wet things colder, but it was a sign that a downhill section was about to start. It did shortly after and Michael enjoyed the cruisy ride down the long hill. His chain kept slipping though and he found this (you guessed it) quite annoying. But downhill he didn't have to pedal much anyway. He'd give the chain a good clean when he got into Nundle.

A sign to the west said 'Dag Sheep Station'. He rode past this and ran into a hill. It didn't hurt. His chain kept slipping though ...annoyingly, and so Michael got off and pushed his bike up the hill even though it wasn't very steep.

A yellow van pulled up ahead after it had passed. Michael stopped beside it and the driver said "G'day mate". Michael said "Hello" in return, to which the driver muttered "Ah good - he speaks English". Michael thought that this was an odd comment to make.

The driver told him that the Dag Sheep Station was like a youth hostel where travelers could stay and that there was going to be a fairly big 'do' on this evening if he'd like to stay. Aussie cooked food campfire style and the like with plenty of grog and wild tales from the few bus loads of young tourists that were on their way there. Michael said he'd consider it but would go on to Nundle first (8km down the road). Michael was in for some solitude though and wanted to keep moving but he did think about going back.

Nundle seemed a nice place and very organised for people like Michael who were traveling through. It was well signed and had a great leaflet which told you about what to do and where to go in and around Nundle. Michael asked about where to get a map at the information place but the man there seemed to be devoid of useful information or ideas. This was quite a contradiction to the big blue sign with an 'i' on it outside. Nonetheless, Michael ordered some hot chips which he ate hungrily before heading to the shire office.

The lady at the shire office was nice to look at as she had a very suitable hairstyle. She was extremely helpful and provided Michael with a photocopied road map and some local information about places to camp. Michael gave his chain a rinse and then set off for a forest camp called 'Ponderosa Forest Camp'. All the locals he spoke to on the way out of town said that he was heading for a very cold place indeed.

A few km up the road towards a place called Hanging Rock a hill started. While pushing up this hill in a struggling and exhaustive fashion Michael contemplated how may Hanging Rocks he had seen on maps in his travels. There were at least four. There were also at least four Gibraltar Rocks as well. "Unoriginal" Michael thought, "but them's the breaks" - a term his mother often used. Once he had finished this thinking he realise he was only about half way up this hill and it was getting no easier. He struggled on.

As it grew darker Michael grew anxious about getting to this camp in time to see anything and have a look around. The clouds were looming again after a partially clear sky over Nundle. The temperature was dropping and Michael was tired and hungry. Not a good equation at the end of a long day.

The camp arrived a few km before expected. This pleased Michael to no end. He inspected the toilet facilities which, to his surprise, were flush toilets. Strange technology in the middle of a forest of pine trees. He had a look around for a place to pitch the tent making sure to avoid a worn pathway which could have been a pig trail. He'd startled a few wild ones not long before and so was wary of where they might come and go.

A car pulled up and two army dudes got out. They were on their way to Armidale from Sydney. Their job was to check a route for a convoy of 4WD trucks on an army training course that would be coming through in a few weeks. They would camp the trucks here too, but that would be well into winter and it would be cold with a capital I-C-E by then.

Michael quickly set up the tent and got his gear arranged so nothing could get at it while he slept. He didn't have a proper dinner for the third time on his journey. He munched on some carrots and beans which he decided was a healthy enough meal in itself before he curled up to sleep.

Well, Michael's day had come to an end. He realised that no matter how bad things look at different stages there is always an end to the day. The end is usually him in his tent snuggled into his sleeping bag in a secure tent. It is without hunger or fear of others or animals. It is without concerns about what he has not done or where he has not been in the daylight hours. And with and without all these particular things, there was no reason to lose sleep on this particular night or any following night for that matter. He figured that he was indeed lucky to have had this day at all.

Wednesday 30 May : Ponderosa Forest Camp to TSR 12km from Walcha

76.9km, 4h 23min, max 75km/hr.

Making progress.

Weather predictions for the day were not good, but as it turned out, the day only got brighter and hotter. It was cold early particularly since I spent most of the time going down hill. Upon waking it was 2 degrees - not so bad.

I intended just riding as far as I felt like as there were numerous places where I could have camped at a hall or TSR. This is of course how you are meant to tour in an ideal world. Niangla, Ingalba and Aberbaldie were on this list. Such common names they are.

Passed a pig carcass by the side of the road not long after starting and then met the army dudes coming back from Armidale where they'd stayed the night. They gave me a good road report. Once on the tablelands I was able to cruise as there was a fair bit of bitumen.

Got the max speed going down this hill that was neither long nor steep, but I looked down at the speedo and saw 70 and I was still accelerating so I just tucked up and went with it.

Had lunch at the Niangla tennis courts where I realised my feet were nearly frozen. It took nearly half an hour to get them fully functional again. The direct sunlight was good but clouds and the wind easily erased any warmth you gained.

If I thought Niangla was small (it even had a school and some streets), then I should have known what the other two would be like. There wasn't even a sign for Ingalba and I only knew I'd passed it because there was a short stretch of bitumen off to one side road when my odometer suggested that 'it should be somewhere here'. I went searching for Aberbaldie but it was merely a property with plenty of buildings (mostly sheds).

Decided to ride on towards Walcha (wull-ka) even though it was getting late. Not far up the road I spotted a TSR sign on a gat and I saw a creek running through it. This would do and as it turned out there was a nice flat area hidden away from the road near the creek. Washed my shirt and shorts and hung them out to dry on the fence beside the bike, but doubted they'd do so overnight. I washed them in a plastic bag that had absolutely no holes in it. Astounding.

Typed emails for nearly 2 hours as I've realised it chews very little battery if I keep telling the hard drive to spin down. A crystal clear night outside and bright stars which I gazed at for a little while before going to bed.

Thursday 31 May : TSR 12 km from Walcha to Aspley Falls

44.2km, 2h 41min, max 65km/hr.

What's my longitude?

An early start - 3am. Woke up and couldn't sleep so drafted the mountain bike page for the site which I hadn't got completed before I left for the trip. It was in the same basket as the fund raising page and the National Parks page. Keep an eye out for it appearing on the site. (Yes, I'll tell you when.)

I awoke at about 6:30 and decided that it was quite cold. My water bottle told me this when it crackled as I squeezed it. This is what I found outside the tent :

a) Water left in my bowl had a layer of ice 1/2 a cm thick across it.

b) The tent inner and outer were frosty and the zip shredded ice as I used it.

c) Frost was everywhere giving the appearance of a light snowfall.

d) My bike was mostly a transparent sort of white.

e) My bike seat was white and growing. Ice, not frost.

f) The ground was solid... and you know how I found that out.

g) The tarp was stiff and frosty.

h) And of course my clothes hanging on the fence were frozen solid.

I wasn't outside for long, and I threw the thermometer out on the tarp to get a reading. Negative four degrees at 6:50. Negative nine degrees about 20 minutes later. Welcome to the New England Tablelands.

I thought it was meant to be coldest pre dawn, but that theory was debunked pretty smartly. It was broaching negative ten on my little thermometer. Those full length gloves had arrived just in the nick of time.

Arrived in Walcha proud of my climate tolerance. This town has a 'hard working' feel to it, and at the same time you get the feeling that you have been taken note of by the locals.

While at the info centre a couple pulled up on bikes loaded nearly as heavily as mine. Introducing Randy and Jodie - a married couple riding around Australia. We had a long chat about a variety off bike things and then about digital cameras and web sites. Randy's camera has a 64MB memory. That's the memory of most desktop computers. It can hold about 500 good quality shits... oops, typo...'shots' that was meant to be. ('o' shouldn't be next to 'i' on the keyboard... man - that was a good solo chortle in my LNH) I gave them my site address and they gave me a little printed slip of paper with their site details on it... something I have been meaning to do for weeks but haven't got to yet. Their site is : http://www.users.bigpond.com/RandyMiller I haven't checked it as of yet but apparently there are heaps of photos.

Went to the top of the hill in Walcha to the NPWS office to ask about going through Werrikimbe and camping areas. Bloke there was most helpful and set me and my map straight. Picked up a flyer about the N.P. to read down the road sometime. Much more relaxed than the fellow at the information centre who seemed like a bit of an odd character. Went and got some basic top ups of supplies from the shops while they were handy as well.

I was unable to send email from the community centre, but did manage to get the batteries charged on the iBook while I rewrote the most pertinent emails on one of their computers to send. One of the ladies said she'd do a write up about me and the trip for their community newspaper which I thought was generous.

Today I would only go as far as Aspley Falls. The falls were another 20km down the road, and only about a kilometre from the main road which is always a nice feature when you have to ride everywhere. These falls are a top spot. Great camping are with good facilities and very close to the main attraction. Like having a unit in the city centre, or a beach house. I cannot truly explain what it is like to be back in a national park and on my way to rejoin the trail after a few days of having somewhere to go to, but not knowing how it fitted in the big picture. Relief, excitement, eagerness and contentment might be a few ways to describe it.

I had the place to myself. I don't even get my own toilet at home in Brisbane. I had the pick of sites and fireplaces and wood. It is an unusual situation though - 100m to the north is a steep sided gorge with a river at least a hundred and fifty metres below, 100m to the east is a paddock with grazing sheep and 200m to the south is the highway with cars and trucks hurtling along it.

After doing a few calculations I have worked out that by arriving back in Brisbane on the 30th of June I will have been on the BNT / bike for 100 days. How about that.

Friday 1 June : Aspley Falls to Tia Falls

28km, 1hr 41min, max 58.5km.

Feeling kinda weird today.

The top of Tia Falls. Very rugged area but not as steep as the Aspley Gorge. Note the moss and angle of the rocks. Difficult to get photos here unless you scramble onto a nerve tingling rock edge and hang on to a hopefully well rooted tree.

Negative six is what I found, before my feet hit the icy ground.

An easy day with nothing to do, a concept which was entirely new.

Wrote 2 postcards and serviced the bike, before I packed up for a short hike.

30 km was all I had to ride, but it was hard for my body was tired.

It was a bit boring as I went along, nothing notable to put in a song.

The hills got sharper towards the end, I kept looking ahead for the final bend.

7km in to Tia Falls, not what you want when your body wants to stall.

Organised a camp then off to explore, and compared to Aspley this place needed more.

Strange sounds I heard - like a radio's mumble, weird - perhaps it was the water's high tumble.

Got all emotional while by the fire, guess I was drained - I'd been riding to the wire.

Hoped for an early start just the same, a little bit sick? or perhaps just insane?

Saturday 2 June : Tia Falls to Mooraback Camp (Werrikimbe N.P.)

60km, 4h 10min, max was quite fast.

Wear and tear is on it's way here.

Got up early and was riding by 8am. A decent start considering yesterday. Negative four, so by Monday I might be getting back into the positive degrees Celsius.

Lowest gear is skipping so much that I cannot ride in first gear. This could be a real problem if it affects the other low gears. Any gear on the second chain ring is skipping so will have to give the chain a mighty good clean. Need some fuel to soak it in but that's not going to be available for a few days.

Odometer is not working any more. It was sort of responding for the first 10km but died after that. As a result I have to judge distances by time and the estimates from the 1:250 000 topo map I'm working off. I don't think there's much I can do about it, but will attempt to resurrect it in the coming days. Chain is a priority.

Have had poor water for days since traveling through grazing areas. Have to be careful for sheep and pigs and other 'things' release parasites into the water sources. Halls and churches usually have tanks so I was glad to find a tank at the Yarrowhich Church.

There was a phone there and I checked in with Diane and rang Steve who informed me that Richard Kingsmill was the JJJ DJ in question that Angelique and I were discussing back at the cottage just over a week ago. The rubbish bin next to this phone had had some traveler's rubbish crammed into it and it was spilling everywhere . I always leave a place at least slightly neater than when I found it, but there was only so much I could do here. It was a real mess.

The bitumen ended over the next few hills and I was back on the trail with a left hand turn. There was an impressive sign to notify people that the BNT crossed the highway here. There should be more of them in positions like this.

Got a hisser of a flat tyre about 8km later. I'd been contemplating my luck here over the last few days, and I guess this was confirmation that tyres do indeed go flat. It took me a slow 50min to get on the road again for it was my rear tyre and I took the opportunity to have some lunch while the bike was unloaded. I wasn't quite expecting the second flat for the day (same place on the tube) less than half an hour later at the bottom of the spur I'd been descending. Realised that it was due to a split in the wall of the tyre and so I gaffa taped it up a bit in the hope it would last me a few days longer. Had a second lunch here next to the creek and it took about the same amount of time.

Two very serious climbs followed which put me back into 'Victoria climbing mode' which I hadn't been in for some time. Plugged away over the two spurs which the road crossed and made a pretty good job of it. Cruisy down hills which gave me a good amount of time to recover.

Bloody foxes in this country. That's the third one I've seen in about two days, but the first live one. They're an introduced species which are nothing but trouble and expense. Bloody tall foxes around here that are cheeky enough to stop and watch you - must be eating the sheep to grow that big. Bloody tall foxes that look like dogs. Oh. Hello dingo.

Woo-hoo! - into Werrikimbe N.P. at last. I had to ride 50km to get to this sign. It's another 10km to the Mooraback camp ground but at least I get some shade and cooler air riding through the forest.

A large established group of campers and a group that arrived just before me were all that were at this camp ground. I moved to the far end where I figured it'd be quieter. A truly super spot to camp. Better than Tia Falls, and just nudging Aspley Falls out of a top spot for 'all-round-contentment'. I collected some wood from the wood bin - off cuts from the timber mills which don't usually burn that well.

Tried to work out what was wrong with the odometer but was getting no positive signs. Swapped the guide cogs on the rear derailleur in the hope that it would guide the chain a little more accurately onto the teeth and eliminate the skipping problem a bit. It was starting to affect second gear.

Had a bit of a headache as I prepared a damper for cooking with my dinner. There actually is water here in a small stream which is about 10m from my tent. Not your rocky type of stream, more swampy and well grassed. Good clean water though. Ate the supa corned beef and rice meal I'd developed at Glen Alice and the damper turned out just great - I've almost got the cooking of them down pat.

Got a chance to read the national parks leaflets and information boards. On the Aspley Falls blurb on one there is a photo of the falls taken by F.Low. No lies, that was the name.

One of the rules of camping in a national park is that you can't use generators. The larger group started theirs at about 6pm and it continued on well into the evening as I woke up twice a few hours later and it was still humming away. I'm sure the wild life appreciate it too.

Sunday 3 June : Mooraback Camp to Kookaburra (Willi Willi N.P.)

At least 45km, about 4h 20 min, max was quite slow.

Some learning experiences.

Up at 6:30. Cold (-3 degrees)... and I was going to write 'not freezing' but theoretically it was. Got to the dunny early as I wasn't about to stand around in these sorts of temperatures waiting for someone else. It was quite foggy and crispy underfoot. I got the camera out and went for a stroll up the walking track near my camp and got some decent shots of the trees in the fog and the old stockyards. Returned and ate breakfast which was an unusual change in routine.

The early hours of the morning were filled with the howling of several packs of dingoes. I wondered as I lay there, trying to determine their numbers and positions, if the fox impersonator was amongst them.

I was on my way again at 9:30 with an instantly jumping chain under the load. Obviously my derailleur tinker had had no effect whatsoever. I battled with this for a few minutes until I found that 3rd gear was ok... for the time being.

About 3km up the road and numerous little hills with a more skipping than sitting chain I'd had a gut full and stopped. I tried to loosen the chain up a bit and clean some of the gunk off it. I was beginning to think that there must be a fair few links that were starting to seize and miss their teeth as they came round to the front chain ring with the consistency of the event. Very unpleasant and very frustrating.

The scenario I was faced with was that I couldn't use first or second gear, and I'd have to push up more hills because of this. More hills that I'd normally be able to ride up comfortably. 'Accept it, deal with it and move on'. Once I'd spoken these little words of wisdom aloud and realised their worth I did so and was content to make the restricted progress I was making. After all, 'progress is better than no progress at all'.

About 10 minutes after this little realisation and it's acceptance I was rewarded with a flat section along Racecourse Road and the sound of falls not far from the road. I pulled over (without indicating) and went looking for the source. If I'd been in a vehicle I wouldn't have heard it at all, so I was glad that I had ridden past here on my bike. Crystal clear water was what I found gushing over some pretty falls. This I found out a bit later (from a hidden info board for walkers) was the Kunderang Brook and these were the Kunderang Falls.

After a damper and condensed milk lunch I surveyed the area. Something inside me told me to 'nude up' and I heeded the call. I hadn't had a wash since Scone a week ago, so it was really a good idea. It was more of a brief swim that I had than a wash. If I had been 'David' there would have been no controversy, only speculation. I took a shallow dive across the pool at the base of the falls and on the way back submerged my entire self. I think I experienced what would be known as cold shock. Basically my senses went dead for a second or two and by the time I realised I was out on the other side anyway. Be very careful with swimming in freezing water. This was way, way colder than the Goulburn River between Lazarini's Spur and Mt Terrible, and even colder than the ice bowl which was Dunns Swamp. An awakening experience.

I got to a junction a bit further down the road feeling very fresh indeed. It had no signs other than the names of the two national parks which met there. The ranger in Walcha said it was all clearly signed... uh, nope. I pondered for a while, scoured maps, got the GPS out to determine position, walked a bit down each road and then went with instinct. Again it was right, but I can tell you I wasn't convinced for about 5km.

Dipped into a glorious rainforest area surrounding a creek and I didn't mind pushing out the other side and up the hill. Pushing in places like this gives you that little bit longer in the area and it was a truly beautiful place. If there had been a flat area to pitch the tent it would have been up in a flash.

A bit further on I encountered a 4WD with a dog as a passenger. Let me refresh your memory on the rules of national parks. Ok, it was inside but still. The humans were, like most, surprised to see me and gave me some information on the road ahead which partly made up for their illegality which was poking its head through from the back seat.

Set up camp about 8km further on at Kookaburra which is an old forestry and scout camp with two huts. Took a bearing for NE for this was where the sun was rising from. This might get my tent the sun earlier if the tent is positioned well.

As I was in the middle of arranging stuff and considering a campfire two 4WDs pulled up. Odd I thought, for a Sunday afternoon. At first I thought they were rangers, then scout hut volunteers, but then found out they were just folk out to explore the area and this was the best time for the 5 of them to go together.

Went for a drive with them looking for a waterfall lookout. We went way down the spur/ridge to a clearing where a cedar logger used to work (he disappeared though once the tax man tried to catch up with him) and spotted some enormous carnivorous birds tearing apart something on the road. I'd guess hawks, but really can't remember. We returned and found the falls lookout after a brief bush bash down a track. It was almost dark but we were able to get a good look at it. It was a narrow falls which had four large tiers .

I was invited to join them for dinner which I thankfully did. A steak sandwich was on the menu. The best bit of steak I'd had in months. The few beers they shared made me contemplate how I could actually carry beer on my bike. (There must be a way.) We then sat around the campfire and chatted to an exceptionally late hour in my terms (11:30pm). The conversations covered some fairly heavy subjects , but the main one was 'regional anthropology'. It was a lot to soak in as these folk were from a diverse set of backgrounds. I didn't get the full story on how they all came to be out on this particular Sunday, but figured there was a common link somewhere.

David owned a property near Walcha and has family ties going way back in the region, Andrew was a Scotsman who had moved to Australia and was now training to fly helicopters while with Catherine - who is studying acting and who also has a deep family history in the area, Garry who can cook a damper like nothing I've seen and adds a super liqueur to billy tea, and Neil who is/was a builder and has done some serious camping and exploring in the bush in the region. Overall, the most well read and travelled, diversely skilled and experienced and relaxed group of people I've come across yet.

Notes:

Dad - they get aerial fertilising done here on their paddocks. Can you imagine doing that in western QLD?!

Raise your hand if you name hasn't appeared here yet!

Diane - you might get some good photos of Oz from Randy and Jodie's site. Randy is originally from Seattle, Jodie from Perth.

Angelique - Richard Kingsmill!

Ang - how many national parks have Coby and Stacey seen?

Steven - do you think I need some lessons in recognising basic Australian wildlife? Also perhaps bike problem diagnosis?

Molly - I'm in Tenterfield at present. Am way past Lismore but perhaps another time for that particular topic!

Shauno - Is 'nude up' still the call for the 30th bungee jump?

Garry - Thanks for the bed/shower/real table/tv/space/company etc for the night recently. How was Catherine's show?