More thoughts on the northern lands..

Everything round these parts is an "experience". There's the whitewater experience. The cultural experience. Your rainforest experience. Your reef experience. Your coffee experience, your experience experience. You get the picture.

Queensland road sign-writers are secret da-da-ists. My favourites so far are "Rest Stop or Dead Stop" amd "Drunk?, Tired? R.I.P." (the latter in the shape and trompe l'oeile style of a gravestone).

There's nought as queer as folk. Adventuring Dutch, a dirt-biking tradey with 2.5 fingers on one hand seeking humane advice on his son's HSC choices, Rene of Boissevain the mad French crystal enthusiast. Nothin' like some big open spaces to bring out the diamonds in the rough out here.<

The Telfunken TCD3700 is a king among discount stereo equipment. Four wheel drive only track? Several fords, corregations, dips, pitholes and turns along the way? This mighty MP3 compatible machine played Michael Franti and the South Park soundtrack for every single one of those 75 kms, without a jump, skip or glitch, buffeted only by a sturdy felt hat and a calico bag. Simply astounding. Which reminds me. Dramamine. Its the shit.

Putting the ass in class. An honourable mention for "stuck in the seventies motor inn bistro award". Last night we were dumstruck, confounded, and enraptured at the venue to end all venues. It was the shells-screwed-to-wall water feautre in the entrance with all pipes showing ssurrounded by concrete frogs and "lazy mexican" garden ornamnets. It was the one other table occupied by four elderly citizens and a not-quite-middle-aged son tucking into a round of seafood baskets. The moustaches on the bar man. The tiled floor. The live 2-piece limping through versions of Heartbreak Hotel, Love me Do, Imagine, Hippy Shake and other gems from the 60s, 70s and mid-70s. The t-bars on the girl tourists also having meals. The enourmous, cheap servings. The enourmous space adjacent to the bistro containing a couch right in front of the dance floor. The incredible dancin' fools who showed up clearly ready for a big Saturday night in their best kit and freshly shaven. The music appreciation by punching the air of afore-mentioned crowd. The surprise divergence of the third set to include "Just Another Brick in the Wall" and "Blister in the Sun" complete with the sequenced signature snare drum breaks. We loved it. All of it. And no groovy night out in Sydney town with as many A-list guests as you care to mention will surpass the experience.