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I am sorry to say that the newsletter is in mothballs as I have run out of time to write it each week. The slideshows are my final fling and will remain in place for the forseeable future. I have moved to Agnes Water to do filming and photographs and sell my DVD of the area and it's attractions.

Tim

Click HERE for the first of the Australian Slideshows.

and HERE for the next bit.

And HERE is up to Byron Bay.

HERE IS PART 4 to Agnes Water and Town of 1770.

And MORE Agnes Water.

FROM Agnes water to Mackay

Mackay to Kuranda FNQ.

First week in KURANDA.

Port Douglas and the Mossman Gorge.

From Kuranda heading south.

ROUND AUSTRALIA FROM ADELAIDE 2003.

THE TRIP part one.

I figured that I should enlarge upon the journey that I have undertaken. A bit of a description of what I am doing is required here. Maybe not by you, but definitely by me. A sort of diary if you like.

Firstly I set off from Adelaide in South Australia where I am now living, to drive my car round the coast of Australia. This sounds easy, but I am talking about a continent roughly the size of the US for those not familiar with Oz.

This is a dawdling sort of journey with no real agenda. My car is a 1982 Toyota Corona station wagon, which has not been kindly looked after. The milage when I left was 291,059 km, and that may be the second time around.

I have driven this car to Cairns in the far north several times, but this is the slowest I have done. The idea this time, is to photograph and video my way around, so that I can have a record of the nicest and most scenic places I can find. Hopefully I can put this into some sort of saleable package at the end.

My idea is to live in the car and just stop where I want, and to this end I am living a very minimal existence. I have enough clothes to keep me going for some time until I have to stop and waste time at a laundromat, food I am buying as I need it, and nothing else apart from a still camera, a digital video camera and a laptop is included.

One thing I shouild have done was to check if my gas cooker was working, but just assumed it would. Unfortunately some mud wasp seems to have taken a liking to the gas fitting and so far I have not been able to light it up. This means that my meals are mostly cold meat sandwiches. At least I remembered the sleeping bag, which I forgot on another memorable trip.

Living in the back of a station wagon has it's disadvantages, the main one being that everything has to be done in a sitting feotal position. It also means that whenever you put something in a place that makes sense, it vanishes immediately and must be rediscovered by a time consuming process os re-packing everything. You then put it in a place to be found later and it's gone again. This also applies to just sitting and reading in the evening, when drinks and glasses and torches move mysteriously of their own accord.

I left Adelaide late in the afternoon just so I would actually be on the road, and made it to Rapid Bay for my first night. This is not far south but at least I was on my way, and RB is one of a string of places that I feel really comfortable camping at. These places have a peacefulness that is important to me.

As always (in my experience), it was cold and blowing at Rapid Bay (I never said I wanted to live there), but there is a feeling of relaxation. It is one of the spots that Tjilbruke (Aboriginal dreamtime figure) stopped on his way to Kangaroo Island with the body of his nephew. I don't know if it is the dreamtime connection or not, but it works for me.

The next morning was freezing (it is winter here after all, and the only thing between me and the South Pole is the horizon). I did manage to get a hot breakfast at the bbp provided there and carried on south to see some whales at Victor Harbor. Unfortunately, the calm weather we had had until then decided to go away so that was out of the question and I kept going.

I crossed the Murray river by ferry at Wellington and drove along the Coorong which is a sort of estuary which lies behind some enormous sand dunes and opens into the Murray mouth.

This is another special place for me with so much history associated with it. As you cross the sand dunes you can see middens of shelfish shells from the thousands of years the aboriginals spent here.

In the mid 1800s Chinese gold diggers where dropped on this most inhospitable of coasts and then set off to walk the 800 km or so to Ballarat and Bendigo to go to the goldfields. This was to avoid a ten pound tax in Victoria.

Some Chinese stayed there and built market gardens and with the aid of the local Aboriginals dug wells.

After that I carried on towards Warnambool and stopped short of there near Tower Hill which is an extinct volcanic crater with an island in the middle which is now a wildlife sanctuary.

After Warnambool I made it past The Twelve Apostles on the Great Ocean Road and camped at another of my favourite spots at Johanna Beach. Actually there are two of them, Red Johanna, and Blue Johanna. It is the same beach, but each end has a different name.

It is still cold, and I am waiting for the sun to come up so I can photograph and then I am going back up Laver's Hill to do an inland drive to photograph some southern rainforest. I am getting a bit tired of cold windy beaches.

Well, I got up Laver's Hill again, but the car decided it had had enough and stalled, and when I tried to start it again it let out the loudest backfire I have ever heard. Mind you, this was for a reason as it had been playing up all the previous day and my mechanic, Wayne, assured me it was just the new points.

Anyway, the upshot was, that the owner/proprietor of McDuffs famous bakery heard the noise and rang a mate who is a semi retired mechanic and he fixed it for me in about 2 minutes. Somehow there is always help at hand when I have breakdowns, or so it seems to date. I will tell of some of these as time goes by.

So, if any of you are travelling the Great Ocean Road and happen to feel peckish or looking for a really good cup of coffee, served by an eccentric entrepreneur, this place is worth checking out. His cakes and breads are really good too. I mean that, it isn't a plug.

I reckon that this section of the Great Ocean Road has some really great scenery, although the towns are getting built up a lot. One place to go though is Anglesea, the golf course is covered with kangaroos. These are not tame enough to pet, but don't worry too much about you taking there photos.

It rained and blew for the rest of that day, so I just went straight to Queenscliff to get the ferry to Sorrento. Queenscliff has some amazing old buildings and they still have red pillar boxes to post letters. These have a little fist holding a stick as a handle to open them.

I carried on in pouring rain and found a place to stay at Warneet. It was just a car park, but no one hassled me. it dried up a bit the next day and I travelled across southern Victoria which was quite pretty in a farming sort of way. It has rolling green hills and stands of trees here and there. I only tried to photograph the largest open-cast coalmine, but couldn't do it, so carried on to Sale and tried to find a roadhouse with a shower. Apparentlty they are doing away with roadhouses in that state. Finding a bacon sanger and a cup of horrible coffee for breakfast on the road looks like being a thing of the past.

Some caravan parks will allow use of showers for a nominal fee, although I got one for nothing so I had better not give them a plug.

Once back at the coast again the weather cleared a bit and the scenery was good. I haven't done Wilson's Prominatory yet, but will have to do this bit of the trip again at Xmas.

I got as far as Cann River and turned off to go down a long road to a National Park with a boat landing. There was no one there, just a car and three houses with no one home. The river was dead still and a frog was singing and the wind had stopped and the moon was really bright, and a More Pork/Mopoke/native owl, depending on which country you come from, flew into a tree near me. Another magic night in the forest. It is hard to photograph a bit of forest and make it look interesting, so mostly I stick to close-ups, but for those who don't know, Australia seems to have more trees per square hectare than almost anywhere I have seen. The leaves are small so not too much moisture is lost (I think) and therefore there is not much shade to stop others competing for sunlight. This means that nearly everytyhing growing in some places is just trees and shrubs and no grass.

If you want me to stop writing this sort of stuff, please let me know, I may not listen, but at least I will know someone cared enough to tell me.

After Cann River, I headed for the coast again at Eden. This is another special place. In the 1800s when there was whaling all round the coast, the Orcas/killer whales in this area would herd whales into the waiting whalers and even let them know where they were. I suspect it had to do with wanting really nice meals from the whalers but I'm not sure. Another place to visit in summer.

During the whale season which is now, whales regularly come into the harbour, so should you be in Eden and hear a fire siren going off, head for the harbour because it means the whales have arrived. It may be someone's house burning down too. Unfortunately none appeared while I was there, but a girl in a shop told me about a pod of dolphins at the town beach and they showed up on cue and swam past a couple of times. Only about 4 or 5 metres off shore.

Moving north from there along the coast, I finally got past the Sapphire Coast, which is one of the most spectacular series of coves and beaches, to arrive at Pebbly Beach just before sunset. This is another of my really special places. Normally there are up to 50 kangaroos hanging around hassling tourists, but recently a whole lot of them died mysteriously. There were still some there. These roos are wild, but have lived in this area for years. The caretaker has been there for 40 years feeding the group. Apparently they live about 10 years or so.

This, and the other two beaches of Depot and Durass are well worth visiting, as is Tathra.

It got too close to Sydney for me to follow the coast so I just drove. I don't know anyone in Sydney so staying there was not really an option, and all of you will have seen photos of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, and navigating in Sydney is terrible. I was going to stop on the Hawkesbury River as the scenery there is spectacular, but will come back and do that later.

I just carried on driving and am now in Byron Bay where I will relax for a bit and regroup before heading north again.

Do you have any idea just how far red wine can travel when spilt in the back of a car at night when you are just sitting quietly reading a paper? I can tell you that it is "all over the place". You don't want to know how I found out.

THE TRIP part two.

Ok, I'm still in Byron Bay in Northern New South Wales. The reason is obvious if you have ever been here. The weather is not too bad for mid-winter. The sun shines a lot and you can swim without losing bits of your body to frost bite, and there are palm trees and greenery all around.

You don't have to wear shoes, and there are people here from all over the world, all just enjoying the softness and relaxed lifestyle of this area.

The other night I was standing round an open fire in a drum listening to an American singer playing a double necked acoustic guitar and harmonica in the Railway hotel which was part of the station once. Now backpackers wander around at night clutching pillows while waiting for the late night train.

Last night was a doof party held outdoors in what was once a whaling station. The whales were winched onto the area of the party and then dealt with as usual.

This place was turned into an area that locals used for parties and raves, called The Epicentre, and which recently burnt down. A lot of people lost their equipment and the party was put on by locals to raise money.

It was interesting standing in the freezing cold around fires set up all over the place, watching footage of dolphins being projected onto one of the several Tee Pees, while all around were other amazing visuals and lights, and the opportunity to find what Mayan tribe you could belong to, while freaks in all manner of crazy costumes danced to djs pumping out music.

There were a lot of theatrical acts and fire twirling happening, including some incredibly agile acrobats on the back of a truck. There was no way to be bored. I was lucky in that a lot of locals came out of the woodwork to support those in need. Normally a lot of these people don't go to town as much as they used to because Byron is much more touristy than it used to be.

I have taken more photos but they will go up next week as I may stay here for a bit longer. It is a great place to unwind, and the greenery and the cane fields and the rainforest and not too distant ranges do that for me.

Byron is the most Eastern part of Australia and has long had magical and healing qualities so I may as well make the most of it. Maybe I will be bothered to go to Nimbin next week, but it is not such a nice feeling place, although the trip out there is really pretty.

I will just have to see what I can dredge up for you.

I have realised that I am on a quest, and as such, "a trusty steed" is required. It wouldn't be a quest without one would it? So, my car has obviously become that. It is purring along at the moment, something that is not of as much importance to you as it is to me, but it will obviously be there at the end, when I find whatever it is that I am questing for, not the Holy Grail, but I am sure it will come to me.

You have to have a Trusty Steed when Questing, just as a Super Hero requires a Nemesis, and an Arch Villain requires some Innocent who wins by just bumbling.

THE TRIP, part three.

I have been very slack for two weeks and haven't done any travelling. This area of the Northern Rivers of NSW is really relaxing. It has both rainforest and golden beaches with surf, and if you add a relatively warm winter, you can't go too far wrong.

I spent a couple of days getting here from just before Sydney because I expected to be closer to the coast. Unfortunately the road has been moved, and as I was looking for a favourite camping spot at (I think) Cooloongoolook State Forest. I wanted to wake up there and photograph the big trees that I normally sleep under, but with the road being altered, I missed the place in the dark, so kept going.

I passed the opportunity to get photos of the concrete turd that was the Leyland Bros world's centre piece. It is really a small copy of Uluru, but it is a very sad thing now. In fact it is now a pie shop ("We only have pies for you").

Coming up to the rivers near Grafton I started to see cane fields and I get homesick for them and the banana plants. Some of the rivers are navigable and most bridges are made to be raised for ships to pass through. I don't know if it still works that way.

I have done the early morning drive round here and visited Mullumbimby and Brunswick heads, as well as Byron Bay, and Bangalow, where I am now staying.

Country people go to work really early I have found. More happens round here at daylight than does in the city. Mind you, getting out of bed is not too hard when it feels like you are on holiday.

Frost on the roof is not something I normally get, living as I do, on the beach in Adelaide. Mind you, the sun that follows that means that the frost melts straight away.

Off to Lismore and Ballina today, with photo opportunities on the way back.

The weather is beautiful and there is so much greenery in terms of grass and trees, and heaps of really colourful people. Ok, some are holiday makers, but others live here, and have done so since the early hippie days of the late 60s and early 70s.

There is still a strong influence here from those people which becomes obvious when you pick up the local papers. There is so much political awareness and environmental awareness here, and it is reported all the time. There are all sorts of religions and belief systems here, along with more cleansing and healing workshops and meditation and yoga classes than you would have thought possible.

Mind you, the State Government and the Federal Government have a lot to answer for when it comes to Aboriginal issues here. I was shown a documentary about 3 Aboriginal sisters whose house mysteriously burnt down in the '40s or '50s, when a large company was sand mining here, and these people lived near the beach.

They spent the rest of their lives trying to get back to their land, but the local council zoned most of it off for subdivisions and the last bit left, with a sacred lake that was strictly a "Women's Place". The tourists, knowing no better, come and swim here, which is considered sacrilege.

After the Mabo case got through court and the Federal Government (under Howard) tried to stop it, they were given the last bit of land left over. The 50 metre exclusion zone round the lake was agreed, and a small area for a house site was also given. This was ratified with a signed agreement.

That was in 1997, so far, that is all that has happened. There is no house site where they used to live, and no exclusion zone, and no park. Houses near the zone are just moving their signs further into the area, and the Government has done nothing.

I move again on Monday so a new lot of photos will appear next weekend.

THE TRIP part four

Well, another missive from the north. At this time I am near Agnes Water on the coast again, north of Bundaberg, home of the rum named after it. The reason for that is the cane fields that surround this area and from which, rum is made.

I will return to the beginning of this week to keep in context. I left Byron Bay on Monday heading for Brisbane to meet a guy I knew when I was a teenager.

My first call had to be Mooball (pronounced moo-bull), which is a tiny town near another pretty place called Stoker's Siding.

Mooball has as it's claim to fame, a cafe which used to be the garage, painted in black and white cow colours, called the MOO MOO Cafe. All the telegraph poles in the town are painted in this way too.

The cafe has so many cow related things that it is a real attraction. They have a Landrover outside (painted) which featured in a Landrover magazine, and some guys from Brisbane drove an old cow painted car down there and gave it to them. People from all over the world send them cow things. It is a nice feeling place. Go there if you are travelling past. It's off the highway now, but is just south of Murwillumbah which is also worth looking at.

On the way there I saw an echidna walking across the road and was able to film and photograph it. This is unusual as they are normally nocturnal. They make little grunting noises like a pig when they walk, which I didn't know about. For the non-Australians an Echidna is our native porcupine which is also a marsupial. It has a long snout for eating termites which it gets from dead logs.

After Mooball I went to the coast again and followed that north to Tweed Heads where I rejoined the highway and bypassing the Gold Coast I headed to Brisbane. I can recommend missing the Gold Coast as it is a long series of traffic lights surrounded by the most depressing shabby places that were once glitzy, interspersed with more glitz which will eventually become shabby. The beach is great, but the surroundings are not, mind you, if you haven't been there you should. My opinion may not be yours.

Brisbane, luckily is easy to get through, and out of, unlike Sydney. The view from the top of the Gateway bridge is fantastic, but you are not allowed to stop.

Just south of the Sunshine coast are the Glasshouse mountains. Most spectacular columns of rock. I think they are the remains of old volcanic activity, but don't hold me to that. There seem to be about 8 of them, and they require a short detour on what used to be the highway when I originally started travelling past them. It's only a short detour and you can go and see Steve Irwin's crocodile farm there too if you want.

I missed all the coastal cities of Noosa and Coolum because I know you can't get to the beach to camp the night there.

I found a good roadhouse just south of Gympie and got showered and fed before camping in the truck layby. I found in the morning that there was a dilapidated picnic area just beside it which would have been better to camp in. I got a knock on the window from some policemen in the middle of the night who thought my car had been abandoned. What on earth made them think that is beyond me.

An early morning start got me to Gympie, which once was a gold mining town and which had to be abandoned as such when the mines flooded. There is still gold down there, but getting the water out is too much of a problem.

The main street of Gympie is to be avoided if you are driving. Park and walk to it. The township is really nice, and is set in a series of steep little hills.

From there I went to Maryborough which is a pretty old Queensland town. Lots of Queenslander houses and a history that goes a long way back as it was once a thriving port.

I went to Hervey Bay after that and left immediately. Ok, you can go looking at whales, and get to Fraser Island if you have a four wheel drive, but HB is dull. Bundaberg, on the other hand is a nice old town with quite a lot of original buildings. It is built on a river and was a major port when sugar was shipped from there. Just after there, I started aimimg for Agnes Water, a beautiful little place on the coast. To get there you drive through some great scenery. The trees are fantastic. There are lots of little creeks and picturesque rivers too.

I camped by one last night and it was so nice that I have stayed today as well. At the moment I am playing games with a metre and a half goanna (monitor lizard) which is not sure if I have seen him up the tree by my car. He isn't game enough to come down and find out though.

Eventually he moved off and later some locals came and told me a bit about the area. Last wet season (January) the river rose 18 metres above the bridge. Unless you have been through a wet season you can have no idea just how much rain can fall in a short time. It's really awesome.

The locals at Baffle Creek or Rule's Beach have a community social bbq and get together each Saturday and Sunday afternoons if you are in the area. The locals are really friendly and this sort of event is not seen much now. Not in the city anyway. These people are really isolated by today's terms.

I got inspired then and went to look at Rule's which I hadn't been to before. There are some National Parks there and the beach is just 4 houses and a long golden sand beach. Very quiet and beautiful and worth the drive.

I found a picnic spot at a place called Horseshoe Bend and the splashing of fish was going on all night. The water was just like a mirror in the morning and so peaceful.

Agnes Water was my next destination and I can tell you that this is a place like Noosa and Byron Bay used to be like. It's getting built up now, but the honey eaters still come in to steal sugar from the sugar bowls on the restaurant tables if the staff are not quick enough.

Sunrise over the sea is glorious. I'm going to run out of superlatives at this rate. I have been given a tour ticket for Monday so will stay here and film surf schools and scenery until then. No mobile phone access, so the net is it until next week sometime.

Call into the local surf shop and tell Grom that Tim sent you. These guys will teach you to surf or tell you where to go if you already know how. We went bysh-bashing in his 4-wheel drive to some incredible beaches and the track behind the van park at Town of 1770 where Captain Cook landed, is just perfect at sunrise.

THE TRIP part five

You might have noticed that in the last slideshow I said "Spot the Goanna", that wasn't his real name, but I didn't think you would mind too much.

I also needed to tell those of you who don't know, how to tell if a pineapple is ripe. Some people will tell you that if you can pull the centre leaves out of it, then it's ok. This is not necessarily so. I have found that they all do that at any time. The real way is to hold the bottom near your nose and if you can imagine you are in a dark room and without being able to see what it is, you can just tell it's a pineapple by it's smell, then it is ripe. This will mean that the pineapple is mostly green. If it's really yellow, it's over-ripe.

Monday I went on a tour of the beach north of the Town of 1770 in a LARC, a sort of army duck amphibious vehicle. This was a really informative and interesting trip with a couple of really informative guides.

A lot was made of the natural features we came across as we went up. At one stage we went out into the bay to see some dolphins but they weren't really playful.

We were shown quite a few endangered species and the tales about the area are fascinating. The trip ended at Cape Bustard Lighthouse, which was erected in 1886 from pre-fabricated cast iron shipped from England and then dragged up the hill by oxen, bit by bit.

There is a wealth of history associated with the area, starting with Captain Cook's arrival in 1770. As far as white history goes anyway. Tales of death and disaster, drowning, suicide, murder etc abound in this place which for many years was so isolated.

This trip was guided by Dave and Craig from 1770 Environmental Tours http://www.1770holidays.com and the ecological impact on the area was strongly stressed by the guys who are passionate about the area under their care.

I can't remember what order I did things this week as I have been carted off to film and photograph heaps of things. I have been on all sorts of 4 wheel drive tracks to glorious beaches in places I didn't know existed, or just how easy they are to get to.

I also got to some rainforest in a creek bed, which is supposedly under Government control, but this does not mean that cattle can be kept out, so the ground cover is being eroded and eventually this last pocket will be wiped out if the local members of SGAP (Society for Growing Australian Plants) can't get it fenced off. So far bureaucracy is not on their side. These people took the time to take Grom and I on a tour of their project for a couple of hours.

The other days are a bit of a blur of veging out and enjoying myself. Yesterday I was taken jet skiing at 1770 only 5 mins max from Agnes Water, but more locked up to housing. Agnes Water is on the verge of a large building boom, but I don't think it will be as intrusive as that at Noosa. There is a height restriction in place and apart from the town itself, the blocks of land are quite large.

I am staying at a really beautiful camping ground (The Captain Cook), which boasts a bistro called the Deck, and from which, all sunsets are magnificent. There are large eucalypts all through the park giving good shade, and adding to the view. The beach is just down and short drive/walk from the back of the park, and this is the place to see the sunrise.

This is definitely one of the places I will return to, if they ever let me go. I only came in to take a couple of photos of the beach and say "G'day" to Grom. His lifestyle would make any surfer jealous. This is a magic bit of Oz.

Yesterday I was on a trip to the reef on Reef-Jet tours. This is a sister business to the Larc tours and the drivers and staff seem to swap around a lot. Once again, the ecological side of things is well stressed, which means that people are getting not only a spectacular trip, but are being educated by people who live with the effects of mis-management if it happens. The Great Barrier Reef is an amazing living organism and is the largest living thing able to be viewed from outer space.

Fitzroy Reef, where I went, is just a circle of coral in the middle of the ocean, and is mostly covered by water at high tide. It seems to have an amazing abundance of species of coral. Once we got there we went snorkelling and the divemaster took the experienced divers off. After lunch (and it was good too) we went off in the glass bottom boat and later those who wanted to go fishing and learning to scuba went off. This meant that there was a much longer and more intimate exploration of the coral in the boat for those of us who stayed.

I got a real buzz from the amount of information that was given. I think that this is important in a situation like this and makes all the stuff on tv more important and understandable. Water clarity was amazing. I know that you are told about that, but until you see it yourself it doesn't sink in.

I am just waiting for the surf to come up tomorrow or Sunday and then I will have to move. Either that or just sit here and do the newsletter from the beach. That isn't such a bad idea at that.

THE TRIP part six

Well, I used to think that Agnes Water was a hard place to get to, but it's proving even harder to get out of. I must leave soon.

I haven't done anything much in the excitement line of things, but will try to rectify that tomorrow when I start driving again. I was going to leave on Monday but things just didn't go right and I'm still here on Wednesday.

I have been editing a bit of the video I took of the surf school on the beach here. It looks so much easier than it was when I learnt. You had to teach yourself then, and the boards were way heavier and didn't have leg ropes. This meant that every time you fell off, you had to swim to shore and get your board, hoping it hadn't hit anyone on it's way in, and paddle it out again. We must have been very fit.

I was amazed at how many people managed to stand up within the hour and a half lesson. That is a major achievement believe me. Once you have done that, all you want to do is keep going back for more.

I hope you realise that I am making huge sacrifices to get the photos and video for you all. I had to be up before dawn today to get a good sunrise, and it was, and this afternoon I am being taken to a secret loocation to get sunset photos at one of the best locations here. It is going to take an afternoon of extreme dedication, setting up early and having a drink while waiting. This should take from just after lunch I think. Actually remembering to press the button at the required time will be the hard part.

I have to wait until tomorrow to leave because driving at night here is too dangerous with kangaroos eating on the road edges. These animals may look pretty but they are dumb. Take a large, stupid animal with the ability to leap tall buildings at a single bound, an ordinary (or extraordinary) car, some bright lights, no fences, and darkness. Mixed together they make a lethal brew. You just don't see the roos coming until you hit them. If they run into your door it's not too bad for the car, but the roo doesn't do too well, and you just hope that you don't hit one straight on. Apparently emus are even stupider and just run at you.

I finally left Agnes Water/Town of 1770 on Thursday night and even then it was hard to leave. I made it to Emu Park on the coast outside of Rockhampton that night in time to catch a beautiful sunset at Zilzie near Yepoon, a town I am not too keen on, as it looks a bit boring but that may be because I haven't spent time there to explore much.

In Emu Park I just parked the car in the middle of the main street in a car park outside some shops and slept there. No one bothered me and at dawn I was up at the Singing Ship monument to see the sun rise over Great Keppel island on the Barrier Reef which is just off shore here.

The Singing Ship is a sculpture which makes musical sounds when the wind blows (which it always does when I go here). Apparently the noise offended new people who came here and so the council blocked off the sounding tubes with concrete to keep it quiet. It still makes a noise but not too loud now. The sunrise was another spectacular one.

I realise I am gloating here, but hey, why not?

Next I went up to Mount Morgan above Rockhampton. This is the site of the third richest goldmine in the Southern Hemisphere apart from Boulder-Kalgoorlie in Western Australia. It started in the 1850s and was eventually turned into a strip mine with an enormous pit.

The town has not changed much over the years and is another place I like to revisit when travelling past. It has some great historical buildings and on taking a tour with an amusing guide from Mount Morgan Mine Tours ( http://www.mmmt.net ) I was introduced to a lot more history that I would have missed.

The tour took us all round the town and we were shown things like the oldest scout group clubhouse in Australia opened one year after the organisation was formed, with a brass bell cast to commemorate the Relief Of Mafeking in the Boer War. The bell was made from melted down pennies and halfpennies, and they were worth a lot of money in those days.

After touring the town we went up to and all around the mine site. The mine is no longer working but it was a huge operation when it was running.

Unfortunately we couldn't see the caves where the clay for the bricks for the mine was mined. These look huge from the photos, and it amazes me that in the 1850s they not only found the gold, but also the clay to make the infrastructure to service it within the same area. If the clay wasn't there the bricks would have had to be brought in or the ore shipped out.

The ingenuity of these guys is truly remarkable.

After the caves were excavated there was still a layer of clay clinging to the roof and no one bothered about it, but sometime recently someone noticed that the clay had fallen from the roof and there were dinosaur footprints embedded in the sandstone. These are now viewed from the underneath, not the top as we expect to see this sort of thing. Apparently there are heaps of them.

When whichever government department in charge of stopping people from going to see them in the tourist season because they have decided to work on the entrance, have gone and let the public back, which will probably be after the tourist season, I would like to check them out.

I spent nearly all day there and will go back to get more next time I am in the area. Don't even think of taking your caravan as the road is too steep, but it is just a short drive from Rockhampton and well worth it.

I didn't stay in Rocky, but moved up to Marlborough for the night as there is a layby just off the main road in the tiny town and it is always good for a night sleep.

Marlborough also has a swimming pool and if you are here in the hot weather of the Wet Season it is worth knowing that you can cool off.

The next morning I set off north again and turned off to St Lawrence as I have never been there. It is a tiny town with the widest streets you have seen. You need to take a cut lunch just to cross to the other side, and no cars to bother you either.

This was after going to Ogmore which doesn't have much going for it apart from a pub and free camping.

I went through St Lawrence to the boat ramp and not knowing the history of the place was surprised to find some derelict machinery there, just short of the mudflats and saltpans.

The creek at the boat ramp didn't look too interesting so I turned round and headed back. Apparently the creek has a very good supply of crocodiles and you don't mess with them.

On my way back I stopped to photograph an old home and a local lady (Mrs Fossey) stopped to talk and told me a lot about the area that I would not have known otherwise.

Apparently the meat works used to prepare the meat and it was picked up by wooden boats one of which was commanded by her husband's great grandfather (or some relation from that far back).

One thing I found fascinating was that what I assumed to be a well for fresh water near the machinery, was in fact, a mine for the coal to fire the boilers which provided the power and steam for the meat works. Once again the local knowledge used to find underground coal and then mine it, is something that I find fascinating.

I don't know when this area ceased to be involved in the processing of meat but it must have been a long time back. Things were really primitive back then too. Life in these isolated communities must have been incredibly hard. No running water apart from tanks, no airconditioning, and it gets really hot here in summer. No entertainment apart from that which you made for yourself, and very little contact with the outside world.

It appears to me that this is still true to some extent today. Distances here are measured in hours taken to get somewhere, not kilometres. The roads are better now, but it still takes a couple of hours at least to get to a town of any size.

I tried to make it to Carmilla in time to find her husband who was cutting cane and learn some more about the area as he has always lived here, as has his family, but I missed him and so went to the beach and watched a man using a yabbie pump to get bait. A yabbie is a small crustacean like a lobster/crayfish that lives in the mudflats and is considered good bait for fishing.

Sarina was next and I went out to the coast there to see the beach which is beautiful and then headed for Mackay to stay with a friend.

I was taken to Eungella National Park in the hills behind Mackay and that is where I saw heaps of platypus's (or platypi, it could only be platypie if it was cooked). I have only ever seen one in the wild and this was an incredible display of them.

last night I was told that the biggest crocodile in Australia was shot here in Mackay a good number of years ago and it was nearly 10 metres long (32.5 feet).

You don't swim in creeks here unless you are well clear of the coast.

Oh well, I head off today and will take most of the week getting to Cairns.

THE TRIP part seven..

Well, another week over and I have kept moving. I missed getting photos of the beaches in Mackay, but I will go back to get them another time. I did see them at night from a lookout but I ran out of time in daylight as I had to get to Proserpine to stay with another friend. I thought that they looked great with the lights at night though.

When I left there I had to pass The Leap, which is a rocky bluff just out of Mackay and history has it that a policeman was chasing an Aboriginal woman, I didn't manage to stay long enough to find out why, but she jumped from the top with her baby in her arms and was killed. The baby survived and in turn died as an old person relatively recently.

I was getting a bit frantic about getting back to Kuranda (my old home) and just had to keep moving, sorry, I will be back there though, but not this trip. Mackay is still mostly dry country with rainforest in the hinterland hills and cane on the flats.

I should point out that the Brahma cattle that I put in the last slideshow were the predominant cattle breed here. They are mixed with something else now to give even better dry country beef breeds. Life can be hot and dry here for a long time and conventional breeds just don't do well.

Ronnee has a palm farm near a National Park and lives in an owner built house in a glorious little valley half way between Mackay and Proserpine or Airlie Beach, near a National Park that I have to look at next time. Guess I will be back here for an in-depth exploration next year.

I woke up in the morning to the sun coming up from behind some hills and we sat on his deck with no roof and just blissed out with our coffee in the sun looking down at his little creek. I last saw him 4 years back and had never seen his place so after all the usual sort of sitting round drinking far too much wine etc, he suddenly remembered that a friend from Kuranda wanted his house sat while he goes to the States for 2 months so we rang up and I got the gig. That means that I will be sending a lot of Far North Queensland stuff for the next few weeks. That shouldn't be a problem though, as this is the part of Australia I know best and also an incredibly picturesque bit.

Instead of staying for a few days as I planned, I left the next morning, well, lunchtime actually. I didn't bother going into Airlie Beach as it is just a large backpacker town full of resorts and shops selling tourist crap. It was nice once, but as with so many places I have skipped on this trip, it has changed too much for me. As a first time visitor, it is probably still good and exciting. I just prefer to avoid it.

Bowen was next, and I was going to bypass it too as I have always found it a dull place, but in the interests of you, the reader, I girt my loins (and let me tell you that having your loins girted can sometimes be unpleasant if done by an inexperienced girter), and ventured past the Big Mango (Bowen Mangoes were that first commercially acceptible mango variety) and drove past the salt drying works into town.

This time though, I found that there is a little hill there which gives you a good view of the town and surroundings which proved prettier from up there. I also discovered that there is a small lighthouse in the bay and a lot of islands offshore. I was pleasantly surprised and took a good lot of video there.

I kept on the road north and managed to get to another of my special places, a lookout on a hill just south of Home Hill, and parked myself up there so I could watch the sun come up out of the sea in the morning. I had the added bonus of watching cane fires burning all around me because the hill is just stuck up out of the surrounding plains all by itself. It must have been an island once.

In the morning I got what I wanted and set off north again, heading for Townsville (or Brownsville as I see it is known) to take some photos from the top of Castle Hill and then leave again. Townsville is situated in a rainshadow so is really dry most of the time, when it is situated at the southern end of the Wet Tropics. This makes it a bit of an anomaly and is really just an industrial town with a large army installation. There must be more there than Magnetic Island, but I have never bothered to look. The island is, from memory, well worth a visit though.

Castle Hill is set like a pimple stuck in the middle of industrial suburbia and should not be missed. It is really high and dry and hot, but well worth visiting for the view which is spectacular.

Unfortunately I was getting too close to home and didn't want to spend another night on the road, so went up to Paluma National Park just to get the photos for you. I have had correspondence from some of you who think this is just a holiday and I am just taking photos and video for my own pleasure. Not so, I get up really early to get sunrises and have to stay up to get sunsets when I would rather be asleep (yeah, right) and all the bits in the middle. Not to mention that it has taken me 6 weeks to get here when I can do it in 3 days if I push hard. I just hope that my sacrifices have not gone entirely unnoticed, and the suntan I am now sporting was achieved in the line of duty, not because I stopped at Agnes Water for too long.

After the beauty of Paluma I just couldn't wait and decided that getting to Kuranda (just out of Cairns, in FNQ) was my priority. I pushed hard and was back here that night without doing much more than photographing Hinchinbrook Island from Cardwell. I did notice that the warning sign on the beach at Cardwell has it's priorities right. "Warning" is in large red letters for all the Australian readers, while the German version was smaller and in black, and the Japanese bit was tiny and not very warning at all. I guess it doesn't matter too much if they get taken by crocodiles or stung by jellyfish.

I know that things like crocs being in all the creeks here, and having savage little jellyfish that can kill you in certain seasons may be daunting to the tourist, but you learn to live with them after a while, and live round them. Some guys were giving a small croc on a Cairns street a hard time until a passer by took it home and put it in his shower until it could be taken away by wildlife officers and released. Unfortunately these are saltwater crocs and they are bad news, the freshwater ones are much milder and found inland.

I got here in time to go to the Kurandafest last night and heaps of people came out of the rainforest for the special event. A lot of them don't bother too much now, so it was nice to catch up after being away for quite a few years. They are a colourful bunch and all of us came here because it was the best place that we could find to live. I think that is why we all come back over and over again.

Before the hippies came here as long ago as the late 60s, when most of them lived down on the beaches, the inhabitants of Kuranda were the Aboriginals (Murries) who had been forced here by the Government and the Methodist Church, and a very small handful of Europeans. After a very interesting history the town was discovered by the influx of tourists who descended on Cairns when it started to change in 1985. That is when the Japanese money started pouring in and Cairns lost a lot of it's old Colonial character. This also affected the way that Kuranda was marketed and packaged. In a way this went a long way to changing the village.

Quite a lot of us were caught up in a boom time for a while and some started new ventures and became less feral. For a lot of years the village was still left to the villagers at night, or at least from 3pm when the train and buses went back. I was the shoemaker here from 1981 to '92 and at one stage we had the only craft shop and did the markets too. I suppose that is why this place has so much meaning for me and I will probably rave on about it again over the next two months as I try to write the definitive book on how to make shoes. Or at least put it together, as I wrote most of it last time I was here.

THE TRIP part eight.

Well, I haven't moved much in the last week. Having got about a third of the way round Oz I think I needed the rest. I have been working with a friend (Dean at Kuranda IT) to get my lean, mean, computing machine running properly so I can edit some video and work on my shoemaking book.

I have been trying to finish that for the last 4 years but so far it hasn't happened. Even if it doesn't happen now, at least I am having a wonderful time in paradise. I haven't taken many images lately either, as I have been sitting in the local art co-op http://www.artskuranda.asn.au and working on a sad machine. It's just about done now though, yahoo!!

I have just realised that the reason I have not done as many photos as I want is that for me, the beauty of the rainforest is commonplace and I tend to overlook the fact that for most of you this is really exotic.

At the moment the weather is damp, which is unusual in the dry season, but at least it is warm rain, not the cold miserable stuff I left in Adelaide.

I will be doing a trip on the Kuranda Queen, a tour boat run by a friend on the Barron River just below the "famous" Kuranda railway station. I should get some good stuff for you from that. The Barron Falls will also have to wait for a sunny day, although there won't be much water coming over it. The photos you see of that are all taken in the wet season and hopefully I will be long gone by then. I don't want to sit here in the heat waiting for the rain to come.

Tropical wet season rain is something spectacular and well worth experiencing, but the build up to the wet is not pleasant. In a decent wet, more rain than you can imagine just buckets down for days on end. The average rainfall up here can be as high as 12 feet of rain. That is around 3 metres of rain. This all happens in around a 3 month period, so that may help to envisage it.

Yesterday I went to a place between Kuranda and Mareeba, called Davies Creek National Park. It is just outside the wet rainforest area in the dry country of the Atherton Tablelands. The road is atrocious, like driving over corrugated iron (typical of Government departments that they don't grade the dirt road for the tourist season), but if you go either fast enough or slow enough to avoid uncomfortable bumps, the result is stunning.

The creek starts in rainforest and flows through granite boulder country with small pools to sit in or sloping areas to slide down, and then goes under trees for a bit and then comes out and over spectacular waterfalls. I will go back for more photos and video, but I did get some stuff for you.

The reason for this trip was to find a particular frog that lives in one little waterfall now, having died out over recent years. It looks like this may be on the verge of extinction as it used to be found quite a lot further down, but only in this particular set of rapids.

To get right up close you have to brave the iciest water imaginable and stand under a small, but powerful waterfall, which is not at all warm either. I lasted about 30 seconds, but hey, I am doing it for you so the sacrifice was small.

We did see a couple of the frogs which can cling to the sides of the rocks and just blend in with the textures. Apparently they can do almost supernatural stuff, such as use the water as a solid base to jump up the waterfall. They have been observed jumping outwards to clear the rock, and upwards at the same time to position themselves further up. Sort of like flying.

For my next feat (once I leave here) I will be heading for Darwin, but as the wet will be approaching I will head south again relatively quickly, but when I get to Broome I am going to see if I can get to go on a boat that goes up to the Kimberleys where the tide rushes at more than 2 million litres per second through a narrow pass. Apparently it is much more exciting than the jet boats in New Zealand, and is known as The Horizontal Falls of the Buccaneer Archipelago.

The water can rise more than 12 metres in 6 hours and is really dangerous. Going through the rapids means travelling from 23 metres down to 9 metres through a narrow opening. Sounds awesome.

This is where you come in, I might need donations to go and film and photograph it as it costs upward of $250. If anyone wants to be in it they can email me. I don't expect a lot of offers though, but I might be surprised. Still, I have 2 months to go before I have to worry about where the money is coming from.

THE TRIP part nine.

This week I have not done much photographing as the weather was not condusive to get what I wanted. There was too much cloud and I have not been out much. I went to Port Douglas yesterday though and the sun was out and it was a bit too hot, but first thing in the morning on 4 mile beach I was able to strip off and go for a swim at daylight without getting arrested, or even seen, as there were only about 3 people on this, most beautiful of beaches.

I did the drive up there from Cairns in the afternoon and unfortunately the light was too soft to get good images so I will leave that to tantalise you with in the next couple of weeks.

The road follows the edge of the coast and is one of the most spectacular and beautiful roads I know of. Every corner brings a new little beach with sand and palm trees and rocks. There is no surf because of the Great Barrier Reef just offshore.

Early in the morning the sun comes up out of the sea and when I used to do the Port markets a few years ago that was a special treat, and a great start to the day. You can't help feeling good if the sun is shining and the air is warm at 5.30 in the morning. Later in the day you don't do much because it's too hot, but the evenings are so conducive to sitting around socialising, that you just have to.

Unfortunately Port Douglas is not the town it once was. Christopher Skase put the nail in a beautiful fishing village's coffin when he built the luxury Marina Mirage and golf course. This meant that wealthy people who had no empathy with the North's way of life followed and land prices and rates skyrocketed and the town has completely lost it's charm. Now it is a brassy, brash, overly modern wall to wall shopping centre full of expensive restaurants.

The lawns of the resorts are all artificially green and could easily be fake. Even backpackers who come here seem to leave as soon as they have done the obligatory reef trips.

There is still a side to the area that has not been affected by the "development" of Port Douglas, and that is that the town of Mossman is largely unnaffected by the influx of wealth to the town down the road. There is not much in Mossman to entice the tourist to stay and that will be it's saving grace. It is an old sugar mill town and still has all the same shops it had 20 years back, and it has the Mossman Gorge just out of town that is a must-see when you come here.

The road into the gorge has not improved for years and that is not a bad thing. The Aboriginal community who are custodians of the land, as they have been for the last 40,000 years or so are now looking to get some benefit from the thousands of visitors each day, and that is as it should be, as the tour operators are making a killing from bussing tourists in here.

The gorge is not very long, although you can go on walking tours with the local Murries (Aboriginals from this area), and that is a positive step for their culture. Most tourists have no idea about the rainforest or the stories that define this piece of pristine world heritage. The tour operators lead long crocodiles of people up a well defined path and tell them what sort of fish are in the river and how much water comes down the dry creek beds in the Wet Season, and then put them back in a vehicle and off to the next destination.

I'm sorry if any of you have been part of this, because if you go there when no one is around and just sit on the rocks and watch the water and the trees, it is a most peaceful and meditative place. The water is crystal clear and bloody cold, but incredibly refreshing.

I got there too early to catch the light and so just sat and waited. It gives you the same sense of peace as sitting at the base of Uluru (Ayer's Rock). Unfortunately that is another place that tourists are taken to in bus loads and then allowed to climb. This is offensive to the local people who see Uluru as a sacred site, and to have those with nothing better to do than climb a rock so they can say they have been there is really not on. To put it in context it would be akin to taking a busload of people and letting them climb over the Tomb of Mahommed or Westminster Abbey, or any other great construction of significant belief to a community.

Anyway, this week's photos are mainly of the gorge and Port Douglas's 4 mile beach. I hope to do better this coming week. The Saturday newsletter is now coming a bit later as I seem to be using the weekends for photography. I can't help this and don't care anyway. You will just have to put up with it.

THE TRIP part ten.

Ok, this week's newsletter comes to you from a party far, far away. Earthdance is the name, and Fitzroy Island is where I am. Life in the tropics is really hard.

All this week's images are to be found on http://www.earthdance.com.au and so is the video footage that I am editing and consists of some of mine and lots of others. Today is Saturday and tonight is the big one. http://www.earthdance.org/map/index2.html gets you to a list of global sites online at the moment.

I edit and we put the files online as soon as we can get them done so you won't miss anything by clioking them late.

I am editing to give just snippets, sort of like a moving slideshow. We had to do it that way to keep file sizes down.

Most of this week has been spent in frustration with programs and lack of ability to capture video, which is now fixed. One little connection can ruin a whole week.

The slideshow next week will be back to it's normal format, but as I'm doing these photos here they may as well be hosted by earthdance too.

It's really hard to work up a lot of enthusiasm to do things when the temperature is in the 30s (celcius), and no one else is doing anything except veg out.

I am going to try to sleep now as I will have to be up all night and filming the prayer thing tomorrow morning.

Well, I didn't get much sleep as my bed was on a verandah just behind the speakers and the sun came up far too early. I think I managed an hour.

It is now our second night and we have stuff online and so far no one else does. So from the crew here on Fitzroy Island off Cairns.

Catch you next week.

The Trip Part eleven

After a morning saying goodbye at the coffee shop in Kuranda I got back in the car and started heading south. Mind you, this entailed heading west first because I wanted to bring you a look at the Atherton Tablelands.

This is a large ex-volcanic plateau which carries very diverse agriculture, from dairy farming to vegetable production.

After passing pawpaw plantations, mango orchards, tea and coffee fields, lychee trees, and paddocks of all sorts of other exotic fruit and vegetables I passed through Mareeba which boasts 300 sunny days a year. I got there on one of the off days. This town was the centre of the tobacco growing industry here for years and this year had the quota removed and is no longer in that business. I am not sure what will take over, but a lot of people will be doing it hard from now on.

I headed for Yungaburra which is a quaint little village with an amazing market on Saturdays (once a month if I remember right) and home of the incredible Curtain Fig Tree. This is a strangler fig which took over a living tree years ago and eventually covered it with it's own arial root system and killed it, leaving a 50 metre fig tree in it's place.

I knew that there was a tree kangaroo living there as I missed it 4 years ago by not looking at the right time. I didn't expect anything new this time either as they are few and far between, but as I was getting out of the car someone said that one was there.

True enough, there it was in daylight, at the top of a spindly branch eating away. It was quite a big animal with a long bushy tail, sort of greenish in colour, not taking any notice of us watching. Incredible.

After that I continued off the plateau and after nearing Innisfail, turned off to go to Mena Creek to see Paronella Park. This was started in 1930 by an Italian who wanted to build a sort of castle in the rainforest.

It looks like Gormenghast (Mervyn Peake), a sort of eerie lost ruin made of concrete with turrets and bay windows on a cliff beside a waterfall. Over the years that I have been watching it it has become more overgrown and exotic. Bus loads of fairly bemused Japanese tourists were wandering round. Mind you you don't have to be Japanese to be bemused by it.

I made Townsville that night and camped at the free stopover at Bluewater, leaving early the next morning. The only thing I saw that I hadn't photographed on the way up was a mob of black cockatoos on the side of the road, which took off when I stopped. They have amazing colour displays of red and yellow under their tails, but are very timid, as well as being very loud.

Got to Mackay that night and will head south tomorrow.

The Trip Part twelve

Well, after a few more days in Mackay (Pleasure capital of the known world I am assured, but don't think so), I have discovered one thing. That is that if you are lost in a strange town, don't follow a dump truck that you think is going in the same direction as you. You only wind up in an industrial subdivision.

You then have to find your own way back to civilization and start again.

Things are dry and hot up here, but not as hot as the top end.

I should preface this newsletter by paraphrasing an old Creedence Clearwater Revival song - "Oh Lord, Stuck in Agnes Water Again".

I came in here again to see a place that I had been told that I could have to live in and look after, but it was a bit too isolated and very hot. There is a lot of mineralisation out there (it's set in an amethyst field) with lots of reflective sandy crystals on the surface. Quite pretty, but difficult to live in.

I came back into Agnes Water to see friends and discovered that I had won a trip to the reef on the Lady Musgrave Island Cruises boat from a raffle ticket I bought when here on my way north.

Needless to say, I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity. It was well worth it. We left at 7 and had 6 hours on Lady Musgrave Island which is a true coral cay, and the southernmost tip of the Great Barrier Reef.

It is a National Park and you can camp there for a nominal fee. Facilities are minimal and some restrictions are in place, but hey, it's beautiful.

Turtles are nesting there at the moment and there is nothing else to occupy your time except sunbathing, fishing and swimmimg.

The only animals on the island are Terns, Mutton Birds, and a variety of Rail (All birds). The Rails are flightless as there never have been any predators, and after centuries they have not bothered to fly any more like they once did.

The Terns have a weird mating ritual (closely related to the human white goods one I reckon. The male has to pick up and deliver to the nesting female, a dead leaf from the predominant tree on the island. This leaf must be perfect to work properly apparently. If it has the slightest blemish or anything that doesn't look right, she chucks it out and he has to repeat the process.

This can go on for aroung 300 times before she is satisfied. They mate for life so you would think he would have got it right by now, or just have given up.

The fish life in the lagoon is amazing. There are all sorts of different colourful fish in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes it is like swimming through the tinsel in one of those snow domes that you shake up and wait for the glitter to sink to the bottom.

There are all manner of incredible shapes and colours and a large coral growth (known locally as a "bommy", short for bombora apparently meaning large underwater thing) with various bright coloured coral growths.

My highlight was finding a turtle that I was able to swim alongside only about a metre and a half from me. We swam together for about 50 metres until they sent someone to get me to go back to the pontoon.

As an endnote to this the prospect for turtles is not good. They are being decimated by eating plastic bags that they think are the jelly fish they love, and cigarette butts are also killing hundreds. It has been estimated that in 50 years time they will be gone from the wild. This is really sad, and if you can do something about either the bags or the butts, then do it.

The view was so clear and the water beautiful and warm it was incredible. Worth visiting.

As well as this there is a boat aground on the beach here at the moment and it is posing an environmental dilemma with the potential to become a full-blown disaster.

The owner had no plan in place for dealing with the fuel oil on board and this has led to a government exclusion zone around the ship which now sits on Flat Rock at the edge of DeepWater National Park.

Of course the local surfers all have ideas about where it would be best towed to. They have visions of an artificial reef with the resulting wave action forming a new break.

TO BE CONTINUED...

  Lockergnome Tip Of The Day