Heading Bush: Day 6 - "How Many 5 o Clocks In A Day?"

As promised, Mike dragged us out of our swags before the sun even thought about rising so we packed up and jumped in the jeep before our body clocks realised what time it was and rebelled. It was freezing without a fire so I'd had no chance to warm up as I stood staring at the water thinking "its been here all night in the bloody cold, no way can this water be warm..."

Well if you consider 37C to be Not Warm then no, maybe it wasn't.

Do you ever have those moments when you realise that you're so perfectly, unconditionally happy that you can't stop smiling? When you can't even think about one single thing in the world to stress about, that everything is just so right and you are in fact the luckiest person alive? That you are so utterly relaxed you could burst and there isn't a single thing in the world that you could change for the better?

Pure. Fucking. Bliss.

Watching the sunrise over Dalhousie from the comfort of the thermal springs with my feral Heading Bush posse was one of those moments.

Mike's a fan of skinny dipping so thankfully he got out before us because you just don't need to see your tour guide's penis before breakfast.

As if our body clocks weren't confused enough by the shocking discovery that there are actually two five o clocks in the day we crossed the border into the Northern Territory which doesn't bother with frivolous things such as daylight savings so we put all our clocks back an hour.

The first stop was Finke which is a dry Aboriginal settlement so we hid the booze. Aboriginals have serious issues with getting high, there are massive alcohol and solvent abuse (putting paint in a paper bag and sniffing it is called Chroming) issues within most communities and this is why there is no alcohol allowed in Finke. After the booze was banned they started sniffing the petrol so it was replaced with opal petrol which apparently doesn't get you high.
One of the first things you notice as you jump out of the jeep at the community footy pitch is the litter and broken glass strewn across the place. Then you notice that a lot of the litter is empty, squashed butane cans.

Yeah, I don't reckon they have that many lighters to fill.

Some Of The Kids From Finke

Anyway, we had a kick around with the kids and by kick around I mean they kicked our arses around and totally beat us in the Aussie rules footy match. They also gave me a slating for following The Power (bloody Crows fans) and one lad, Dylan, was fascinated by my piercings and tats and wouldn't leave me alone.

Those of you who know me personally know how I feel about children. It was bloody terrifying. *shudders*

Next stop along the 4WD red dirt roads was the Geographical Centre of Australia which is conveniently located at LAT 25 degrees 36'3.4"S - LON 134 degrees 21'7.3"E. Just in case you were wondering or indeed even cared and if anyone knows what the fuck that even means please let me know. There's even a visitors book, we flicked through is and there was one comment which read "No Groovy Grape here!"

Does anyone like them?

The Geographical Centre Of Australia

We watched the sunset on Day 6 from a bush camp near Kulgera as our bitch... I mean, our beloved tour guide cooked us up a feast on the fire.

written by

Koala Bear on November 4, 2006 from Kulgera, Australia

from the travel blog: Sod Off Great Big Mission Round Oz

tagged RoadTrip, LovinIt and HeadingBush

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