Up at 5am today to start on our adventure driving to the Red centre from our home just North of Brisbane Queensland.We plan to drive west through to Birdsville in Queensland and then south down the famous Birdsville track and west again across the Oodnadatta track to pick up the main highway that runs north between Adelaide and Darwin. We … Continue reading →
This is a journal of our trip out west in August and September of 2007. Our plan is to drive to Birdsville following the Birdsville and Oodnadatta Tracks to the Stuart Highway, heading north. We would then stop at Uluru and Alice Springs and continue home via Tennant Creek and Mt Isa. Some short instructions in looking at this diary. We have used Google Maps to provide a complete Route Map. At … Continue reading →
I watched across the room in silence like a voyeur as this stranger was about to take part in a most disgusting ritual. On this young Chinese gentleman’s desk, was a stained brown jar partly filled with a murky looking fluid partly covered a tangle of decomposing green and brown leaves and stalks? Reaching for the jar, his actions lead me to believe that he was within seconds’ of celebrating an ugly ritual which I had seen from time to time in Beijing. He would be pouring this revolting mix contained in his jar down his very own throat. I mentally pleaded with the lad not to go through with it, but short of physically rushing across the room and removing it from his hands I could not prevent him. My stomach heaved as the jar reached his lips and he swilled the liquid. He removed the jar from his face and in a sign of bravado brushed his lips with his shirt sleeve. A thin smile grew across his lower face as he placed the jar back on his desk and returned his work on his computer
Continue reading →“Do you have a laptop sir” a Chinese security guard standing by the entrance to the baggage scanner at Beijing Airport asked. He, like the rest of the many security guards is dressed in a smart navy blue uniform. The uniform had a shield like American sheriffs have on their arm and there were two white strips below the shield on … Continue reading →
It was a square green box that looked like the kind of car you would peddle when you are three years old. The doorman let me in through the right back door. The bench seat inside was roughly covered with white blankets. These towelling blankets were strewn across the seats in an attempt to stop you hurting your bum on … Continue reading →
