The Infestation

I am really getting good at hanging clothes on the line. Being a line dryer in Australia is easy and much more efficient. The warm sun and coastal breezes will dry a load of laundry in less than 30 minutes.

I am also starting to get used to bucket living. Clean bucket/dirty bucket. If I had to, I could learn to live without electricity or plumbing. I still have trouble living with bugs.

Have you ever had the dream that bugs were crawling on you then awoke to find it true? At one of our remote beach camp grounds, we got a really bad ant infestation. Luckily, they were not the bitting bull ants. (Marty got bit by one - now he doesn't think I'm crazy when I jump everytime I see them)

The first night of the infestation, I thought I would go insane! These 1.5cm, fat, spider leg walking ants were coming out of everywhere. Marty just covered his face and fell asleep! I spent the whole night with a flashlight in one hand and a paper towel in the other making sure they didn't touch me. The second night we laid out bait. We couldn't kill them because they had to eat the bait and take it back to their queen, which meant another sleepless night for me. I actually had a major 'freak out' moment. The ants were surrounding me. I jumped out of the van screaming only to be swarmed by mosquitos. I ran to the water hole to splash my face and three cockroaches crawled on my feet. As I climbed back into the van sobbing, I was attacked by a biting fly called a midgee.

Marty took me by the shoulders 'get stonger.' The last few hours used up all my remaining stores of energy. So, enclosed in a sheet cocoon, I got a good four hours of sleep and awoke ready to take on the ants. The next morning, I took a boric acid solution and smeared it in all potential hiding areas. I am happy to report within three days we were ant free.

Enjoying our space again, we watched television. We flipped the channel from American to British to Australian news. I was starting to believe Chicken Little was right, the sky IS falling. To save our sanity, we planned a variety of diversional activities.

Northwest of Sydney is this area called the Channon. It is an absolutely beautiful area filled with artist colonies and hippie communes. I was starting to get into the carefree hippie scene until I heard an announcement on the local radio, 'only capitalist wear deoderant.' That explained the stench around me. Also, realizing that the public pool doubled as the public bath, we decided to get out of stinkville.

Sydney is best experienced from a boat. The city reminds me of a mixture of San Francisco, NewYork and Boston. It's a great town, with a cool zoo. Just outside of Sydney are the Blue Mountains. We took some amazing pictures. The fires from two months ago left parts of the forest damaged. But life WILL go on. On the charred remains were brilliant green baby leave.

Our next stop was Canberra, the nation's capital. We took a tour of Parliament House. We sat in the House of Representatives one afternoon and listened to John Howard, the Prime Minister, debate with the opposition on a possible war. With thoughts of Chicken Little, we decided to plan some 'lighter' activities. We went cheese tasting in the dairy town of Bega. Yummy. Marty kept the tour entertaining with his imitations. 'Gromit, we need some cheeeese!' Whatever Wallace.

That night, with our cheese and wine, we sat along the rocky coast and relected on our time spent in New South Wales and planned our next place...Victoria.

I awoke the next morning to find a large open wound on my ankle, a bruised foot and cuts on my hand. Well, it's official, two glasses of Australian wine and I loose the ability to climb on rocks. Lesson learned.