Rocky and Mackay...with the crazy people!

This is Mackay...nice buildings eh?

View more photos 

Hello there folks.

This is where the activities stop I'm afraid. The funds are getting low and I really can't go on forever, but this is the time when I began to meet some rather odd people. They're real Australians...this is a miracle cos it's very hard to meet real Australians when you're a backpacker.

The night me and Ben got back to the YHA in Rocky we decided to go have some food in town and a few beers. We tipped up at a pub full of locals and I later found out it was a place that'd been there for nigh on 80yrs. This is ancient in OZ. So we sit at the bar and before long we've met some locals...see it always works. Sit at the bar and you're bound to have an interesting evening. That's exactly what I got.

I started chatting to this 55 yr old guy called Darryl who'd had quite an amazing life. He nearly killed his teacher at school with itchety grub powder- that stuff is lethal! and then ran away from home. He came upon a hippy commune and at age 15 fathered his first child to a 21yr old! He carried on in much the same vain for a few years, then found the Budda after trying to commit suicide by slicing himself up the middle with a Samurai sword. He now makes the swords himself and is world renowned for his craft. Sounds like a load of old codswallop to me but it made for am interesting tale don't you think?

This is the crazy man and the possum.

View more photos 

Sat 28th Oct

I awoke to the prolonged sound of rustling bags before 6am. I don't understand why people can't pack the night before. I get the bus up to Makay which is a small town about 6hrs up the coast. I've picked this place purely because there is nothing special about it and being off the beaten track I'm hoping to meet some more Aussies and get a better flavor of this country. Also the funds are low and I need to get off the tourist track.

By happy coincidence though there is a fantastic rainforest nearby and there's tours going up to beautiful waterfalls where you can swim. Bugger...I'm trying to save money!

Anyhooos...I check into Larikin Lodge...the famous place with all the nut nuts. Bob the owner is the most friendly man in the world and makes me feel right at home. It's about a million times hotter up here and there's air conditioning in my dorm so I crash out for a while. And then I decide to do something odd...go to a shopping center. And it's fantastic to do something normal for a while!! I feel like a real person and not a tourist! It's actually a lot of fun and I decide the amazing activities need to be balanced against the normal stuff to give them depth.

It's a Saturday so obviously everything shuts down early...!!!???? and the place is suddenly deserted. "All gone to play sport like the Kiwis" thinks I. On the way home I pop into the offy to get a nice sophisticated bottle of wine to go with the bbq food I've brought and I find the entire town in the bootle shop buying booze. Ahha...not so sporty after all eh?

Back at the hostel I end up bbqing with a guy who on first inspection seemed normal. I did wonder if he was a little strange when he told me his ex had her own jet plane that they used to see the whole of Aus with. Hmmmmm...really? He is the worlds fattest man and is telling me this in some dirty tracky b's and a t-shirt full of holes. And then I start chatting to Bret...who is completely normal and hilarious to boot! He's an Aussie spending the year working his way round the country, visiting family and friends as he goes and he has some fabulous stories to tell.

"Driving along this road in the out back and bugger me if I don't come across a tree full of bras!!" It turns out someone had thrown a bra in a tree and the idea had kinda stuck. I love this! "Yep..there's some weird s**t out there I can tell ya." Bret's sense of humor is drier than the Western Desert itself and he has me in stitches. I go to bed laughing and glad I came.