Ain't got nothing but love, babe.....

....EIGHT DAYS A WEEK!

If you've ever been on the road for a long drive or five, you'll understand the importance of having some music to listen to.

Add to this the individual tastes of seventeen other passengers whose ages range from ten to seventy and things can get interesting. Geoff, our fearless, camel-lovin' tour leader passed around his iPod for us to select a song each for an 'on the go' soundtrack and the resultant sounds that accompanied the rainbow desert landscape of Central Australia were a strange mix indeed. Think the Beatles, Kaiser Chiefs, Black Eyed Peas, Midnight Oil, Mozart, Abba, Moby, David Gray and Red Hot Chili Peppers just for the first session.

By the fifth day my notebook was being used more to write down songs to search out myself to download than to record any decent diary details. However, I learned a lot of things on this trip; none of which were mentioned in the brochure:

Being warm is far more important than being stylish. However, I did take off my beanie when a camera was around because it makes me look as though a big blue donger is growing out of my scone. If I was wearing my head torch as well, I might as well have been a walking advert for circumcision.

Apples and meusli bars taste like MasterChef manna from heaven when you're roughing it and have just done a seven kilometre hike through rock and rubble. Almost-frozen champagne also tastes delicious even when it's 4C, windy and dark and you're standing in front of Uluru and the Olgas (Kata Tjutu).

Carrot cake (with the lusciously, cholesterol-ly, cream cheese icing) featured in my dreams. Every single night. Not chocolate - why?

Dutch, Canadian and German backpackers use musk lifesavers as a dare in drinking games. It's apparently a rite of passage to buy a pack and see who can keep it in their mouth the longest before gagging. First one to spit it out has to skol their drink. "I thought they were mini urinal cakes," said Reinier.

Large milkshakes enjoyed at a road stop soon turn into intestinal cottage cheese when enduring a bone-shaking 2 hour drive on an unsealed track.

I actually have bum bones. After days of sitting on rocks, dirt and swags, they made their presence felt.

It is easy to horrify Italian kindergarten teachers. Making innocent conversation as we did the dishes, I said, "So, your husband tells me that you two first met at a nightclub?"

"No! no no no no no!" Her eyes were wider than the plates she was stacking. Her husband and translator, Alain, wandered over to ascertain the cause of her distress. They chatted rapidly in Italian.

He smiled. "She thinks you meant a Strip club."

Ah.

Some things at Uluru are more shocking than the price of coffee and souvenirs in the gift shop. One bloke stood behind his open car door, pulled down his trousers and sprayed his Kyber Pass and Dangle Twang with deodorant before hitching up his pants and going to work on his armpits. Most passersby were spared this scene but I unfortunately was approaching from the rear.

We had a competition one night around the campfire to see which of us had the best porn name (first pet you had + first street you lived on). Penny won with Pussy View. Lord knows what she thought of our bawdy hoots of laughter because she revealed to us the next day that she's studying to be a Uniting Church minister.

Robbie, our guide from the Oak Valley Aboriginal community says he likes to eat Witchety grubs raw and at the base of the bush they live in, "but my grandies turn up their noses. They take 'em back to nanna to cook."

Hygiene standards become incredibly lax. By Day Five I was wiping a knife smeared with homous onto my dusty jeans, then using it to cut up some chicken; wiping it again on my legs before cutting up some tomatoes and giving it a final swipe across my upper thigh. There. Nice and clean and put straight back into the cutlery box.

And I finally found the perfect place to fart without detection or disapproval by offering to hold the balloon strings as it filled up with hot air.

Best holiday ever.

Shut the bloody door!

All youse non-Austrayan readers of this 'ere blog probably assume that our big bugger of an island is always hot, sunny and dry. To be fair, that assumption is mostly right, but we do have our four seasons like you guys do, just in the opposite order.

So while I'm reading your blogs about summer vacations, sunburn and strappy sandals, I've almost wrapped my legs around my tiny little oil heater as though I'm Julia Roberts doing the same to Richard Gere in the spa bath in 'Pretty Woman'. It's frickin' freezing here.















And don't just take my word for it. Even the foreigners from the northern hemisphere - hailing from much cooler climes than here - shiveringly agree with me.

Sarah, a Milwaukee native who learned from an early age never to go outside with wet hair or volunteer to shovel snowy sidewalks, was standing at the school gate the other day, clad in about three jackets, shivering in her shoes. London-born-and-bred Mick was next to her, waiting for his daughters to emerge; with Swedish Goddess Thorun shuffling rapidly from side-to-side and huffing warm air into her clenched fingers.

I ambled over and asked the most obvious, conversation-starter question that we say when we can't think of any other thing to start off with (and hate ourselves for our predictable lack of witty originality): "Pretty cold today, isn't it?" What an understatement: I had goosebumps on my flippin' head.

Thankfully Sarah is a kind person, and didn't roll her eyes. "Yeah."

Still mired in minus mental facilities, I stumbled on. "But hey, you guys are all from cold countries, so shouldn't you be used to this?"

They all politely swallowed their sighs and took the time out to explain it to me. Firstly, their countries have central heating as standard, throughout all of the rooms of their home.

Secondly they don't have vents installed near the ceilings that go directly to the air outside like we do.

Why do we? I may not have set the world alight with my scientific talents in high school, but I do remember that heat rises. If the heat then has to compete with an almost-ceiling-high vent that is directly bringing in freezing air from outside, we can safely assume that the vent isn't being particularly useful or helpful in this instance.

In summer time, yes. Or perhaps no. If heat rises then sure, we want to fling it outside, but if the vent brings in even hotter air from outside it's still being about as useful as a dry sponge in the desert isn't it, or am I not getting some vitally basic point?

Secondly, even their bathrooms have heating and warm towel rails. And by 'heating' they don't mean tepid old tastic lights beaming weakly down from the mould-speckled ceiling or a miserable bar heater up above the mirror (again with the heat rising issue - clearly not helping the poor nude sod standing on icy porcelain tiles several feet lower) either; they mean underfloor heating, a radiator, water proof carpets, cosy copper lined towel rails set to 'toasty'......

Here in Oz, most of us do a nudey-rudey Hop-Squeal-Scamper streak through our houses from the bathroom to the bedroom. For some reason, we all think that running through on our tippy toes will somehow make things easier and/or warmer for us and the added sound effects: "Oherr eek!" will help speed up our journey. With central heating, decent carpeting and a pre-warmed towel we'd be reduced to a languid stroll and a temptation to flash our partners and call out "Whoo Hoo, take a gander at these party pieces" before being told to leave the room and put something flattering on. I'm not sure that the overseas folk win this argument actually.

Mick pointed out that their toilets have windows that can actually close instead of permanently-open louvres. Yes, so do we - if you own a house that's younger than 1960, that is. The houses I grew up in, rented and bought all had 1950s style glass panels that were permanently fixed into the half-open mode. Not so great for privacy if someone wanted to use the hose outside nearest the window (extra echoing too, with all those floor tiles) and even worse for those 3am wee-wees spent gingerly lowering oneself onto the slab of ice that was once a plastic caroma loo seat whilst trying to keep the eyes closed and pretend that you were still asleep.

Torun mentioned their superior insulation. In Sweden they have insulation. Everywhere. Not just a few poxy old pink batts in the roof that are handy for rats and possums to eat and crap on, but in their walls. Plus double-glazed windows and lined floors.

We, on the other hand, either live in double-brick houses (moi) which do keep the heat out in summer for a few days, and the heat in during winter (for a few minutes after the heater's off). Brick venereal owners have an outer layer of brick and then some inner masonite that resembles a fully-plastered wall, but without the insulation, sound-proofing or expense. Add a lack of eaves, verandahs and a boxy second story and you have a home that needs 24/7 cooling and heating and has an energy star rating of minus three-and-a-half (or wait, was that for the movie 'Hey Hey It's Esther Blueberger'?)

Either way, if we're not blessed with energy-guzzling reverse cycle air conditioning, we have a gas or electric fire in the living room. This means that ever time anyone enters or leaves the room, the oldest person (usually the parent) automatically yells out, "Shut the bloody door! Were you raised in a tent?"

The room itself is usually furnished with at least two clothes horses crammed with damp socks, tracksuit pants (they shrink the dryer), school uniforms and jocks. Hopefully the jocks are placed on the wall side so that they're not the first thing that hits the visitors' eyes when they arrive. I've also been known to hang shirts over an exercise bike, door handles and the edges of bookshelves, and my mother has even spread out crockery in front of the 1975 Vulcan bar heater to warm up before serving dinner.

Thus, it is well and truly ironic that such a hot, dry and dusty country has winters that are even less pleasant than countries closer to the artic circle. And no, I don't know where we'd find the money to add in all the comfy extras that those countries have to make things easier unless beer, smokes, flex days, scratch tickets and pokies were completely removed from our culture.

In the meantime, there's only this idea.

After a lot of immature sniggering at Ray's Outdoors Centre - and a bit of explaining to Sapphire as to why I was taking a photo of a 'Dutch Oven Carry bag.' Hell, it looks as though it's even shaped to fit my two overly generous arse cheeks in.....

........ and I thought it was perhaps the cheapest way I could improve on home heating. Not sure that Love Chunks agrees with me.

Maybe we're all better off hiding under the doona and staying there until spring comes again.




















Please shut the door on your way out, 'Kthnxbye