Aussie windmill

"All I ask is to live each moment,
free from the last.
Take the road forgotten,
don't leave me here.
Oh please let me stray,
far from familiar things...".

"All I Ask" by Crowded House

The more I listen to my repertoire of tapes, I realize that life is a Crowded House song. This leg of the trip I needed to constantly remind myself that the past is gone and the future is not here: the only thing we have is the glorious present.

Tennant Creek Revisited
After we left Tristan at the bus station, we stayed in Alice for a few days. Alice is a nice city and I, in all my GAP (Goy American Prince) glory, splurged on a motel room. Modern creature comfort was nice after having spent a wet and muddy four days camping at Ayers Rock.

Just North of Alice on the way back to Tennant Creek

I did laundry in Alice to wash the red away from my clothes, but they came out of the wash just as red as in Ayers. I guess that is an unexpected souvenir of the past.

We did have to pass through Tennant Creek on our way up north. We were dreading this overnight stop. But this time it was a bit nicer. I guess we left the fears behind. We saw great sights all the way up to Tennant Creek. Even the dreaded TC seemed somewhat sweeter. We did, however, stop at a different campground in TC: We didn't want to push our luck.

You call cricket a sport!?
When I was in Alice, Tony and I watched the England vs. Oz cricket match on TV. Tony tried to explain the game to me. In between my laughs and utter shock at the rules of the game, he plodded on his explanation about the rules of this lightening fast game. Let's see if I remember this correctly, but it goes something like this:

The matches last about six months with tea intervals every fortnight or so. Batters bat the ball until everyone decides he did a 'jolly good job' and then the next batter bats for a few days or so. To score points, you have to hit a wicket or it could have been a spigot, and just run back and forth from the pitchers mound to the plate until everyone decides you did a 'jolly good job'. In these six-month matches, the score is something like 22 million to 19 million.

And I thought baseball was a slow sport.

Paul Hogan is a Wimp
After leaving the dreaded, but now somewhat sweeter, Tennant Creek, we continued up the Stuart Highway in the direction of Darwin. We stopped off at Mataranka and camped deep in the bush. I must say, I had some residual fear left, because I was thinking after climbing into my sleeping bag: What if the NT killer is camped right next to us and decides to 'off' one more tourist? The thought didn't last long, because the good thing about camping is, you are 'out' about the time your head hits the top of the sleeping bag.

But I did wake up around 3am to the sound of someone having sex. I thought: Well, good for whomever is having a good time in the caravan park tonight. But soon figured out it was a 'roo or some other sex starved Aussie animal making that noise. I don't know if the 'roos were making more joeys or if that was some call. I can't explain it but a roo-gasm is the only thing I couldn't think of.

Tony with a wallaby

The next morning we went to Katherine Gorge. Pretty spectacular scenery and we hiked all over the place. That night, as we got back from doing our nightly barbie, we came back to our tents to find a gang of wallabies just lazing around our campsite. They took no notice of me and I thought of them as a marauding band of thugs. They just had that look of total cockiness just before they jump you and take your wallet. But these Wally-thugs were the cool kind. I guess they have gotten used to humans and come into the campground at night to see what they can scavenge off.

The next morning I awoke from my tent to see Tony pretty white and all he said was: "Look". I looked in his tent and there was this mammoth spider. I looked at Tony and said: "You don't expect ME to do anything about it, do you?"

Spiders and I are not the best of friends. When I was a wee lad, we lived next to the mountains in California. They were building the 210 Freeway at the time at the base of the mountain and it was driving down all the tarantulas. I had a tarantula on my bed at one time and also when I just got my training wheels off my bike (just a few weeks ago, folks), I toppled over to see a tarantula staring me in the face: I screamed bloody murder.

So there we were, two rugged bushmen afraid of a spider. I have never seen Paul Hogan handle a spider; snakes and crocs, yes, but big hairy spider, no!

Sunset over Yellow River

It's Not Krapadoo
I know I really didn't want to do a typical travelogue and if I were to describe the next part of my trip, it would feel a bit forced. I had no red rain, hangovers or epiphanies happen to me on this part of the trip. I just enjoyed the nature in Kakadu National Park. I will attach a few of my pics that should do the talking for me. But needless to say, the scenery was beautiful and a word that I can use to explain it is: absolutely primordial. OK, that was two words but the absolutely is not absolutely necessary.

Civilization Ho!

The many HUGE crocs in the area wished I hadn't read this sign!

We spent the better part of 10 days camping our way up from Alice and I got quite used to being smelly and dirty. When we came in sight of Darwin, I said to Tony, "Something doesn't feel right. I don't want to go into the city." It seemed odd in a way to me. I felt much more comfortable camping in the wild.

As a wise man once said, "All thoughts, good and bad, are transitory." Wait, I said that in my travelogue of Todd and Otto Rock America (Actually, originally the Buddha said it or could have been the Dalai Lama or, jeez maybe even, Bill Clinton).

So anyway, the city-phobia thang didn't last too long because Darwin is a great city. It is just the right size for a city (I assume it is around 80,000) and it has a beautiful location. I could easily spend a lot of time here but the camping facilities are tiny so I am jonesin' to get back into the open Oz Wonderland.

Darwin at sunset

Yanks, I hardly see thee
The one thing I have noticed on this strip trip is the dearth of Yanks, or, as the Aussies refer to the more obnoxious of our breed, Septic Tanks. I have heard a few North American accents but nine times out of ten they are Canadians. Where is everybody?

You run into a Brit (Pommie) every few meters and I believe everyone from Ireland is actually visiting Oz at this moment. Who is running their country?

It leads me to believe that Americans either just visit the big cities, like Sydney, and do maybe a short trip out to Ayers Rock. If that is the case, then a lot of Americans are missing out on a great chance to meet some interesting locals in caravan parks (yes, even the Goodwill Ambassador for Iraq - I won't soon forget him!).

The people we have met along the way have been overwhelmingly kind. Many campers take pity on us, because we are wholly unprepared in the camping department. We do have the necessary camping gear (tents, sleeping bags) but we only have plastic cutlery/plates, one kitchen-like frying pan and one teeny, tiny saucepan. Try boiling water in a saucepan without a lid on an open fire - it takes forever. But almost every campsite, a more prepared camper has taken pity on us, the Wayward Campers. Our first night camping, a retired man, just said: "Oh lads, you really haven't camped before, have you?" But we have received generous offers from campers to help us boil water and even the odd handout because we look so forlorn (Thanks for the baked potatoes, John and Bea from Sydney!).

Others Aussies have helped us out numerous times with the always temperamental Eve. One guy fixed my laptop and didn't charge me (I argued with him to pay him for his time but he refused. I walked away amazed and happy - there are not many people who would do that in the US) and an electronic guy looked at Eve's radio for over an hour before pronouncing the radio dead. He told us cheap places to buy a radio (not his store!), gave us extra wire and plugs and didn't charge us anything. Amazing.

We did finally purchase a new radio (Thank the Dear, Sweet Jesus). Eve rocks once again and rock on, Aussies!

Let's get back to the Yank situation, now that I have gone on that wee tangent. Another reason Yanks might not visit is that they are staying at home more and more. I know it becomes a bit tiring for me to travel because I feel I am made to defend all the inane things that go on in America. Jeez, that would take many, many lifetimes and I am baffled as much as foreigners are but they look at me for explanations. The only way I can explain it is by a theory I have developed over the past few years. It is called the Marcia Complex.

Marcia is the beautiful one who reaps all the attention. But let's face facts, Marcia's popularity has made her a stuck up bitch, albeit a nice one. Jan, the younger sibling, is overshadowed by Marcia's popularity: Marcia, Marcia, Marcia! Just by being so popular, Marcia is prime target Numero Uno. But if you ask me, Jan is the hottie of the two (Cindy doesn't count at all but Alice comes in a close third). Jan is smart, beautiful and thoughtful. But Jan's failing is that she thinks if she doesn't get the attention that Marcia gets, then she is somehow lacking.

The moral of this wayward tangent is that you don't need outside validation to make you a good person, let alone a country, and you shouldn't feel the need to denigrate the one who does reap all the attention to make yourself feel stronger: everything just Is (in the glorious Present). Jan and Marcia both have their strong points and their weak points, but deep down they are just human beings trying to plod along through this life.

I am NOT my country of birth: I am first and foremost this guy who signs his name Todd to these travelogues. So with that, I am just giving up trying to explain Jerry Springer, School Shootings and George W. Bush. I just can't and won't. If people would like to define America and me by those traits, fine. I am on a Buddha's Striptease Vacation and I ain't takin' anyone else's baggage.

Fellow Travelers and Final Words

The shorts' final home

We put an ad at the hostels in Darwin looking for two additional travelers. Tony and I have been traveling by ourselves since Alice and splitting the petrol between two people really hurts. We found two people and met them the other day. Who are they? 20-somethings from England. I, again, am the outnumbered Yank. Wait, I said I wouldn't be defined by my country of birth anymore, so I guess I should look at them as fellow travelers and not define them by their country of birth. The world would be a much better place if we stopped looking at each other as passports and started looking at each other as fellow travelers.

Tony in his "new" shirt

The latest two items to be dumped on The Buddha's Striptease: Naked in Oz Tour 2001: A pair of shorts was left in a rubbish bin in Katherine Gorge (they were beyond repair; I ripped them and got barbie grease all over them). The other is my blue safari shirt that has a new home with my Pommie friend (strike that, add 'fellow traveler'), Tony.

Tomorrow we're off to Western Australia and in a few weeks the promised land of Perth. Can't wait. Wait...damn...I forget all the time...reminder to self...Live in the present. It is the only moment we have.

Next Topics:
I am Pretty Fly (For a White Guy), The Accidental Buddhist and Finding Me.

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