The first stint

Still smoke and ash... we even passed some actual roadside fires... it was remarkable that we never saw any extinguishing activities... no fire trucks... no fire men... no closed roads... so we just acted like the average Aussie and ignored the flames...

... Hermannsburg was our final contact with civilization... some drunk Aboriginals that we had to sponsor by buying a permit to use the Mereenie loop...

... you are inclined to believe that it is pretty clear to the average Aboriginal what to do or not todo... it turns out... more is required...

... so not only did we need to loose our booze... we also had to find a way to get rid of our X-rated dvd collection we always take with us on our world travels... and... I am curious now... how exactly does porn threaten these poor drunk bastards???

After Hermannsburg... the tarmac was gone... over 200km of desert road... with only one or two times an oncoming car ensuring you that you were not alone...

... that warm fuzzy save feeling that there were more people in the outback vanished a bit with every car wreck that we passed...

... and we nearly flipped the car trying to evade a huge lizard... and a huge hole in the road... and ... it doesn't take tight bends very well... we found out...