We spent the night before near Tennant Creek in a place called 'The Pebbles'. It is an aboriginal landmark where the Aboriginal women come and do ceremonial dancing. The aboriginal men are not allowed to be involved unless invited. Though tourist are allowed to wander around but not touch the big 'Pebbles' - which look like big rocks to me.
The Pebbles near Tennant Creek NT
Meanwhile Suzi and her husband Jovan organised a conference call involving me, jovan's mother and my little sister to discuss baby names. The four names we had to choose from were Anastasia, Selena, Mia and Sage. What do you think? The name 'Mia' won - that was our choice too! ... there I was in the desert, dying of heat stroke and I'm on the mobile discussing bay names haha. Still waiting for pictures of the baby.
We're heading to Elliot today, a small town a few hundred k's from Tennant Creek. It's got phone reception and internet.
A lizard right next to our van at the pebbles.
Afternoon - Elliot
A very small town with a general store, a hotel, police station and caravan park. In the middle of nowhere, and we got breath-tested ... the police lady offered for Freddy to meet their drug sniffer dogs, but we declined.
We decided we wanted to get some wine for dinner tonight. We went to the hotel and turns out they're not allowed to sell wine in Elliot. I suspect there's an alcohol problem in some of these small towns.
We stayed in the local caravan park because Stewart had to catch up on some work. The place was filled with beautiful lyrebirds. Freddy had a ball chasing them ... it's okay, no-one got killed.
Lyrebirds in Elliot
11th August 2010
Heading to Katherine today. Freddy will be getting his hair cut because he keeps bringing dust and creepy crawleys into the bed and also the heat is becoming an issue for him ... if it's this hot in winter, how hot is it in summer!
I rang up the top springs hotel where we're playing at on the Saturday night to check that all is good with the gig and they were great, giving us free accommodation too, They also asked us if we could play on the Friday night (13th). We gladly said yes, we need the money. So that was a bonus. It just means we need to make tracks faster than we thought.
On the way to Katherine we stopped at the Larrimah Pub which also had a free wildlife park that saves injured wildlife. Got to see lots of birds, snakes, crocs and kangaroos. I even touched a couple of baby emu's. I love animals, they make me happy.
Holding a deadly (not) Carpet Python Snake
'Sneeky Sam' was his name - Stew almost got his toe chomped off and freddy tried to do a Steve Irwin dive on the croc's back
my favourites were the baby emu's.
We decided to find a spot by 2 in the arvo so we had time to set up and read. Found a place not too far from a small town called Mataranka, heading towards Katherine.
At this campsite we met a lovely old bloke in his 80's who was obviously looking for a chat (his wife needed break) and found the both of us - willing victims. He was deaf in both ears, and had to strain to hear what we were saying, so we let him talk. He noticed we were muso's and said that he used to play piano but now, because of his hearing it makes all the notes sound wrong to him. If he plays the music as he reads it, it sounds wonderful to everyone else and wrong to him, if he plays it how he hears it, it sounds wrong to everyone else and beautiful to him ... so he gave up.
He also gave us an earbashing about microwave ovens and cancer and told us to tell all our friends that "sunscreen doesn't protect us from skin cancer". So consider yourself warned.
He also told us how he and his wife used to take his family to nudist camps and thought it was a good way for the kids to be more comfortable with the human body. He said one of his first memories was of "a big brown arse" at the reception area of the nudist colony.
having a cold one! nice - hope my mum doesn't see this, she thinks I still drink creaming soda - I still drink that too : )
12th August 2010
We are in Katherine. Never thought we'd make it this far : )
It's a big town. I think it's the 3rd biggest in the NT. Lots of shops and tourist centres. We didn't stop long really because we have to move on. We need to backtrack to Top Springs for the gigs on Friday and Saturday. But we'll be returning to Katherine on Sunday for a few days to really soak it in.
We're spending the day at Manbulloo Station. It's pretty warm and I've started on the book that Stewart's finished by Thomas Kenneally. I also got a phone call from Conor from the Darwin Sun newspaper. They wanted to do an article for my shows coming up in Darwin. I got really peeved at one of his comments when he said "Well I've never heard of you" to which I retorted "Well of course you havent, and probably wouldn't unless I was signed to a major label or have the big guys behind me, I'm an independant artist!". I should have said - "Well, I've never heard of you either".
I'm over my little tantrum now - all is good with my world :)
Doing nothing much for the rest of the day, might start preparing for my shows on Friday and Saturday soon.
XXX
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