Heading out towards Mataranka on the side of road, we saw
this old bloke, in a bomb of a truck being pull by two camels. There was
no engine in the truck, and his stuff was all powered by solar panels.
Apparently he’d been getting around with his camels 'Snowy' and 'Cuddles' for the last 20 years and
swears it’s the way to go. We stopped under the bridge near Tennant Creek and had
a little chat. His name was Klaus. Meeting people like Klaus
reminds me that if you want to do something in life, you better just go and do
before it’s too late, it doesn’t matter how crazy the idea is. He was definitely an inspiration. I can’t
see how I could travel around the thick of traffic in Sydney with 2 camels pulling me along but I
really applaud the idea! Klaus mentioned that we should be really careful of
the fox bait ‘1080’ that’s scattered around the place. It’s shaped like a
sausage and got a bit of meat and poison to kill off the foxes. Apparently they
just get dropped across the land from the air so it’s not so accurate as to
where it lands. They're supposed to keep it away from townships, but Klaus has had
4 dogs die on him by the poison. So it means Freddy will have to be carefully
watched from now on.We were offered two shows at the Mataranka Homestead which is about 100km south of Katherine. The resident artist Gary Booth, unfortunately had a sudden burst appendix and they needed a replacement urgently. Places like the Mataranka homestead are very tourist based, it’s their peak season at the moment and if there’s no music, there’s no money to be made. The shows at Mataranka are mainly aimed at the travelling tourists (called 'Grey Nomads'), locals and workers at the homestead, who all seemed to really connect with our stories and songs - again! We were asked if we could cover a few weeks while Gary recovered. We would have loved to (Mataranka Homestead is a paradise for us) but we’re on a tight schedule of shows. We've penciled in a couple of dates with them for on the way home. Hopefully we can fit it in.
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| Stew getting his hair cut by a fellow traveller in Daly Waters |
Our next stop is Kununurra, at Home Valley Station, 3 shows in a row. These kind of shows are the perfect for us because the audiences are usually new people each night and we get to do the same show over and over ... a great way for us to hone our show ... we're performing like a well-oiled machine now:)
We've been told that to get to Home Valley Station, we have to drive through a croc infested river. They reckon best way to test the depth of the river before driving through, is to walk across wearing jeans and see how high the water mark is on your jeans! Stewart says not unless he's wearing his bullet-proof, croc-proof undies :)
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