Better late than never!

"Tomorrow" appears to have meant something more akin to "about a month from now" but I shall strive onwards nevertheless.

The next two days were spent were roughly the same area. Wednesday, we traveled into an area where the dirt changed distinctively from red to white, which we later learned was due to winds blowing the sand in from the coast. The trip there was spent going over fair sized hills at fair speeds, with stomaches doing all sorts of somersaults (good times). We saw an area of rocks that had once been used by Aboriginals to paint themselves for ceremonies, with reds, oranges, and purples found in strange abundance. Then, it was onwards to Lake Gairdner, where there are semi-permanent tents set-up. I only mention these because their interiors looks like an up-scale hotel room, complete with toilets and showers. And carpets. And beds. Bizarre. Anyways, the main excitement of the day was salt lakes. We saw two that day, one of which is used by people trying to break land speed records. To our bemusement, both had water on them. The plus to this was that it was so shallow, we could walk on one in our boots, and the other by rolling our pants to our knees, leading to some cool pictures.

The other two sites worth mentioning are the Embankment and Kath's Castle (we think - our itinerary changed around a bunch, but it was either Kath's or Pildappa Rock). The Embankment was an old, fairly small dam (20 - 30 ft tall). It still was functional, however, with a reservoir behind it, in which some of us went swimming, while others gathered some melons found scattered about, and threw them at one another (we were told they were good for nothing else). Kath's was a ravine that led up to a series of very climbable rocky outcroppings. A quick scaling found us over looking the ravine and being able to see kilometers in most direction (the hill crested behind us), with a number of prickly bushes dotting the top (I promise there will be pictures soon to make these descriptions less vague). Of course, tall grass led to Jurassic Park references, and whether or not our IES group on the top of the hill could fight off a raptor, and whether a cassowary or a raptor would win in a battle royale.

The nights at the bush station, which I forgot to mention until now, were filled mostly with campfires, food, and being in bed no later than 10 (by our own choice). Activities included making s'mores, star gazing (I can now find the Southern Cross), and being entertained by a boy of 6 or 7 named Toby who was a ball of energy. Switching back and forth between being the director of an acting company and a game show host, he would have us march like a robot in one direction, then do something else heading back, or quiz us while sitting around the campfire with questions "How many motorbikes?" context not provided. Oh, and at one point he was metal, invisible, and attacking us with an invisible chainsaw. Chris died and was resurrected by Brian ten times in about two minutes.

Day four, we packed up camp and then drove to see wombat holes (wombats are like a badger than looks more like a koala). Then, we drove off towards Streaky Bay. I should mention that when we had stopped for gas on day two, I had mentioned to someone that one of the trailer tires looked low. They told me that it was supposed to look like that. In Streaky Bay, Bill (the leader) sided with me, deciding that a repair was necessary. As a result, we fished off the end of a pier for a while using nothing but line, hook, and cockles (shell-fishies). While some succeeded in catching a few of the small guys, I was mocked constantly by the ability of the fish to take my bait without getting hooked. Anyways, modified our plans and stayed in Streaky Bay for the night. Played some Australian Trivial Pursuit waiting for dinner, and then slept on a beach.

More forthcoming. Need to figure out how to get pictures into this.