Thursday 15th July 2004 - Day 305/366 - Wauchope, Northern Territory to Alice Springs, Northern Territory.
 
Live on your screens

A 6.30 start is not what is called for when you've been up until 3.30 drinking Bundy and Coke.  Yep we were up in the Road House drinking until it closed.  There were 7 of us and our guide and 3 truckers.  Much fun was hand dancing on the bar to the jukebox with the sulubrious clientelle.  When they kicked us out at 2 I complained and said we'd take our business elsewhere.  They said they were happy for me to do that, but reminded me we were 100kms from anywhere.  We settled for buying a few cans of Bundy and retiring to the camp fire. 

I was designated navigator today.  I'm not sure why a navigator is necessary on a 1500 kms road that has 2 turn offs on it.  1 to Queensland and the other to Western Australia.  I think it's just to keep Matt awake.

We stopped at Wycliffe Wells which is apparently the UFO capital of Oz.  The owners claim appear a little bit lacking in evidence when you consider that he is the only one to have spotted a UFO.  Anyway he's built a UFO landing site, so I guess he's just one more outback eccentric to add to the list.

We also had a stop at the tropic of Capricorn for no other reason than to say we did. 

At about noon our epic roadtrip ended. 

We had a particularly strange bunch this time.  I think it matters that it was quite a big group.  Basically the 4 brits drunk and the rest were pretty lame.

They were 2 young swiss girls and a young german who were very clicky and boring.  There was a French couple who kept sneaking of to the woods and were always in the front of the tucker queue.  There was a French girl who had a very unfortunate likeness to Ivan Drago.  They was a belgian girl with a black hairband who I never saw.  There was the Jap guy Hiro and Matchuko (from Kakadu), but they Engrish no good and they didn't do anything stupid either.  There was also a French Canadian and German young lesbian couple who were soooooooooo into each other.  There were 3 Canadians over here studying in Surfers Paradise.  They were too cool for us initially, but once warmed up 2 of them were good fun.  They were however the type of girls who go camping in Billabong T Shirts, White Ripcurl Pants and Roxy thongs.  To be fair though they weren't too precious they did get stuck in, but hated the aerial bombardment from the bats. We had The 2 sisters from Southampton who were game.  Heike whos the only German I know who hasn't got a weed in her $$$$.  She was the first one on the bar dancing.  Finally there was my mate Nicola from Manchester with the Black dreads.  I first spotted her in the hostel in Darwin and have been known to steal glow sticks from about her person in night clubs.  Such a nice girl.

I must make special mention of Matt our driver/guide.  He's a bloody legend, but not much of a guide.  He ended up buying our little group drinks out of the meal kitty.  On top of everything he cracked me up.  He managed to crack his head whilst manoeuvering about the trailer.  Having picked us up late and blaming a dead battery I saw that after all the truck didn't have a new battery.  He finally confessed that he was entertaining.  He picked up a dead snake.  He thought it was a python, but got the shock of his life when he realised it was venomous brown snake that still may have been alive, but was just taking time out to digest its food.  When we fueled up at one stage he managed to pay someone elses bill.  He lost a canadian at the Devils Marbles.  He asked girls to look like turtles at 3.30 am.  He sat in the back of the canoe smoking a phat cigar whilst I did the work.  He needed a navigator on a straight road.  He'd never played the ABC game.  He had a bad taste in music.  He bought a vegan vegetarian cheese burgers.  He showed his real class by going bush when only 30kms out of Alice and having to wipe up with wet wipes.  ouch.  Last seen he was totally out of it leaving Bojangles.  He is truly a legend and an alcholic.

I managed a couple of hours kip before meeting some of the girls for a meal and hitting Bojangles.  For those of you who missed my live web cam performance here they are recreated thanks to the Big Steve.  I'll give you a clue.  I'm the bloke.  I'm in a red shirt holding a beer.