We finished up the 2000 kilometer drive this morning from the middle of the outback to the beaches of the Northeast coast. It was three days in the making with some great stories in between. The Canadian guy that has travelled with me, Kelvan, has been a good time keeping the Jack Johnson and Xavier Rudd pumping through the half blown speakers in the baby.

It was about noon on Sunday when we stopped

in the one-horse town of Camooweal for gas after travelling a stretch of road that is 260 km long with no services. We decided we owed ourselves a beer for the effort at the local bar/motel/hotel/gas station/restaurant. We walk in and sit down to a cold XXXX Bitter with the 5 or so locals enjoying a Sunday off of work dressed in their "town" clothes drinking rum. We started talking to them after they asked which horse we wanted to bet on on the little color tv propped above the bar. The races would go from horses to greyhounds and back- with everyone (all 7 of us) in the bar picking a number. The winner would get a drink bought for them by the others.

After our 1 beer we said we were off, but the locals weren't going to have us leave mid race. What started as a 1 beer affair turned into 7 hours at the bar followed by camping on the side yard of the pub. These guys were great. There were 3 guys and 2 girls that all came from different cattle stations within a 200 km radius. They were dressed in their Wranglers, boots and cowboy hats for a big afternoon out on the "town." They are all "musterers" which are those that work from horseback in conjunction with helicopters and jeeps to herd the thousands of cattle on these stations (big, big ranches- one of the guys had just finished-up work on a 3 million acre station)

Shane was the skinniest guy I've ever seen with tight Wrangler's pulled up to his nipples, a faded golf shirt on and a big white hat that never came off his head. His buddy Simon was a younger guy that asked me 325 questions about America and what it's like. One of the girls brought in a guitar and Kelvan jammed on the thing playing songs from a little song book that they mustered up from behind the bar. After a little practice we were all singing Cat Stevens "Wild World" at the top of our lungs having lost interest in the dog and horse races long ago. These guys loved country music, so I brought in my iPod (which they had NEVER seen before) and they did there own outback version of drunken line dancing while plugged into some Kenny Chesney.

We went out to the car and I made everybody peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for an afternoon delight. The guys got a hold of our bag of Doritos and let fly on those things. Shane accidentally poured the remaining quarter bag onto the roof of my car. I told him were not going to waste any chips so he better get up there and eat them. Up he went onto the roof doing a push-up on the rack to reach the pile of chips coming up each time with chips all over his face. Simon decided he needed to wash the chips down so he pours the rest of his rum and Coke on the roof next to the chips. Shane would drop down, get a bite of chips, then stutter step over and thrown down a push-up for some rum and Coke. We were dying laughing and I caught it all on video.

I talked to one of the guys for the better part of 2 hours that night about liveing and working on cattle stations. I got a crash course on the business and can say that I think I could hold my own in a conversation. We cooked up a bit of rice/baked beans/tuna sufflee in the parking lot before calling it a night in the tent. We got up at sunrise, as you have to do in the outback before the flies and extreme heat bear down on you, to head East with no destination in mind.

Last night driving we got the beer urge again and stopped in a town called Praire (population 40) to see what we could get ourselves into this time. The party of 3 was comprised of an old mechanic, and old cattle station owner and a cattle transport driver with Marianne (who insisted we take brochures of places on the East coast- only problem was they were from the mid to late 80's) behind the bar. The bar was filled with old cowbuy hats, dingo pelts and various crap that had some how ended-up in Praire.

We talked for a good hour and a half with the crew about what Praire was like in 1948 and did the usual question/answer session about America. I told the old mechanic (who had become a mechanic instead of a cattleman because he is dislexic and couldn't keep the numbers straight, but didn't have to read to fix an engine) that I was from Florida and he kind of shook his head and said he could never live in a place that snows a lot like Florida. We got him straightened out after he had a few more stubbies of beer.

They all took a look at the car as we pulled out of the gravel driveway back onto the lonely highway heading towards the coast dodging oncoming road trains before settling down for the night at a free camp site area. Cranked up the Jack Johnson, had a PB&J and looked at the millions of stars above. Too bad Kelvan isn't a good looking blonde girl.... maybe next time.

Now I turn the car South....