Yulara has a myriad of accommodation types of which the weary traveler can avail oneself. They range from the Resort - Sails at the top end, which is aimed at the discerning jet setter and Budget car hirer, to the caravan park for the budget traveler and grey nomad. Unfortunately for us none of which suit our needs.

Out on the outback roads the traveler can also choose to stay at a station. A station is in fact a very big farm. And a "working" station has more "appeal" by virtue of the fact that it is owned by real outback Aussies, even if Asian backpackers work in the kitchen and clean the rooms in places like Kings Creek Station near Kings Canyon. At Kings Creek Station with its dog kennel sized safari tents lined up in a row I was reminded of my days as a school cadet at annual camp. At $85/head for one of these ****** little tents you are still expected to share a communal kitchen and **** in a transportable toilet block.

If you are travelling the outback and are drawn to stay at structured accommodation, do your homework because some of these places are expensive and offer very little.

They are a far cry from Africa with its Lodges. African campers stay in grounds next to the Lodge and are entitled to use those facilities, like the pool and restaurant, available to the fly in clients. And generally even in the smallest campground has facilities that even if rustic are sympathetic to the local environment.

Whilst at Kings Canyon, the school teacher in me resurfaced even after all these years. A simpleton on the canyon wall directly opposite our viewing point thought it a good idea to see if he could hear rocks bounce of tourists heads at the bottom of the canyon. I felt safe in informing him of his ********* status, as at this point on the walk there was no possibility of him jumping over to my side of the canyon and beating the **** out of me. This simpleton probably wondered what all the fuss was about. As do those parents who at "the rock" knowingly, despite heartfelt requests from the local aboriginals, give their approval to their brood to climb it.

I should mention at this stage that Uluru, Kings Canyon and Palm Valley are all visually appealing and offer pleasant walks. But, to fail to mention the stone throwers, incessant helicopter flyovers, rock autograph scratchers, and rock pile builders would lead you to believe this tourism experience to be perfect.

Were you also aware that camels prefer to **** on the road than in the bush? I will be doing further research on this fact!

Our next stop was Alice Springs. Here we had planned to re-stock our dwindling supplies, freshen up, and meet up with the Kingsmills family - Overlanding heroes of mine from the internet. Well we achieved all our aims but for the Kingsmills. Unfortunately we had to be at Newhaven Station Reserve as per prior arrangement and just couldn't fit everything in. Maybe next time!

As for a town like Alice! It has all the social problems that alcohol and drugs bring to an isolated mixed race community. It is sad to see the distress of some of our proud aboriginal Australians in the Alice.

The night we did spend in the Alice was only the second in over a month in which through circumstance we have had to stay in a caravan park. At two thirty in the morning I thought I had inadvertently camped next to the main runway at Tullamarine Airport. But the rattling of my teeth was caused not by one but two freight trains passing the camp at supersonic speed during the night. If this wasn't enough to guarantee I would lay awake waiting for the 3.30am special from wherever, some goose outside the park who clearly had never heard of Dean Martin, decided to fire up their stereo until four a.m.

Newhaven Station owes its existence to the forlorn hope that some of our native species may survive to die of natural causes instead of being eaten by a cat or dispossessed of a home through land clearing, burning or over grazing etc. A beautifully remote place North West of Alice Springs where we spotted some of Australia's unique but all too often endangered birds.

Next the Tanami Track! A road that's name loosens the bowels of caravaners across this wide brown land. As a consequence of its reputation, not a caravan hauling Grey Nomad was to be seen for its 800klm. Along its length three gold mines were to be seen. One with two passenger jets parked beside the road waiting for the change of shift. Not what you expect to see at this location! Towards the northern end of the track is Wolfe Creek meteorite crater. It looks like, well a crater! Not a good place to have been whilst skinning you next meal 300,000 years ago. "Hey look wife, what the f_ck is that up _______"? Out here there's not a lot to see, so even a hole in the ground draws tourists in like flies to last night road kill.

Next stop Halls Creek, the town at the end of the Tamami. The usual ritual of fuel, groceries, and restocking of my beer supplies after having little joy in Alice Springs. But it's not to be. Halls Creek has its own set of rules. Light beer only for both locals and travelers alike, and not a drop of takeaway wine to sate ones thirst. We did manage a shower at the local Shell Service station though.

Once hitting the main highway at Halls Creek the tourist traffic increases one hundred percent. All those caravaners-you know the ones, Tom and d*** and - was it Roxanne- all made it here safe and sound on the black top.

Then to the Bungle Bungles. A world heritage area and justly so! Very pleasing views. Even to this jaded traveler's eyes. The camping however does not live up to world heritage status expectations. The Western Australian Government plays to the lowest common denominator on the scale of camping experiences. We are told by Ranger man, that camping should have been booked prior to driving over one hundred klm to get to the sixty klm long entry road that leads to the park office. But in this instance we are lucky and secure a postage stamp sized piece of dirt for the next two nights. Perhaps a warning of the need to book ahead in the future!

Our "site" which you must have confirmed before you can enter the park, is separated from our neighbor on either side by a mere five meters. This is in a park the size of some European countries for Christ sake! Campers in Australia are like plankton - the lowest organism on the accommodation food chain. Our neighbors on both sides appear to be very nice people, but the family on the left has a child that should be at home on a ventilator, not in the bush coughing his lungs out and bothering me. To put the icing on the cake, the father obviously suffers from sleep apnea if the volume of his snoring was anything to go by. I am ashamed to admit it but I hoped he would succumb to the affliction so I could get some sleep. Unfortunately he was still alive and looking remarkably refreshed in the morning unlike me.

Our second night was spent at a roadside pullout in the park to avoid a night like the previous. A big no-no, but unlike Yellowstone NP the rangers here can't arrest you, and don't carry hand guns or taser guns. So what's to be afraid off!

Then the long slog west back to Halls Creek and on to Fitzroy Crossing. Not far out of Fitzroy Crossing a gander at Geikie Gorge. All the other old ***** in the car park headed for the small punt come tour boat. However Gael and I, although tempted by the thought of having access to a defibulator close at hand, opted for the five klm walk.

Next a night on the banks of the Margret River we were entertained as some locals filled a trailer with river sand for a building project.

Today sees us arrive at that great northern tourist magnet that is Broome. Although drawn like flies to a steaming cow pat for the last three days we are left wondering what the attraction is! West Australia's alternative to Byron Bay perhaps!

We did have our reasons for being there in the form of the Broome Bird Observatory. This place is Mecca for those who like us want to view our feathered and threatened friends. Again the camping ground was small enough to enable you to hear your neighbor change his or her mind. An added annoyance was in the form of the crunchy gravel spread liberally around the camping area. This feature ensured you didn't miss Bill next door going to the outhouse to relieve the pressure on his enlarged prostate at two am.

Have I mentioned the bugs? Not only do you get crushing heat of on average, thirty five degrees every bloody day, and humidity that is unheard of in the southern states even in summer - remember its mid winter up here - you get mosquitoes in plague proportions as well. From five pm it's inside the tent Irene or get eaten alive and perhaps contract a deadly disease. There are warning brochures that appear to describe something very similar to the Black Plague of old. Wish you were here!

After three days in and around Broome we head north up the Dampier Peninsula to the notorious James Price Point. This place would have been the future home of gas processing if Woodside petroleum had gotten their way. This was also a desperate attempt to leave the mosquitoes behind that fails miserably as they have somehow been able to get there ahead of us. These barstards must fly at supersonic speed! Not only do they arrive before us but they have bought reinforcements with them.

On the positive side-yes there are some positives- the birds are great, we meet a nice man who gives us a fish, I catch a fish, as yet we don't have the plague and there is no gas plant to bother the many whales and other sea creatures.

I am writing this entry at our roadside camp at the start of the Gibb River Road. This iconic stretch of dirt will surely test our pluck. The road has over the years reduced husband and wife teams to bug eyed and estranged wrecks.

Eight thirty pm and still twenty six degrees. Jesus, when will this weather end?

Well, here we are just outside of Wyndham for the night recovering from the Gibb River Road. Six hundred and fifty odd klm's from Derby on teeth rattling dirt the whole way. Plus, a few hundred extra klm's of even crappier road thrown in to visit Mitchell Falls.

Was it worth it? Aside from a personal desire to see more of our country, the Kimberley area has to be the best piece of tourist marketing ever put together. People flock here, but in our opinion there is stuff all to see. Go to the Flinders or Hamersley Ranges if you want to see good rocks.

However, the Mitchell Falls is definitely world class. It's not Victoria Falls, but it is unique. And I only say that because there was water to make, the falls in fact falls. Remember that the water does not flow all year up here! As for the road in from the Gibb River Road to the falls! In our opinion, it is only eclipsed in its appalling state by the road to South Luangwa National Park in Zambia. I have a few of the world's worst roads under my belt by now and this one can be a vehicle destroyer. And remember that when you get to the falls camp ground, don't expect too much. No, there is plenty of dirt to be shared amongst fellow campers, but don't expect to be able to wash it of unless you want to jump in the river. Oh, and you will probably have to queue for the dunny as it can be busy with just two for the assembled crowd. We camped by ourselves elsewhere!

Then, for the ultimate in mass tourism in the Kimberley you have El Questro Station. What a magnet for the passing tourist plankton. Sixty dollars for the refugee camp experience, or seventy five if you want to rent a piece of your own dirt for the night. The seventy five dollar option doesn't even get you the use of an onsite dunny! You have to drive about eight klm's if you want to, you know what.

After you have settled in and gotten to know the refugee's next door, although it's debatable whether you really need to know what the bloke you hear ******* during the night looks like, you can by a pass so that you can drive on their roads to see the sights. No wilderness drive pass, no wilderness drive. If they can screw you for a dollar in this place they will. We travelled a little further towards Wyndham and found a refugee free camp site by a billabong in a nature reserve. Heaven!

I will remember Wyndham for three things. The Three Rivers Café for nothing more than it was clean and bright had good coffee and fresh food. It just had a good feel about it.

A government funded jetty build purely to fish from. The jetties pontoon goes up and down with the tide so you are at all times close enough to the wet stuff to feel like croc bait.

A good humored mechanic called Lappy who after a lot of fault finding hotwired the truck to get us going again. The ignition switch decided to rearrange its vital internal bits in dramatic fashion thus putting paid to any further forward motion and giving me a moment of extreme anxiety, which to my discredit resulted in a verbal tirade one would expect from a bullock driver. However, this little electrical inconvenience happened not only in a town with a mechanic, but outside the pub. My bowels loosen when I think about the remote and potentially highly expensive places to be extricated from that we have been over the last few weeks. How lucky were we? Disregard everything I have said in the past about there being no God. And that time I called the Pope a Ronald MacDonald lookalike. I didn't mean any of it!