Ahhh! Australia, I promised myself that one day I would return to this diverse and wonderful country. A few years have passed and many adventures undertaken but here I am again with an open mind and no plans!!!

One of the first things I noticed when arriving in Australia, was all the signs..... they are everywhere, telling you where to go & where not to venture, advertising bilboards, laws, rules, advice - everywhere you look there is a distraction & something to absorb....of course everything is written in English too so there is no escape. Such is the way of the infuential & dictating Western world!! There is also so much choice everywhere, do we really need so many different yet similar breakfast cereals or blends of coffee?

Having spent the previous 5 months or so surrounded by people of a different 'mother tongue', I also found communicating just too easy and I'm still not conviced that this is a good thing - OK that's my rant over with (Asia is just so different)

I arrived on Anzac day (25th April) and was delighted to be met at Brisbane airport by my good fun friend Susie, who I met in Laos back in January. Along with her colourful friend Tommo, we piled in her Orange Ruffie Kombie van and headed straight for the beach. I love Australia, serene beauty is never too far away, we found a perfect place and made a camp with a sandy beach on one side of us and a gently flowing estuary on the other. Susie gave me a tent & swag and we slipped into Aussie bush camping as the jetlag subsided. We spent our days creating fun & colourful stuff with crotchet & macrame, surrounded by mother nature - there were 1000's of crazy blue soldier crabs marching around and digging holes at low tide and majestic pelicans preening in the sunlight.

We met some aging Aussie eco-warriors that were fixing up a boat, so we helped raise it back upright, shared a night of banter & a fire on the beach and were taken on a cruise of the waterways with our new friends. After a week or so we'd had enough of been eaten by sandflies so we packed up our lovley camp and headed inland to the rainforests of the Nightcap National park. Cooking on open fires, baking bread, cakes & casseroles in the camp oven, walking in the forests and listening to the sounds of the birds and insects around us. Kookaburras laughing in the trees really is one of the most beautiful sounds of nature.

With waterfalls and walking tracks we exlored the rainforest & continued our simple carefree life with only the theiving possums to test our patience. Nimbin Mardi Grass Festival was our ultimate destination, so as the party weekend grew closer we made our way down through the beautiful winding country roads to that little 'unusual' village that holds so many memories for me....

The 'Mardi Grass' Festival can never be explained in words, we got into the swing of things and volunteered for our pass into the peace park. It wasn't exactly hard work, we spent a gorgeous day in the sunshine painting banners for the parade. We also set up a stall selling some of our handycrafts and made some trades & cash fixing up dreadlox and wrapping hippies hair in fun colours. We floated around enjoying the live music, markets and games, danced with the fairies and soaked up the rainbow coloured atmosphere. After the festivities our friend, Tommo hitched a ride out of town in a van full of equally colourful people and left us to build our own fires.

We chose to go back to nature and explore some more of the rich landscape & rainforests in the area whilst hanging out and preparing a stall for The Channon craft market. Despite the effort & colourfulness of our wares, we spent more at the market than we made, but we had fantastic day and joined in the drumming & dancing of the Chai tea tent anniversary. The previous night was the full moon and we celebrated with a womens circle, lots of drumming and a big pot of Chai - oh how happy I am being a hippie and spreading smiles and colour around the globe but at some point money has to be made to sustain this lifestyle.

Gradually, Susie and I travelled North and inland, stopping off at some beatiful camping spots on the way, still communing with the natural earth and being intrigued by the fasinating wildlife. We saw kangeroos, poteroos, rock wallabies & even a shy echidna (hedgehog type creature). Continuing our simple campfire life until we reached Munduberra - citrus capital of Queensland! from here life takes on a different perspective, time to get a job......... Picking fruit in an outback country town has never been high on my list of dream jobs but to tell the truth I'm actually quite enjoying it.....

Susie and I work together on a good farm and have been filling big blue bins with mandarins as fast as our hands can pick them. Susie 'scissor hands' is really fast and has been picking all kinds of fruit for years so I strive to keep up with her and am getting faster, fitter, and richer everyday. When there is no ripe fruit to pick we prune citrus trees to fill in time between picking. It's all good and we work with some lovely people, outside in the beautiful sunshine of winter, surrounded by green, orange and the sweet citrus smell, we have our music on and no worries - life is still good!!

We live in a tiny outback town called Eidsvold, just around the corner and over the hill from the middle of absolute nowhere... it is apparently the 1st place in Australia that 'golf' was played - a wee bit of trivia for you there. It is a clean, friendly place with all the essentials (1 pub, 1 supermarket, 1 servo, 1 greasy take-away & a library) plus a golf course, showground, cattleyard, a few cowboys, kangeroos and an aboriginal community. The only thing thats missing is rolling tumbleweed and horses tied up in the main street (however there is a hitching rail). I thought I'd met some colourful characters on my travels but these outback folk are a different breed altogether ;o}

We rent a lovely wooden house with Gilly, who is a painter & works in the pub and are spoilt with all the mod cons that most of you guys take for granted - electricity, hot running water, telly, a real bed, an oven and a bath in which to soak for many hours of simple bliss. To be honest, I'm still a little over excited about having a kitchen and have been baking more cakes, bickies and roast dinners than is surely healthy but hey! you can never have enough cake!! We now have our own veggie garden too (fertilised from the cattle yard) and are already enjoying the fresh produce yum! So this is where I am at the moment, and maybe for another month or so, not a million miles from my rainbow coloured bubble but a different experience once again.

A wise hippy once told me that it is not the strongest or the most intellectual that survive in this ever changing world but those that adapt easiest to change. I will be 33 years old next week (birthday pressies to the address below please) and this little hobo has no desire to 'settle' anywhere just yet.

So where to next????? suggestions on a postcard please.........

Here's some lovely words that literaly blew into my life, this was written by Richard Lederer, PhD.

 The Case for Short Words. When you speak and write, there is no law that says you have to use big words. Short words are as good as long ones, and short, old words - like sun and grass and home - are the best of all.

A lot of small words, more than you might think, can meet your needs with a strength, grace and charm that large words do not have. Big words can make the way dark for those who read what you write and hear what you say. Small words cast their clear light on big things - night and day, love and hate, war and peace and life and death.

 Big words at times seems strange to the eye and the ear and the mind and the heart.  Small words are the ones we seem to have known from the time we were born, like the hearth fire that warms the home. Short words are bright like sparks that glow in the night, prompt like the dawn that greets the day, sharp like the blade of a knife, hot like salt tears that scald the cheek, quick like moths that flit from flame to flame, and terse like the dart and sting of a bee. Here is a sound rule: Use small, old words where you can.

If a long word says just what you want to say, do not fear to use it. But know that our tongue is rich in crisp, brisk, swift, short words. Make them the spine and heart of what you speak and write. Short words are like fast friends. They will not let you down.

Well thats all from me folks, as always keep your emails coming and keep me up to speed with your dreams & realities.

 L xxxxxx

current address: 82 Moreton St, Eidsvold, QLD, 4627, Australia

no mobile phone reception here