Home sweet home for Australia and USA - complete with the worse for wear Liz. Liz was on some cheap wine last night, I was fine.

The tent was a bargain in Sydney - it is the largest tent we have ever had and very well ventelated, useful in hot weather and for the effects of curry and beer. The only questions are: is the flysheet fine enough to filter out the minute things that bite, and would it stop the sand getting in when we go to the Black Rock desert in Nevada for the Burning Man festival?

I was hoping to find some friendly travellers at this camp site. So far just insular people, looking a bit on the miserable side. Is it because we have come from what is deemed the friendliest place on Earth - TINV This Is Not Vanuatu.

We are waiting for a 'rent a roughy' hire car to be availiable and also meet our friend Simon heading up from Perth before we can escape.

It so happens that a rather chilled Spiers has just phoned - could this be a turning point for the Aus experience? A bottle of duty free vodka has been cracked open, tunes on the iPhone played - Darwin mark II coming up. All we need to do is negociate the buses into town - a task the normally pessimistic Aussy taxi drivers think is impossible, but hey it is not going to be more difficult than Africa or Vanuatu.