Hey everyone

Today we went to Bowen!

We got up early, got ready and packed our stuff to catch the 9.10 bus to Bowen. We got to the bus stop nice and early and waited for our bus, but 9.10 came and went without a bus. As did 10.10. We were all becoming very irritated as the heat slowly became more and more unbearable, but finally at 11am the bus came with apologies of being so late. The bus had got stuck in floods at Noosa, and we had seen on the news before leaving that many towns in New South Wales (where we had been just weeks ago) are now under water.

We got on the bus for the short one hour journey to Bowen and got to watch a documentary on outback Queensland. Little did we know it would be good preparation for our arrival in Bowen. Its a small and very very hot outback town where little has changed since the fifties, and in fact it was the filming location for the recent Baz Lurhmann film Australia, standing in for 1950s Darwin. As we got to the hostel the aftermath of the filming could be seen on the field opposite the hostel and the building next door Christina recognised as Carneys Cattle building from the film.

We asked about work (the main purpose of the visit) yet like everywhere else we had spoken to before, the season doesn't start this year to the end of April, so no jobs yet. We thought we would be organised again and went to the supermarket to buy supplies. We made use of having an oven and, as before, had pizza. We sat down to watch the only film Christina had heard of in the TV room, World Trade Centre, but it was so jumpy and scratched we soon gave up and headed to bed, looking forward to our air conditioned room. Xxx