In Alice, while John was up town I met Bill Berwick and Sharon Whitman. They are both on Harley Sportsters and have been on the road since 2001, finishing up this year after they visit New Zealand. I'm sorry that I did not arrange with them for John and me to meet up later to kick tires. They struck me as a lovely couple. Sharon just was such a warm personality while Bill was so easy that they must make great world travelers since they are so open and it would have been a pleasure to talk with them. That was a missed opportunity but we did bump into two others who proved great company as our paths crossed over the days we headed north from Alice to Darwin. When we pulled into the motel in Tennents Creek there were already two BeeMs parked up. It was not long before we got talking and our common interest led us to have a long chat over dinner that night. John and Reinhard from Melbourne are work colleagues as well as friends and were touring around before heading up to Greece to go cruising on their yacht they keep moored there! Reinhard is an orthopedic surgeon while John is an anesthetist so perhaps it was as well that it was they who came on a fatal accident earlier in the day. One of the dangers here in the outback with such long straights and heat is that people tend to get drowsy if they don't stop at regular intervals and unfortunately this seems to have been the case in the accident the lads came upon with the poor woman driver getting killed after just veering off the road. The other great danger here comes from the animals but as they are predominantly nocturnal, this can be largely avoided. For all that, though, while I was leading, two emus ran straight out in front of me and I was lucky to have avoided them. Cattle also stray onto the road, as is evident from the large number of carcasses by the wayside. The other thing to be cautious of are the trucks. Invariably the are hauling three trailers with some having as many as six in tow though the most we saw were four. They go fast so that as you pass them you have to give plenty of leeway for the appreciable sway generated in the last trailer. When meeting them head on, on the narrower roads, it is necessary to ride onto the hard shoulder of gravel in order to avoid being hit sometimes.

The real danger of the outback, however comes from the kangaroo. Unfortunately or fortunately, perhaps, we have seen none since coming here other than the many that litter the roadside after having been hit. They appear from twilight on and are a serious concern from then till after daybreak. We have always avoided riding at these times but on one occasion on the way to Alice we decided to do it in one hit of a thousand clicks which left us in no-man's land as twilight fell. Our last half hour in was in total darkness and we resembled two Transylvanian characters from a Dracula movie racing to get home before the dreaded beasts emerged for the night. While coming up to Tennent we lunched at the roadhouse in Wycliffe, which is the Roswell of Australia and the owner there warned us not to stay in Tennent as it was pay day and no place for woman and children once darkness fell. A little exaggerated we thought but mind you the receptionist in the hotel when we reached there warned us of the same advising us not to go down main street as it got rough! Of course, I went down for a walk as twilight gathered and even coming home in the dark can honestly say I saw no kangaroos, they obviously still being inside in the shade of the pubs. It certainly didn't put in on the meal we had that night with John and Reinhard and they were excellent company with whom to pass the time. The following day we made our respective ways north, each at their own pace only to rendezvous again that night for dinner in Katherine. Katherine is the gateway to the Katherine Gorge and the next morning the two lads and I went for a helicopter ride over the gorge while John just relaxed in the restaurant, the heat and humidity up here being debilitating.

Flying over the gorge as well as giving a fantastic view of it also gave one a great sense of the beauty of this landscape as the forest of trees stretched as far as the eye could see and this sacred Aboriginal site could be appreciated for its magical significance to them. We are now ensconced in Darwin having come up as far north as we intend to go on this continent. Darwin which was devastated by Hurricane Tracy in 1971 not unsurprisingly left not a trace of the old town with the result that it's a totally new city, though thankfully with a minimum of high rise other than a few hotels on the Esplanade. Like all places at the end of a road it is full of tourists and has loads of cafes and restaurants from which to watch the world go by. From here we will go down along the west coast to Perth and fly over to Singapore or should that be 'flu' over.