Jason and Gwen Barnes' Honeymoon to Australia
Day 3

July 11, 2004

	Large -- Medium A shot of the moon between tree branches before we headed out of Batchelor.

I slept in the car while Jason drove from Batchelor to Katherine. There we looked for lunch. The place the tour books raved about (Katie's Bistro) wasn't open for lunch, and other places weren't open on Sunday. We finally ended up at the Red Rooster -- a local fast food joint.

Then we looked for internet and found the Diji Internet Cafe. After several days without solid internet, this cafe revived us by having laptop plogins available and full function pay-as-you-go computers. After 45 minutes (and $6) Jason started talking to the proprietor, Glenn, about didjeridoos. He showed us the different kinds, and played them for us, so we could hear their different sounds. Since it turned out that he sold didjeridoos in addition to the internet stuff, we bought one from him for $260. This is to be our big mommento from the trip. We probably need to ship it ourselves since I don't think we can take any more stuff on the airplane.

After Glenn saw we were sold on the d-j, he (an aboriginal) wanted to tell us more about where the d-j comes from. He showed us a painting and explained how it showed the aboriginal creation myth. He showed us a book which had a picture of the painting in it, so this must be an important painting.

He explained to Jason how to circular breathe, as that would enhance Jason's d-j playing experience. It was cool to find this aboriginal man selling d-j's which are culturally important to him, as well as being entrepunerial by starting an internet cafe when he knew nothing about computers to start with. He even has a website: didj.com.au.

We finally got out of there and back on the road. We saw some of the first topography we'd seen on the road. There was a "mountain" on the morth side of the road. The map shows a "Mt. Leonard" in approximately the same place, but if that was it, it wasn't much of a mountain. We climbed to the top in about 15 minutes. All the rocks seemed to be more of the red sandstone conglomerate that we are seeing everywhere on this continent. We called our parents on the satellite phone from the top.

	Large -- Medium Our car, a Nissan Patrol, a 4x4 SUV rented from the evil Australian 4wd Hire (don't use them under any circumstances -- they'll rip you off).
	Large -- Medium The hill we climbed.
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	Large -- Medium Looking back toward the east along the lonely highway.
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	Large -- Medium An interesting conglomerate at the top of the hill.
	Large -- Medium Gwen and a small termite mound.

Going back down was trickier. There were loose rocks all over the hillside. Yes, it happened. I slipped and rolled a couple meters down the hillside until a small tree relieved me of my kinetic energy. I was well bruised and sore, but thanks to the tree it was no worse.

	Large -- Medium A pretty tree we saw on the way down the hill.

Once we got back on the road we realized that we could not possibly make it to Kununurra before dark, but the only other place to stop was so soon that it would waste several hours of daylight. The problem with driving in the dark is that if a large mammal, say, a water buffalo, were to wander onto the road in front of us, it would total the car and probably injure us. The rental guy specificially said, "Do not drive at night." Well, we ended up doing just that, but we went REALLY slow with the high beams on, and made it.

	Large -- Medium Large mammals, like this water buffalo, did exist.
	Large -- Medium Sunset along the road to Kununurra (pronounced "Ken-nugh-narr-ah", despite all of the 'u's).

In the car we had decided to stay in what the guide book called "cheap but tired Hotel Kununurra." When we got there though, it was a totally HAPPENING place! It turns out they had fixed it up, so now it was nice and expensive -- but we stayed there anyway.

We had their buffet dinner -- lamb and veggies. The lady carving the lamb knew Arizona, and said she wanted to live in Prescott forever. I thought it was interesting that as soon as she knew we were Americans she dropped the accent!