F*@king Flies

Happy New Year! For me, New Years was spent in Darwin which, despite it's remote location, has quite a nightlife. My evening was spent at The Vic, which I know means nothing to most of you, but it has a good reputation in the area. Needless to say, we celebrated in style in the far side of the world. If there was a UBS cord I'd post some pics, but I'm out of luck right now.

The past week has been pretty hectic, traveling through a number of national parks (Litchfield and Kakadu), where I got some great views of the landscape and remote waterfalls from a plane, which at any point could have gone down. On the way down to Alice Springs, I have managed to swim in a number of little watering holes, some of which had unbelievable waterfalls coming down on top of us. I should note that I was later informed that one of them had a 50/50 chance of containing freshwater crocodiles--I am still alive and have all of my limbs, so all is well. Spent a night camping out under the stars at Kings Canyon and took in some amazing scenery. I have seen the landscape change from extremely humid to bone dry, from green and lush to one riddled with huge termite mounds to one of dry red earth. I have also seen first hand the modern Aboriginal, who can certainly be smelled well before they can be seen. Now listen, I know that sounds harsh, but it is true. I have begun referring to their scent as 'Essence of Aborigini' or something of that sort. To give you an idea, it kind of smells like a mixture of extremely bad body odor combined with feces. Seriously, its nausiating.

Today has been spent at Uluru, more comonly known as Ayers Rock, located in the center of the country, where my day began at just past 4 am so that I could see the sunrise over it. Really cool and well worth the early wake up. Tonight I'll watch the sunset with some champagne. Pictures will follow and will be good!

All of this has been good, but there is one thing that summerizes my experience here in the Northern Territory of Australia. Flies. I hate those F'in flies. We all hate mosquitoes, black flies, etc. and have dealt with them, but until you have spent days in The Outback, you have no idea what misery they can bring to a person. I have probably repeated the term "F*@king Flies" more times in the past 5 days than anything every before. They are awful. As I'm writing this there is one buzzing around my head. My hatred and disgust towards them has reached the level of the Yankees and Buckeyes (I'd say it has surpassed it, but I don't think that is possible). Now I have bought a lot of suveniers so far, spending hundreds of dollars on t-shirts, cultural items, etc. but the best thing I have purchased, by far, has been a fly net. For A$8 i have salvaged my trip in this territory. (Thank you, Barbara and Bob, you were definitely right on this one!)

I would elaborate further on all of this, but I was informed that I've been long-winded (Mike), so I'll leave it at this for the time being. My schedule:

Tonight: Uluru
1/9: Alice Springs
1/10-1/12: Cairns

Cheers!