Bluedome

Hooray..after almost 4 weeks from touching down in Adelaide we have just bought 3 camels from some guy called Harold who lives at Silverton near Broken Hill, NSW.

Due to a certain character who shall remain nameless, in fact no, his name is REX ELLIS the original camels that were promised never turned up. Instead of paying $500 per camel, we've just had to pay $1000 per camel (an expensive steak I hear you say)! In addition to this the above named character who gave us a quote of $4,482 for three camels on the start line has now become nearer $12,000, quite a difference. It looks like Witchety grubs are on the menu after all!

Wingeing aside, we reckon our three camels Siabod, Munroe and Chewie have turned out allright, eh, eh, eh (sorry dats my scousers impression) eh! Eh calm down. Chewie got his name from Chewbacker (that big furry thing in Star Wars) that moans and groans a lot - you know the one I mean. Anyhow our camel Chewie sounds just like that. Anyone who knows North Wales well will know Siabod a peak just behind Snowdon that looks just like a camel's hump, well it does coming out of the Tyn-e-Coed pub at closing. Munroe for our Scottish fans out there just seems a really nice name for a camel, sort of solid.

With the camels coming on line, we still have a large amount of work to do, in gaining permission to cross lands, fund-raising, trying to commission a doco, sorry documentary, but most importantly practising our recipes with the camp oven.

There are three key factors in this trip, which fall into the order of one, camels, two food & water and three US. We'd like to swop one and three around after the face full of regurgitated camel cud I received today, but I think that's a little bit selfish. Anyhow we have now moved from Mount Barker (a big thanks to Patrick and Sandra Torrens, P.S if you go into Sandra's house make sure you take your shoes off)!

Now we have our camels we are based in Mannum on the banks of the Murray (home of the first paddle steamer in Australia apparently) staying with a guy called Graham Boothby who is managing very well in training both Steve and I and our camels. From the above note you might have gathered that Steve and I feel marginally happier since we last wrote to you and are definitely closer to kick off. Mind you having 3 camels does help when one is planning to walk across Australia using camels!