The middle of nowhere

With the air conditioning set to 'SubZeroFreeze', Barbados dance music set to 'AreYouDeafYet' and Cruise Control set to 'DesertBlazing' we cruise through the outback. The dust cloud behind us can be seen from space and we are making good time on atrocious unsealed tracks leading to one of the world’s best parties: The Birdsville races.

The Birdsville races have existed since 1882 and grow bigger every year. It all boils down to an all Australian outback piss up where everyone is everyone else's friend.

Everybody knows what the outback is, but no one really knows where it is. So just to make sure there's no discussion whether this is the outback, Birdsville was chosen for the event.

We make good time and work through the 1700 kms and get there if the afternoon of the 2nd day. Kieran had to endure a make-shift bath...

Kieran's life

Crapped my pants,

took a nap,

sucked on some titties.

How was your day?

Birdsville races

Come the first weekend of September about 6000 Aussies descend on Birdsville for a weekend of hard drinking and gambling on horse races. It is the single most famous Australian piss up and it made the top 20 in my “Best Parties in the World book”. I had pretty much given up on ever being able to visit this cultural event as there are just 10 rooms in the hotel of the town that counts 120 souls which is booked out for the next 2 years. Camping with a baby would have been possible but it does get really cold and really hot in the desert. Besides it is a 24 hour drive on atrocious roads in the middle of the outback.

But lucky Bassie got lucky by participating in an e-bay auction to get 3 nights, all entries to all races, boxing ring, and evening entertainment. I won! I was even on the radio and have been called to confirm. Once there I’ll be interviewed live! Poor Kieran though. He’ll be bouncing for 2x 24 hours in a fourbie in the sweltering heat of the desert (that's like driving to southern Spain from the Netherlands for the weekend).

Aussie things

Two truly Australian things are: Vegemite and Australian football.

Vegemite is THE single most Australian product in the world. It tastes foul and only Australians have developed a taste for it. Jerome's reaction was "Aw damn!" and Stephane said "That's awful". In the Australian national museum you'll find Vegemite jars dating back to the 1920's, and every Aussie knows the song:

We're happy little Vegemites
As bright as bright can be.
We all enjoy our Vegemite
For breakfast, lunch and tea.
Our Mummies say we're growing stronger
Every single week
Because we love our Vegemite.
We all adore our Vegemite.
IT PUTS A ROSE IN EVERY CHEEK!
We're growing stronger every week!

Australian Football is a fun sport. It comes down to:
1. Kick, disfigure, maim and kill anyone who has the ball.
2. If you have the ball, run like the wind in the general direction of the goal.

You'll need to drink a few beers, eat a couple of dogs during the 3 hours the entire session. Footy as the Aussies call it is played in 4 halves of 25 mins each. At the end of the game, the public is invited on the field to kick a few balls themselves.

Gold Coast Surfers

While hunting for a parking spot I see a spot being freed up. Someone is waiting, but I wrangle my car in there. The chauffeur and passenger of the waiting car are unhappy and yell profanities to underline their unhappiness but do not insist as we are 4 and they are 2. I'm such a bastard :). But had they not lost their temper, I would have made a spot for the both of us as there was enough space for 2.

The Gold Coast beach looks fabulous and we can't wait to go surfing. Emma opts for the more relaxed Gold Coast experience and naps for a bit.

We surf, we see whales breach in the distance, we drink a bottle of wine from the Barossa region and walk on the beach.

Fourbie on Moreton

I bought a fourbie for two good reasons, to look cool and to take it on the beach. This weekend Stephane and Jerome were visiting us. So a perfect excuse to drive on the beautiful beaches. We're in the middle of winter so temperatures are about 28C (a bit warm the time of the year).

Driving along the water, it’s a 25km drive, we see dolphins close to shore. Why not try to swim with them and sure enough, one dolphin came to see us. Stephane and Jerome are ecstatic. We do a little fishing, drink a couple of XXXX beers, through the boomerang around and enjoy the glorious day.

I love my little car. Nothing really stops it except very deep tracks where the bottom of the car touches the sand. It's a great feeling ploughing through the sand. Then again, it takes a bit of XXXX-courage to put a brand new car through bad terrain.

Crap 'o-matic

So what about Kieran?

Well the soft, adorable sleeping little package that blinks, yawns and uses all it’s might to be cute is doing well. Except Kieran is hardly what was advertised when it comes to nappies. Where other parents change nappies of their offspring whispering completely retarded things, like: ‘well done’, ‘so cute’, ‘how adorable’; we are a bit reluctant to perform this unpleasant operation.

Kieran occasionally turns red and blasts yet another nappy full of baby poo. We’re talking quantity here. He looks pretty happy and quite proud when he pinches off yet another trucker sized load. If there is any correlation between the size of the baby and the size of his loafs, we’re in trouble. He has also become an expert at timing this reoccurring task: exactly 57 seconds after we’ve changed him. Yes our little crap’o-matic is doing fine and so are his parents.

The evil sandwich maker and Virgin Blue

Australians don't like long words. Anything longer than 3 syllables gets shortened and appended with a 'ie' or 'o' suffix. 'Wine Drinking Alcoholic' becomes 'wino', 'Premature Babies' becomes 'Premmies'.

And so while listening to the news on Friday we heard: "Virgin Blue chicken sandwiches cause 2 premmies in Queensland". Obviously Emma jumped from her seat saying: That's me! That's me!

Okay, so here is the full story:

On the flight to Perth, about 2 months ago, hungry Emmanuelle ordered a scrumptious chicken sandwich. That sandwich was contaminated with the Listeria bacteria that, 58 days later cause the premature birth of our son.

Virgin Blue was quick to add: It wasn't us! it was the evil sandwich maker we hire to make our in-flight food.

So Virgin Blue underpays the evil sandwich maker, who can't keep up standards because of the low price Virgin Blue is willing to pay, yet Virgin Blue sells this food on planes at sky high prices (and I'm not talking about the cruise altitude). B.T.W. Listeria is extremely rare (about 50 cases per year in Oz).

Our son, is doing fine, or so the doctors tell us. We are pretty sure he's being watched a little closer than your average premmie as the QLD government has stated that 'fortunately both premmies are doing well'.

Mum's Milkshake

Kieran is growing well; he took on 150gr since his birth. That's like me putting on 5.2 kgs... Which, coincidently I've actually done recently, but that's another story... So Kieran is growing which is not a big surprise since my wife produces more milk than your average industrial dairy farm, we're talking hectolitres here. The fridge actually broke down last week and I suspect it couldn't cope with the immense quantities of Mum's milkshake. We're actually storing it in a 20.000 gallons rain water tank.

As with any baby, Kieran is just cute... that's all he does: being cute, fart, eat, sleep and soil himself. Just like me when watching television in my hotel room (I've been to Port Macquarie twice in the past 3 weeks). He takes after his father already.

The unbearable grossness of being

It seems that Emmanuelle had eaten something very wrong that had an infection as a result; and our son, eager to celebrate his 0th birthday decided to find the exit 5 weeks early because of this. And there he was, on Sunday morning 10:22. It was and 'interesting' experience as the doctors had to retrieve Kieran by Caesarean.

A C-section is a scary thing, there's about 8 people in the operating room who talk English, but you don't quite get what they're saying. It's like two nerds debating the advantages of different Operating Systems... Just techno-babble. It is done quickly (15 mins all in all). Once done the doctors insist on showing the baby to us.

Well, let me tell you: No, it doesn't look cuddly, cute or even remotely nice. It looks like an evil purple alien, slimy, bloody, ugly and yes... gross. (seen the movie Alien?) Unfortunately, what has been seen cannot be unseen.
Yes, it only takes 10 minutes to clean up the baby, and turn it into the cute little thing our genes have been designed to love, but until then I'd recommend any father not to look. Just look at your wife or look away. It's like medusa, don't look at your child directly but wait till they clean it up. That feeling is a good one, the first one is not.

So, now what?
Well Kieran will stay in the hospital for a few weeks to come. He is doing very very well as is his mother. Emma is a pretty strong woman and she's already been discharged from the hospital.

Dolphins

I think my sister is the luckiest girl on this side of the planet. She got to swim with the whale sharks as well as swimming with the dolphins in the same week!
It takes a little while for the crew to locate the dolphins and some tourists are getting restless, the crew know what they're doing and find a small pod of 5 dolphins willing to play.

These are the bottle nose dolphins (although my sister calls them bottle neck dollies). They're big beasts (300kgs) and very playful. It seems they're interested in Emmanuelle as they keep on sending echo's in her general direction, more precisely her belly. Are they interested in our son? It certainly seems that way.

The bottle nose dolphins here in Rockhampton have developed a rather unique tactic to get their feed of fish. They follow giant bull rays (look at the proportion against the dolphins and you'll get an idea of how big they are) and catch all fish fleeing out of the ray's way. They even turn the rays upside down to steal their catch!

We are very fortunate to this happen in real life. It is very unique behaviour. We see the dolphins follow the rays very closely to catch any fish trying to get away. How lucky are we?!

Fishing

Coming back from the whale sharks and saw pleasure boats returning with their catch. Giant Spanish Mackerel, snapper, bonito's, even tuna. Mhuhuhawhahaaa... I've rented a boat that can go 10 kms offshore, so there's got to be a Marlin with my name on it out there.

Well... it turns out that after a day of fishing small fish, I smell of fish and bad luck because I got not a single hit on any of my 50 dollar lures.

We had a good day, although Emma wasn't feeling too well, we all caught some fish, chased some dolphins and enjoyed the boat.

Whale Sharks

Today we're swimming with the sharks. Not the small 'great white shark', the puny hammerheads or the 3 meter lemon shark I saw while snorkelling yesterday, but with the Whale Shark, the biggest fish in the ocean. The biggest reach 18 meters in length; by comparison, an adult humpback whale reaches 16 meters. In Exmouth the population is mainly comprised of young males.

It works like this: a spotter plane finds the behemoths, the boat manoeuvres in front of it. Lots of panic, yells, pushing and shoving and we're all in the water. Our team: team Alan gets the best views of the two Leviathans cruising at a speed one can just follow if swimming flat out. We repeat this until no one can walk anymore.

My wife, being 6 months pregnant, outswam everybody. She must be the fastest whale shark chaser on this side of the planet! A rude awakening for those who couldn't keep up with her.

My sister finds herself right in the path of the colossus who is clearly used to things getting out of his way. Yrjan swims for her life and misses the giant by mere inches. How’s that of an adrenaline shot.

Coral Bay

About a 140 kms south of Exmouth lays the touristic township of Coral Bay. The camping grounds, 2 hotels and few shops are built next to; you've guessed it: a coral bay.

Coral bay is like a magnet that pulls you in and doesn't want to let go. It makes you sleepy, very lazy and takes away any reason to have to do anything. The average speed of people walking on the beach is about 300m an hour. The most excitement
you'll see here is when people crawl to the water to refresh themselves and then crawl back again to the towels to lay down. If easygoing was a place, it'd be coral bay. Snorkelling here is of course fantastic.

The way North

In Perth we pick up our giant camper, it's a 6 berth with everything (toaster, microwave, television, DVD... you name it!). We've got a long way to go so we depart asap... destination: North.

We stop along the way at the Pinnacles, a park dedicated to weird shaped rocks. It turns out the first day of rain of a 6 month draught is today... the pinnacles are nice, the road is very, very quiet. I’d seen empty landscapes in Namibia, but this beats all. Not a single tree is higher than 3 meters.

Every now and again we see a road train it's a truck followed by 4 or 5 combinations doing 110 kph quickly dubbed ‘killer trucks’ by my sister. And for a good reason: Kangaroos, being cuddly animals, like to hug big, shiny, fast moving things. Usually this doesn't end well for the affectionate animal. The hug lasts for about a second followed by a medium range flight onto the side of the road... Freddy Mercury said it best: 'another bites the dust'.
On our way north we dodge sheep, birds, mice, kangaroos, goats and cows.