We stopped at a gas station the other day and while refueling, a local, rough-looking Ozzie came up to Colin and enquired, “Wot you’s doin?” Colin said, “Driving around the world.” He replied, “Ah yeeeh? You’re a gaaay maaan…!” Colin thought for a minute and then asked, “Why, because they should be Land Cruisers?” And the man replied, “You’s should be drivin’ Toyotas mate, not those Landies, they’re for gay men.” The team is quite satisfied with the “Landies.”

Journal and photo by Adam Burgess

It was in the wee hours of the night and Neil pulled up the driveway to my urban duplex in his 1980’s Thunderbird. He jumps out in a panic yelling, “Dude you gotta help me get rid of her!!” In the back he had a dead woman wrapped up in towels and plastic bags. Apparently she died while hanging out with him, and we now had to get rid of the body. We started digging a large hole at the foot of my front door while the rains poured down. We dug all night, and by sunrise we managed to plop her in there and fill the pit back in. The only problem was that there wasn’t enough dirt to fill in the hole. It was time to panic for real now because of several factors. The commuters were hitting the city streets around us one by one, and our neighbor opened the door to find out what was going on. It just so happens that she was the head of the Post Office and she was the only person who would know whether someone was missing, so I pinned her up at the door with worthless conversation while Neil kept trying to fill the hole with whatever he could find. Unfortunately the gutter downspout emptied gushing water from my roof straight into our pit. The flow of water began digging out all the dirt we had left. Finally the neighbor went back inside and so now I had time to run off and grab the sacks of cement my dad had in his garage. We began sealing her off under a rather large slab of concrete. It started to work quite well and by midday we had made some crude and out-of-square steps up to the front door while a pristine slab covered the front yard. Then I began worrying about where I would run to and came to the conclusion that fleeing to Brasil was my only chance. At least I knew the country now…But I was so angry that I was a part of Neil’s problem and that it ruined my life. And so I woke up this morning from a rather disturbing dream.

Logbook for May 4th, Day 186
Start: Alice Springs, Australia
Time: 7:30 a.m.
S: 23*42.220
E: 133.52.848
Finish: Yulara, Australia
Time: 12:30 a.m.
S: 25*13.782
E: 131*03.165
Mileage: 274
Notes: Today was amazing. We picked up our first Take Me With You! Journalist, Gregor Stronach, of Australia’s “Overlander” 4X4 magazine, and had breakfast with him. The team split up to accomplish various missions, and everything went swimmingly. We got our permits for traveling through and filming within aboriginal lands, Justin had interviews with ABC Radio and CAAMA Aboriginal Radio, and we had a photo shoot/interview tih the Alice Springs newspaper. We also had an enriching Parkinson’s visit, which you will be about to read about soon in our educational section. After all that, we hit the road and drove all the way to Alice Springs, and we didn’t hit a single kangaroo, cow, camel, or slithery beast. Life is good. (N.O.)