Today I decided to be a plain lazy tourist for the rest of my
time in Australia. So far, I have been trying to see as much as I could and to capture
every little thing on film. From now on I will be relaxing and not worrying about anything
- if people want to see pictures from this part of NSW they should go and buy a book or
wait for my return in say 5 years. After all, relaxing is what I came here for, and so far
I have not really done just that - stretch out for 3 consecutive hours, other than at
night. Today's total of 30 exposures, all taken with my backup Elan-IIE and a cheapo lens,
mark a record low of the trip, likely to be beat in the days to come. And it felt good.
After
sleeping not far from the full campground in the surprising comfort of this giant car I
smuggled myself into the campground at 6am and enjoyed the hot shower - this time without
a time limit. The following drive down the tall mountain offered some very beautiful
views, which I mostly quietly enjoyed for myself. Nobody was around at that time yet, and
my radio is now really dead, including the tape deck. Slowly I proceeded south, filling up
with the last "cheap" Queensland gasoline, soon going to NSW through the very
dense forests of the Border Ranges NP, a maybe 60km gravel surface scenic road from where
you rarely saw something, so thick was the subtropical forest.
I spent several
hours in the forest, reading Cradle and writing the occasional forgotten postcard. I
should seriously write a letter to Clarke and Lee, asking whether they were nuts at times;
this book is unlike most others of Clarke, and I am not so sure whether it's to be
attributed to his age, to Lee, or to both.