It has been great resting up in a cosy house. It is really making me miss the basic comforts of home - comfortable couch, no bugs crawling over you, non-sticky skin from sweat, fresh food and a few other basics.
I was surprised today by the lady with whom I'm staying with. I was taken out to Michester National Park, close to Tom Price. This was spectacular. It actually reminded me of a more hot and humid version of the Grampians west of Victoria. The further inland we went the more beautiful it became. There were quite a few hills throughout, all covered with the spinifix ground covers. The whole area was essentially light green from the spinifix.
In the national park were a couple of beautiful creeks and a few big rivers, possibly all part of one greater river. We stopped for a swim at one and this was truly amazing. The water was so fresh and the landscape untouched. It made me think about how unique these places really are to Australia. This is something I was already aware of, but seeing this reassures me of the firepower Australia has to compete with other countries around the world for natural beauty. The only disadvantage in these areas is that we don't have culture to go with it. Tourists want the traditional stories of the land or at least some type of cultural connection that they can bring back home. Some type of international comparison might be the beautiful knitwear in Peru, Batik in Malaysia, local food carts in Ecuador or so on. The Aboriginal population isn't really sufficient enough to make such a cultural experience for foreigners, and from what I've learnt the Aboriginal community aren't to keen on opening their cultural stories to random tourists - which I can understand. I am also not reluctant to criticise government for over regulation in this lack of growth. This is evident in restrictions for selling small localised items (tax issues, business registrations, oh&s and permits to name a few) or selling fresh natural local bush foods, which inevitably creates sustainable business (oh&s, food safety handling, food operator license, adequate work premise for production of food etc.). It would be something special if a local Aboriginal person, from these regional areas, would know where to start with all these requirements and secondly why would they bother after all the messing around for little return. This statement is not racially based, as I would be even more surprised if a well educated white person from a white neighbourhood would know where to start. I am not advocating for derugulating tax or anything along those lines, but merely questioning the structure o our system and ways to make it more sustainable. It is more a failure of government to promote small scaled business of such nature. Our system, along with other western systems, is set up to feed off unsustainable cheap production methods from overseas. How can we live in a world where regulation permits cheap Chinese counterpart Aboriginal Australian cultural items, and processed, deep fried non-nutritious foods to be sold on the premises that its better for the people. We are allowed to eat life threatening processed foods because there is less harm than eating locally cooked bush foods?
The other down fall to these areas is that they are so damn far away from anything!!
We went back to the house later in the day were I fixed up everything on my bike, before I shoot off tomorrow. I also loaded up on food for the next few days until Pt Hedland. I was very annoyed to realise that mice have been eating all the food in my bags. My bags absolutely stink, and I now have bits of oats, micr crap and other crumbs all through my bags. I have now cleaned them and everything is finally ready.
On a funny note - When I was packing my gear the family dog came out and a mouse was hidden in the BBQ. It jumped out of the BBQ and landed in the dogs water bowl. The dog came and got it out, then the mouse ran off into the pool. It swam to the other side of the pool where the dog replucked it out and killed it. Something that would be out of a movie and possibly something that had to be seen in person.
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