Tonight we’re staying at Gunnedah, a country town in Central New South Wales that boasts that it’s the Koala Capital of the World.

Given that Australia is the only country that has koalas (little furry “bears” that have razor sharp claws), it’s fair enough to say it’s the Koala Capital of the World. The problem is, there are no koalas in Gunnedah.

If you go to the Koala Capital of the World, you expect to see koalas.

Driving in we saw none. Checking into our motel we saw none. Walking to the pub we saw none. We didn’t necessarily expect to see koalas cavorting naked down the centre of the street, or scurrying up telegraph poles looking for gum leaves, (koalas are not particularly intelligent creatures) however today we drove 650kms to the Koala Capital of the World, and we expected to see at least one damn koala!

We felt ripped off.

Admittedly, koalas are notoriously shy creatures. It’s not often you see them in the wild, unlike kangaroos that hop around everywhere, often into the paths of oncoming vehicles, causing extensive damage and sometimes death or serious injury to the drivers.

If you hit a koala you’d just squash it flat. Or it would bounce off your car like a hairy soccer ball. A squealing hairy soccer ball.

I believe you can find a recipe on the internet for koala stew. First though you would have to skin it, and that would be tough. They may look like cute little critters, but koala fur is like steel wool. And like I say, they can be vicious with their sharp claws. You would have to be very hungry to want to eat koala stew.

Before we got to the Koala Capital of the World however, Jennifer and I had a disturbing little episode when we went to buy lunch.

We went into a bakery in a small country town called Casino. Everywhere throughout the bakery were signs: WE WON’T SERVE YOU IF YOU ARE TALKING ON A MOBILE PHONE.

There were three of these signs placed prominently on the front counter, and several on the walls. A young lass came up to serve me. I felt like pulling out my mobile phone and asking directory assistance if there were any other bakeries in Casino.

There’s no doubt that some people can be thoughtless, and sometimes rude, when they are conducting a transaction in a shop and they’re on their mobiles. But there was something very aggressive and confrontational about these signs that made both Jennifer and me want to turn and walk out.

The signs were angry, and they emanated an energy that made us feel angry. But that’s what they, the people running the bakery wanted, in a sense. They expected rudeness, and in getting the rudeness, they would feel absolutely justified in displaying their signs.

Energetically, these people were out of balance. We looked at the servers behind the counter. They all had a dark vibe about them, as if they’d been conditioned to expect bad behaviour from their customers. So Jennifer and I were sweet and charming, even though the signs had made us feel quite affronted.

Then I noticed a tip jar. A large glass jar where customers could leave a tip, in coins. Presumably these were people who had not used their mobile phones. The thing about the tip jar though, it held some coins, but the jar was also full of a bright blue liquid. It looked like acid. I figured this was so no-one would steal the coins out of the jar. If they tried, they would get the flesh burned off their thieving little fingers.

I’ve never seen a tip jar booby trapped with acid like this before. There would have been about $1.80 in coins in the jar.

Despite the bakery’s food looking good, the signs and the acid filled tip jar were disconcerting, so Jennifer and I walked out and found another bakery further up the street. It was smaller, less salubrious, but when we walked in we were greeted by the manager with genuine warmth.

As I put my lunch order in I made a call on my mobile phone, just to check to see if I’d get acid thrown in my face. Thankfully, I didn’t.

I left a tip.

We ate dinner tonight at the Gunnedah Courthouse Hotel. We ordered a Spanish “parmi.” Crumbed deep friend chicken breast covered with chorizo sausage, red and green peppers, tomato and cheese, put under a griller. Spanish parmigiana in an Australian  country pub – for $15.

The wonders of globalisation.

I've mentioned a couple of times that I hope to soon be making a film in India, called DEFIANT.

The background is this – nearly six years ago now Jennifer and I went to India to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. We'd never been to India before, and I must admit I was a little nervous.

I was worried that we might get very sick, that we might be robbed or attacked, etc. In fact none of that happened, and we found the Indian people to be warm and delightful and generous.

The first morning in India though, I was sitting down to breakfast in our hotel in Bombay (Indians call Mumbai Bombay still!) and I read a newspaper story – buried away on a back page.

The story detailed an horrific murder of a young couple who had fled their village to get married. It was called a “double honour killing.”

What made this story particularly horrific for me was that both parents of the couple had murdered their children. They had got together a mob from the village, including brothers and uncles, to hunt their children down and kill them.

I knew then and there, sitting in that hotel breakfast room, that I had to make this movie, and bring this barbaric practice to world attention.

I subsequently discovered that this was not an isolated incident. The reason the story was buried in the back pages of the Times of India was not because the newspaper was ashamed of what had happened, it was because these honour killings are so prevalent in modern India.

Around about a thousand such killings happen each year in India – and of course many more happen in other countries as well.

Writing a screenplay though daunted me, because I knew that I would have to immerse myself in Indian culture to fully understand the nuances of their social and religious mores before I could write a word.

I wanted the film script to be accurate, and truthful, and brutal. I didn't want to get anything wrong, because I didn't want the film to be dismissed as being overblown, or an inaccurate representation of Indian village life.

I subsequently joined forces with a producer, Anupam Sharma – an Indian by birth but now living in Australia. Together we formed a company to make this film – Honour Killing Productions. Since reading that newspaper article I have been back to India more than a dozen times.

Anu and Jennifer (a co-director of the company) and I have traveled thousands of miles through the “badlands” of India – Harayana, Uttah Pradesh, Punjab – interviewing honour killing victims and perpetrators, as well as Government officials and village elders who tacitly sanction these killings, and parents who have condemned their children to death.

It took me several years, and over twenty drafts of the script, before I was happy enough to send it out to cast. The feedback I got from Indians who read the script was that they believed it was written by one of their fellow countrymen, not a westerner. That pleased me. After all that research and work, I'd got it right.

I write about this today because the Sunday NY Times has published a photo essay on Indian girls leaving their villages to study in larger cities, and the pressure they're under from the men of the village. Here is the link to the story-

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/20/world/asia/policing-village-moral-codes-as-women-stream-to-indias-cities.html?emc=edit_tnt_20131019&tntemail0=y&_r=0

Should you work while you walk your pilgrimage?

Ideally not.

But sometimes, it’s not possible to take 4-5 weeks off completely.

For those who have regular jobs where you can take holidays, it’s possible. Some might have long service leave. Sigrid, whom I met and walked with enjoyably for a while, was a teacher on a year long sabbatical.

There were a couple of people I met on my walk who’d just sold their businesses and were cashed up and looking around for something else to do. They were using the Camino to think about things. And of course there were all the retired folk I met who didn’t have to bother about work. They had all the time in the world.

For me, it wasn’t possible. I had to keep working while I walked. I’d decided to walk the Camino relatively spontaneously, even though I’d been training for some time, yet I had various work commitments which I couldn’t step away from altogether.

I did however suddenly have a chunk of time that had opened up to me. I could spare 5 weeks out of the country. But I would have to take my work with me.

This meant carrying an iPad, two phones, chargers and batteries, and I had to organise Dropbox and other online resources so that I could access my work when needed.

I remember one time, walking out of Burgos, I got a phone call from my office and it required all my attention. I kept walking while attending to the call, but then I realised I hadn’t seen any yellow arrows in quite some time.

I finished the call then retraced my steps. Because I’d been on this work phone call, I’d completely missed a crucial arrow directing me down a small lane, and so I ended up walking about 3kms more than I should have.

I mention this now because one of the things that was occupying my mind during the Camino was a global short film competition that I’d just launched. Called picSeeder.com, it  called for aspiring filmmakers to submit a one minute video pitch of the film they wished to make, then six international judges would select a winner.

picSeeder was at a crucial stage when I decided to walk the Camino, yet I was fortunate in that a very clever lass named Rebecca largely ran it in my absence. My web designer guru Natacha also took a big load off me. They both allowed me to walk and keep my mind on what was important to me – the Camino.

Yesterday we announced the winner, and I feel very proud to know that Jennifer and I are now helping to launch the career of a smart young filmmaker in the Philippines. Here is a story which appeared in the trades:

http://if.com.au/2013/10/18/article/PicSeeder-rewards-Filipino-filmmaker/QWAILIXUTD.html

All this was happening while I was walking the Camino.

Would my pilgrimage have been any more profound, or more spiritual, had I not been working? I don’t think so. I believe I was able to compartmentalise my work commitments. And the time zones certainly helped.

But I do look forward to the time when I can walk again, and have my mind completely free to concentrate and contemplate without worry and concerns.

Sorry if I’ve been Missing in Action on the blog these last couple of days – it’s been very hectic, and quite intense, this work I’m doing for QUT – Queensland University of Technology.

QUT is a huge campus – it’s the state’s largest university, and their Creative Industries faculty, of which I’m an Adjunct Professor, is very highly regarded.

Donna, whom Jennifer and I met the other day, wanted to know what an “Adjunct” Professor was – in my case it’s someone working in the industry who comes in from time to time and teachers, and gives Master Classes to students to give a “real world” perspective on their curricula.

It’s a part time gig and from my perspective, I take the time to do it for two reasons: firstly, I want to “give back” some of what I’ve learnt in the trenches over the years; and secondly, I want to learn from these young kids. I want to keep in touch with what they’re thinking, and the way they’re doing things.

I would not be so on top of new distribution models and advances in digital production if it weren’t for my work at QUT. I’m mentoring three recent graduates, and I’ve learnt so much from them about social media, trans-media, and new world distribution and marketing.

But the one thing they can’t teach me, and which I teach them, is to how to tell a story.

What these kids are yet to learn is that story telling is a craft and a science. Yes to an extent it’s innate, and it’s intuitive, but there are highly complex craft skills involved in storytelling, and you need to know and understand these before you can hope to tell an effective and original story.

Shakespeare knew them, so did Dickens and the Bronte Sisters and Melville and Jane Austen. Stephen King, himself a former teacher and academic, knows these craft skills – read his non-fiction book about the history of horror writing, called Danse Macabre. It’s required reading for anyone wanting to know how to write, whether it be horror, or any genre of writing.

These last couple of days I’ve been on an industry panel judging student “pitches.” A pitch is when a student comes in and tells us all about the film he or she wishes to make. The student has five minutes to convince us that we should “greenlight” development of the pitch into a screenplay, and eventually into production.

Pitching is hard. I have to pitch all the time – to financiers, distributors, investors. I find it extremely difficult. Pitching requires that you’ve not only worked out the whole film, and the major narrative beats and character arcs, but you then have to articulate this in an effective and engaging way.

Sometimes the best writers are the worst pitchers, because they don’t have the communication skills to properly express verbally what’s in their heads, and what they can put on the page. But unfortunately pitching is an essential part of the film industry, and you have to learn how to do a great pitch if you want to survive, much less prosper.

Yesterday we heard about forty pitches. Each pitch comprised a team of writer, director and producer. Out of all the students we saw, there were only three who were natural and gifted storytellers – who grabbed us from the get-go and left us asking expectantly: What happens next?

So many wanted to give us a reworked version of Breaking Bad, or The Walking Dead, or Dexter. Very few – only one or two – had an original idea.

You could argue that they’re young, and are still learning – but I would argue that an innate storyteller is born, not made. The craft skills are made and learned, the gift of storytelling lies within the mysteries of the DNA.

Today I do the same again – this time for documentaries and trans media. I hope I hear a story that truly excites me. There is nothing I love more than a good yarn well told…

At lunch yesterday, I was asked: what’s the secret to you and Jennifer being married for 31years?

I said it was three things –

Patience

Forgiveness

A short memory…

The Master Class with the students went well yesterday.

I impressed on them those personal qualities that one needs to successfully inhabit the film industry:

• Reliability – do what you say you’re going to do.
• Punctuality – be early, don’t be on time.
• Discretion – don’t gossip or speak badly of others.
• Communication – don’t hide behind emails or text messages. Pick up the phone. Better still, go meet the person.
• Fitness – you need to be fit and healthy. You need to have stamina when others around you are falling from exhaustion.
• Rigor – you need to be rigorous in all things.
• Money – get comfortable with money. Filmmaking is an expensive exercise. Learn how money works, and don’t be shy about money
• Become entrepreneurial.
• See yourself as a brand
• Always do your homework
• Be curious
• Be respectful
• Understand that everything begins and ends with story.
• Get out and live in the real world.
• Don’t follow rules
• know that there has never been a more exciting time to be a filmmaker

Today, my day started at 6am going through what landed overnight on the blog, and responding to comments.

I then had three double espressos before a 7am conference call to Los Angeles – with two possible investors for the PGS film. They said it would be a film that could have a huge beneficial impact on the world. I liked them immediately.

I told them that the right investors would come to the film at the right time with the right amount of money, and when that happened, it would be perfect. It was a film where everyone had to play by the rules, and the rules are you have to listen to your PGS. That includes the investors.

I then had a breakfast meeting with an Executive Producer who wants me to write and produce a musical – a film then a stage version based on a terrific story about an iconic mid 60’s rock band. It’s something I will do.

I had another double espresso with breakfast. So far that’s four doubles for the day, and it wasn’t even 10am.

Jennifer and I then has a working lunch with an extraordinary man – a former green beret commando who set up a non profit NGO to battle the under-age sex trade in South East Asia. This is the film that I am currently writing a treatment for.

This man, let’s call him John, has recently been ordained as a Zen Buddhist monk, and is working as an anthropologist deciding on aboriginal land rights claims. As I say, an extraordinary man. His wife accompanied him to the lunch and she too was quite remarkable – a beautiful Japanese woman who writes a very popular blog about anorexia amongst Asian women.

What an amazing couple!

Jennifer and I then drove to Brisbane’s Southbank to wait for our next meeting. I had a cappuccino while I talked to my travel agent about the tour.

We then met two people who have been following the blog for quite some time – Donna and Greg. Truly wonderful people – and we had a great afternoon together at a funky Turkish restaurant. We laughed a lot.

I had two strong Turkish coffees.

Donna said she was going to walk the Camino in 2022 but I told her that wasn’t going to happen – she’d been bitten by the Camino mosquito, she now had a virus in her bloodstream and soon she would break out into an uncontrollable fever and she would discover that the only way to get better fast would be to walk the Camino earlier – I estimated that she will become a Compostela pilgrim within five years.

I was a bit hyper with Donna and Greg, probably because the Turkish coffees were very strong – and my caffeine level by that stage was well over my Plimsoll line.

Donna asked how was I able to fit so much into a day, and when she saw me ordering the second Turkish coffee, she knew.

Greg left our meeting considering the April tour – apart from his pilgrimage hankerings, he also responded strongly to my stories of delicious Portuguese chicken for €6.

It was fantastic for me to meet these two wonderful people whose names I had seen so many times on the blog. It impressed on me what a powerful tool a blog can be, and what an inordinate responsibility comes with it.

Jennifer and I walked back to the car and I looked around for another coffee shop to get a take-away for the trip to my sister’s house, where we’d be staying the night.

Couldn’t find one. Damn…

Meghan is another brave soul who has taken up the opportunity to write a guest blog.

She lives in Northern New Mexico with her husband. She is a keen cyclist and walker. Here is an excerpt from her blog – Life at Pedal Speed.com.

I love being outside hiking, rafting, skiing, biking, watching sunsets and exploring with Andrew and the dog girls. I love being in my kitchen cooking delicious homemade treats, trying new recipes and spontaneously dancing with Andrew. I love being in the middle of nowhere. New Mexico is a good place for that. I love being at home and spending quiet evenings listening to Miles Davis and planning our next adventures.

The First Step of My Camino

They say that your Camino starts when you decide to do it, and I know mine has already begun.

My Camino began one morning in May as I was lying in bed listening to the daily news on the radio, trying to motivate myself to get ready for work. I had been feeling very lost after some discouraging and what felt like crushing professional experiences.

That morning, tornado victims in Oklahoma were being interviewed on the radio and talking about losing their homes and everything in their lives. As much as I’m not proud to admit it, I lay there thinking about how lucky those people are to get start all over. It only lasted for a moment before shame and guilt flooded me.

I felt terrible for wishing that a tornado would sweep everything away, but it was also an awakening because I realized that I was desperate for a change. I didn’t really want a natural disaster to make it for me though.

I want to make my own decisions despite the comfort of not choosing and not taking action. There is real power in choosing, and losing that power is a lot scarier than making my own decisions. That was the moment I took the first step of my Camino.

I’ve been dreaming about the Camino lately. It’s almost every night. In my dreams, I’m never walking. I’m always in Santiago at the church, and I’ve never finished yet. I’m there knowing that I will be walking soon.

Last night I dreamed that I was inside the church, and I walked over to where the pilgrims receive their compostelas. It was a small room with a counter inside the church. It’s windows were decorated with cement filigree. The pilgrims waited in line patiently.

I looked through the window and saw them standing there and felt overcome with emotion. I was overtaken by the enormity of what they had accomplished, and my heart was filled with emotions. I knew that I would be walking soon too and standing in that line to receive my compostela.

It was a catharsis. I was letting go of years of anger and disappointment and resentment and unhappiness. Years of doing what I’m “supposed to do” and working at at a desk job that isn’t fulfilling. Years of feeling tired and worn out from willing myself to make it through another hour, another day, another week just to make it to the weekend only to do it again on Monday morning.

All of these negative emotions came bubbling up to the surface and I broke down in tears. I woke up crying with tears streaming down my face onto my pillow.

I think often about what it will be like to arrive in Santiago and stand in front of the church. Every time I think about it, dream about it or read about another pilgrim’s account of their arrival, I’m overcome with these same emotions and tears.

It truly feels like I’m letting go of a small piece of what I need to let go each time, and I’m hoping that will clear up some more space for me to accept and learn what I need to as my Camino continues.

Yes, my Camino has already begun, and I look forward to seeing how I change and grow over the next year. I wonder how I will really react and feel after this year of journey. Will arriving in Santiago feel like the end of a journey? I suspect it will feel like a stop along the way. It will have some finality, but really it will just be a major milestone.

Travelling sometimes delivers you disappointments of a monumental nature.

Today was just such an occasion.

The Wobbly Boot Hotel at Boggabilla no longer has rooms for the night. Nor does it do dinners or lunch. It was a devastating blow.

So we had two choices – drive through to Goondiwindi and stay in a fancy motel – Goondiwindi being a beautiful and large town by a gorgeous river – or we could tough it out in the Boggabilla Motel, which makes an illegal immigrant detention centre look a five star.

We chose the Boggabilla Motel, because it would be an experience we’d not had before – and the little town looked fascinating. Boggabilla is very close to a large aboriginal mission – and the only white faces in the town (other than Jen and myself) were the publican and the cops, who seemed very busy.

We checked into the motel, then walked back up to the Wobbly Boot Hotel and had a drink. The publican was a lovely lady named Paula, who was constantly selling packets of chips and icecreams to the aboriginal children.

She was very sweet to them – and when one girl was short twenty cents on a purchase, she let her have the packet of chips anyway. (I gave the publican the twenty cents after the girl left.)

We then went outside and two cops quickly wandered up, and told us to be careful. They warned us that the aboriginal population would have quickly sized us up, would have known we were at the motel and what room we were staying in – and so we better make sure the room, and the car were both secure.

(I had my big Nikon, and I guess Jen and I both definitely looked like “blow-ins.”)

But what nonsense. Why were the cops immediately trying to instil fear in us? To encourage us to see the aboriginal people as a threat? We subsequently spoke to several aboriginal people and they were delightful – shy, sweet, and definitely not threatening!

(In the course of making movies I’ve spent a lot of time in aboriginal communities and working with aboriginal people – even sleeping on a crocodile infested beach once with some tribal elders up in Arnhem Land.)

Boggabilla is a crossroads for trucks shifting freight from all over the state. There is a constant procession of huge eighteen-wheelers that just never stops. Except to eat. And they all eat at the Shell Roadhouse. So that’s where Jen and I decided to eat, too.

We were invited into the Truck Drivers Only lounge – which consisted of lounge chairs and large screen tvs and dozens of framed photos of trucks on the walls. Dinner for me was a mixed grill – $22. I was asked: What do you want with your mixed grill? Veggies and chips, eggs and chips, or salad and chips? 

You can’t have a mixed grill without eggs, so of course I asked for eggs with chips. This is what the meal looked like…

I’m still feeling sick. But it was an experience.

I wandered around town and took some shots – spoke to some aboriginal girls, Aimee and Tessa, who were really sweet. I gave them my email address and told them to contact me if they wanted the shots, and I’d send them to them.

Jen and I then drove out of town a ways then down a dirt road to a bridge, where some people were fishing. Had a good chat with them – found out that yella-belly was the best eating fish to catch, and the cod were delicious too but they were in breeding season, and if you were caught by an inspector with cod this time of the year, you’d be in strife.

People pass through Boggabilla all the time, in a rush to get to Goondiwindi, which is a much more civilised town. We could have done that too, as we’ve done in past years, but post Camino, I wanted to break old habits and dig a little deeper into the life in a small country town.

Dinner at the Shell roadhouse with all the truckers was fabulous, even though the meal itself was way too much, and way too fatty. And chatting to Paula at the Wobbly Boot Hotel was fascinating.

She and her husband have been there for eighteen years, and they stay because they genuinely like the local population – and I have to say just in the short amount of time I was there observing the way she dealt with the aboriginal people, adults and children, I can see why she is popular in town.

I figured that having walked the Camino, why not take what I’ve learnt and apply that to my life here in Australia?

Susan S has taken up the offer / challenge / opportunity! to post a guest blog.

Susan lives in Washington State, in the US, and she's a very keen photographer.

She is also famous on this blog, and the PGS forum, for coordinating the KIT THE NUN program. Already she's been instrumental in sourcing a huge amount of gear for Sister Clare, for the Camino Portuguese Tour next year.

As well, she has liaised with all those other very kind people who have donated gear and clothing etc, and in some instances cash, so that Sister has all she needs next April.

Susan just told me that a very generous man, Tom Turtle, has just donated a sports watch, and an iPod Touch so that Sister can be connected to the Internet during her walk! And Susan herself has donated an iPod Nano!

I am bowled over by their kindness.

So here is Susan's guest post –

Playing Peregrina

I won’t be walking my Camino until either spring or fall of 2014. It will be 1/3 to ½ the Camino Frances. Meanwhile I walk vicariously with the PGS family as you walk your 2013 Caminos.

I’m currently training by working down a list of local walks that as I go down the list, grow in length and/or in elevation gain. Eventually I’d like to work up to walking to our favorite taco truck 25km away, followed the next day by a 22km round trip from my house trip up Badger Mountain with its elevation gain carrying my full pack.​

A few years back I felt “constipated” with my photography. I was not happy with any of my photos, not happy with the subject matter, suffering from photo cabin fever.

I mentioned it to a Boston friend of mine who said try being a tourist in your own town. It will open your eyes to what I have been missing and taking for granted. (easy for him to say living in Boston) So I tried it and it worked!

Now I play peregrina with my camera on my training walks and imagine I’m in northern Spain rather than south central Washington. Which is easy since I live in a high steppe channeled scabland area with few towns and hills rising out of ancient riverbeds.

I walk and stop by little latte stands and sit a few minutes with a small cup of coffee.

I notice decorative ironwork on farm fences that I’ve driven by for 28 years unseen. I notice that the bridge over the Yakima is over 20 years old and think has it been that long that the road into town has been 4 lane instead of 2?? I see that one of the farms has both alpaca and llama!

On a clear day I stand at the edge of my yard and I can see the Blue Mountains 100km away and calculate that the hour drive would be a 4-5 day walk following the route that Lewis and Clark traveled over 200 years ago.

When you slowed down to smell the roses and train for your Camino by walking your locale, what things did you notice that you otherwise passed by unnoticed?