Angie Mitchell and her husband Ken will soon be leaving Australia for Italy, to walk with us on the Assisi tour.

We’ll be meeting up in Florence, then taking a private bus to the Franciscan monastery at della Verna – where St. Francis experienced his stigmata – then walking 182kms through to Assisi. It promises to be a wonderful walk, although physically challenging at times.

Angie and Ken came with us on the Camino Portuguese tour this time last year – and in the intervening time Jen and I have got to know them as very special friends.

They’ve both been training for the tour – and Angie, being a writer, has put some thoughts down which I’m now posting as a guest blog.

AM I READY?

As we drove 5 km up the road yesterday morning at 5:45 for our regular walk up the little mountain at the Sunshine Coast called Mt Coolum, ‘Am I Ready’ kept playing in my head?

Thankfully I was the passenger looking at this sizeable mountain and pondering on my readiness for the Via Di Francesco Tour starting on 27 April in Florence.

Let me put it out there now, I am not anywhere near being a mountain climber, I don’t even like going up big hills and my goal in life was to go nowhere near any walk that looked like a hefty climb!

I have always been very happy walking on reasonably flattish ground, even brashly boasting on my daily walks to any willing listener.

It was only last year that Ken and I nosedived into long distance walking on the Camino Portuguese and despite sore feet and blisters I loved everything about the experience. It is funny isn’t it how easy it is to forgot any tough up hill trekking?

But oh my goodness what I have done agreeing to go on this walk asks the fearful anxious side of my brain? Really Angie what were you thinking?

Because you see, the looming walk in the Umbrian part of Italy has lots of steep inclines and declines and a good level of fitness is needed for pilgrims, says my friend Bill!

It was when I saw a table detailing the distance and height for each day that I swiftly upped my fitness regime.

I recalled that Bill talked about his brother Bob doing 100 squats a day as part of his preparation for his recent Camino Frances, so I increased my number of squats to 70 a day. That would surely strengthen my muscles in my thighs and get me up those high inclines of over 800m!

And since I don’t live near Mt Misery, the name says it all doesn’t it, I decided that Mt Coolum would have to be conquered. Or better still my extreme reluctance to go up big hills would have to be overcome.

It was definitely time to change my irrational thinking. There was no way around it. I told Ken we really need to include climbing up this mountain in the fitness plan. Ken’s reply “Aren’t our long distance walks enough” fell on deaf ears!

My ever-patient good husband humours me by coming with me a few times a week. The great thing is that I have increased my fitness level and better still; I have overcome the fear I initially experienced at a scary section of uneven rocks.

Yes, I have to confess I went down on my hands and knees, just for a second! Now I nearly jog at this point!! Sorry, I got carried away; there is definitely no jogging!

I just have to be ready says my rational brain! D-day is coming at a fast pace. Everything else is organised; the backpack, the euros, the plane tickets and the hotels.

I am ready to be reunited with my Camino buddies to have lots of chats about weird and wacky things, ready to walk on the paths that St Francis strode, and better still ready to enjoy the food and wine.

And seriously, I will only know how ready I am when walking those steep inclines/declines, and slogging along the kilometres everyday.

Hang on, maybe it is time to readjust the plan and walk up and down Mt Coolum every morning!

One of the most astonishing things that I saw while at Uluru was a machine that was described to me as being “the future of medicine.”

And it might well be.

If that sounds a little cautious, it’s not because of the machine’s capability, which is truly remarkable. It’s more because some Western scientists and medicos are reluctant, or simply refuse, to embrace anything that doesn’t fit into their empirical world view.

They still live in the world of classical physics, which states that there’s a separation of mind and matter.

Quantum physics however has proven there is no separation of mind and matter.

It’s what the Eastern mystics have been saying for thousands of years. And yet many in the West still cling to this notion, even though it’s no longer relevant in our modern world.

For two thousand years, Chinese healers and philosophers have believed that the mind and the body are interconnected – that they are all part of one whole – and that our mind and body are connected through a system of energetic channels, punctuated by meridian points.

This is what acupuncture is based on.

And within our body, one of the largest concentration of these meridian points is the tips of the fingers and thumbs.

Enter the machine.
Let’s give this machine a name –
The GDV.

What does GDV stand for?

Gas Discharge Visualization. 

What does that mean?
Now it gets a bit technical, so let me just explain.

Consider the possibility that your energetic field within your body – your “subtle” body – is constantly monitoring your state of health. And that this energetic field is sensitive to any issues or maladies which might threaten the well being of the body.

In other words, your energetic field has your back. It’s developed an inbuilt early warning system that alerts you to possible medical problems way before they become life threatening.

Now what if we could tap into that early warning system…

If we could do that, then we’d be able to pick up health issues long before they become problematic. What we’d be looking for are spikes or dips in the energetic fields associated with particular organs or systems – abnormal fluctuations of energy that indicate that something is amiss.

That’s what this machine does.
The GDV.
It reads that early warning system.

By reading your subtle energy field through the tips of your fingers and thumbs, it creates charts of your entire energetic system. A trained person then analyses these charts, and determines if there are any abnormalities in your energetic fields.

How does it work?

The GDV machine is a box with a hole in it – like a large pencil sharpener. You put each finger (and thumb) into this hole, and the machine then discharges a very weak electric pulse into the fingertip for a microsecond.

This creates a corresponding bodily reaction – an “electron cloud” of light energy photons.

This cloud is captured by a camera within the box, and that digital file is then sent to a computer, loaded with a sophisticated software programme which then creates the energetic charts.

The whole set up was created by a team of esteemed scientists in Russia, led by Professor Konstantin Korotkov – a highly distinguished research scientist. The system has since undergone rigorous testing and analysis by scientists and health organisations around the world.

Read the attached PDF below for information about the machine, and its accreditations.

The two people who introduced us to this machine at Uluru are Doug Strandly and Grace Moy O’Brien. Doug is the geek and Grace is the doc. Doug has brought the GDV to Australia – he went through extensive training in the US, and now trains others. Grace is a Chinese doctor who analyses the charts.

They make a great team.

At Uluru they did Jennifer and my charts. It’s a completely painless process that takes only a few minutes. What takes longer is the analysis of the charts, and that’s where you need a trained professional like Grace to interpret the data.

Legally they are not allowed to call this a diagnostic tool – they are not allowed in their reports to say: You have cancer in your pancreas. Instead they have to say: We have picked up an energetic abnormality in your pancreas. You should go see a doctor and have some tests done. 

As well, the software can chart your chakras – and as those of you who read the earlier post from Uluru would know, Jennifer’s chakras were in near perfect alignment, however mine were considerably larger, in fact one might even describe them as gi-normous – even though they were a little scattered…

In fact, they were all over the shop!

To be honest, I was terrified that my chakras would look like shrivelled frozen peas. I was mightily relieved to discover that they were in fact of appropriate proportion to my massive spiritual stature.

Ahem –

Anyway, if you’re interested in talking to Doug or Grace, or making an appointment to have your charts done, then here are their contact details:  (they’re in Melbourne)

Doug Strandly,
info@onewon.com.au
+61 439 955 199

Grace Moy O’Brien
grace@esolab.com.au
+61 3 9696 0469

Here is a 13 page pdf on the machine, and how it works –
The GDV-EPI Technique

Just to finish – when Jennifer and I had our charts done, Doug and Grace picked up some medical conditions that no-one would have known, other than our doctors. For instance, I had lost a filling from a tooth, and infection had set in. That showed on the chart.

It was amazing.

And with Jennifer, well, it seems that she’s developed an unusually high build up of epidermal tissue over her body, from living with me for thirty three years…

…commonly known as a thick skin –

Okay, jokes aside –

Dr. Korotkov and his team have managed to take the age old principles of eastern medicine, and have created a system of hardware and software that can measure your energetic fields, and determine where there might be health problems.

It can tap into your subtle body’s early warning system.

If the West can begin to embrace the concepts that the East has been working with for more than two thousand years, then yes, this machine could well be the future of medicine.

Have you thought about meditating but didn’t know how to do it or where to start?

I got interested in meditation at an early age – with my interest in Buddhism when I was in my early 20s.

Since then I’ve read a lot of books on meditation – some have been very technical, some very esoteric, and some completely incomprehensible.

But yesterday I found a book that’s simple, easy to understand, and great for anyone wanting to start meditating.

It’s called: Meditate Now, by Elizabeth Reninger.

It’s only about $3 on Kindle – worth taking a look at, if you’re interested. But what’s most important with meditation is practice. Regular practice.

This book starts with a one minute meditation. Very simple. Very easy. Here’s the link again:

http://www.amazon.com/Meditation-Now-Beginners-10-Minute-Meditations-ebook/dp/B00S5M9HMW/ref=pd_sim_sbs_kstore_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=17C07DGQVET2TGQWK2E2

For those of you coming on the Indian tour in September, we’ve added another great attraction to the itinerary – the Golden Temple at Amritsar, in Punjab.

It’s the holiest site in India for Sikhs, and it’s one of the great tourist attractions of India.

It’s also a great addition to our tour of the spiritual centres of India.

Here is the wikipedia link to the Golden Temple –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmandir_Sahib

Check our website for the revised itinerary.
http://gonetours.com/mother-ganga-tour-sept-2015/

Not much has changed to accommodate this – but I’ve also decided to do a day trip to Agra to see the Taj Mahal, and not overnight. We’ll see the Taj at sunset, as the sun goes down, then have a beautiful dinner in Agra, then make our way back to our luxury hotel in Delhi. The following day we’ll head to Rishikesh, and the Ganges.

For those of you considering the tour, there are still places available. If you’re interested, contact me on: bill@gonetours.com

Donald Rumsfeld, the United States Secretary of Defence from 2001-2006, famously said to a news briefing in 2002:

Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, or vice versa.

Now what I find interesting is the last sentence, which normally isn’t quoted:

The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, or vice versa.

Let’s take that concept out of a militaristic and political context, and apply it to our life more generally.

The unknown unknowns.
The ones we don’t know we don’t know. 

Science is based on evidence. It’s based on a theory being provable time and again. We in the West live in a quantitative age. We believe what we can see, measure, and what is validated by scientific research.

We know what we know.
And to an extent, we know what we don’t know.

But we also live in an age where we don’t know what we don’t know.

Let me give you some examples –

It was less than 140 years ago that we discovered germs caused disease. Something so basic – that we take for granted now – that’s so much a part of our understanding of how the world works – yet, what? only seven or eight generations ago our forebears would have died from cholera or typhoid because physicians did not know that these diseases were caused by certain microorganisms.

Robert Koch, in the mid 1880s, came up with his “Four Postulates” which led to the discovery that a disease was caused by a particular organism. That groundbreaking work won him the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1905.

1905

That’s only 110 years ago.

Let’s go back further, and look at something even more fundamental –

The earth revolving around the sun.

It was less than 500 years ago that the common belief was that the sun revolved around the earth. It took astronomer, mathematician and Catholic scholar Copernicus to come up with a theory that in fact the earth and other planets revolved around the sun.

This was blasphemous at the time, and the church reacted strongly.

Later, Kepler and Galileo would further warrant that Copernicus’s theories were correct. But they enraged the Church, which was firmly of the belief that according to scriptures, the earth was the centre of the universe. They cited Biblical references:

Psalm 93:1, 96:10, and 1 Chronicles 16:30, that include text stating that “the world is firmly established, it cannot be moved.”

Psalm 104:5, which says, “the Lord set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved.”

Further, Ecclesiastes 1:5 states that: “And the sun rises and sets and returns to its place.”

Galileo had to face the Spanish Inquisition in Rome to defend his theories.

Now that was only five hundred years ago.
In the whole timeline of human history, that’s nothing. 

For several thousands of years, Eastern philosophy, religion, and medicine has acknowledged and accepted that the human body has energetic channels, including a system of nodal points called chakras.

This notion that our bodies are full of energetic pathways and meridian points is what Chinese medicine is based on, and how acupuncture works. The Chinese have used acupuncture and herbs and massage for more than two thousand years – working in accordance with their understanding of this energetic system.

Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, Yogis, and others, all hold beliefs in an energetic system within each of us. They call these energies by different names, but they’re the same thing. We’re talking billions of people here who believe this – India has more than a billion people alone, and then there’s China, and Asia –

Yet in the west, science and medicine won’t acknowledge the existence of these energetic pathways, or of chakras. Their belief is that if it’s not in Gray’s Anatomy, the definitive medical textbook, it doesn’t exist. If you can’t find it in an autopsy, then nah – it’s not there.

I find this astonishing – that chakras aren’t acknowledged in the west by science. Chakras and chi and prana are such an integral part of life in the East.

Western doctors know that our bodies run on electromagnetic transmissions. Electrical impulses.That’s how our brain gets messages to our organs and limbs. That’s how our heart pumps blood. Surely then there must be some way these energies are disbursed throughout the body, beyond the central nervous system.

Perhaps in five hundred years science will “discover it”, and then once validated by it will be accepted by the West.

Full disclosure:

I started off doing Medicine at Queensland University. Both my mother and father were dentists. My brother is a veterinary surgeon. My elder sister has three degrees in medical related fields. My youngest sister is head of a Social Work department at a huge hospital.

I’ve been brought up to believe that science has an answer for everything. I’m only now starting to see that science is playing catch-up, and not doing a very good job of it. And hasn’t been for a while.

In researching this post I discovered that it was the ancient mystics in India, long before the birth of Christ, that originally came up with the theory that the earth revolved around the sun – over a thousand years before our scientists. But they could never prove it.

Back to Uluru –

Kryon, through his “partner” Lee Carroll, says some pretty weird and whacky stuff. I used to dismiss it as New Age white noise.

I don’t anymore.
I listen, and I listen carefully.

So the biggest thing I’ve learned coming away from Uluru is that I’m now prepared to be more open minded about things. I won’t immediately discard a concept, no matter how weird and whacky it might be, just because it doesn’t fit into what I know.

I know I don’t know a lot, but I’m starting to realise there’s also a lot that I don’t know I don’t know…

For some reason, this last trip has had a profound impact on me.

I didn’t think that seeing a big red rock in the desert would be such a big deal.

But it was.
And is.

If it hadn’t been for this Kryon Consciousness Retreat, I probably would never have gone to Uluru. And it wouldn’t have bothered me. It was never high on my To-Do list.

In fact, it wasn’t on my To-Do list at all.

But when I first saw it, as I drove around a bend in the road and there it was in front of me, the power of it struck me immediately. But the strange thing was, I’d felt it before I saw it.

I can’t explain it any better than that.

The rock radiates a palpable energy that impacts you from afar. And that power is now still within me, here in Mudgee.

It seems that once connected, you are always connected.

Why did Lee Carroll stage his Consciousness Retreat at Uluru? In part, because of the potent spiritual power of the place. And partly because of his creation myth, delivered to him through his Source of Kryon, which he discovered is consistent with creation myths from many cultures, including those of the aboriginal peoples of Australia.

I will go into this in greater detail in a later post – but first I want to tell you about Lee Carroll, Kryon, and channelling.

This is perhaps the most profound thing that I’ve learned from this trip.

Lee Carroll was a very accomplished sound engineer. He worked in film and established a studio that did sound tracks for movies, television and tv commercials.

His wife was into New Age stuff. She was on a spiritual path, and he had absolutely no interest. As he tells it, she would drive him crazy walking about their house with metal Tibetan meditation bowls, rubbing them with a stick and making them hum OM.

He wanted no part of her world. He was happily becoming very successful in his world of audio and music.

And then one day his wife gave him a gift – she paid for him to go to a channeller. And so he went. Reluctantly, but he went. At that channeling, he was told that an “entity” named Kryon from the Magnetic Grid wanted to get in contact with him.

This of course freaked Lee Carroll out.

But being something of a nerd, he went off and began researching channelling, and became intrigued. He then went to another channeller, this time he paid for it himself, and he got the same message: an entity named Kryon was trying to get in touch with him.

Lee immediately thought this was some kind of set up – that the two channellers had been in contact with each other, they’d swapped notes, and given him exactly the same story. But he discovered that there had been absolutely no communication between the channellers, and that this message had come through twice, from two completely separate people.

Lee became even more intrigued. And so began his union with Kryon.

Who is Kryon?

This is where it gets very tricky – and this is where Lee Carroll, sweet man that he is, says that some people think he’s evil, and that channelling is the work of the devil.

I must admit that my naive view of channelling was from Lynda Blair in The Exorcist – all funny voices and head turning and vomit. Or sleazy white-shoed smart talkers who claimed they were channelling Nefertiti or John Lennon, and charging vast sums of money for the privilege of hearing these pearls of wisdom from the netherworld.

Lee Carroll is none of these.

There is a truthfulness about the man, a sincerity, a humility and a knowing that immediately made me feel, when I first saw him on stage at the Retreat, then later when I met him, that this guy is the real deal.

There’s nothing phoney about him. No agenda, hidden or otherwise. And yes he makes some money out of these seminars, and he sells books, but most of his work is free, on his website. It is a huge resource, available to anyone at no cost.

http://www.kyron.com

But what’s astonishing about the man is the channellings. The ideas, the articulation, the eloquence, the wisdom. And the love.

Who is Kyron?

Kryon is the Creator, the Source, Spirit, God.
Whatever name you like to put on it.

Kryon has chosen Lee Carroll to be his mouthpiece within our culture, and using our language. But Kyron is beyond time and space, and multi-dimensional.

This to some people is blasphemous – the notion that God could manifest in the form of an audio engineer from San Diego.

But even the Dalai Lama says that God is in every atom – and this is a fundamental belief of Hindus and Yogis too.

Just to explain – Jennifer has been following Kryon for the past 25 years. She has listened to pretty much every channelling, and has read many of his books.

She would have Kryon playing in the kitchen of an evening, while making dinner. And I would come in and demand that she turn that crap off. It used to bug the hell out of me.

I thought it was New Age Weird & Whacky, taken to the nth degree. But I respected that Jennifer took it seriously, and was taking on the concepts that came from Kryon.

And then something very strange happened. I don’t know how I heard of it, but when I discovered that Lee Carroll was going to channel Kryon at Uluru, I immediately knew that I, or we, had to attend. I didn’t even ask Jennifer. I just booked straight away.

And then later when I told her, she was shocked. Shocked that I, who had been such a Kryon cynic, would want to attend a seminar.

But my PGS led me. That’s all I can tell you. I had an immediate and unequivocal “yes” to going, and I’ve learned from past experience that I have to listen to my PGS. And so going there was on my instigation, not Jennifer’s. As I say, Jennifer was stunned.

As Kryon would say: And so it is…

If you’re interested, here’s some more reading –
http://www.kryon.com/k_25b.html

And here’s some text from his website, explaining the nature of channelling –

After driving 7,500kms in less than three weeks, we’re home in Mudgee.

Thankfully there were no issues with the car – it went like a dream – and there were no problems with roos, emus, or Highway Patrol officers!

It was a safe journey, and for that I’m grateful – and I did a little meditation beside the car once we’d unpacked, just thanking those concerned… It was an extraordinary trip – and in the next day or so I will elaborate on what I’ve learned, but just to list the highlights –

• Having dinner in the Glenrowan pub in Victoria – a place of myth, where Australia’s most infamous bushranger (outlaw) had a shootout with cops
• Walking through the William Ricketts Sanctuary in the Dandenongs, feeling the spirits of the aboriginal elders, women and children captured in sculptures that sprang from the rocks and the trees…
• Photographing the wedding of Alex & Matt – two truly beautiful people in every way –
• Catching up again with The Landers Express – Peter and Julie – and talking into the wee hours. Two special friends…
• Sleeping in an underground motel in Coober Pedy –
• Driving north into the Red Heart of Australia. Such beautiful country…
• Spending time with Cowboy Loy Pwerle, and filming with him and his family – Cowboy a wonderful artist and a true gentleman.
• Our time in Utopia, which I will remember always

• Walking around Alice Springs late one afternoon – drinking in the beautiful light.
• Meeting Lee Carroll and interviewing him. An extraordinary man…

• Attending the Gaia Consciousness Retreat – and witnessing Lee Carroll channel Kryon.
• Trying to avoid taking touristy shots of Uluru at sunset, but finding myself taking shots like everyone else.
• Walking around the base of Uluru at sunrise with Jennifer.
• Meeting Doug and Grace, and experiencing the wonder of their energetic machine that can show what’s happening in your body.
• Driving through the flatland desert – and being deeply affected by the ancient beauty of this land.

On this last leg back today, I took some shots – Jennifer and I are not back for long.

We’re home for Easter, and then about a week later we leave for Italy, to meet up with Elena in Tuscany and finalise everything for the walking tour, starting April 27th in Florence.

And after the tour, we fly to Turkey to film with the descendants of Rumi in the centre of the country. This for a Sufi perspective on intuition.

I feel very fortunate to be doing what I’m doing – and doing it with my mate.

Jennifer and I are in Adelaide at the moment. For those who aren't familiar with Australian geography, Adelaide is the capital of South Australia, at the bottom end of our country.

We came here to meet with some possible investors for PGS. An added benefit was that we could watch yesterday's cricket World Cup final on a decent tv!

We won by the way.

Today we make our way back to Mudgee – about 1300 kms – which we'll do in two days. It will be good to get back home.

Once home I'll do a recap of what I've learned from this trip. I've learned a lot, and changed my views on some formerly held beliefs.

This has been a very important trip for me.

I thought I'd put up a post now though about something that I find quite interesting. I've been thinking about this for a while.

In researching my PHOTO CAMINO book, I came across an interesting term that's used in tech circles.

It's “good enough..”

Good enough describes a threshold beyond which buyers of cameras, or other tech products, won't breach.

A camera manufacturer for instance might put out a new model camera, but sales will be flat because most consumers feel that their current camera is “good enough.”

They're not prepared to shell out money for a new model camera that has new technology that they don't really need, or would rarely use.

Same when deciding on what camera to take on the Camino. A lot of people would say their iPhone or smartphone is good enough.

Why do I find this interesting?

Because the term “good enough” used to be a pejorative term. If someone did something that was merely good enough, then that person was deemed lazy or lacking ambition.

We don't want good enough, we want excellence. We want the best.

But technology has introduced this term good enough to describe buyers' take-up behaviour, and I look at it now in a broader social context.

Perhaps “good enough” = “satisfied.”

Now that I find interesting.

Could it be that we're becoming more satisfied with what we've got? That we're not succumbing anymore to marketing bewitchments? That the allure of materialism is starting to wane?

I used to rail against the whole notion of good enough. In my work, good enough was never good enough. I had to make it the best I possibly could, and I would demand that of those that I worked with too.

And that's still the case.

Good enough just doesn't cut it.

But then that's not entirely true.

I worked with a wonderful lady who was a true perfectionist. But she would always be late on delivering because nothing was ever good enough. I remember saying to her once, what's more important, packing your suitcase perfectly? Or catching the train?

Catching the train.

How you pack your clothes in your suitcase is good enough.

And now I'm starting to think of this term in ways that can impact other areas of my life. The clothes I buy, the places I stay, even the food I eat.

I used to live in Adelaide. I used to go to all the fancy restaurants. I used to follow the fortunes of chefs. I don't do that anymore. Last night Jennifer and I had miso soup with bok choy and broad beans, cooked in our hotel room with the aid of an electric kettle, and eaten from tin cups.

It was good enough.

In fact it wasn't only good enough, it was superb.

I'm starting to rethink my attitude to good enough. I used to bristle at that term. I used to think of it as a loser's term.

Now I'm starting to think it could be a winner's term.

We're less than a month out from the Assisi tour, and we now have to finalise hotel numbers etc. So if you wish to join us, last chance to let us know…

It's going to be an incredible walk – meeting up in Florence, then we'll bus to the monastery at La Verna, high on a hill top. This monastery holds great significance for St. Francis.

We then commence our walk through to Assisi, about 220kms away. We arrive in Assisi on a weekend when they're celebrating an ancient Rights of Srping festival. It's an amazing festival apparently, with processions and dancing and markets etc. Should be fun!

Jennifer has been studying the life of St. Francis, and the relevance of this pilgrimage route. She's become a walking encyclodedia on it all. So those who want to know more about St Francis and some of the places we'll be visiting can walk with her, and she'll yabber on for hours!

We'll have a support van with us all the time, and our gorgeous assistant Elena, who will accompany us and help sort any problems should they arise.

Details are on http://www.gonetours.com. Go to the Via di Francesco link in the menu. Or contact me, Bill Bennett, at bill@gonetours.com

The tour is going to be an amazing experience.

Assisi at dawn

I’ve driven probably hundreds of thousands of kilometres on Outback roads over the years, and I’ve never heard of anything happening such as happened today.

We’d driven about 300kms from Uluru, heading south towards Coober Pedy. At around lunchtime we passed a roadhouse at Kulgera, about 20kms north of the Northern Territory / South Australian border.

It’s very remote here.

This shot below is a rest stop. The next rest stop is 109kms down the road.

Just past the roadhouse, on the highway, I saw what looked to be some construction workers on the road.

As I got closer I realised it was a police roadblock, stopping southbound traffic. I pulled up and a cop dressed in civvies – not in uniform, but wearing a police vest – signalled for me to stop.

He said the highway was closed for an hour, maybe more, because a very wide load was coming through. He told me to wait at the roadhouse until he advised that the highway was clear.

This sounded odd to me. There’d been wide load transports coming through regularly. Some were so wide you had to drive nearly completely off the side of the highway – but they were always preceded by escort vehicles warning you the wide load was coming.

Irrespective, there was no arguing with a police roadblock, so we drove back to the roadhouse where the manager had a police radio. He told me what was really happening.

Evidently the driver of a huge three-ganger road train – called a Tanami truck – had gone nuts and was deliberately crashing into oncoming traffic and forcing cars off the road.

Road trains are massive. Ninety-six wheels. Three times the size of a regular eighteen wheeler. And this one, according to the roadhouse manager, had a huge bullbar, which he was using to crash into cars.

Reminiscent of the film DUEL,I thought. 

I’m sorry I don’t have any photos of this, because I didn’t get a chance to take a shot of the roadblock, and everything else for Jen and myself was a waiting game in the hotel bar.

After about an hour the copper at the roadblock drove up to the bar and told all those waiting inside  – about 20 of us by that stage – that the highway was now clear. I asked the cop what had happened, and he confirmed what the manager had said – and confirmed that the truck driver was now under arrest.

If we had left maybe 20 mins earlier, we could have been one of the cars that the truck crashed into…

Anyway, that’s pretty weird, no?

The Stuart Highway, running north south through the Red Centre of this country, is I think the scariest highway in Australia. All sorts of crazy stuff happens on this remote road – serial killings, people going missing strangely, never to be heard of again, cars breaking down unexpectedly then the occupants raped and murdered…

This is not myth. This happens in Outback Australia.

Anyway, Jennifer and I made it safe and sound to Coober Pedy. I stopped a couple of times to take photos –

Outside of Coober Pedy I took a shot of an old opal field.

We stayed in the Underground Motel again, and I asked Mike who runs the place where was a good place to have a feed. He suggested the Italo-Australian Miners Club.

Hoping for a genuine Italian meal, I was disappointed to see that there was nothing Italian, nor indeed Australian, on the menu.

But then we were told there were specials, including an Indian curry. Jennifer settled for the Lasagna with salad, I went for the chicken and mushroom risotto.

Both were truly disgusting.

The risotto was cold half an inch below the surface, which was hot. Very apologetically, the staff grabbed it off me and then spent the next twenty minutes nuking a lasagna so that it was definitely hot inside.

I should add, when Jennifer ordered the lasagna the lady who took her order asked the kitchen if they had any lasagna left. Someone from the kitchen yelled back: Yep, we got two left over from last night. 

I’d asked to change from risotto to lasagna because eating the risotto could have put me in hospital. There was a strong chance though that the lasagna could be equally as hazardous.

I shouldn’t be unkind to the Italo-Australian Miners Club – all those working there do so voluntarily, and they were very sweet.

As I drove back the sun was setting, and the last rays of light were doing wonderful things to the high wispy clouds.

This really is very beautiful country out here.