After 13 flights, 9 rental cars and 15 hotels/motels/cabins in two different countries, we are now back home in Texas. Last I wrote we were in Cairns where the main export there is sugar cane. From sugar cane Cairns we flew to Darwin in the Northern Territory then drove 200kms to Kakadu National Park. I had read reviews on the accommodation in Jabiru, most of them bad, but I have to say that of all the places I enjoyed, the ones that were given bad reviews were the ones I liked best. Maybe I had expected the worst and so was always relieved when finding an opposite view. The idea contradicts what I’ve always been expected to do: so either I should stop reading reviews or always expect the worse.

From Darwin we caught the Ghan train to Alice Springs and while there visited the School of the Air. The School of the Air is the largest school in the world—or rather it covers the largest area even though there are only 200 students. Of the 200 students there are only a handful of Aboriginal students. (If there is a community of Aboriginal families in the remote outback the government will build a school for them in order to make learning English a priority.) The government supplies isolated families participating in The School of the Air with a satellite dish, computer, printer, scanner and a digital camera for their schooling (which has replaced radio). And if families can afford it they will hire a governess but usually the parent will undergo training to oversee their own children’s work. Most of the classes are taught in Alice Springs and are aired live via internet.

And welcome to Uluru, the red rock formation thing in the center of Australia. From Alice Springs we drove 400kms to Uluru. This was the most expensive part of our trip, hence the reason we only stayed here two days, but worth every bit of the experience.

I was eleven and it was my first school dance held in the local shearing shed; it was all spruced up but still smelling like oiled shears, grimy floors and the backside of a sheep. Home sweet home. There were a lot of reggae loving Maoris there too swaying to Bob Marley out in the carpark. Then the song Say I Love You started blasting. I had just arrived to the dance, the song was a new song and it was cool; so not wanting to miss dancing to it I dashed inside and as I was walking down the stairs onto the dance floor I imagined I was the brown version Australian R&B singer Renee Geyer. The very days that inspired the hairbrush for a microphone scenario. You should be very glad that I didn’t pursue singing.

Back to Uluru. The evening before we left we went on the famous Sounds of Silence dinner. This included canapes at sunset (with a view of both Uluru and the Olgas) followed by dinner with dishes that included barramundi, kangaroo, emu, crocodile. Entertainment was provided by a white didgeridoo player who played music that sounded like techno music (which I didn’t like one bit). If you like techno music then you might like it but when I listen to the didgeridoo I like to hear the sounds of nature (and maybe for background music techno like the buskers do in Circular Quay).

And from Uluru back to Sydney. For lack of not wanting to drag my camera gear around I never got around to snapping the cockatoos or kookaburras. Instead I bring you seagull; flying acrobats that like to help you eat your lunch.

So you know how it is. When you leave a place you grew up in and then return many years later things don’t look quite as big as it use to. At least that’s how it was for me returning to New Zealand. For our children (particularly Francoise and Pascale) having been born in Sydney things looked big for them before they left. That’s because it was. On returning though it didn’t look the big they once knew; it looked even bigger. Since the 2000 Olympic Games Sydney has grown bigger; outwards, upwards and squishywards. The place is so densely populated now it feels squishy and dark. But either way the city is still dear to me.