This week we have been staying with Lydia's mum up in Caloundra, north of Brisbane on the Sunshine Coast.

Life is slow up here, even when spending the day writing papers and essays. The heat makes the middle of the day lazy, lounging around on the veranda, feeding the kookaburras scraps of kangaroo meat and watching the rainbow lorikeets squawk in the trees. Nightly we have been having huge tropical storms, with lightning flashing down followed by a slow rumble of thunder that echoes backwards and forwards off the clouds.

We also saw the movie Australia. It was rather clumsy in parts, but overall I thought it was fantastic, showing real emotion in places. Well worth people seeing, both for the magnificent scenery and for our national shame that it highlights. Aboriginals came to Australia at least 40,000 years ago and possibly 125,000 years ago, and since then they have developed in essentially complete isolation except for the last 200 years. Consider the advances that the Egyptians, Romans, Chinese, Arabs and Europeans made in short spurts of just hundreds of years and expand that over a hundred thousand years in the longest continuous human culture the planet has ever seen. Except, of course, Australia's resources do not conveniently jut out into the landscape, so this hundreds of thousands of years of cultural evolution focused not on industrial development but rather on social development. They developed the most complex set of familial relationships of any human culture and the elaborate Tjukurpa which we cheapen as a "creation myth" featuring animal spirits such as the rainbow serpent, but which in reality were a set of complex interwoven tales that contained the sum of all knowledge within the culture. Tales more complex than any celtic knot, which can be told at multiple different levels in order to impact knowledge on medicine, law, geography, hunting, weather and relationships. The same tale sung in a different way could contain directions on how to cross a desert or which plants to use to stem blood loss.

This amazing edifice of human culture was destroyed by Europeans in just a few decades. Where 250 languages once stood, now only 20 have any chance of survival. The stories that once contained such knowledge have now been stripped to the bare bones. Cultures have, quite frankly, been annihilated. And now these peoples, still manging to cling to an identity we tore away, are treated with patronising paternalism at best, and open racism at worst.

Sunday:

We all got up in the morning, the boys were pretty tired as they were all really drunk last night. We sat around for a bit not sure what to do with the day, Dick wanted to get a BBQ boat but noone else was too keen. We decided to go fishing at some place that Keith recommended close to Albany Creek. Then Mel and Jay came over and said we were going on a BBQ boat and got everyone all excited for it, so we decided to do that. Jay phoned up the company in Caloundra and we booked a 7 person boat but we were allowed 8 people the guy said. We were supposed to meet the guy in Caloundra at 1:00 so we left at 11:45...but by left I mean left the farm, first we had to get air for some tires, then we had to get some smokes, then we had to get a couple bottles of water...then we were off.

There were 2 cars, I was in the rudub(andy's car) with Andy, Dick(DD for the day), Matt and Trent. In the other car was Mel, Jay and Bob. We had no alcohol so the ride wasn't as exciting as it could have been, but it was still fun. About 45 minutes into the drive Dick said there was smoke coming out of under the steering wheel but kept driving, then more wafts of smoke came up and we saw flames. Thaats right, the car was on fire! We were on the highway so there was nowhere really to pool over so Dick just picked a place, which ended up being a turnoff for big trucks:S..I heard Andy yell 'We're about to go up in flames!' It was pretty funny, but we all raced out of the car, I had no shoes on and the pavement was reeally hot. We hung around for a bit, put out the fire, then kept going. It was all very exciting. When we got to Caloundra we stopped to get gas then had to go get some grog(beer haha, i'm trying to use some aussie terms in here). I got all the money and went in and bought it. Me, Matt, Trent and Andy shared a carton of extra dry, which is pretty much the best beer ever. After getting that we cracked a couple open and then went to the beach to go to the boat.

We ended up being like half an hour late:S..and the boat was a piece of crap lol. Buut we all paid($20 each) and were on our way, we had the boat till 5. The guys pushed us out there and we got stuck on a sand bank almost right away lol. But we got out of it pretty quick, then we just anchored at a beach and went for a swim. We all had some beers and sat in the water for a while. Dick did some fishing, he actually caught a fish too! Bob did all the barbecuing for us which was sweet. After sitting around in the water we all went back on the boat and had some sausages but the sauce somehow got lost so we just had bread with it.

It was fun though, but then we decided to find a new spot, Mel started to drive but then Dick took over. Aaand then we started to sink. I guess thats what happens when theres 8 people on a 7 person boat? First the water started coming in the back, then the sides. I was having a great time, I thought it was hilarious, Mel was freaking out though lol. We tried kicking some of the water out and some of the boys got out to try and push us because we also got stuck in a sandbank again. But then they found some sea cucumbers and decided to take a break and have a fight with them. And I think we've all seen Jackass and we all know what happens when you squeeze a sea cucumber..it was soo funny though, a little bit gross though.

We left that spot in the middle of nowhere after a bit and found another spot on the beach, after getting stuck in some more sandbanks though lol, the sandbanks were everywhere! We found a nice spot on the beach though again and anchored and went out for a swim. It was really deep at this part and the current was really strong as well. We swam there anyway though..by this time all our beers were gone though. We had some sand fights, played around in the water for a while and before we knew it it was 5:00 and time to return the boat! So we got back on shore and returned it, they asked how it was and Bob said it was like a submarine lol. Stupid boat. But it was still lots of fun.

Afterwards we all went and had fish and chips for dinner at this sweet place in Caloundra, it was really good. We didn't stay there too long before starting to drive home. The drive home was really fun though, their car was throwing stuff at our car, we were throwing bread balls at their car. It was so much fun lol. Maybe a bit dangerous, but I had a blast. They were throwing handfulls of chips at us.

When we got back to the farm we just watched a movie pretty much and then went to bed, we were all dead tired but it was an awesome day, one of the best of my trip so far!