Urban Bushmen

How more Australian experience can you get than a trek through the outback? Just like you saw in "Australia"; red dirt, hot sun, grit, stunning vistas, apparating & disapparating Aborigines, rugged, resilient life forms and colorful characters. All it takes is a Range Rover, lots of planning, preparation and time to drive through it. Or you could pay lots of money to an adventure tour agency who will arrange this bit of romance in adventure for you. [Should point out here that the brochures do not mention the blow-flies hovering about your mouth and eyes or that a "comfort stop" is actually a squat by the rear tires.]

Lacking time and money, the rest of us are content for the moment to be Urban Bushmen. There are many National Parks about of different ilk, certainly many of them remind me more of state or metro parks rather than Yellowstone or Yosemite. But each is worthwhile in its own way. Our most recent one included a walk through gum trees, tea trees and banksia shrubs. Oh look, a snake! Kev held me back. Most snakes in Oz are venomous and if you don't recognize the few friendlies, no sense in exciting any. We stopped at the lake's shore and drank in the sight. Lots of ducks, egrets, herrons, pelicans (not looking for Nemo), kookaburras laughing at us, gulls hoping for a feed, an unknown bird staring down on us from a branch above (taking aim?) and the very symbol of Perth, the black swan-only found in WA, I believe.

Missing were the usually ubiquitous collection of exotic looking parrots: budgeriegars, sulphur-crested cockatoos, galahs, "twentyeights", black cockatoos and all sorts that make you think that smuggling birds into US pet shops could be a lucrative profession. But no matter. These birds are also found right at our house.

All this trekking about the bush makes one hungry and we come prepared with an "eskie" full of vittles. Due the dry conditions everywhere, especially in summer, every park of any size has a unilateral ban on barbeques. The risk is simply too great for a small errant ember to turn into a catastrophic forest fire. So free electric (or gas) grills are installed everywhere and are well used (and sometimes actually cleaned by users, sigh.) We have a two-burner gas camp stove for such occasions, also.
Not quite as rough as charcoal briquettes-should you be able to find them- but Man still can roast the Beast, along with his favored onions.
Yes, the urban bush life works for us.