That's what a Carnarvonite does anyway. In the weekends you go boatfishing, or drive to your favourite rocky cove or sandy beach to spend it with a fishing rod and an Esky full of beer. On this particular escapade I was woken up by the sound of an ultralight passing overhead... I traced it back to the Coral Bay landing strip and not much later I had my first ultralight experience. It was lovely, flying over the reefs and seeing the giant Manta rays flopping about in the shallows. Granted, the engine makes a bit of noise but then again you're not sweating and stressing about finding thermals. Overall, it's more relaxing than hanggliding. Needless to say, I'll be going for my licence soon.

Speaking of Manta rays, I went snorkelling with them the other day. They're huge, maybe 3 metres across and they seem to fly gracefully through the clear waters. When feeding, they barrel roll. The top surface is blackish, the underside snow-white, and as they roll in the distance you see a slow-flashing white patch. Up closer, the mouth is half a metre across and at least as deep. You can't see the end of it, but light shines through their grille of gills.

I seem to do a bit of flying lately. Now that I've left the Aboriginal Medical Service, I miss it and gratefully accepted an offer to do a bit of medicine in Burringurrah. That's a remote- 400 k's inland- community near Mt Augustus and a doctor flies out regularly to assist the resident nurse. Woollie ( see my report on medical entertainment) took me there, a two hour flight in a small aircraft and we landed on a dirt airstrip without a windsock. When driving through the bush you're never quite certain that there is nothing of interest lurking behind the shrubs, but having flown aver the lot I can now honestly say it's just bush, riverbeds, crags and dry lakes. The nurse picked us up, Woollie did the medical bits and I just strolled around. There was an arts-initiative, with people painting and carving beautiful things, a school and a shop. Very relaxed and remote. The nearby Mt Augustus is a 'holy'place in Aboriginal lore... I'll find out more as time goes by I'm sure.

What else... the wind has died down to nearly nothing. And what little there is, blows during the middle of the day. So I race home in the afternoons only to to find a glassy smooth Fascine... very depressing really. I thought I could survive the winter by buying a rather large kite, and concentrate on kitesurfing. But the God of Wind hasn't been kind lately.

So... business as usual... any number of impending changes on the job-front and this weekend I hope to catch some crayfish before the season ends. I wish all readers well, and apologise for the absence of anything exciting in this little update.