Every day

The music is playing, the windows are open, and we are on the road. There are three of us now, Stephen, myself and Yuka; a Japanese woman Stephen met at the Big Mango in Bowen. The other gypsies sadly, have gone on to other travels. As we drive, we pass cane fields, banana farms, tropical rainforest, beef and dairy farms.Yuka is in the front, feet up on the dash. I am in the back sitting on a sleeping platform, my feet in the cuby hole for the sliding door, my elbow and head out the window. Stephen drives staring, mesmerized by the miles and the music. Janis Joplin or Bob Marley are usually playing with Stevie Wonder taking his fair share of play time. We are silent, all in our own little worlds, taking in the sights but not sharing our interpretations. We stop when something interests us. A beach, a bush walk or lunch. Stephen cooks, we clean. We often succumb to "napo'clock" after lunch. We usually end up at a pub in the evening. We drink a few beers, talk to people of all different nationalities, then head to our "spot". This is how our days go. No hurry, no goal, no place to sleep at night. We solve the sleeping problem shortly after dark and then Stephen cooks again. He calls dinner "Tea". Stephen is a good cook. I would say a chef. His favourite meal is pasta with mushrooms and onions in cream sauce and beer. The beer is never in the cream sauce. If it is not pasta it is some vegetable dish always mixed with some herbs or sweet chili sauce for tang. After dinner we clean,set up sleeping arrangements and go to bed. I love our morning ritual. Stephen makes coffee and sets out brekky. Nutella and bread or peanut butter and jelly. We eat, talk a little and pack up for the day. Right now we are on Mission beach listening to the waves and Bob Marley and watching some sky divers land. Stephen's cooking again. Soon it will be "napo'clock". During lunch Stephen smashed a bananna through his teeth for Yuka and I to see. It is hard for our humor to get any more complex than that when we don't have language or culture to back it up. Still he is funny. Yesterday we did a rare thing and went to a tourist attraction. It was a castle, or the remains of one on 13 acres of "park" land. It was a bit weird as the castle was broken down and delapitated but not quite a "ruins". The grounds were in the same shape. The castle was used in the 1930's like a Kings Island water park only the slides and pools were all natural. Up to 500 people a day come to gaze at this place. I don't know why. The neatest thing there was a colony of bats in a tunnel. We were able to walk right up to the bats and see them all huddled together for their daytime sleep. Last evening we stopped at one of those free coffee stops along the road set up by the Red Cross. We had been there for just a bit when two dodgy blokes came to the kiosk as well. We had cautious conversation. I was leary of them. As darkness fell we all decided to camp there for the night. Stephen suggested we cook dinner together and they agreed needing some company after a long haul. Chicken, sausage, pork chops,potato pancakes, pasta and beer. And beer. And beer. They were full on Aussie's with many stories of hard living in the bush. We stayed up way past our bedtime entertained by these two. In the morning we all shared brekky and then went on our way happy to have met each other and shared the time. Tommorrow or the next day we will do these same kind of things. We are however always on the lookout for Smirnoff's and Bunnies. The Big Mango
The kitchen