Back in the Berra

Hey gang,

I'm back in Canberra and it's chillier than when I left. Check this out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbbPkpzAipI

So fucking cool. What a legend Hutchence was. Yeah so update of the year - I finally have the internet at home. It's been a bit weird for me to be internet-less seeing as I had the internet before it was even called the internet. Anyway here I am and I'm here to stay.

So Broken Hill turned out to be the major highlight of the tour. I was blown away. Never before have I been so surprised by the generosity of others. I expected Broken Hill to be a rough-shod town full of crazy derros and shit kids. Nothing was further from the truth. The kids were an absolute pleasure to teach - so nice and receptive to our mathsy wisdom, and the people were lovely and really interested in our line of work. By the Friday of the week we spent there neither of us had had an awful lot of time to go out and experience the town. A few nights previously I'd been able to walk over an old mine lock and examine a hill that was mined to death, and we'd been to the town centre but that's it. That day we went and saw Broken Hill High's year 7 students. It's pretty funny. They just wanted to go home. The show was at 2pm. Mental Note: Beware of shows booked at 2pm on Friday. maybe I should get that tattooed on my forehead. I should have said most of the kids in Broken Hill were a pleasure. But who can blame them? I remember the feeling on a Friday afternoon when I was their age. After the show, the head science teacher was chatting with us about our time here. Well, after we'd packed up, he ended up taking us on a tour of the mines around the town when he found out we hadn't seen too much in the area. It was really good of him to take his time to do that. His name was Ross Clark.

That night we were down the pub and got talking to the owners. They'd bought the pub the previous day. It was cool to see how excited they were and the connection they obviously already had with the customers. One of the new owners was a long-time resident. They'd been successful in buying the pub because the last owner knew they would keep it going as it was and not knock it down. The name of the pub is the South Australian and it's been there for about a hundred years. They ordered pizza and gave us some. We needed dinner - it worked well. A family came in with a young daughter whose school we'd been to. She was acting all star-struck which I always think is hilarious. Anyway Nicole spoke to the mum while I received life-advice from the dad that one only gets in pubs over beer. When the time came for us to move on to the next pub, one of the pub owners offered to take us in her car. Well, after dropping our bikes off back at the accommodation she did just that; she picked us up and took her to the next pub. I was dumbfounded. Let's not forget that this is the second time that day that we'd been picked up from our accommodation by someone we'd just met who was taking time to help us out. The next pub was okay, but nothing much write about. A bunch of drunk 18-year-olds got into a punch up. Woot..

Next day we went to Ross Clark's place for a cup of tea and to check out his world-class mineral collection. We only wanted to stay for half an hour. Two hours later and we're still there. It was just amazing. I'll put up some photos - including a naturally occurring dodecahedron. Can't get much more maths squad than that. Ross even gave us some zinc, lead, and silver ore; and a sample of gypsum. After that we headed out to the daydream mine and had a look around a very old mine that was dug entirely by hand. Then to the Silverton Pub where Mad Max II was filmed, among about 100 other Aussie movies. The young daughter of the owners recognised us from a show and we took a few photos, but had to leave quickly to head up to Mundi Mundi lookout for an amazing sunset experience. Up there, a family rocked up and started building a fire. We were allowed to stand with them because their daughter recognised us as well. They even gave us sparklers and marshmallows. Wicked! Well that was cool and we got some good photos of us, the sunset, and the maths-mobile in the foreground. Then it was back to Silverton pub where I got some beers and Nicole decided to be driver. We stayed for a long while and a stew was made in a camp oven over the indoor fireplace. So we got fed...again! It was delicious too. What a top weekend. On Sunday we then had to leave but I left feeling really positive. Everyone there was so much nicer than they had to be. I'll go back to Broken Hill one day.

Anyway I've written for long enough. This entry just feels like a dull listing of events. Hope it doesn't read that way! Cheers to any who read this.

Signing off...