There are nearly 3 times as many dead marsupials as friendly Australians in Western Australia. How do I know? Well it's 1250kms of boredom from Exmouth to Perth so we decided to count a few things and have a few games. We counted 287 dead roos/wallabies between Exmouth and Geraldton, 5 dead cows, one dead sheep, two or three herds (living) of goats, and one chair in the middle of the road. This compares with the number of Aussies that waved back at us when we waved at them (102). We also saw 24 road trains and passed over 25 cattle grids. When we decided to go for combos, eg Waving road train drivers (6) the excitement was almost palpable. There were a couple of waving roos too, rigor mortis having set in.

I have a couple of theories about why the number of dead animals is so high -

Ausies like killing...the first question we are always asked when we say we had an encounter with a roo is 'Did yo kill it...?' They also have a saying over here - 'The only good roo is a dead roo...' They are the biggest meat-eaters I have ever known, ee The Roadkill cafe a few weeks back in Darwin. I rest my case.

Aussie animals are very stupid and cannot spot a gap in the traffic wih a car coming along, ooooh, every half an hour.

My final theory is that all the Wallabies and Kangaroos are all committing suicide faced with the utter boredom that is the Australian outback. Maybe terrorist groupd should take note and strap some C4 to the back of them. Hell they could even form their own splinter cells - Wal-Quaida and Islamic Roo-had!!

Another weird thing was all the goats which somehow had managed to vault their endless fence and now frolicked near the roadside. I have seen pictures of goats jumping before nd they can jump up very effectively but not along too well. During one of my many moments of day-dreaming on the way down I imagined the animal olympics with a 1-2-3 for the goats in the high jump but no goat finalists in the long jump....yes it really was that dull this journey.

Anyhow here we are back in Perth after a good days and a halfs driving...3 days in and around the most remote capital in the world (closer to Singapore than Sydney) and a half day back in Fremantle before heading out of Aus before our visas run out. We arrive in New Zealand (Auckland) some time on Sunday afternoon.