[Random snapshot]

"You sure you're doing that right, Blue?  I think you just took a picture of the ceiling."  She is completely hopeless with all things technical.  Well, that and I goosed her just as she was pressing the button....

"Hey, wingnut, I thought you were from an age before digital cameras!  What gives?  You're an expert all of a sudden?"  Naughty girl!  She is giving me that look!     

I raised my eyebrows at her.  "Well, they do let me fly the bloody plane..... reckon I can manage to take a snap.  Besides, you ever tried a box Brownie?"  Flying a plane is a piece of cake next to operating one of those things.  They probably weigh less, too.

"A what?"  Looking at me with her nose all scrunched up in confusion.  My God, am I really that old?  Sometime the gulf between us seems impossibly wide.  I shook my head at her and tweaked her ponytail.  "You know, one of those old box cameras, love.  Big giant hunk of crap... weighed a bloody ton... saw the picture upside down when you looked through the eyepiece...."

She was fiddling with the digital camera and listening to me chatter with half an ear.  "Oh, right.  Box Brownie.  I was thinking chocolate, not cameras."

She's bloody hopeless.  Good job I love her to bits.  I took the camera back and pointed it at her.  She reacted as she always does, putting her hand up and turning her face away.  I wasn't about to let her off the hook, though.  I coaxed and teased until she finally blushed and smiled for me.  Managed one good snap. 

Flirtation from one cheeky pilot... free.  (Well, nearly free.  I stole a kiss and copped a feel.)  New top-of-the-line digital camera... $546.  Getting a snap of my girl on the eve of our first trip to Oz.... priceless.          

[Heather and Uma clear Sydney of summer gear]

Sydney was off limits to the men. Even given the protective cloak of whatever force field they seem to be sheltered by, there was no way that two guys who look like Russell Crowe were not going to be recognised on some level in his own stomping ground. Heather and I however were not restricted by such concerns and we wanted to shop. Summer wear is a bit limited in the northern hemisphere at the moment so we had decided to pick up some sun and swim stuff in the big city- after all it is the thing that Sydney haute couture is most known for- bikinis and sun dresses.

Terry and Lachlan were gutted that they had to let us go into the big smoke alone. Fancy having to miss a day shopping and lie low with a fridge full of beer and Fox Sport? Crying shame, as Lachlan pointed out. We hit the highway with a sense of freedom. A day without men and carte blanche to buy what we liked. The sun must have already gone to their heads.

By the time we drove back up, car laden with bags and swag, the two of them were too tanked up even to care. I threw the smallest item at Terry- a micro pair of thongs that wouldn't have fitted his hand- and he grunted in a rather disturbing way. Shortly after he threw me over his shoulder and we took an early night. Well, we had a long day ahead of us tomorrow. It turned out to be quite a long night's work to pay off the shopping. Terry and I have such a symbiotic relationship, don't you think? He earns money. I spend it. I earn it back. Sort of triangular trade, really.

[Post shopping highs]

Lach watched Terry march off with Uma over his shoulder (swinging an indecently small pair of black panties from his forefinger as he did so) and turned around to face me.  He was adorable, like a little boy earnestly awaiting his gift.  Well, a big boy, rather.... if you take into account the beer in his hand and the size of the 'package' he had for me.  Am I a lucky girl, or what?

"What'd you bring me, Blue?"  He looked so hopeful.  "All those bags.... got to be something in there I'd enjoy."  I knew just what he meant.  He was hoping for something to enjoy as much as Terry was going to enjoy those little black panties of Uma's.  Lach necked his bottle and grinned.  "New bikini?"  I shook my head.  "Pretty nighty?"  Well, I did buy lingerie but I wasn't about to give up all my secrets.  Not yet. 

"Nope."

He sighed.  "Panties then?  You know the ones I like to see you in... all sheer and-"

"Nope."  He looked crestfallen and eyed my shopping bags with a disdainful look.  

"What the hell you buy, then?"  I reached into a bag and tossed something at him.  "A bloody paintbrush?!"  Right about that time, an impossibly indecent giggle echoed from the room Terry and Uma had just disappeared into.  Lach pulled a face, clearly thinking his reward for my little shopping spree wasn't going to be nearly as much fun as Terry's.

I smirked.  "It goes with this."  I tossed a small glass jar over to him.  His eyes widened as he read the label.  Chocolate mint body paint.  "Now who's lucky, lucky, lucky, flyboy?" I teased as we disappeared into our room to do a little giggling of our own.  

[Morning outside the hotel...Heather and Uma in the company of two bushrangers called Waltzing and Matilda]

It only took twenty four hours- less if you consider we slept for twelve- to turn Lachlan Curry from a fairly urbane pilot to a country bogan and Terry Thorne from international world traveler man to Crocodile Dundee. Call of the wild? More like an esky full of VB and the lure of a meat pie float. Heather and I emerged to find the pair of them loading up the hired ute dressed like two bums. Lachlan was wearing a pair of tatty cutoffs, a battered baseball cap and thongs and looked like a reject from Bondi. Terry had on the most indecent pair of running shorts and some washed out vest. Both were wearing shades and hadn't shaved in ages.

"See you dressed for the occasion, lads?"

"Shades, sun hat and loose shorts. What more does a man need on the open road?"

[Middle of nowhere. Five thousandth piss stop]

"I want to wee."

"Again?"

"Where's the nearest road services?"

"'Bout fifty miles. Cross your legs."

Lachlan stopped the engine. "S'alright here, girls."

"Where?"

"Any fucking where."

"Like?"

"On the ground- don't reckon you've got the equipment to hit the gum trees..."

"What? You mean pee in the open?"

"There isn't a living soul for miles. Get out and have a wee."

"I'm not weeing behind any trees. There might be snakes."

"Then squat by the ute."

"WHAT???"

"You heard me."

"But you'll look."

"I won't look. Anyway what the fuck? We've both seen your bums before."

"Not the point. It's a pretty humiliating position to be squatting and peeing."

"Then grow a dick."

"Terry! Don't be so crude."

"Look, either pee here or wet yourself."

"Promise you won't look."

"I won't look."

"Say 'I promise'."

"I promise."

"Lach- you, too."

"I promise."

We got out and gingerly stepped out of our shorts and knickers with our backs turned to each other. We are women. We do not have peeing competitions.

I tentatively began to let go of a stream. I could hear their voices. "How long before one of them pisses down her leg?"

"Wait for the splash back."

"Or she'll fall in it- Brits have no balance- they can't squat- too uptight."

"I heard that."

"Good, you were meant to."

"You are looking! You swore you wouldn't!!"

"No, I didn't. I promised but I crossed my fingers. Very ungainly position there, Tink. You look like a..."

"Don't you dare!"  I rinsed my hands with the water bottle and Heather winked. Standing up I covered myself with my shorts. Plonking myself on Terry's lap, I let the trickle of fresh water that I had sprayed down my inside leg, drip onto his thigh. "Sorry, Terry- no loo paper." He groaned.

Meanwhile Heather was drying her wet hands on Lachlan's hair. "It was a bit splashy," she grinned.

"That is so fucking crude."

"What about when you wee on my leg in the shower? You think that's so funny."

"Won't be your leg next time, sweetheart."

"Good job we got that picture, Lach...that one goes straight on the 'net. One of those perversion sites. 'Women pissing'."

"You haven't!" They had.

[potty break ...5001]

"I can see you-ooo." Heather and I were hanging out of the windows of the ute watching the pair of them easing themselves against a tree in the time honoured male fashion. You know, one hand at the action, the other holding a fag and talking about something.

"Want to drop those jeans and show us what you've got?"

"Or do you prefer admiring each other's?"

They both acted simultaneously and swerved to spray in our direction. So predictable. Got them!

"Fuck! Put that camera down."

"Well, you took a picture of us."

"You do realize- it's all out war, now? The next one will be worse." They turned round, shook off and zipped/ pulled up with an identical hitch of the hips. When they turned back, we were mooning at them through the open windows. "And we have the camera!" we hooted.

"Don't need a camera. That coach had about fifty."

We gasped. A large touring bus was passing, full of teenage boys- looked like a junior footie club on tour. The driver slowed down while the kids were snapping and laughing, shouting obscenities at us.  Terry and Lachlan were conducting. "You tell 'em, lads...dirty girls, hey...?"

I swear I will kill one of them before we get there.

[Are we nearly there yet?]

There are few things to compare to a long distance drive with Tink in the back. I have been exposed to various forms of mental torment in my time but she ought to be a registered weapon. Teamed with the Laughing Pilot, we have a weapon of mass destruction such as the world has never seen. I'm a tolerant man but I have my limits.

As I remember it went something like...."Are we nearly there yet?" This was the fiftieth time she had asked.

"Yeah- we reached 'there' two hours ago- I'm just driving round in circles to waste time."

"Don't be so noughty. Lachlan...I'm bored..."

"Let's play I Spy?"

"NO!" Terry and Heather together from the front. "Do not start that stupid game again."

"Alright then...let's sing..."

"NO!" 

"Pass me my magazine then...Hey...I want to read that...Terry, he won't give me my magazine...don't sit on it! Look what you've done...he's torn it now..."

"Uma... shut up! It's not fair...I like that picture...Heather, don't you like him...?"

"Him? He's like a big girl..."

"No, he isn't...he's gorgeous...he's got soulful eyes ....ah....Terry...he just drew a pair of glasses and a moustache over his eyes...I'm going to get you for that...."

"Will you stop fucking about in the back? How'm I supposed to drive with you two fighting?"

"Well, he's just being a pig."

"Well, you're the one making all the noise."

"He's laughing at me now...you won't be laughing when I slap your face..."

"What? Frightened of a slap from you...that'll be the day..."

She launched herself at Lachlan and beat him over the head with the rolled up magazine...he tickled her unmercifully until they were both helpless laughing. I stopped the car.

"You are driving me round the fucking bend. Either stop it or you two can get a ride of your own, you got it?"

They nodded and then made faces behind my back. Heather was giving them looks through her sun visor mirror- she was making them worse. I was pretending not to notice.

"Are we nearly there yet?"

"TINK!"

She puffed and blowed. "Bet you are lost."

"We are not lost. I know exactly where we are."

She sniffed. "He likes that, you know. Getting lost and having to walk back to civilization...he's good at it...his specialty."

"We are not lost." I replied forcefully.

"I bet he is." She whispered loudly to Lachlan.

"Ten green bottles, standing on the wall..." He starts off.

"You reckon they were midis or stubbies, Lach?"

"Not sure it is essential to the understanding of the lyric there, Betty..."

"You're probably right...Ten green bottles..."

"Terry, you got one of those knives...kill me now..." Heather muttered.

"Kill her more like... Shut the fuck up!"

She pulled her tongue out and started filing her nails. Lachlan spread himself over the seat and settled down for a kip. "Move over you're on my side..."

"I'm bigger than you, I need more space...only fair if I get more..."

"Terry, tell him...he's all over me..."

"Flipper, make sure your hand's over her mouth, that's the main thing..."

"He just pinched me."

"You just kneed me in the groin."

"I didn't. You moved back."

"Well, pardon me for not standing there and taking it..."

"Sitting. Not standing. In fact more like lolling about. My Mum used to hit my brother for that..."

"I want to wee."

"We'll stop in a minute. If you promise to be good."

"Yes, Dad." Lachlan and I started giggling.

"Heather...make him stop...he's peeing in an empty beer bottle... it makes me want to go more..."

"Lachlan Curry!"

"I'm not... I was only joking."

"You were going to, I could tell..."

"Please do not start that again, Uma- and Curry- I'm gonna stop this car and silence you permanently if you don't stop winding her up. Whose idea was it to let you two sit together anyway?"

"Yours. You banned me from the front 'cos I kept changing the radio station..."

"Suck it up, man, suck it up..."

"You have to stop now...I think I'm going to throw up..."

I brought the car to a screeching halt. "Let her out...I am not traveling in this ute if she honks up in it."

Lachlan helped her down and she wandered off, taking gulps of fresh air. She had no shoes on and the dry ground was full of stones- you could see her hobbling. Just then, I started the engine and drove off down the road, disappearing around the bend with Uma chasing after screaming insults. Just long enough to worry her and then I came to a halt, backed wildly, and stopped just by her.

"Get in. But next time...you are walking. You got that?" I gave her my most serious and domineering face.

"Yes, boss." She pouted shamefacedly and Lachlan pulled her back up. He showed her the camera display. He even had a picture of Tink hopping up the road. He called it "Uma, the Bush Kangaroo."

[Souvenirs]

Oh thank heavens, a rest stop.  Gas.  Little tourist shop.  A place to stretch our legs (in the shade!) and a chance to use a real bathroom with running water and everything!  Ahhh... the simple things.  You know traveling by car is getting old when Uma, queen of shopping, prefers to stretch and walk around rather than luxuriate in the air conditioning and window shop while the men finished up their business.

Of course, it didn't help they chased us back out to the car with a 'we'll just be two ticks...' and 'never you mind why I'm standing in front of the beer case...'  Like we couldn't figure that one out!  In any case, we wandered back to the SUV and decided to switch seats.  Anything to break up the monotony, right?  We were in the middle of passing our stuff back and forth-my purse to the front, her magazines to the back etc-when the men showed up, purchases in hand. 

Terry loaded the beer into the cooler while Lachlan dug a coin from his pocket.  Lach flipped it.  Terry called it in the air and crowed when it came up tails.  "Unlucky little bastard," Lachlan muttered at the coin as Terry climbed into the back with Uma.  And the cooler full of cold beer.  "Looks like I'm driving, Blue."

He slipped behind the wheel and there was the general sorting of stuff, the settling in for the next long haul, the crackle of plastic bags as both Lachlan and Terry dug through their bounty, and with a surprisingly sweet and rather nostalgic turn of events, passed around their favorite Aussie treats.  The taste of their childhood shared with the women they love.  (Lamingtons - a spongy cake like dessert wrapped in chocolate with coconut shavings on the top.  Heaven!  Cherry Ripe - dark chocolate covering cherry flavored coconut.  ANZAC biscuits - cookies to us Yanks.  Lemon soda and ginger beer.)

Of course, they kept it from being too sentimental by passing out Musk Sticks, sharing a naughty conspirational grin as they did so.  Long thin candy that's pink, hard and tastes like 'musk'?  I thought it was a gag gift.  But apparently not.  They were some sort of old-fashioned candy.  Man, they'd have to be with a name like that.  I am sure you can imagine the puerile comments we were subjected to.... until Uma put two in her mouth at once and I bit mine in half, noisily crunching the remainder in my teeth.  Good clean fun, huh?

They hadn't stopped there, though.  A few minutes later, Lachlan pulled out a bushrangers hat and settled it on his head.  I had to admit, it had 'sexy' potential.... except for the corks hanging from the brim, supposedly what the bushrangers used to keep away the flies, or so he said.  Note to self-cut off those ugly corks and have Lachlan model that hat for me later.... when we were alone.  Bushranger indeed!  Heh.

I didn't think anything could top the hat, but Terry whipped out this ugly pair of boots that had Uma's eyes bugging out.  He grinned.  "The season's latest, Tink.  Hugg boots by Choo...." 

Lach snorted.  "Hugg boots by roo, more like."

"Hugg boots?"  I was completely lost.  

Terry nodded.  "Yup..."  He kicked off his flip-flops, pulled on the ugly boots and stuck his big feet on the center console so we could all have a good look.  They were hideous, like overgrown house slippers, and made from kangaroo hide, apparently.  "Not the prettiest things, love, but warm around the house in the winter."

Uma was sputtering.  "I am not having you wear those around the house!  You look ridiculous!"

"Keeps me toasty in that English cold..... have to keep my extremities warm or they fall off...."  His eyes twinkled.  "Anyway, didn't get them to wear on my feet.... It's a dick warmer.  Thorne sized..... I need it, you know?  Got my good bits surrounded by English cold all the bloody time...."  He wiggled his eyebrows at Uma suggestively. 

"Must explain why it's so tiny then," she sniffed.  That broke us the hell up.

Terry pulled a face, fussing the boots.  "Goes with my vest and shorts, hey?  And at least they're not as daggy as Flipper's cork hat."                

"Hey!  Leave off my hat, mate.  At least I don't have dead animals on my feet."  

"You don't have anything on your feet," I observed.  The regression was nearly complete.  Driving barefoot in cutoffs with a bushranger's hat and sucking on a Musk Stick.  Sometimes it was so easy to see the boy he'd once been in the man he was now.  I grinned but it got softer as I heard the quiet exchange in the back seat.

Terry withdrew a cuddly stuffed koala from the last bag and handed it to Uma with a lopsided grin and a little shrug.  She hugged it to her breast and gave him a kiss on his whiskered cheek.  It was a sweet private moment and I saw her pick up his hand and entwine their fingers as she rested her head on his shoulder and stroked the stuffed animal gently.  "You look a bit like a koala when you don't shave, you know?"  Her smile was warm and soft.

He nodded and teased her back but his smile was soft too.  "On my mother's side, Tink.... she loved eucalyptus..."

Lachlan caught my eye and smiled at me as he handed over a small bit of wax tissue paper than had been folded over to form a small envelope.  Inside I found another charm for my bracelet.  It looked very much like my birthstone but Lach told me it was made of alexandrite, a gem mined in southern Australia.  I gave him a kiss and whispered a quiet thank you to him before I attached it to my bracelet, and afterwards, our hands found each other too.

Romance from men wearing hugg boots and a cork hat.  Who would have guessed?    

[Beyond Thunderdome]

"Oh man, did I miss this....."  Lach was almost giddy as we flew by a sign he said indicated we were now on the open road... and there was no speed limit.  The engine roared.  Can cars achieve warp speed? 

Terry was all over that.  "Look at Curry..... He thinks he's the Road Warrior... when in fact it is-"

"MAD MAX!"  Uma shrieked before dissolving into a fit of giggles.

Lach shook his head and made eye contact with Terry in the rearview mirror.  "You've the wrong brother, mate."  But they both tutted at Uma's comment.

"He's a fucking spic..... You and me, mate?  We're the real thing."

"Telling tales out of school on your boyfriend?"  Lachlan giggled.  "So, the romance is over, eh?"

"You know me- love 'em and leave 'em....."  Terry took another pull off his beer.  "........particularly the easy lays."

"Wooo!  Fighting words!"  Terry was going to have a Choo print on his butt in about half a second.

"I am ignoring your racist male bonding as part of your sad nation's inadequacies vis a vis the adjustment to your immigrant status in a country that you wish was rightfully yours."  Uma sniffed haughtily, putting on her best School Miss face. 

Terry grunted.  "Don't women talk a lot of crap, Biggles?"

Lach shook his head in bemusement.  "She talk like that in bed, mate?"

"Not for long."

Lachlan chuckled. "Thank Christ for men.  Imagine what we would have had to put up with if the world was made up of women?"

Uma!  Hand over those Choos!  There's another butt up here that could use a print or two.   

[Lunch]

"I'm hungry."

"Me, too...what you fancy?"

"Food."

"I want a meat pie float, crowned with mash and soaked in gravy..."

"God, I am going to be sick...how can you eat that stodge? Have you any idea how much saturated fat there is..."

"Loads I hope. I happen to like saturated fat...rather more than soya bean oil..."

"You have an unrefined palate..."

"Yeah? But I do enjoy my food..."

"This looks promising..."

We stopped at some diner in the back of beyond. They got their floating meat pies, Heather and I ordered submarine sandwiches. Back the two men loped with what looked like two unexploded bombs.

"I can't get my mouth around that!" I observed. Terry and Lachlan exchanged a wry glance.

"We reckon you could..." They repressed giggles.

"Don't be so crude- or presumptuous- how come men have a natural inclination to exaggerate where size is concerned?"

Heather snorted. "Anyone got a knife?"

Terry whipped out one of his awesome blades and set to work deftly severing the rolls into more manageable sized chunks. He handed me one. "I hope you washed the blade!"

"Washed it?"

"Since the last time you slit someone's throat with it," I observed with a suspicious look.

"You have a very odd idea of what I do for a living, Tink..."

"That explain why you carry an assassin's blade around with you, Charlie?"

Terry blew air out in exasperation. "Assassin's blade? Mate, this is what I use for that..." and he pulled out an even wickeder looking flick knife. Anyway, what's a bit of blood?....spices it up, really...what do you say, Flip?"

"Too right mate...bit of flesh as well - more protein..."

"You two are so gross. I can't eat this now, I feel sick."  

"Good, I'll have it then. That pie was all right but it only fills a corner..."

"Get off my sandwich!"

"Thought you weren't eating it?"

"Look at the pair of them...mayo all over their mouths...can't take them anywhere..."

[The beachhouse]

It was exactly what I had hoped for. Built on an outcrop, down a winding rocky road through the dunes, the white slat board beach house nestled invitingly in the sun, bleached even whiter by the blazing sun and the blue, blue sky. It wasn't some sort of designer monstrosity put up by one of the new city millionaires who wanted to play at fisherman. This stretch of beach was fairly deserted and had little evidence of trendy marinas or ports- just a small local town, a typical washed out, fading Aussie beach seaside town but still with a glorious white sand strand and guaranteed endless summer days of hot, brilliant sun.

We pulled up on the driveway and met the agent who was waiting for us. He handed us keys, gave us a little information about amenities and the area and left us alone. We stood and looked about us.

"Perfect."

"You haven't seen the interior yet..."

Across the threshold, we stepped into the cool shadowy hallway. The house had wooden floors, high ceilings and windows shuttered from the glare of the unrelenting sun. Down the narrow hallway, past the staircase we wandered into a large room, simply furnished in primary colours and the walls whitewashed. One wall was completely glass- a slide back partition - and gave a spectacular view of the ocean. A hatch in the right hand wall showed us the modern and well stocked kitchen and the door that led out to the patio overlooking the sea.

"Even more perfect!"

"You haven't seen upstairs yet..."

We climbed up like eager children. There were four bedrooms- two clearly for children with bunk beds, cots and bright pictures and fabrics. We moved on to the larger rooms that looked out over the sea view. Two beautiful rooms each with a large wooden bed, blue and white crisp bed linen and stark white curtains. The floors were bleached pine and the furniture was of the same natural wood. Ornaments were sparse- just pictures and photographs of boats or marine life, shells, rustic pottery vases with bright flowers spilling out and fishing tackle and pots. It was like stepping into the pristine and unsullied world of the sea.