Last sleep reflections

This is the last sleep before the big adventure. Colin, Steve, Cyd and myself  had a lovely dinner at Jim and Leanne's. Colin and Jim shared amazing stories of spiders, snakes, box jelly fish, salt water crocs, blue ringed octopus  and other deadly Australian native animals  that we might encounter on this expedition. Boy, did that ever make us foreigners (Steve, Cyd and myself) excited about the trip! When Cyd asked about whether we may encounter the blue ringed octopus Jim explained that they are only found in cold water - which is why they turn blue (ha, ha, ha). When we arrived at Jim's, he had his vehicle packed and the roof canvas looked about twice the size it was on the pre-pack the week before. Steve explained that they were able to stuff his and Cyd's gear into the canvas by having Steve stand on Jim's shoulders to get some leverage to jam all the gear in! I get the distinct impression that this adventure will be full of laughs from start to end. Of course the night would not have been complete without the ribbing about the size of my camera gear trunk which everyone reckons takes up more room in the SUV then the portable fridge and can double as a bench if we are short of chairs around the camp site. Jim is perplexed as to why I need three tripods, which I had to explain to Jim that if I only had 2 they would be duo-pods. Yes I admit to carrying a lot of camera and video gear, but hey, how else am I to record and  document my research during this once in a life time adventure.

While having dinner we received a lovely phone call and a text from Ross and Wendy to wish us a safe journey and a great trip. We all wished they could have accompanied us, and are looking forward to catching up with them at the FACET conference in Broome at the end of the month.

Here's something that I hadn't thought of before tonight - since we will be away for 1 month, consideration has to be given to what is left behind in the fridges. We went through Colin's fridge to be sure that anything perishable was dealt with now, rather then after 30 days in the crisper. Honestly, I never understood why it is called a crisper - all I ever get out of it is food that is headed in the opposite direction. Better to clean out those items tonight then have them take on a life of their own while we are away. I hated the thoughts of discarding the watermelon, so here I am, at 2:45 AM, eating watermelon for a snack.

I am so very excited to be heading to the Kimberley Region. I found this You Tube video that has incredible imagery of the Kimberley and it highlights the cultural and natural value of the region, as well as points out some of the controversy of competing values (resource extraction). Click here to play  Kimberley Video.

Everyone is now fast asleep, and I am still working on creating a video for my MBA5703 Ecotourism Management Course  as I will not be present in class on August 22 to present my first assignment - our course  research proposal.  I am creating a You Tube video that can be downloaded and played in class on the day. Better get back to work - 5AM is not too far away and we all want to get an early start to a big day of driving (820kms) tomorrow to get to Denham.