Australia is a camper's paradise, unfortunatly there is almost no where you can actually legally camp. Back in the early seventies I could travel across Australia and only worry about money for food and fuel. Then about 1976 our erstwhild drooling, speech retarded premier King Joh decided it was better for the economy (at least that bit of it that provided accomodation for tourists) to ban camping beside the road. This set a precedent that has continued to the present day.

We used to have rest areas along every major road, a place to stop for a rest where you were permitted to camp for two days. With the upgrading of most of these roads the new roads are devoid of rest areas, stop at a super servo and pay, pay, pay.

Many municipalities also had camping areas with little or no amenities where you could camp for free. Twin Bridges and Savage's Crossing provided camping for several years then we sent out there for a picnic and found steel pickets (lengths of railway line) preventing vehicle access along about 5km of river, an area that has been used for camping and day trips since the first bullock dray stopped there over a hundred and fifty years ago.

Recently I found Mount May camp ground and for two years have been enjoying the free camping there but this weekend we arrived there to find strange concrete blocks in the ground, steel posts and signs everywhere. From Monday camping will be restricted to four camp sites that have to be pre-booked and paid for. So there is another place where someone with little money (most people I know) can go for a few days, have fun, run around and keep fit - all in nice clean, breathable air. Not now.

Turn the TV on and within fifteen minutes you see some propaganda crap about the obesity epidemic and reccomendations to get outside, get fit and get healthy - how. Unless you have money to burn there is almost nowhere to go now to do this legally or affordably. The old Sunday drive (the standaard work week was 60 hours back then) is no longer feasible, motorways aren't relaxing or interesting to drive down and the old back roads where you could stop at a creek or other waterway for a picnic are out - you can drive but forget the picnic. What's left to do - sit in front of the TV or some other electronic entertaining device and vegetate.

There is some justification for the restrictions, idiots with less than two cogitatively functional brain cells go out to places like this, build bonfires (where a nice camp fire would more than suffice), drink piss (alcohol), turn their music up to rock concert level, swear, make a mess, tear up the ground and leave piles of rubbish behind. If people are too stupid and ignorant to control themselves and act in a reasonable and responsible manner then the government will step in and introduce legislation and restrictions to do it for them. Unfortunatly when this happens there is no discrimination between the responsible and the yahoo (loud, ignorant person), everyone gets restricted and another free area gets closed or seriously regulated and requiring a fee.

You can have a good time, cut loose and burn off excess energy/frustration whatever without the need to stuff everything up, without pissing off everyone else in the area, without ruining things for everyone (including themselves). I know because I have done it and, remarkably, without the need for alcohol. In fact, I find that now no one seems able to have a good time without getting drunk or stoned. If you need to get off your face with brain pickling or bending organic compounds than are you really having fun?

Apart from the disappointment of the new restrictions and loss of the last free camp site I know of within two hours drive the weekend was most sucessful from the point of view of getting totally exhausted. Seven AM rise on Friday, get the camp gear out and start packing. Pick up No1 Son in Law at 11:00PM (he works late shift) and finish packing. Leave at 12:30Am and arrive at just after 2AM. Have fun sorting out the tent in the dark, like putting a jigsaw puzzle together. Get tent sorted out and find the ropes have all tangled together. Finally get the tent up and everything sorted just as the sky is lightening with dawn. Find something to throw together for eating whilst on a long hike, pack my back pack and discover someone has taken the rolls of film from my pack so leave the big Pentax behind.

Leave the campground just before sunrise to head round to Mt Barney and almost immediatly get waylaid with a spectacular sunrise. Try out the new step rings with polarising filter, by the time I have the polariser in the right position I have missed the best of the sunrise and lost the delicate salmon pink sky. Get a few pics and head off, it is about half an hour drive from Waterfall Creek to Yellow Pinch (car park at Mt Barney), I finally arrived at Yellow Pinch at six, over an hour later (I only drove for about 35 to 40 minutes, ther rest of the time was trying to escape photographic opportunities).

This time I had no intention of climbing anything, I wanted to do the Cronan Creek track, an old road that apparently used to be the main road to Kyogle and was a forestry road up until 1947 when the area was made a national park. I reached the end of the track six and a half hours later, reasoning that as the return walk was almost all downhill and I had photographed everything on the way in the return walk should be much quicker - it was. For once I hobbled out of the park well before dark rather than my usual just before sundown. The return walk only took three and a half hours and that was with being a little tired from lack of sleep and sore feet. The whole walk was around 20 to 25km, not that far but I am seriously out of condition.

Needless to say I am going to be busy for the next few days, I have several pictures I want to work on (hopefully finish at least one) and over 600 new photographs to sort through and post. AS advised by someone on DA I used a polarising filter for landscapes but I also found it to be very useful for even macro shots and just about everything inbetween. I have become an almost instant polarising filter lover. So, for those who are interested in things Australian keep an eye on this page for the next few days few days, there is a lot of material to be posted. There should be some great goanna shots thanks to two campsite goannas who were very accomodating for getting their pictures taken, a few more macropods but they weren't as accomodating, more flowers (of course), a sleeping Carpet Python (a big bugger too) and more insects who thought I was food (and some I managed to actually get a picture of who didn't).