The year is closing and I am trying to get organized for christmas holidays and for the January hand over of Papulankutja Artists to Anthony. I just do not seem to be able to get it everything done.

I have found that the Papulankutja Artists website is not working, there seems to be three entities involved in the thing being up there, AMS software, Smartyhost the web hosting entity and Icarus Industrial Design who developed the web and seem now to have a part it in staying up there, none of these guys seem to think the problem is theirs ... I have not had the time or the energy to do the level of chasing that is required and of course with christmas holidays on the horizon it is difficult to get hold of anyone or get anything done.

We have had the blessing of rain which also has the down side of buggering up the roads. There have been three significant rain storms, so the roads emediate to Blackstone are a mess and to add to the difficulties there are large transport vehicles bogged in the middle of the roads which at times prevent through traffic as detour ends in further vehicles getting bogged.

Toby took my toyota ute out with a load of my 6 years accumulation and he got bogged at one of the transport bogging sites, he had a dreadful trip out but made it OK althought exhausted.

I have been a bit nervous about the trip, just did not want to find myself bogged with no help. Simon the mechanic from Warakurna wanted to get to the Rock to fly home to Perth for Christmas and had work to do on Blackstone vehicles, so he decided to make us his last port of call for work and then drive out with me. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

He finaly made it to Blackstone late on Monday night, no work possible on the vehicles. We headed out pretty well straight away. 22ks down the road we bogged the troupie.






After many hours digging and a fitfull attempt at sleeping in the bog with the mozzies, Simon decided to walk back to Blackstone to get help.

While Simon was walking a lovely couple of fellas from Mimilie stopped by and very cleverly towed the troupie out ... and I do mean very cleverly. I had come to the conclusion the vehicle would not come out, it took the guys quite an effort and I am very grateful to them.

I drove the vehicle back to Blackstone to find Simon and we headed out again. I asked Brad to ring my daugher and let her know we were ok but I would be late getting home. All in all we spent 16 hours in the bog. We finally got to the Rock at about 9.30 on Tuesday night. Both of us caked in mud, hungry and exhausted.

A quick rearrange of the flight bookings and I fell into bed for a big sleep. I still had to sort the computer which I had left with Neville in Alice and the yultju money for Cliff and Ruby ... not sure how I would do thatI headed to the airport for leg one to alice. Good old Neville came out to the airport in Alice to sort the computer for me and Cliff and Ruby did the same. It was lovely to see them, a little teary we hugged and yet again I was reminded of what I would be leaving behind in January.