UKELELE EXHAUSTION SYNDROME

"On on," says Safari Bob as we break camp. We drive four hundred metres, then stop for a break. Bob strums the ukelele while i walk away into the bush to check on the zamias. They look a bit like a palm, but they're not a palm. They're a cycad. The trunk is more like a grass tree. The seed pods hang down underneath the leaves, large and heavy.

C, G, Gminor, C. Bob strums away on his Tiny Tim instrument. I tiptoe through the zamias. The soil is white and sandy. Grass trees, banksias, other strange unknown flora. I read somewhere that some of these peculiar native seeds will need a bushfire to get them to sprout. Very interesting, i think. I piss on a zamia and return to the truck.

"In the Wild with the Art Director," says Safari Bob.

"We should make a TV show," i say. "I could get a leather hat and, like, some Steve Irwin khaki shorts. We could travel all over the countryside, find strange and unusual flora and fauna, and then piss on it."

On on. We barely make it to the salt lakes before the homemade whisky kicks in.