Dear Yous,

That is seriously used here. Where someone like me would say y'all, people down under say yous or yous guys. Like Jersey, man.

Month five has been pretty thrilling. We visited Adelaide, which was a very cool city and seems like it would be a nice place to live but was cold and rainy while we were there, and then stocked up on supplies and drove up through the Center. If you are familiar at all with Australian geography, you know that this means a whole lot of nothing. We drove through the Flinders Ranges, which are some pretty hills, visited the town that's the base for the missile testing site (Woomera) and then drove for hours through the Outback. And hours. And hours. Then we visited Cooper Pedy, a small town that exists solely for opals. And now for tourists like us. It gets so hot there that the houses are mostly dug into hills. The only thing to look at are rocks that are different colors from all the other rocks. So we did that. To their credit, they are very pretty rocks. Alas, we did not find any opals, despite some (decidedly lackluster) attempts. We did camp underground, visit the home of Crocodile Harry (probably the guy Crocodile Dundee was based on) and look at lots of opals we couldn't afford.

It turns out that along the highway out here, there are rest stops and it's A-OK if you set up your camp there. There might be water, there might even be toilets and there are usually neighbors in caravans. We've gotten to know a lot of retired Australians in this way. They are called the "Grey Nomads"--a generation of people traveling around their country, seeing the whole thing. We have really enjoyed sitting around campfires and chatting with all of these people on the move.

Picture this: 3 girls, 3 backpacks, food for 2 weeks, 20 liters of petrol, 5-10 liters of water + books and other entertainment, all in a tiny car, rolling down the 2 lane highway through miles and miles of desert, reading out loud or trying to remember the words to songs all the way through because there's really not any radio stations in the middle of nowhere and our ipod dock is buggered and won't charge our ipod. Got that picture? Now add a heavy dose of crazy. Add a little more because we spend a lot of time together in very small spaces. And add another few drops because it's getting warm now but air conditioning will cost us more very expensive petrol. Yep, that's about what it's been like for the last few weeks.

We got to Uluru (Ayer's Rock) and the surrounding gorges/rock formations just as the Northern Territory experienced its coldest night on record. We were in our tent. The good news about that is that we've seen water in places most people never do and have a totally different view of the place to most. It was fun. We celebrated the 4th of July around a campfire in Curtin Springs, eating kangaroo sausages and drinking ginger beer and then rum with some boys from Sydney.

We spent a few days in an outback town called Cloncurry, watching a horse competition called camp drafting and camping at the dam. It was really beautiful but we had to keep an eye out for crocs. We got to be friends with the ranger and his family and had a barbecue with them.

This last week, we've been working at a station north of the 'Curry. We've mustered (I love working cows on horseback! Why haven't I been doing this all along?), branded, drove (moved the cows from one area to another) and drafted (separated cows into groups). We've had an awesome time and have loved living with our current hosts. Queensland is pretty different to other places we've been in Australia and I like it.

We're off to the coast to celebrate Kristen's birthday. We'll try to brave the crocs, sea snakes and stingers to dive the reef and then work our way down to Sydney, where we'll fly out home. It seems unreal and I'm sure it will stay that way until I start looking at my credit card bills! I probably won't have much access at all to the internet until I make it home so I'll update you from there--after a little recovery time!

Erika