Be Prepared, and very very scared! (Part 1)

Because I am now qualified to amputate limbs in the bush with a swiss army knife and some human hair for a tourniquet. I will be practising at random times throughout the next few weeks. You have been warned.

I got back last night from a crazy 2000 kilometre driving epic Sydney-Melbourne-Bairnsdale(Tanglestown)-Sydney. If I never see another slow-moving campervan it will be too soon.

Those in the know/with peeps in the region, will know that Victoria has been engulfed in flames for the past two weeks. And my gosh doesn't it show. The bushfire smoke started almost as soon as I crossed the Mexican border and didn't end till I hit the City Link in Mexico City.

I was in Melbourne for an intensive course at RMIT about planning international development projects and every time I emerged from the vomitous green entry to the uni Melbourne was covered in a haze of smoke. It was like being back in the capital cities of Central American countries, only without the dead stuff in the gutters and the Central Americans, obviously.

Anyway, Cookie bar has an awesome rooftop cinema if you're in the area - we had a mate on the door who got us seats.

See part 2...