No theme parks, but...

X and I were hitching a ride on his sister, K's car to her place in Gippsland. After about 3 hours, she turned off the highway, drove through an unremarkable suburb and began driving through miles of country road. Not that Australian country roads are anything like the rural, potholed ones of Malaysia, but it was so... in the middle of nowhere.

We passed bush, trees, fields, cows and llamas. Everything looked the same to me. No buildings but the odd shed. I couldn't fathom how K had managed to live in such remoteness. Every 30 minutes or so, we might pass another vehicle. People were such a rare species there, they never passed up the chance to say hi/ wave at each other. I checked the cellphone coverage (the representative claimed that 3 had "96% coverage").

No network access.

She turned into a couple more non-descriptive lanes before stopping the car by the roadside. I clambered out reluctantly, certain I would be attacked by the Giant Stealth Mosquitos that had plagued me through Christmas at Bannockburn. (Aussie bugs are venomously potent. Or maybe I simply didn't have that protective layer of ang moh fuzz that keeps most people here bite-free). "Are we lost?"

Note the swelling on my left leg. It itched, it swelled, it oozed pus. "Will you still love me if I have JE?!" I wailed to X. He wisely nodded.

K simply pointed to the sign.

"BIG TREE"

Trust Australians to comb through acres and acres of untamed forestation, find a tall piece of vegetation hundreds of miles far away from civilization, put up a sign and expect it to become an attraction . Then again passing through all this nothingness (though admittedly the greenery is very soothing to the eye), it was probably the most exciting thing to happen in a while.

We walked down a clearing and found this.



A big tree. To its credit, a really big one.