What was it that Paul Simon sang...?

Silence. You can get some of that here, especially at night (unless someone is busy baling). A lot of us are either not used to or can in a way be afraid of silence. I find silence to be a good environment for gaining clarity and perspective.
Unfortunatelly, I chose to drown out and polute this environment with noise of one kind or other - when you're on your Pat Malone the TV can sadly act as a substitute for actual human interaction, which is one of the reasons I've decided to not use it in the time before heading off. It wasn't my idea to get one anyway but a 'gift' from Dad, who likes to watch/fall asleep in front of it at my place as well as his own. I'll admit they are good at delivering information and entertainment, but as for myself I don't know when to turn the infernal thing off.
I remember one past national president of Australian Junior Chamber telling a group of us six or so years ago that he hadn't had a TV for a couple of years and wouldn't have another one again. What with going between Australian and French territory it took him 6 months before he found out Shirley Strachan had died (and if he'd never seen any TV at all he might have asked, "Shirley who?"), but it didn't affect him terriblly not knowing the most current events. I don't think anyone can reasonably say that TV quality has gotten better since then, either (even if we leave aside Big Bogan and the rest of the reality garbage). The only current affairs programme that has any skeric of credibillity is The 7:30 Report, but one has to take Kerry's ever-so-slight leanings toward his former boss into account. At least Kerry doesn't expose Australia's biggest love rat, which I've seen twice out of the last three time I've been foolish enough to tune in to A Current Affair. Considering this and the blatant cross promotion from the commercial news programmes, as well as the useless guff meant to appeal to the lowest common denomenator and it is small wonder The Chasers (who were'nt that funny until this last season, unless maybe you were a uni student or worked for the ABC) found a ready audience.
As the man said, we can spend a lot of time watching TV like a zombie or we can actually do something.

Well, its around three weeks to go. I think the team is all starting to get a bit more aprehensive - for all the things we have to do before we go as well as the actual trip itself.

So, there you go.