2001-08-15 - 2:17 p.m.

This morning I got up at the crack of dawn (she didn't seem to mind) to go kangaroo spotting. A bright green rented mercedes with an engine that makes noises on a par with some kind of core reactor meltdown is maybe not the most sensitive vehicle in which to approach this pursuit, but I was banjaxed (note to self: check meaning of this word). A little way out in to the bush, I abandoned said car and stalked the beasts on foot. Now, I was expecting them just to come wandering up with inquisitive yet docile little faces, perhaps with maps of long buried treasure betwixt their little marsupian jaws, a la Skippy (Skippy! Skippy! Skippy the bush kanagaroo! - you must remember that series - like Flipper but with a furry pouch and no blowhole). But no. First of all, the little fuckers are the same colour as the landscape, so as you walk into the grass, a twig snaps and suddenly a previously unseen heard of them are tanking it away from you with all haste, and you stand there in mild shock, having dropped your camera in a large dollop of chocolate kanga mess. I tried making Skippy the Bush Kangaroo noises to attract them, but I think that noise was dubbed on in a studio or some shit, because they were making some freaky marsupial Blair Witch noises, and then I remembered that they can break your legs with their tails (or is that swans with their wings?) and decided to make do with my 'from the hip' shots of fleeing roos, which I'm sure the newspaper can blow up or something.

It's amazing that I remember the theme tunes to series such as Skippy The Bush Kangaroo instead of, say, a single fact from my three years of studying applied linguistics. All that 70's nostalgia can be a bit irritating - lots of loud people in bars forcing themselves to laugh when someone says "Hey! Remember The Magic Roundabout?!?!" - but the theme tunes are hard to shake off. My one embarrassing theme tune story (we've all got one - admit it. You'll feel better.) is the intro from the series Hart to Hart (Heart to Heart?). I was OK with Jonathan Hart, self made millionnaire, and Mrs Hart (she's goi-gous!) but then when Max came to introduce himself, I thought he said: "By the way, my name is Max. I look after them. We're Chinesey." Ah, the hours I spent under the illusion that they were somehow of East Asian origin. (It was, of course, "Which ain't easy.")

2 more days in Perth. Tomorrow I meet the Quokka. Then I slide into Sydney (I'm sure he won't mind).