We continue to be surprised and overwhelmed by the natural beauty of Australia. After two weeks in blissful Byron Bay, we finished with a day shooting at Lennox Head where we watched whales jumping out of the water off the coast during our lunch break. Then the cast and crew waved goodbye to the sea and embarked on a series of propeller-driven charter planes inland to the small and isolated town of Longreach, in west central Queensland. At the end of the main street in Longreach runs the Tropic of Capricorn - we are filming on the hot side of the line.
We were expecting to be inundated with searing heat and swarms of flies on arriving in the Outback, but amazingly the inclement weather that has been following us since shooting began reared its ugly head and, as our luck goes, it rained for the first time in 3 months, making the locals very happy but forcing us a rapid change of schedule and a degree of improvising to which the crew have reacted heroically.
We began filming the scenes where our main characters trusty transport has failed and they are forced to spend more time together than they would wish to in this dusty back water. The Art Department have been putting many hours in making our hotel room and pub locations look authentically "grotty" (an aesthetic known in Japan as Wabi Sabi - the beauty of imperfection). It's such a stretch for them that they have decided to let their hair down and have put forward a team for Saturday Night's Line Dancing Competition. Go get em'
For the cast and some of the crew this is their first taste of the Outback and a realisation for us that we really are in the 'Middle of Nowhere'. Around here the drivers' main concerns are having to be watchful for kangaroos crossing the road and avoiding the symptoms of heat exhaustion.
The scenes being shot are becoming more dramatic as well, so we find that we are all experiencing a similar journey to the characters in the film. Still, relaxation can be found after wrap either in the Lyceum Hotel, owned by a charming gent called Lethal, or out in the wilds with a number of the crew bringing guitars to play around the campfire, under millions of stars in the biggest skies the English contingent have ever seen - stunning.
There's even a little love in the air as one of the crew has even become besotted with a local girl he met in the pub, serenaded by an AC/DC song. All human life is here....
