Repetition. Recurrence. Both of these can be appreciated.

There were only three of us in the van for this trip – Justin, Jamie, and myself. Justin was quick to engage his creatively practical side and removed a seat of the van to create, with some big doonas, a bed of sorts in the back. This was useful for this big drive.

Repetition. Once the night had lowered itself onto us, repetition was all we had. The same straight road for as long as I can remember. The same hypnotic drone of the vans engine for hours. I lie in the bed and stare at an unmoving moon. And in an unfolding of some late night philosophy, I realise that without repetition we have nothing familiar and nothing new.

Recurrence. Earlier in the day we pass an open-backed truck full of slaughtered lambs. I’m not entirely sure that’s the best way to transport such goods. Bad animal experience number one.

Countless hours into the night later, 10ks out of the middle of nowhere, and Jamie has the bed, mostly asleep, I have the passenger seat, half asleep, and Justin has the reigns. This has been unchanged for a while. I am paying little attention to anything. The road and the engine are conspiring to hypnotize me. I hear Justin say something, then I am jolted, startled wide awake by the sound of shattering car parts. I remember immediately that between the sound of Justin and the sound of shattering, I see a big shape less than two meters directly in front of me, and hear an unbelievable thud, like a wrecking ball meeting a ton of bricks. And headlights staring into my eyes…then gone.

We pull up and look at what a Kangaroo can do. Evidently, that is mess the front of the van up, including the bull bar. We are lucky to have escaped a worse outcome. For the duration of the night we are very edgy…bad animal experience number two.

We play the Holdfast on Friday night and a rumour circulates that it is sold out. If it isn’t it comes very close. Our show feels a bit like a pasta place in Adelaide Richie describes to me. It wasn’t great. We don’t even think it was good. The crowd was very good. Our collective rock spirit is straightjacketed by the restrictive stage and its sound.

The sky is grey and bleak the whole time we are in Adelaide. Rain falls like broken white lines under the car, ceaselessly.

Recurring. Saturday night at the Enigma was a lot like the previous night. The crowd was very good. The onstage sound was less than that. Nonetheless we play better than last night and are generally happier with the show. Set lists have been disappearing from before my very eyes, very quickly, at the end of our gigs.

Loudmouth soup again reared its (sometimes) ugly head, and Richie and Ben disappeared into the night. And I guess we did too. The persistent rain and Mr. Slim lulled me to sleep.

Recurrence. We got lost 3 times in three days. And still we didn’t buy a map. ‘Yeah, I’m pretty sure its this way guys…’. I’m heard to utter these words more than once in these few days.

We leave Adelaide, and its stops raining. I’m always disappointed when rain clears during the day. The drive home begins to be just like the drive down. And the rain returns with the night.