for Mary Maclean br br Many have been more exotic places, but this br you offer us, a taste of our land. The air br so crisp with chill we wear entire wardrobes br like hunters' furs - jeans over track pants, br footy socks, beanies, scarves. Mary's roo dog br does our hunting: an emu caught by the throat, br plucked and thrown whole on a cooking fire, br smoke full of singed feathers and flesh br stings our noses. We wrestle with tin-canned br standards in words the wind blows away. Huddled br 'round campfires morning and night, we go where br the sun breaks through as day unrolls. Breakaways, br mulga bush, a never-used dam a hundred years old; br this place of bleached bones and broken glass br queries our presence, unwashed, awkward on br its unpaved ways. Marrakesch, Kathmandu - tales br of former hikes, but none so raw as this our land. br Whose land? Our week is up; we take away br film rolls, rusted horse shoes, and ochre rocks.