Flying into Brisbane, Australia on the afternoon of May 18th, on the way to Bali, I had observed that the qi in the sky was more negative than what I had come to regard as the pre-sheng canopy norm. On the Denpasar connection north that evening, we entered under the sheng canopy before passing away from the Australian Continent. As reported in the previous chapter, there was evidence that Bali had been under the sheng canopy for some time.
          On the evening of the 23rd I flew back south into Darwin, on the northern coast of Australia. On Saturday morning, after sleeping (more or less) the rest of the night in the airport, I found that Darwin was also under the sheng canopy . So I scrapped plans to hunt for latent vortices in the area, and took passage on the Ghan train south.

          The Ghan is the north-south rail line through the Australian continent, from Darwin down to Adelaide on the southern coast. Nearly in the center of country, on this line, is the town of Alice Springs, and it has been only within the past few years that the northern part of the line from Alice Springs to Darwin has been completed.
          It began back in the early 19th century as a wilderness road, traversed by camels and their Afghan drivers, imported from the other side of the world for this purpose. In time some of the camels escaped and went wild. It is estimated that the wild camel population in the outback doubles about every eight years (without culling at any rate), and that now they number about 100,000: probably a greater number than the human population in their range area.
          The last town of any considerable size along the northern part of the line was Katherine, and the train stopped there for several hours, before entering the great outback. We were still under the sheng canopy at Katherine, but sometime the following morning, somewhere in the middle of the Northern Territory, we passed out from beneath it.

          When I woke early Sunday morning and peered out the train window, I could still feel the sheng canopy above, but in the sky away to the south I could feel sickening sha qi in the sky, which reminded me of that I had felt when first driving into Hiroshima, Japan. And such was pretty much the sky when about 10:30PM the train pulled into Alice Springs, and I disembarked.
          I found a bunk in a backpackers’ establishment, deposited my baggage on it, and looked around. There was a reasonably strong latent vortex off to the southwest, so I stuffed some TBs in my backpack and headed to the center of town. There I found a road leading off in the general direction of the latent vortex, and after about a two mile walk, I found and opened it. A half mile later, I was back at the town center, got some liquid in my body (it is dry in central Australia), and located an internet bar.
          I had heard that there had been atomic testing in Australia after World War II, but I did not know much about it and, in particular, where the tests had been made. I found an informative source on the "net"

          About 270 miles south-west of Alice Springs is the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. I was able to get tour bus tickets at the backpacker quarters and left early Monday morning. The first day we made a digression to Kings Canyon in Watarrka National Park, in which was an accessible rather powerful latent vortex. There is a beautiful four mile loop trail around the canyon, which I recommend to anyone in reasonably good physical condition, provided he or she carries a couple quarts of water and a fly net.
          I spent the night at the motel in the small settlement of Ebeneezer, and the next morning saw the sheng canopy once more coming in from the northeast. It was actually overhead by mid-morning, but did not extend much to the south at that time. That day we drove on to the great rock Uluru, also known as Ayer’s Rock, the sheng qi of which being observable from quite a distance. In the old days it was a gathering place of aboriginal tribes from various parts of Australia, and there are a number of old traditional stories about the place.
          About 12 miles away are the Kata Tjuta Rocks: also known as the Olgas. These were (and are) yet more sacred to the aborigines, and though the stories of these are even more numerous and deep, the aborigines keep them to themselves: none but the initiated are allowed to tell them. There are 36 individual rocks of various sizes, and each of them seems to have its own resident sheng being . Most of them are off-limits to tourists, still serving as sacred spots for rites and celebrations.
          After watching the sunset from a sand dune not far from Uluru, we rode back to Alice Springs, arriving just about midnight.

          Next morning the sheng canopy filled the sky in every direction, which meant it was time to leave. I took the morning plane out, to the city of Perth on the west coast, planning to rent a car there to open up vortices in the area. It was raining at the airport when the plane touched down. We had not come out from under the sheng canopy on the flight, and there were new sheng beings in evidence.
          So I boarded another plane, this one to Adelaide on the southern tip of the country, arriving about 10PM Wednesday night. The sheng canopy was over Adelaide, but I was a bit weary from steady travel, and rested up the next day drying wet clothes and opening a latent vortex on the beach.
          Thursday morning I boarded the train for Sydney. It was a two-day trip and I had good opportunity to view the beautiful countryside. Nowhere did I see an end to the sheng canopy , and there was evidence that the country hereabout had been beneath it for some time.
          It seemed that the greater part of Australia had been beneath it before my arrival, but that a wide swath through the middle part of the continent, extending over the east coast (and Brisbane) had been under negative skies.

          It seemed time then to take the hop over to New Zealand, and directly after leaving the train in Sydney, I went to the airport.
          My tickets were with Air New Zealand, and the ticket counter was temporarily closed, so I located internet access in the airport and checked to see if there were any communications from home.
          There was: it seems my house was on fire at the time, the fire department would not let my wife inside, so she had telephoned a daughter to send me an email to that effect.
          When the ticket office opened at 1PM, I told the agent that my house was on fire and that I needed to exchange my ticket and get home fast.
          I was quite positively impressed with Air New Zealand. They had me on a plane by 3:30PM headed back. They could legally have charged me hundreds of dollars for the ticket exchange, but only charged a $50 booking fee. I had checked the "net" at about 11:30AM Saturday morning, and was back in Seattle by 9PM Saturday night. Of course, crossing the International Date Line helped in that way.

          The first leg of the flight was from Sydney to Auckland, and we flew under the sheng canopy the whole distance. The second leg was from Auckland to Los Angeles, and the flight was under the sheng canopy about half the way across the Pacific. From Los Angeles up to Seattle, the plane was under the whole way. This was not a surprise of course, for that had been the case my last trip up the Pacific coast. But this time the sheng canopy extended all over Puget Sound, which had not been the case before.
          Next morning when I had a chance to see the damage in the daylight, I found it was not as bad as it could have been. The fire had been caused by a faulty propane grill, and had not penetrated inside the walls. I reckoned that a month of work on my part should put it back into its former condition.