Item 33 - Letter from Robert [Leonard]

Went out into the bush to see thousands of birds and the salt lakes, foundations of towns full of people 50 years ago, gold mines; dislikes the smug materialistic working people and their food. Continues the letter on a train crossing the Nullarbor Plain with Australians who eat too much and have no conversation; was challenged eating his breakfast of toast, coffee, and fruit by 'this red faced 200 lbs of blocked arteries' who tells him it isn't a man's breakfast, and his retort that what the man is eating is 'a pig's breakfast'; meets two ladies he likes, who at 80 love to play poker, drink beer and smoke. Continues the letter on the train to Adelaide, and now agrees with Peter 'about the beauty of country formed by man as opposed to wilderness'; finds Adelaide attractive, though many of the old buildings are being torn down; describes going vegetarian after seeing how sheep were treated on another rail line.