Unable to contact one of our unpaid correspondents , Darwin agronomist Robert Wesley-Smith, on the telephone and computer , Little Darwin became concerned and wondered if he had been abducted by one of those notorious Northern Territory flying saucers.
Out of the blue , as it were , came an email containing photographs of him in which he appeared to have indeed been spirited away by ET and dumped on Mars , the red planet.
It explained why he had been incommunicado in the Top End. Having just turned 79, he decided to celebrate by driving from Darwin across to Wyndham and beyond in Western Australia in his poor little Honda Jazz , along some tough stretches of roadway , apparently without a spare tyre , a bad leak , getting bogged along the way , towed out backwards .
After washing off the red dust and a tonne of Twiggy Forrest's iron ore at The Grotto, above , he sent the first illustrated travelogue , breaking his silence . He walked to the bottom of The Grotto , and said some of the steps were difficult for an ol' guy.
