When I research my novels I take my journal, a hand-held tape recorder and a camera. Research takes me to footy fields, Vietnam, islands in the Pacific Ocean, rivers and even the odd restaurant. Here are some of the photos that I have used to get places and people just right. I also often write with them stuck on the wall next to my writing desk.

	He watched the light of the last carriage disappear, then looked across the tracks to the vast cement wall alongside the line. Three dimensional slabs of paint covered most of the surface. Murals of wonder on canvases of stone and mortar. Pieces of graffiti.     Blue faces with eyes like blowflies stared vacantly. Streaks of aqua ran down to a flared and menacing nose. Small grey gremlins sat on shoulders, whispering into bulbous ears. Orange flames licked around a jumble of words painted yellow and violet.     At the end of this urban gallery was a real showpiece – black and red snakes with white paint daubed along their bodies, heads reared back, ready to strike into a tangle of words. Along the bottom the Big Dipper spewed from a decaying head.     Max picked his way through the onion grass and the dead thistles, till he reached the spot where he and Lou had stood a short time ago, a long time ago. (p18-19)
	Every week morning, Max would pass by the Tan Dai grocery and glance at its small bronzed Buddha sitting in the gloom at the back of the shop, fat sticks of incense sailing their aroma onto the street.     A woman shopkeeper hosed off the footpath. Max stepped onto the road, dodging the spray. Horns of the morning traffic warned him off, reminding Max of the other night, of Fatman’s blood and spittle, the sour stink of Fatman’s body, the fall into darkness, the screeching train staring him down, its lights rushing up the line, searching for those words.     Those words still simmering in his brain. (p55-56)
	The mustiness of the air slapped him in the face. The kayak careered down the first rush, its nose dipping crazily into the bottom. Max pulled back, feeling like a madman, dragging the nose up and hitting the pressure waves that exploded over his craft. Water filled his eyes, blurring the darkness. The rush of water threw him along at breakneck speed. He collected his thoughts enough to remember to paddle, leaning forward, the blades ricocheting off the walls of the tunnel. (p88-89)
	Max heard the cry of a plover long before it skimmed into view, with its mate not far behind, tracing the path of the river from upstream. The fog on the river was like a chapel.     And thoughts of Lou fell around him as the mist fell around the river. (p37-38)