RUGBY club buses have their own type of character but the buses used by the Spokane and Missoula rugby teams take the concept to a whole new level. Both clubs have to travel up to 10 hours to games and rugby festivals so their team buses are an integral part of the club. The Spokane Rugby Club generously loaned their bus and a driver to the Barbarians to transport them from Spokane to Missoula in time for the rugby festival last week. The Spokane Bus – known as the “Cool Bus” - is a classic old yellow school bus, with a few modifications to suit the rugby team - A card table has been installed between two facing bench seats up front, a powerful stereo pumps out the music and a rotating disco ball hangs from the ceiling. Tour manager Geoff Barton likened the Yellow bus to a big crab pot: “Once you get in you just can’t get out”. The bus owned by the Missoula Maggots is also an old US school bus painted in the clubs colours of black and white. The last eight seats have been removed and replaced with a plywood base and then covered with doonas and pillows and mattresses. A keg with a pony-pump accompanies every trip. A dead road-kill turkey hangs from the side of the bonnet as a hood ornament. The Maggots also have a policy of only cleaning out their bus once a year. The bus had received its annual clean just one month before the Barbarians travelled in it to go white water rafting, and physiotherapist Justin Griffith said it could only be described as a “cesspool of filth” already…

YELLOWSTONE National Park was one of the first national parks proclaimed any where in the world, and 136 years later it is still providing a thrilling natural experience for visitors. The huge park, which crosses the borders of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, was shaped by volcanic activity and sits at high altitude, between 6000 and 9000 feet (For comparison Australia's highest peak Mount Kosuisko stands at 7300ft). The same volcanic activity that formed the park is still active today, making Yellowstone a park of amazing natural contrasts – snow and ice exist side by side with boiling mud pools and steaming geysers. The park is home to grizzly bears, wolves, bison and elk. It is also home to one of the most famous geysers in the world, Old Faithful, which produces a towering two-minute long eruption every 90 to 120 minutes on average. Park rangers can usually predict Old Faithful’s next eruption time to within 10 minutes, but the day the Barbarians arrived the old geyser was about 20 minutes late. It still put on an impressive show for the tourists. While in Yellowstone the Barbarians didn’t miss the opportunity to do what anyone else would do when surrounded by three feet of snow – have a decent snowball fight. Despite plenty of searching no one managed to spot Yogi Bear though.

AFTER a nine hour bus trip from Pocatello, Idaho, the Outback Queensland Barbarians arrived in Las Vegas at 4pm Wednesday afternoon (8am Thursday morning Queensland time). After travelling through snow and ice for the best part of 12 days, the conditions at Las Vegas were a little closer to what the Outback Barbarians are familiar with – the desert city was being inundated by a minor dust storm. The blowing winds did little to detract from seeing the glitz and glamour of “the strip” for the first time. Towering mirror-clad buildings, electric colours, high-megawattage neon signs, palm trees, television screens spanning the sides of entire buildings and stretch limos at every turn were just some of the colourful first impressions. Vegas is pretty much just as you expect it to be – a supercharged version of the Gold Coast – but what surprised the tourists most was the sheer scale and length of the strip. After walking for close to one hour along the strip from our hotel at one end, the Circus Circus Casino, we had still made it less than half way down its length. There are so many casinos, hotels and restaurants the toughest decision you face is where to start. The scale of the buildings is hard to comprehend – it is said that if you were to sleep in a different room in the MGM Grand Hotel every night, it would take 14 years to stay in every room. Every hotel/casino development is a unique spectacle on its own – the Venetian authentically recreates a city scape in Venice complete with water filled streets and gondola rides. The Bellagio is a palatial Tuscan themed resort with a spectacular water show in its foreground lake every 10 minutes. The Eiffel Tower, the Empire State Building and towering pirate ships can all be seen in the same stretch. The team has a few days to soak up the atmosphere of Vegas before getting down to the business of their next match against the aptly-named Las Vegas Black Jacks on Saturday.

A NUMBER of touring Outback Barbarians players could be returning to northern America to play rugby, at least if talent scouts from Canada have their way. Following the Missoula Maggot Fest, Barbarians manager Geoff Barton was approached by a Canadian rugby union official eager to sign some Australian players for the Canadian Super League. While the league is not professional, players are being offered work and free accommodation to play for a season in British Columbia, Alberta or Saskatchewan. The Canadian official was specifically chasing an outside centre and a fullback, and expressed strong interest in both Ashley Kirk and Murray Brooks in particular, who had an excellent tournament in those positions for the Barbarians. The Canadian Super League is rated just below the level of premier league in Sydney, according to Nathan Perkins, a rugby player and coach from Wagga, NSW, who is currently an assistant coach with Canadian Super League team the Prairie Fire. Nathan says the big Canadians love playing physical rugby, almost to a fault. “The biggest thing I’m trying to teach these boys is to run into gaps,” Nathan explained. “They would prefer to run into another player than to run into a space.”

SIGNS that the US is on the edge of an economic precipice are not hard to find on a daily basis. The US Federal Reserve this week dropped official interest rates to just 2pc. It follows news reported in yesterday’s papers that housing prices are beginning to avalanche. Average housing prices in the State of Nevada where the Barbarians are currently touring dropped by 22.8pc in the past 12 months alone. Prices in Miami dropped by 21pc and in Pheonix by 20.5pc. As you drive through western America it is not uncommon to see building sites with several dozers, scrapers, graders parked just standing still.

WHEN you send 28 people from all over Queensland who don’t know each other on a tour of the United States for three weeks, there is always the potential for conflict among the troops if some don’t get along. But what has been striking about this touring Barbarians team has been the mateship that has developed among all members of the team. Most teams have at least one or two people who tend to aggravate or irritate the others but 12 days into this tour there has not been so much as an angry word between anyone. Getting to know team members and America at the same time has clearly been a great experience for everyone involved.