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A hypnotic portrait of a young couple surviving life in an off-the-beaten-track, opportunity-starved outback town.

When Rick and James, two argumentative Australian suburban losers, run out of petrol on an abandoned outback highway they discover it is more trouble than it seems to enlist the help of the locals.

Farmers in many remote rural communities are used to solving their own problems. In Queensland's far north, one rambutan grower has won praise for his solution to a problem that was causing conflict between conservationists and farmers. He is growing a fruit most Australians have never heard of. However, there is smart money that says with clever marketing, it could become as closely associated with Australia as the Kiwi fruit is with New Zealand.

Thirty or 40 years ago, mushrooms fetched about the same price per kilogram as wild prawns, but demand was limited to say the least and most mushrooms were sold processed in a can. But as our culinary horizons broadened, the mushroom started to take a regular place in the recipe books of Australia�s kitchens and restaurants. So much so that Australians are now eating more mushrooms than ever before - and the industry is responding with a growing selection of the most exotic mushrooms available.

Over the past year the media has covered a number of stories on ethanol. However, in the past 18 months ethanol has become the subject of political point scoring, inaccurate reporting and gross exaggeration. Here Landline presents their ethanol report card for November 2003.

It is seven years since ABC rural radio producer Drew Radford broke out of the confines of his Adelaide studio and rode off on his first sabbatical. Since then he and his trusty motorbike have clocked up more than 70,000 kilometres, gathering stories from rural and remote communities across the country. On the latest leg of his adventures, the 'Bloke on the bike' is in Western Australia's wheat belt.