Candid Canberra

The trip required seven armoured vehicles and about 40 ADF personnel (with an American commander from the Provincial Reconstruction Team along too).

Among our clutch of cameras, my colleague cameraman/editor Jeff Kehl has brought a tiny one which can be fitted to a soldier's helmet.

Great pictures moving along the road - a good sense of the countryside and the tense security situation.

We were guests of honour at an amazing shura (meeting) of elders from Kala Kala village in the valley's north.

They were very gracious, although it was pointed out to me, having taken no more than a cursory glance, that the necklace the head man beside me was wearing was his gun belt loaded with bullets.

I was the only woman at the meeting and the only one anywhere to be seen in the whole village.

Happily, nothing went bang on the trip, though the lads in uniform did a lot of examining of roadsides and the bomb dog, Cody, had a busy morning looking for anything untoward.

We've seen some horrific pictures of what those bombs do - very often to people with nothing to do with this conflict.

The injuries to the kids are the worst. Flying bullets from all sides aren't terribly discriminating either.

We've been taught how to treat bullet wounds and how to apply a tourniquet to prevent catastrophic blood loss, including to yourself.

So many sad things about war & the impact on the ordinary people must be up there.
In the attack on the Uruzgan Governor's compound 3 weeks ago, one of the car-bomb vehicles broke down and the driver persuaded local children to help him push it closer to his target, and then blew himself - and them - up.

Twelve kids died. What can you say to that? Would the country be like this if the foreign forces weren't here? Maybe. I just don't know.