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- Campsite Collection #3 – Port Hedland to Albany
- No gymnasium required-we hope!
- QUIZ ANSWER: Road Signs
- QUIZ ANSWER: Photos
- OK so it’s been 3 weeks …
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- SusanBowler on Sunrise/Sunset Collection #2 – Alice Springs to Albany
- Leanne Watson on Oh no!!!
- Leanne Watson on Still reading
- Leanne Watson on Sunrise/Sunset Collection #2 – Alice Springs to Albany
- Mary-Lu on Sunrise/Sunset Collection #2 – Alice Springs to Albany
- Mary-Lu on Still reading
- rohan on Campsite Collection #3 – Port Hedland to Albany
- Peter and Judy Marburg on Campsite Collection #3 – Port Hedland to Albany
- Nanna & Poppa on QUIZ ANSWER: Photos
- Bev Eustace on Animals on the run
- Bev Eustace on REALLY BUSY
- Desley on OK so it’s been 3 weeks …
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Previous Adventures
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Author Archives: rohan
T-minus 14 – Two years becomes two weeks
Can’t believe it was almost two years ago that the seed for our trip was first planted… and now there’s only two weeks to go.
Posted in Preparation
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T-minus 15 – Keeping an eye on the sky
Yesterday’s minimum and maximum temperatures in some of the locations we will be travelling through (listed in the order the we plan to visit them) on our trip:
Minimum | Maximum | |
Adelaide, SA | 1.3°C | 14.5°C |
Coober Pedy, SA | 6.2°C | 19.2°C |
Yulara (Ayers Rock), NT | 4.1°C | 21.5°C |
Alice Springs, NT | -0.4°C | 19.8°C |
Darwin, NT | 17.9°C | 29.9°C |
Broome, WA | 11.8°C | 29.0°C |
Perth, WA | 8.2°C | 19.3°C |
Albany, WA | 5.5°C | 16.5°C |
Eucla, WA/SA Border | 12.7°C | 17.4°C |
Port Lincoln, SA | 3.6°C | 14.4°C |
With such a large variation from coolest to warmest, it looks like we’ll need to be prepared for all four seasons (and goes to show how big the country is)!
Posted in Places of Interest, Preparation
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T-minus 17 – The fear factor
Not sure how the subject of fear came up – probably something to do with Matilda’s morbid insistence that she’s going to either be bitten by a snake or spider, or eaten by a shark or crocodile! – but it got me to thinking if I had any of my own fears regarding the upcoming trip.
Probably only two (although the first is not really a fear, as such).
1. Every holiday I can remember – even the family trips to Queensland as a kid, leaving at two o’clock in the morning, lying across the very back of the station wagon wedged in with the bags, cases and other assorted luggage, looking up at the stars as we drove along in the early morning darkness – had a final destination. Whilst the journey there and back was a part of the trip, it was, for me, that final destination which really marked the start of the holiday.
This holiday is different though – there is no single final destination. The journey itself is the holiday. And I think it is this mindset that I need to grasp, fully, if I’m to get the most enjoyment from the whole experience. I guess I’m worried, too, that the girls may also have similar ideas and be expecting to arrive somewhere before they can start their holiday, and that would be a shame. (LOL, maybe my real worry is having to listen to “Dad, are we there yet?” every day for 9 weeks! )
Anyway, this mindset adjustment leads nicely in to my other fear.
2. We are planning on covering a lot of ground in the allotted time frame, and I fear that I’ll be overly conscious of making sure we see everything along the way that I’ll get to the end of the trip and realise I’ve not really seen anything.
However, I think if I can get my head around 1, then 2 will take care of itself and I will be more attuned to taking things in along the way.
Here’s hoping, anyway.
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T-minus 20 – If it ain’t broke, don’t upgrade it…
Oops, seems that un upgrade I did this afternoon has busted the layout. You’d think that in my line of work I’d know by now that “if it ain’t broke, don’t upgrade it”…!
*sigh*
Oh well, this one’s going to have to wait until at least next weekend before I can fix it up – got a busy week of work to get through.
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Technical Difficulties…
UPDATE:
OK, crisis averted (to a certain extent).
In typical web developer style I have dived deep into the code and hacked the part that was causing maximum grief where Internet Explorer display issues were concerned.
As such, I am happy to leave the current design in place, albeit that users of IE8 (or earlier) won’t see this site 100% “the way it should be seen”. So, if you’re reading this using IE8 or earlier, you will just have to be happy with 95%** “correctness”. Or you could get yourself a decent browser, such as Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari or even, heaven forbid, IE9.
**No nicely rounded corners, some missing alpha transparency, and a couple of CSS3 goodies.
For posterity’s sake (and because of my disdain of all web-based Microsoft things), here is…
THE ORIGINAL POST:
Just spent a futile half hour or so trying to come up with the perfect word to describe my frustration, loathing and downright contempt of that piece of software that some people laughingly refer to as a web browser; for those who haven’t guessed yet, I speak of Internet Explorer. Of course, I couldn’t find a word that fits the bill… there’s obviously no word in the English language that’s that bad…!
It appears that there are some fairly severe glitches with the way this blog displays in Internet Explorer, specifically versions up to and including IE8*. Having tried for a fair chunk of the afternoon to try and overcome the problems, I can’t afford to spend any more time going down this frustrating path and feel I have no choice but to ditch the current design and start again. As such I’ll be putting something together this weekend, it’ll be simple but hopefully Internet Explorer friendly for those who still use IE8 or earlier.
Don’t know whether to laugh, cry or scream.
Might try all three.
*It would be remiss of me not to give a smidgeon of credit to Microsoft and their ability to develop web-based applications – after all, their current release of Microsoft Explorer is actually quite satisfactory when it comes to rendering websites the way they’re supposed to be seen. But for the life of me I can’t see how it could take them 16 YEARS & 9 VERSION RELEASES to achieve this simple requirement!
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In the driver’s seat
Hitched the van up to the Commodore for the first time yesterday and headed out for a bit of a test run.
All good.
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Gone Fishin’…
…well, not yet.
But I did buy myself a new rod and reel today – reduced from $100 down to $30. Not a bad bargain!
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Ararat Trip – Day 4
A brief stop in Ballarat on the way home, so that Emma could visit the local patchwork shop, then a fairly uneventful trip home.
How’s this for a useless factoid to end proceedings – after leaving Ballarat, we passed NO traffic lights until we left the freeway at Hallam North Rd (just 1.5 km from home). That’s just under 200km of uninterrupted freeway travel. Can’t complain about that!
So ends our first adventure in the new van, hopefully the first of many including, of course, the “big trip” we are planning for next year.
Total disatance traveled: 667km
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Ararat Trip – Day 3
Children’s Day.
Having trailed dutifully along behind the adults all day yesterday, we let Sarah and Matilda set the itinerary for the day. Sarah chose to visit the Chinese Heritage Museum, and Matilda thought that a visit to Alexandra Gardens would be nice. As both were quite nearby, we also decided ot check out a local lookout that John was told about; so we added that to our itinerary for the day.
First up was Gum San Chinese Heritage Museum – beware the hefty entrance fee ($26.50 for a family ticket) – which provided an interesting perspective on how the Chinese migration to the Ararat region shaped its history and influenced the 19th century Victorian gold rush era.
A quick stop back at ‘freight train central’ for lunch, then back out in search of a place called McDonald’s Park but, despite a couple of signposts pointing us left and right as required, the location of McDonald’s Park remains a mystery to us… More easily discovered was the turnoff to One Tree Hill lookout, which provided us with commanding views in all directions; only the arctic southerly blowing across such an exposed location stopped us from enjoying the views for longer.
Our final stop for the day was Alexandra Gardens, back in the heart of Ararat township (and, thankfully, fairly well protected from the worst of the cold winds). The girls spotted the playground on the other side of the park and were off like a shot, while the grown-ups strolled by the ornamental lake and through the small conservatory, filled with hundreds of orchid varieties, all in full bloom.
Eventually the cold wind and the dropping temperature had us heading for the car and back to the comfort of the van, before we packup and head home tomorrow.
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Ararat Trip – Day 2
Having re-read my Ararat Trip – Day 1 post, I’m pretty sure I won’t win any literary prizes any time soon… very uninspiring prose indeed!
So, let’s try something a little different today, try and rein in the left side of my brain a little and give my right brain a chance to have a say. Although, having said that, I’m surpirsed either side is working efficiently after our first night ever in the new van. A combination of our caravan park being less that 100 metres from BOTH the major Melbourne-Adelaide truck and train routes (half a dozen freight trains and well over 500 semi trailers during the night), along with an ultra hard, never-been-slept-on-before mattress and it was no wonder I awoke with a splitting headache!
Hmm, sounds like I’m whinging already (ha ha)! It wasn’t so bad though – even a bit funny for the first two or three hours (we even commented about opening the windows at either end of the van to let the freight train through!) – and a good early lesson for young players like us: when looking for a place to set up camp, take notice of your surroundings.
Still, it didn’t dampen our spirits and we were off early to spend the day in the Grampians National Park, taking in Moysten, the spiritual home of AFL football, and Halls Gap, at the doorstep to the Grampians, along the way.
A couple of short stops, to walk among the spectacular sandstone rock formations and take in the scenic views, before we made our way to MacKenzie Falls for lunch. This was followed by a short but steep hike down to the bottom of the falls themselves.
[Pictures]
After a full day’s activities, we made our way back to ‘freight train central’ via Stawell, for another night of peaceful slumber… being broken only by the regular earth shattering blast of each freight train’s air horn as it passed through the centre of town (and, strange as it may seem, the insessant sub-woofer like rumble of the constant flow of trucks along the Western Highway actually became quite soothing, so much so that you really didn’t even notice it after the first 4 or 5 hours of lying in bed waiting to fall asleep…).
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