Oz Wildlife (I): The Koala (OJG)

Hey all,

Well this is another new blog sub series, bringing you all a bit closer to some of those very strange and wonderful Australian creatures (non beer drinking ones).

And today we are going to talk about that cute little bear, the Koala. I am starting off with this one in particular for a reason that will become apparent as you read on.

So, as all you keen readers will know, we got to spend a little bit of time with a few Koalas at a special sanctuary for them on Magnetic island. I highly recommend it. We learnt the following:

• The Koala gets its name from an Aboriginal word which means "no drink".
• The Koala does not drink at all, instead getting all of its water from its food.
• The Koala eats solely gum leaves, of which eucalyptus leaves are a sub species. It is one of 3 animals which can eat these leaves.
• Koalas are very fussy eaters, and although there are over 600 types of eucalypts in Australia, the Koala will not eat most of these.
  
• The Eucalyptus leaf is unfortunately very low on protein and really not a good nutritional source of food. As such it takes the Koala about 18 hours to digest.
  
• It is because of this that the Koala sleeps a lot, and appears slow. It is the absolute master of conserving energy, as it has very little.
• They have a very short attention span, the Koala brain is about the size of a pea, again an energy saving step!
• Koalas have a very keen sense of smell and touch, but poor eyesight.
• Koalas weigh an average of 9k, although the average weight differs depending upon region and climate.
• Myth 1: Eucalyptus leaves do not make Koalas high like marijuana. Read above about low energy!
• Myth 2: Koalas look really cute and dopey, but if you aggravate one it has large claws that can swipe very quickly and cause extreme lacerations.
• In the outback, male Koalas can be heard during the night barking like a large dog.
• A wild Koala will spend many days in one tree eating its eucalyptus leaves, until it has finished the supply, at which point it will just move into the next tree.
• Koalas used to spend just as much time on the ground, until Westerners arrived and started hunting them for the fur. They have since evolved to spend nearly all their time high above.
• A healthy Koala has a little bit of a belly, due to the long digestion system.
  
• If you tickle a Koala's rear, it thinks that this is another Koala encroaching on its territory and will go into "fight mode!". You have been warned.
  
• The koala can be grumpy in the morning, and only starts to get really active in the later hours of the day
• Koala babies are called Joeys, and once born the baby will make its way completely unaided to the mother's pouch where it will spend the next year growing. If the mother does not give birth the following year, the Joey will spend up to another year in the pouch. This will greatly improve this Joey's chances of survival.
  

If you need more Koala info click here

So let me recap: the Koala likes to sleep a lot; it is grumpy in the morning; it has a keen sense of smell, but poor eyesight; it has a short attention span; it drink almost nothing; it can look cute, but can go into fight mode in a split second.... Yes, I married a Koala!

Tech Life (II): Time Lapse Photography (OJG)

It seems that we have rekindled people's photographic creativity with our time lapse photography videos.

So, after a couple of requests here is a short guide. It is still fairly basic, as I am still very much in the learning phase myself.

Personally, I think the most important thing about time lapse photography is having the right equipment. Critically, to have a camera which has an intervalometer. Luckily for me, I got one such camera at Christmas. I honestly do not know how many cameras out there have it built in, BUT, I have also seen on the web various camera remotes that will do the same job. Some are cabled and some work on Infrared. A lot of cameras both small and large are covered.

You will also need something to secure the camera into a position. Usually this is a tripod, any one will do. For the travel time lapse inside Henry I just rested the camera on various objects until I thought the camera was level. It ended up moving after a few hours, but I will sort that out in a session or two.

Once you have the basic equipment, it is easy to get started...

Well mostly easy. Having a plan and thinking out your time lapse session is an absolute necessity. Each time I do it, new little things appear for the checklist. Intro in? How to change the scene? What parts of the scene are going to be interesting? Continuity with the clouds? etc. Once you start recording, it is impossible to go back and add bits.

That's it.

If you get past the immediate time lapse trend and want to do greater and bigger stuff (as I am trying), then you will need to consider the following:

1. Memory Storage: time lapse uses up a ton of images. Obviously you can vary this a bit, but for a film of a couple of minutes you are generally talking about 1000 images. You can reduce the photographic image size as video has a much lower resolution than still photos. But still, if you want a video to last 5 or more minutes, you will have to buy a large memory card. Also try and make it fast!
2. Battery Life: My previous camera could take over 2000 shots before I had to change the battery. My current one struggles to reach 900. This is a huge problem. Fortunately my camera can take a direct power cable from the mains (or a converter hooked to the 12v in a vehicle). If your camera cannot take an external power supply, then I suggest practicing the battery change over and getting it as quick as possible! Buy plenty of spares.
3. Fixing: If your time lapse is going to span longer than a few days then I suggest you find a way to fix the camera mounting solidly to it's base. In terms of a tripod, weigh it to the ground and make sure you have rain cover. Inside a vehicle, bolt the mount to the dash or wherever it is going to go. Most modern tripods have a shoe which can easily come out. Use the shoe to get the camera out of the mount.
4. Settings: Make sure you record the camera settings, and check before each session that they are correct. This is especially true for focusing, which I leave on manual just to be safe.

Now a complete how to with some figures:

1. I shot both of the driving videos at 1 frame every 10 seconds. I do intend to try all sorts of faster time lapses in the future, but 10 seconds is my limit with my current battery situation.
2. I then uploaded the images to the computer, batch reduced the size (Picasa will do this, as well as apply Feel Lucky) down to 640 by 480. Don't use large images in the video program or it will slow to a crawl.
3. I then used Adobe Premier Elements 3 (most video creating programs will work fine) to import all the still images.
4. Next, I changed the settings in Premier to make still shots last 3 video frames each (about 1/8th of a second). I then dragged all the images to the video time-line, and voila, the video is now ready.
5. I then added a few transitions, a few titles, and a soundtrack. All modern day video programs do these things easily.
6. Exported the whole lot as an MPEG designed for "Cable/DSL" downloads.
7. Upload the video to Youtube.

If you decide to shoot the frames faster than 1 every 10 seconds, you can reduce the amount of time each of these frames will need in the video. I reckon that shots done every second or less can easily be played back at 1 frame per shot.

Next steps for me? I am waiting for a power cable to give unlimited battery life, and then I might make a small jig which I will fix to the dashboard for absolute continuity. Also a wider angle lens might give some interesting results! Apart from that, it is all a big fun experiment, I hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

Oly

PS, if any of you do try this, please let us know and we will add the links to our blog.

Tech Life: Photo Management (OJG)

Hey All!

Well I thought I might try a new segment in the blog!

Specifically I decided to do some tests on the photos that I have taken, and have found out that they are not as good as they should be.

Que? I hear you cry. Ok, let me go back a step or two...

When I take a picture on my camera, it creates a digital photo in a format known as RAW. You just need to know that this is the purest form it can be.

Unfortunately, Nikon (who make my camera) don't share their RAW secrets with anyone else. So, other companies such as Google and Adobe have to guess. It is a very good guess, but a guess nonetheless.

But here is the real crux. The software that Nikon supplies is great for looking at an image, but absolute rubbish at everything else.

Seeking an easy life, I naively decided at some point in the past to just use the Google Picasa so that I could do all my photo management in one place.

Then came along Adobe Lightroom, and I suddenly found myself um-ing and ah-ing over the various packages. Hence tests began.

I was frankly quite shocked to see the differences in quality. Specifically the picasa photos all look very bland, and lack a significant amount of colour detail. This is not so noticeable on the scenic shots, but really significant on the close ups, especially ones with bright colours.

Adobe lightroom is generally better than Picasa, but still not a patch on Nikon View.

So what is the answer?

Well, I am going to give up the easy life and try a two pronged approach: first of all, open the images in Nikon View and export as high quality jpegs; secondly, use Google Picasa as I have done in the past to manage my thousands of images. It makes the process quite a bit longer, but the results will be worth it. In order to retrospectively apply this process to all my photos, well I think it will take a few days. Once that is done I will upload a few of the special ones!

Whilst talking about Google Picasa, for those of you who do not already use it, use it! It is a truly brilliant program that is just ever so easy to use, very quick, and it has so many useful tricks up it's virtual sleeves! (straighten image, crop image, feel lucky image adjust, web upload, email, blog, etc... and most of these are just one click!) Plus, it is free!

Well that is it for my tech update... oh and to let you all know that the new links on the web page are nearly ready... nearly!

Oly

P.S. I do realise that this blog entry was not of the greatest interest to a lot of you. However, this project is something that I am having to spend a lot of time on, hence why I am sharing :)

The first 4 weeks in the UK (OJG)

*** Happy New Year ***

Hi everyone,

I know it has been a while, but as most of you know we have been in the UK for the last 4 weeks, and although we planned to keep the blog running with interesting articles on UK life, it never happened. Let's just blame jet lag and heavy commitments.

So, what have we been doing?

Well I will give you all a quick summary, and also our next set of plans for Oz.

We arrived at Heathrow airport around 5am, and the temperature outside was 5c. The temperature in Cairns, where we boarded had been close to 40c. The mammoth flight over had not been that bad at all. The plane from Cairns to Darwin had been almost empty (So Emelie and I sat with an empty seat between us). Then we picked up a few passengers in Darwin, including a truly enormous sweating American with a ton of carry on bags, who had somehow managed to piss off the check-in girl, and was promptly seated between the two of us, even though there were plenty of completely empty rows! It took a few chats with the stewardess, but in the end they could see how silly it was, and moved him. Emelie had to wipe his seat with a towel.

So apart from an anxious first 20 minutes, the rest of that flight to Singapore was pretty easy going. I saw some really amazing cloud formations from the window, it looked like a set of islands in the sky.

Singapore was it's usual busy self; get the transfer sorted, buy as many gadgets and Christmas presents as possible, run to catch the next flight. After a little bit of wrangling we got a set of 2 seats together at the back of the plane, so although this last long leg (14 hours) was painful on the body and the mind, at least we didn't have people constantly wanting to get past us, or falling asleep on us. We arrived in the UK fairly fresh... more or less.

The day after arrival we had an amazing Christmas lunch with loads of close family from both sides. A true Christmas feast with an enormous turkey (which caught fire in the oven, but that is another story), a huge gammon, and what must have been at least a dozen vegetables and side dishes, all cooked (and smoked) to perfection. Boxing day and New Years Eve were both similar.

And that was the beginning of our downfall with regards to food!

Since we arrived in Oz, we had slowly but surely been eating much healthier. We ate a lot more fruit, more fresh meats, even more vegetables. And there were no processed dishes to be seen anywhere. Also we had been eating smaller amounts, in some cases in the outback probably too small, but overall we had found a nice new happy medium. And we felt wonderful for it, we had both lost weight, for me personally about 12kg, and 3 inches off the waist! And that was without even trying. Seriously.

So, coming back to the cold land of the UK, lots of time indoors, socialising, etc... food and drink always available. I have no idea if we have put on weight since being back, but it sure feels like we have, the body feels slow and cumbersome again. For that reason alone we cannot wait to get back to Oz :)

Oh, and yes I realise that this is all our own fault, and with a little... well a lot of self control this should not be a problem, but we have just succumbed to all the delicious dishes that we have missed since being away. We are weak, but it tastes so good!

So apart from eating half our body weight each day, we have been fairly busy meeting up with all our friends and family in their various abodes. So far we have been to London, Crawley, Balcombe, Guildford and of course Brighton. And it has been really great. Just like the good old days, except that we were never this social, so really like the old days x 10.

In addition to that, we have been busy sorting out all the bits that we left behind from last time. As most of our close friends in the UK will know, it all got a bit hectic in the weeks and days before our original departure to Oz, especially with the flat sale. I am sure some people would use other words to describe it. Anyway, what wasn't sorted, got put into storage and left for us to sort out upon our return. So plenty of eBay, lots of bin bags, paper filing, phone calls to various companies, and of course a complete re-sort of our storage. In all seriousness our goal is to make sure that when we return to the UK in future visits, we don't have to worry about any of this stuff. What fun.

With regards to weather... well I guess it would be a little unfair to have a major dig as it is winter, but in all seriousness, apart from a few good days, it has been a constant grey in the sky. Sometimes with drizzly rain, sometimes without. And two days ago we had the worst storms for 10 years, with between 10 and 14 dead (depending upon which paper you read). Apart from the first few days it hasn't been too cold, yet.

And that is pretty much the last 4 weeks in a nutshell.

Although we had originally planned to be out here for only 3 weeks, I got it all wrong booking the flights back, and we will not head back to Oz until the 5th of Feb. As it turns out, getting all the bits done has been fairly time consuming and our remaining 2 weeks are going to be chocka!

Although nothing is set in stone, when we get back to Oz we hope to spend a bit of time in Cairns, do a bit of diving, get Henry tuned (we hope that is all he needs, the little bugger), go up North a little bit, and then head down along the coast, back to Townsville, and on to Brisbane, Sydney and so on.

We really can't wait!

Oz Life (XII): Christmas (OJG)

"Go to the beach, have a beer and put a shrimp on the barbie". Well joking aside, that is close enough to what a lot of Aussies actually do.

Christmas is right in the middle of summer, so it is really hot. The last thing anyone here wants on Christmas day is a large roast turkey with all the extras. Maybe a snag (sausage) or shrimp (prawn) on the barbie, with a bit of salad on the side, but probably no more. A dip in the pool and plenty of ice cold drinks (beer/stubbie).

We heard a funny tale about an Aussie girl who went to the UK over Christmas and called home to tell them how "un-christmassy" it felt because of the cold weather and huge meals!

And on the TV they have an advert with a guy saying that Christmas Eve is one of their busiest nights with nearly everyone buying barbecues, which they then make that night in preparation for the Christmas BBQ with all the relatives!

So yes, they celebrate Christmas just as much here as they do the in the UK, they have the sales, the adverts, the street lights, the houses with tons of decorations, even Santa in the shopping malls. They have the same basic ingredients, they just use them a little differently.

Merry Christmas everyone,

Oly & Em

Oz Life (XI): Utes (OJG)

Utes as they are called here in Australia, Buckies in South Africa, and Pick-ups in the US. It's short for Utility, or more specifically Utility Vehicle.

The vehicle type basically does not exist in the UK, but over here, it owns the largest slice of the car market cake, and is pretty much dominated by Ford and Holden (The Australian arm of Vauxhall)

As far as I am concerned all Utes can be categorised as follows;

Age: Classic, 80s, or Modern.
Looks: Practical, Pimped, or Frankenstein.


As you'd expect in the middle of a city nearly all Utes are Pimped Modern. whereas in the outback you get a lot more 80s Practical and 80s Frankenstein.

Before some of our Australian readers get too angry with me, I feel it important to mention that I have seen truly nice examples of every possible combination. At the same time some have not been so truly nice.

Age speaks for itself and cannot be modified, but looks on the other hand are unique to each vehicle and can be modified until the roos come home!

Practical: Aluminium Flat Bed, Gloss paint job (usually with little knocks), lights along the front and on top of the cab, various tool boxes at the front of the bed, High suspension.... again fairly common ingredients. These Utes are pure utility, and are used by individuals as much as large companies to get jobs done!

Pimped: Aluminium V-8, Tinted windows, Pearl paint job (absolutely perfect), lights along the side and underneath, Speakers and amps completely filling the rear bed, lowered suspension... all of these things are fairly common. Of course, these Utes have no utility left in them whatsoever but I don't think that is the point!

Frankenstein: Well, I'm not sure of the basic ingredients for one of these, except that it just looks a mess! It can have any combination from the previous two types, and then some. Usually these abominations do not even look road worthy let alone able to carry things, and yet they zoom along the roads with their payloads just as well as everything else. I do wonder if they need a lightning bolt to get started? (Some sound like it!)

I will post more pics as I get them, but for now this will have to do as a taster.

Oz Life (X): Time Zones (OJG)

Most of the things that I have seen (and therefor written about) in Australia have had a bit more common sense applied to them than other countries... well here is a prime example where that all falls apart!

The time zones in Oz are really crazy, I still have no idea how it all works, I doubt if all Australians know all the peculiarities, and in order to write this with any sort of factual content I had to do a fair bit of research!

Ok, first of all the basics, Australia traverses 3 time zones, and as such you would be right to expect some time differences. Of course even this is not simple, and although the West part adapts GMT+8 and the East parts uses GMT+10, the central strip decided to go with GMT+9hrs 30mins. So when going from Northern Territory to Queensland there is only a 30 minute difference, hardly seems worth it!

So far then, 3 time zones to remember...

Now, the next piece of the puzzle, daylight saving! Most of the Southern based states of Australia use Daylight Saving in the summer, which creates two new time zones of GMT+10.5 and GMT+11. Western Australia which is the only state to stretch from the South to the North did not have daylight saving until a few months ago, when it was suddenly put forward a trial in state government, and within 2 months it had been passed as law and put into action with almost immediate effect.

Most of the areas start their daylight saving at the same time, but some do not. Tasmania specifically starts theirs nearly a month earlier. I believe some smaller areas stop later.

So now there are 5 zones to remember, and plenty of dates (and don't bother writing it stone, things change very quickly)...

Now the final piece, peculiarities! There are too many to mention, but I will try and give a few examples. Some small towns that are close to the borders adapt the time zone of their neighbouring state, such as Broken Hill in NSW. Other remote towns have decided to create a time zone of their own, specifying that it be half the difference of the two closest time zones; GMT+8hrs 45mins !!! Finally, when special events have taken place such as the Olympics and more recently the Commonwealth Games, the daylight savings dates have been changed in order to accommodate the event.

So, 3 time zones for half the year, 5 time zones the other half, several mini time zones, plenty of different dates (which can change at a moments notice), and I haven't even mentioned any of the islands. Yes, this has definitely been designed to confuse.

Oz Life (IX): Mosquitoes (OJG)

First off, I feel it is my duty to tell you that I HATE mosquitoes. Really really hate them. I do not think twice about killing one, and if I have seen one that got away, I will hunt it down for an almost disturbing amount of time!

I guess I could try and justify my hate by talking about malaria and other diseases that mozzies spread around so effectively, but in all honesty, my hate is purely selfish. I guess I have just been bitten too many times in the past.

I would have found it shocking to tell you that in every location apart from Uluru (middle of nowhere), I have seen mosquitoes. Would have, except for the fact that 1 month before we left Brighton, I killed 12 in one night (well once you see a couple, you know that it is time to don the hunting gear!). So I guess they are everywhere, and that is just part of modern life.

For the most part they come out at dawn and dusk, but in several locations I have seen them throughout the day. Particularly if it has been raining recently.

However, there is good news. Very good news! Australians have what I can only describe as a "Wonder" product; BushMan Plus ! BushMan, which is sold and praised by nearly all camping shops, is also used by the Australian army. But regardless of all that, the important thing is that it works. 7 hours protection, water resistant, and it even has some sunscreen thrown in!

The only issue with Bushman, or more specifically with the user applying it, is that every so often small areas get missed. And sure enough mozzies can always work out where. Devious little buggers.

So, yes I have had the odd bite, like on my lip, the side of my little toe, and a few other places that you would assume automatically safe, but for the most part I have been bite and itch free. Emelie of course gets no bites at all, and as such has no sympathy for my odd bite. Just once...

Oz Life (VIII): Caravan Parks (OJG)

Ok, I realise that this particular topic is probably not limited to Australia, but it is a major factor in our current every day life, and I am sure there are nuances that are Oz specific!

Straight off I will tell you that all caravan parks can be rated on one thing alone; The Ablutions (Toilets & Showers). Sure there are lots of other things that caravan parks have to make your stay that much more enjoyable such as pools, sports activities, wildlife, beaches, wireless Internet, etc. But really they are just nice to have extras, not part of the "must have" list!

So, ablutions, obviously they come in all shapes and sizes. We have seen ones not much bigger than a tiny hut with very little inside, and at the other end of the spectrum fair sized buildings with dozens of showers, toilets, sinks, changing areas, washing areas, the works!

The following is a list of what I believe makes a good ablution!

1: Cleanliness. It is something that the smallest and biggest need to be on top of, and most do. There is nothing more off-putting when you are trying to get fresh for the day.

2: Four or more sets of showers and toilets. All sorts of reasons can make you not want to enter one of those cubicles, the most common being that a huge bug has setup refuge there.

3: And following on from the last one, Bug Control. I don't know how they do it, but some places are just 100% bug free. And others are not. We have seen giant queen ants flying, giant beetles fluttering, giant grasshoppers hoping, armies of ants carrying, swarms of locusts jumping, geckos, spiders, hornets and of course the old favourite mozzies.

4. Decent toilet paper. I am sure you are all chuckling having just read that, but you all know it is true, and there is nothing worse than nearly transparent toilet paper. Thankfully I think only one place we have been to needed to skip corners that much.

5. Soap Dispenser. This is a funny one, because we have been to excellent sites with no soap, and really bad ones which had it. But basically having it available in the sink area is a real bonus, especially if you have been working on a kombi all morning and you are covered in grease.

6. Good Lighting, both inside and out. It's nice to see what you are doing, and what is around you! Also, when it is the middle of the night and you really need to go, you really don't want to start getting lost.

And that is all there is to it. Too easy!

Oz Life (VII): Books (OJG)

For some reason bookshops and therefore books seem to be in small supply in Australia. I did manage to find a few serious bookshops in Perth (discounted book shops do not count), but they were fairly small. Although I will say that about half the bookshops I did see were second-hand bookshops (with interesting titles!) which I believe to be a really good practice.

In addition to the lack of bookshops, the books themselves are fairly expensive, at a guess 50% more than the UK.

Now, I am not going to say that the reason for the above observations is due to the lack of demand by the general Australian public. No, I would never say that. What I will say is that whilst the UK public are happily reading their books in the evening or weekend, the Australian public are doing activities, playing sports, and working on personal "projects".

And all the while they are maintaining their significantly better level of fitness, of which the UK public as a whole can only dream about, or perhaps read about.

I suspect a good balance between the two would be the ideal, or maybe audio books whilst playing the said sport would be a good mix!

Oz Life (VI): Traffic Lights (OJG)

I know it does not sound interesting, and you'd probably be right. However, I did want to write a tiny number on them.

Traffic lights in Australia last longer. Both in regards to the Amber light and the Green / Red lights. The Amber light length has to be about twice as long as the UK. I am not sure if this is to compensate for Road Trains or not, but it basically means it is impossible to jump a red light unless you really meant to do it.

The Green and therefore Red lights are also longer, which means that if you are at a red light you can relax for a minute. It also means less stopping and starting when there is a queue of traffic ahead of you.

Nearly every junction I have seen has a separate set of ahead, right, and left lights.

If there should be a junction and therefore a set of traffic lights on a highway, they have flashing warning lights 300m ahead to alert you if the traffic lights are about to go red.

All in all, these little things make travelling that much more hassle free. Now there's an idea!

Some Extra Pics (OJG)

Ok, I thought I would publish some extra pictures that I quite like, I don't think you have seen any of these. I suggest you click on each one to get the full impact.





Wheat Belt (WA)










Running Dragon (NT)















Pink Rose (WA)

















Wave Rock (WA)








Kata Tjuta "The Olgas" (NT)



That last one is a Panoramic (I told you I would get better at them!), the full size image is more than 19,000 pixels wide, or about 60 times bigger than the thumbnail above. Poster time :)

Finally, I have this little picture left, please click on it to see the special detail, I won't tell you what!

Oly

Oz Life (V): Quality of Life (OJG)

This particular topic will probably pop up a few times, but I will write what my thoughts are on it at this time now.

Several people have asked me what I thought of the living over here? do I like it over here? and so on. I reply that the yes, the quality of life is without doubt better. I then try to think about specifics that make it better, and struggle.

Having given it some thought I think I can encapsulate it with the following 2 observations:

First of all "space". It goes without saying that Australia has a lot of space, possibly even the largest amount of space per capita in the world, or close to that. Space makes a lot of difference. Space to build a home, space to store stuff, space to park your car, space to play your music without disturbing the neighbours, space to build safe roads and cycle paths. In effect having a larger amount of space means less conflict, it is as simple as that.

Secondly, "common sense". This is a difficult one to describe, but basically there seems to be just a tiny bit more common sense used in all areas of life. Even as I write this is seems almost ridiculous but that is the point. Applying just a tiny bit more logic into every part of the Australian Life collectively ends up making a huge amount of difference.

You see, I am in no way saying that life here is perfect, it is not. But what if it were a tiny bit better, an almost unnoticeable amount better, but in nearly all aspect of ones day. Then it starts to make just enough of a difference. It works, at least right now anyway. I can't really give examples, but you will read about these little differences all over our blog, and maybe you too will be able to see the sum significance.

Oz Life (IV): Rubbish (OJG)

No, not this blog, but the collection of! Now I can only really speak for Perth, but I will for the moment assume that the same is true for all of Australia.

Rubbish collection in Oz is very efficient and quick!

Having only ever known British bin collectors, you know the ones that arrive in gangs of about 5 and a truck, drag the bins out of their storage making as much noise as possible, and an equal mess on the pavement. It seems to take them 5 minutes to do each house, and often they will not even take all the rubbish.

Well in Oz it is a little different. The truck has a driver and that is it. It takes him about 15 seconds to do each house. I am trying not to sound too excited about garbage removal, but believe me it is such a leap forward from what I have been used, it is hard to hold back the praise.

The reason it is so quick is a good combination of technology and scheduling. Each area has a different day of the week that the rubbish will be collected. Recycled waste is collected additionally every alternate week. People place their rubbish bin(s) at the end of the drive in the morning ready for the collector.


When the truck arrives, it stops at the bin, an arm pops out, lifts up the bin and tilts it over into the back. It then places the bin back and driver is already moving to the next bin before the bin has touched the ground. And within 15 seconds he is at the next bin.

Just as an additional note, I will mention that the local council also do a garden waste pickup twice a year. They send out plenty of leaflets beforehand with the exact date, and it is then up to the resident to do any tree cutting, mowing, digging, whatever and place it outside the house before that date. It will all be taken away completely free. Makes sense to me.

Oz Life (III): Bugs (OJG)

Compared to the UK there are definitely a lot of bugs in Australia, I am not even going to try and say anything to the contrary. What I will say is that the vast majority of these are completely harmless, and mostly small.

Being someone that probably has the slightest shiver of a phobia towards bugs, and probably double that shiver when talking about spiders, being thrown into Australia has done me the world of good. It's like the saying goes, we are afraid of what we don't know. Well I am getting to know them, and my confidence with them is growing exponentially.

Having said all that, we have been driving all over the outback, and even though I have been searching at the roadhouses, I have thus far found only one dangerous bug; a red back spider. She was not easy to find!

In the city, the worst we saw were cockroaches, which seem to be in most areas. Of course Mosquitoes are also in big supply but they get their very own blog entry later.

In the outback, flies are a nuisance, but nothing more. A hat and a few whacks will usually discourage them from bothering you for too long. Of course whilst you are trying to change a tyre in the afternoon heat, that nuisance can escalate!

In some of the outback toilet areas I have seen huge beetles, giant ants with wings, enormous cockroaches, and large grass-hoppers. In all cases the bug was clearly trying to get away from me, I guess a potential predator!

One last bug I have to mention is the Goliath Stick Insect that we saw in a glass enclosure at the Desert Park in Alice. I can remember seeing, even playing with stick insects during biology classes when I was 12, perhaps like many of you. This stick insect (herbivore by the way) must have been 20 times the size (they can be over 25cm long)... I suddenly felt like I was Jason and Argonauts, and that some terrible special effects were being used to make it look bigger than it actually was... it simply could not be real. It was.

Oz Life (II): Personalised Number Plates (OJG)

I am not sure if it is a recent development or not, but personalised number plates are quite a big thing over here.

Here are the ingredients to this phenomenon.

Take a licencing department that allows any length of text, remove a pinch of restricted words, combine with a small price tag, add a generous helping of Aussie humour, and throw it all into a bowl of a couple of million punters.

The upshot is that it is easy to get what you want, and the likelihood is that someone else does not already have it. Or if they do, there will no doubt be a very similar variation available. Number plates only have to be unique to the state, not the country.

We have seen loads, only a third of which I have caught on camera (I have to drive as well), and some of them really did make us laugh. Apart from the usual owner's name, or business name, there have been some great comments.

Of particular note are 3 that I will quickly share with you now. The first was a supped up V8 Ute with all the extras. The number plate was "MISLED". Perfect. The next (possibly my favourite) was on a clapped out Nissan, with rust patches all over, one door a different colour to the rest, and some serious dent on the left hand side... "SITH LORD"! If ever a number plate was on the wrong car, this was it. The last car was the promiscuous Chrysler 300 in jet black with black tinted windows. Sith Lord would have been so appropriate here, but I guess "THE BOSS" was just as good.

Oz Life (I): Shop Names (OJG)

I will start my series on Australian Life with a cunning title I like to call Shop Names.

After much study into the subject I have deducted that Australia uses mad scientists to name the majority of their shops. Half of these mad scientists know that they have gone over the edge, whilst the other half have yet to realise their true standing.

As such, the names fall into two categories.

The first category is where the scientists have created hundreds of wormholes into new worlds: Garden-World; Watergarden-World; Bed-World; Retic-World; Horse-World; Saddle-World; Guitar-World; Camping-World; Machine-World; Pine-Furniture-World; Travel-World; Battery-World... to name but a few! Yes, they have links to every conceivable world. Amazing.

The second category is where the scientists have realised their madness, and frankly just named the shop after themselves: Crazy Clarks; Crazy Pedros; Crazy Dons; Crazy Jons; Crazy Eddys... and so on. To be honest, some of those Crazys might be Krazy with a K, but hey who's counting!

It goes without saying that if I were to open a shop with guaranteed success, it would be called Crazy World!

The Adventure Begins, an emotional tale (OJG)

Hey everyone,

Sorry for the long gap since the last post, I promise this one will make up for it, and then some!!!

Ok, before I get cracking with this blog entry, I just wanted to make 2 things clear. First of all, if you have been reading Emelie’s blog entries (and you should), there will be a little repetition, but not so much as to make this boring, I hope anyway. Secondly, that after this blog entry most of my blog entries will be about Australian Life whereas Emelie will write more about our day to day activities. That is the plan anyway.

Right, now that the required warnings are out of the way, here is the blog.

I am writing this particular entry not to compete with Emelie over our last few days, but to get across some of our emotions and feelings that have built up over the last week or so, and also to detail some of the events from another perspective.

Right now I am sitting in Henry taping away at the computer, it is the afternoon and the heat is full on. Fortunately I have just spent a good hour letting the cool (as in cold) camp (as in tents) pool (as in, oh nevermind) chill me to a very pleasant temperature. We are in Yulara which is the closest resort area to Uluru (Ayers Rock), and we are enjoying a day off!

Yep, whilst everyone else (except for an old couple... no, another old couple!) got up at 5:00am to see a sunrise at some vantage point, we stayed in bed until 9:00! Of course we will be making that early rise tomorrow; I can’t wait to see how Emelie copes!

So, about 2 weeks ago, when it appeared that there was no more pimping we could possibly do to Henry, I stayed up one night and worked out exactly what our next step would be. We had flights leaving from Cairns on the 20th of December, and although we could change them (again) it would cost us a fair bit of cash (again).

For those of you who do not know, Cairns is pretty much diagonally opposite to Perth, as in far far away (no "are we there yet"s please!). We could do it along one of the coasts, but it would be rushed and we wanted to do the whole coast thing at a leisurely pace. This left us the only option of going right through the middle.

It must be said that Uluru is one site that both Emelie and I have been passionate to see. For me personally one of two sites I had as a must for our overall adventure, the other being the Great Barrier Reef.

I looked at several maps and it was definitely a workable plan. There were 2 stretches of road which were pretty bad; "4WD recommended, 2WD possible". Ok, possible, that sounds good enough to me. I checked with Henry’s chief engineer Kurt to see if he thought Henry would be up to the challenge. "Definitely" he told me. Not only is Henry in excellent condition, but his engine is geared for torque not speed which is exactly what you need on these types of roads. Also, it goes without saying that they simply just don’t make them like Henry anymore, and as such he is far more capable than any modern 2WD vehicle.

There were two more issues; the heat and the possibility of flash floods! I checked a few weather websites and there was nothing bad forecast. I will however admit that I read the following in a book: "under no circumstance attempt this road between November and March". But for many years in the UK I have thought and discussed with others the shifting of our seasons. I do not know the reason why, perhaps that is another discussion, but for me it is almost fact. It was clear to see that Australia was also having the same shift. Time to put my money where my mouth is!

So on the 15th of November we set off.

The journey started great, we saw plenty of amazing things, and then we got to Hyden and Henry decided to die on us. Day one, and we had problems. The mechanic could not fix him, but said that he could get him working until the next city. From Hyden, Kalgoorlie and Perth are almost the same distance away, and we pondered going back to Perth, but decided that we wanted to carry on with the adventure.

The next day we got to Kalgoorlie no problem, however when we got there, Henry was really feeling rough. It took us ages to find a mechanic that would work on him, they either had no clue about Henrys or were busy for the next fortnight at least. Each time we stopped at a mechanic I had no idea if he would start again. He did, repeatedly. Eventually we found one that could do the work the next morning. We left Henry there and stayed in a hotel.

The next day we picked up Henry, and everything was fine... for about 15 minutes until he started stalling a lot and making funny noises (the new fuel pump going 10 to the dozen). Of course this was now Friday evening, and the mechanics had been closing up for the weekend. Fortunately we got hold of them on the phone, and they agreed to have a look first thing in the morning.

The next morning they spent a few hours on Henry (apparently one of the new fuel hoses had withered already), and off we went... for another 15 minutes, and stalling started again. We raced back, and the mechanic did a few more tweaks, but looked seriously perplexed. I knew then that he was not going to solve our problems and going back would be a waste of time for both of us.

Emelie and I had a discussion, we could still try and make a dash back for Perth and start over again, or we could wait for some mechanics on Monday... or we could try calling a mechanic whose number had been given to me when we arrived in Kalgoorlie. I was told to give him a call if I could not find any other help. I could not, so I did. He said he would have a look the following morning.

Pops Kennedy, as he likes to be known, spent 3 hours working on Henry. He did all sorts of things with the fuel pump, points, timings, etc. Each time he thought he had sorted it, I would take Henry out for a test run, and each time I would return. I must say that he did sort things out, and on each outing Henry felt much better than the last time. I suspect he was just undoing the damage from the previous mechanics but I am not sure. On the fifth return, Henry felt 98% better, and although I knew he was not perfect, he felt ready for the journey.

The following morning we made an early start to Laverton, the last town with sealed roads. Henry was supreme.

The morning afterwards we started on the Great Central Highway, and the start of our 4 day dirt track journey.

I must add here, that I did not take this stretch of journey lightly. We had 2 first aid boxes, fire extinguisher, spare tire, 60 litres of water, 40 litres of additional fuel, fresh food for the next 6 days, canned food for at least another 6, a complete set of tools (and then some... can never have too many tools), 2 paper maps, 1 GPS map, a new UHF radio, and a few other safety bits. Henry groaned a tiny bit at having to lug this extra stuff, but we would not budge!

About 3 hours into the journey, we got a flat. To be totally honest, I had noticed the tire looked a little low the night before, but decided it was the gravel giving way underneath. Mistake number 1. Anyway, we were in the middle of nowhere and we had a flat. No worries, get the jack out and change it. Everything was going smoothly, Henry was nearly at the height needed, when I noticed that the Jack was at a bad angle. I tired to lower it back down, but I was not fast enough, and the sand gave way under pushing Henry backwards and in the process bending the jack (Old Kombi jacks work by slotting in a square arm into a square tube under the Chassis. There is no give should the Kombi move). Mistake number 2.

After much swearing, we spent the next half hour just getting the jack off. Once we did, it was clear that this would be of no further use to us. We briefly tried a few other things but basically we were stuck here. We had provisions to last us for ages but what a pain in the ass! And then in the distance I spotted a dot against the shimmering road. Our saviour! I think I jumped with joy. It took forever to arrive and when I realised what it was, I was not quite so enthusiastic.

"I don’t suppose ... hehe ... you have a jack do you?"

"Nope" the man said from his road scraper, tyres the height of Henry!

"Nope ... I didn’t think so ... I have a flat, and my jack is now broken ... the sand don’t you know!"

"hmmm ... well I could lift your vehicle up with my scraper"

"You could lift the vehicle with your scraper?!?!"

And before any further words were uttered he jumped into his cab, moved the scraper scarily close to Henry, and then proceeded to position the scraper’s shovel under the rear of Henry (done by digging a half metre trench in the road, which by the way took all of 1 minute). Before we knew it Henry’s back was up in the air, and at exactly the right height for tire changing! I was seriously impressed. He had moved the enormously powerful shovel with such precision and delicacy.

I like to think that he was equally impressed with my technique of removing the non-budging wheel nuts.... Brute force and plenty of swearing!

Having changed the wheel, we said thank-you many times, and set off again. Several hours later we made it to the Roadhouse at Tjukayirla, the most remote in Australia!

"erm ... can we have some fuel, a powered site for the night .... and I don’t suppose you have any tires?"

Luckily they did, and not too expensive either, at least not as much as their bloody petrol! Of course Emelie reminded me that the new tire was of no use to man nor beast (I think her exact words) unless we had a working jack! Luckily they had an old one gathering dust in the corner, happy for it to have a new home.

"errr ... are you sure this will be able to lift up a Kombi, it is so small" as I tested it in my hand.

"Oh easily, that has come off a Land Cruiser!"

"Off a Land Cruiser?!" half laughing, but then as I turned it around, sure enough it had Toyota Land Cruiser embossed on the bottom. "oh yeah, ... great! ... Thanks!"

It is at this point that I must say we were starting to feel a little worse for wear. We had had problems with Henry, which we knew were not 100% sorted, I had made bad errors with the wheel replacement, and many other smaller things had either broken or gone wrong. Was this a sign for us to change our direction back, or a test of our nerves?

I can’t emphasize how much that question weighed down on us. We saw a beautiful sunset and decided to carry on, but perhaps with a little less skip in our step.

We did the next 2 days driving in 1 day, and although happy with the progress, we were really feeling worn out, and our bodies were aching all over.

We had 1 day of driving left until we would be on sealed road again. The roads up until this point had varied between sand, dirt, and tiny pebbles, but pretty much the whole way so far we had been able to stick to 55km/h or greater without too many bumps. However the stretch coming up was notorious for being a real bone shaker.

We tackled it head on. For the first 100km it was fairly easy going, but the next 100km became painfully slow work, and no matter how slow we went, the industrial strength rattling would not give up. Ridge after ridge, bend after bend, it felt like it would never end. Clack-clack-clack-clack all the time, and things falling out of shelves, drawers falling out of the Cabinet, it was horrible. But after a couple of hours it slowly got better, and the last 100km of the dirt road was a dream by comparison.

There were in fact two things that we were excited about when we got up that morning. The first being the end of the dirt road, and the second being Uluru, which would be just 20km beyond the former.

So, with 50km (according to the GPS) left before Uluru, you can imagine our utter excitement at the site of a barely visible object in the distance. Uluru. Now as some of you will know, to see something that far it has to be big... really big! And as we slowly got closer, we realised it was bigger still. The land around us as far as the eye can see is basically flat, and yet here in front of us, many many kilometres away, sits this immense block.

HOW?

WHY?

We were desperate to get to the camp grounds, but this most majestic of objects demands respect and awe. We had to stop several times to take it all in.

I had jokingly played on teh stereo "I am a rock" earlier that morning, and thought I would play it again when we saw the great monolith... and yet when we saw the site in front of us it no longer seemed appropriate.

When we were 35km away, I realised that 2 things were wrong with this monolith ahead of us. First of all, it was just getting too close to be 35km away, and secondly, the shape was wrong, it had huge gaps for starters!

We checked the maps, this was in fact Kata Tjuta, otherwise knows as the Olgas. The fact that this was not Uluru did not reduce our wonder though, if anything it made it even more amazing.

For those of you who have not seen Uluru or Kata Tjuta, and even for those that have, I don’t think you can fully appreciate the joy we felt at seeing them. You see they not only represented one of the most incredible sites on this earth, but they also meant to us that the dirt road was nearly over, and the hardest part of this journey would be done!

We met sealed road with a "yippee" and made way for the campsite at full speed (90km/h). We did see Uluru in the distance once we got to the side of Kata Tjuta, and although its presence was seriously impressive, Kata Tjuta had been the one that beckoned to us from the soul destroying roads of dirt.

That was yesterday, and today we relaxed, I swam in the pool, and even bought a deliciously cold Diet Coke. It tasted so good.

Tomorrow the adventure begins starts up again as we visit Uluru, Kata Tjuta, and then Watarrka (Kings Canyon), and then onto Alice Springs and eventually Cairns.

A picture of the Great Central Highway, Kata Tjuta in the distance.

The Royal Show (OJG)

Hey yo’all,

This is all about our day out (or day off from the build) to the Royal Show. What is the Royal Show I hear you all ask?! Well I think in its most simple terms you could describe it as an agricultural show. I say could, because I am certain that is how it started, and although that element is still very much the main theme, I have determined that the Royal Show is actually 4 shows in 1. I have never heard of anything like it in the UK, although I am guessing that in the US it might be similar to a State Fair.

First of all you have the agricultural part which brings in farmers from all over Western Australia to show off their various prized animals, which pretty much include Cows, Bulls, Sheep, Goats, Pigs, Dogs, Chickens, Turkeys, Ducks, Pigeons, a few Cats, and several other smaller showings such as Emus, Hamsters, Lamas, Snakes, etc.

For every possible category and sub-class they have awards and medals. I have to say though, that some of the “best of breed” animals were the weirdest and most ugly I have ever seen, especially in the pigeon arena, where I can’t even begin to describe what they looked like.

Each of these types of animals had their own huge warehouse size building, so you can imagine how many hundreds there were. As well as just purely showing off the various breeds, there were of course various additional events going on all the time such as the dog obstacle course, and sheep sheering.

Second to the agriculture part would have to be the fair ground. A pretty much standard run of the mill fair ground with all the vomit inducing rides, dodgems, shooting galleries, and various other forms of money spinning games. As with all of these things, you see loads of people walking around you with some sort of soft animal twice as big as they are, and you think, I have to get me one of these in order to have any kudos.

So after $15 at the rifle range, we had a small stuffed hippo. Sense nearly got the better of me, but then I decided to spend another $10 at the darts wall, and got a small stuffed dog. After the darts I managed to resist any further expenses on silly games, and yet as the day carried on, the yearning to get that enormous shark / snake / monkey kept coming back.

After the fair ground, the third part is the house / kitchen stalls. You know like the little cubicles that they have at the Ideal Home Exhibition. Unheard of companies trying to sell you the latest vegetable cutting utensil, or some sort of new wax for your floor that never needs cleaning. Yep, all those same companies appeared here with all their magical goods. I say magical because as we all know the items in question never work as well at home as they did in the demonstration. Not even close.

I must admit though that I did succumb to one purchase, which was a “magical” bench vice that could the job of 5 other bench vices! But wait, there’s more, they also threw in a drill mount worth $60 and soft wood grippers. Today only show offer of $260. Sigh, no hope for me. Luckily it was made out of cast aluminium so it wasn’t too heavy to carry around.

The last part of the show is something I have never heard of before, “show bags”. Essentially these are plastic bags with various bits inside them related to the promoter, which people buy. I have a feeling they started out many years ago as taster bags, and have evolved into a main attraction of the show. For example, there were Kit Kat show bags which had various different Kit Kats inside, as well as a few Promo items such as a baseball cap or t-shirt.

There must have been 50-100 show bag stalls, each one selling anything from 3 to 30 different show bags each. The show bags that I saw varied in price from $4 to $60. The $4 bag would just have a couple of small packets of sweets. There were some impressively large Lindt chocolate bags for $60, which supposedly contained about $120 worth of various chocolate.

In the show guide, there are at least a dozen pages showing you all the best show bags to go for, and what they contain. We bought a Cars the movie show bag as it had a VW Kombi soft toy, as well as Cars cards, Cars Rubiks cube, Cars yo-yo, Cars pens, Cars bat, Cars hacky sack, Cars mini rugby ball, etc. We also bought a $20 Lindt bag and a $40 Morish nuts bag.

As you can imagine at a show such as this, you do get a few strange folk. Of particular note was this man and his bull. The bull was impressive, not only in size, but also he just looked the part. You would not want to step into his field that is for sure. Anyway, the bull was minding his own business, when his owner from several stalls down pulled out an apple and started to approach the bull. Well the bull got very excited! The man cut the apple placed a section in his mouth and fed it to the bull, who loved it.

But that is not actually the “strange folk” bit, nope the “strange folk” title has to go to the woman in the crowd who saw the owner do this, and asked if she could have a go. The man gave her a cut piece of apple, and she tried to give it to the bull. The bull half got it, but then dropped it. So the apple is now covered in bull saliva and all the dirt and muck from the floor. So what does the woman do, yep, she picks it up and puts it back in her mouth. I think even the bull was surprised! Her boyfriend was definitely surprised as he shouted out “Yukk, I’m not kissing you tonight!”. The bull did not drop it the second time round.

On top of the main parts I have just described, there was also a museum area with old machinery, wood chopping competitions (I think this guy looks like Richard), a Japan area, and of course various armed forces recruitment huts. Oh and how could I forget all the food stands, it was impossible to walk more than 1 minute without passing another one. The Pluto Puppy (a hot dog on a stick dipped in batter and fried, and then dipped in Ketchup) was particularly tasty.

And that was the Royal Show. It was a fun day out, we saw a lot of things, although I think we were pretty tired and cranky by the end of it. I think I would go again, but probably not for a couple of years.

Oly