Woot woot! 5 days and I’m still not eaten by a croc!
Yesterday we were headed for Katherine, but we found a somewhat nice free camp ground about 50km south of Katherine. We found an alright spot with some flat ground and set up camp, that’s when dad and I heard a strange sound coming from the engine bay… A little inconsistent clicking scraping sound, something on the fan belt. Dad had a suspicion that it was the alternator’s sprag clutch; before we left he replaced the standard 90 Amp Hour alternator with an aftermarket Denso (same brand as original) alternator, putting out 130 Amp Hours. He noticed that the bearing for the new one was beginning to show signs of seizing, but thought that it wouldn’t be detrimental for another couple of thousand kilometres. Nothing to worry about for this trip, but brought the original alternator anyway.
We’re lucky that he did bring that original alternator; we removed the fan belt and checked the new alternator. Its sprag clutch was almost completely seized but it would be alright if we left it alone. He says that if we packed it with grease it would probably have been fine, but we will replace it with the original anyway. We did this then started up the engine and the sound was gone! Success; the problem has been solved and everything would continue as normal.
After all of that we all had a nice drink and sat down next to the fire. Tonight’s dinner menu consisted of roast lamb with roasted potatoes, carrots, sweet potatoes, onion, squash and gravy. It was absolutely delicious, most of the credit going to my uncle for supplying the meat and tending to the cooking process. All five of us cramped around a table that was much too small (designed for 2 people at most) and enjoyed a good meal.
The morning consisted of a quick clean up and pack up as we had a goal to achieve: swim in the natural hot springs at Katherine! We set off at about 8:30 am (AEST) from the camp site plainly called “King”. About half an hour later we arrived in Katherine and grabbed some groceries, a pie and fuel. Then we drove down to the hot springs and walked down to find a crystal clear river of slowly moving body temperature water. It was absolutely beautiful! Unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures of the springs, so I can’t share them with you here (oops!). I swam all the way to the spring itself; the water was flowing slowly and calmly up from the ground, quite amazing to behold.
We finished up at the spring and ventured on our way out of town. The mobile phones were all out and text messages were flying everywhere! This was the last chance we all had to say goodbye for a few days; we are headed into Kununurra. More adventure is yet to be uncovered in the great outback of Australia as we drive further and further into this surprisingly colourful country.
Pictures!
We stopped here for a lunch break, it was quite niceThe glorious fire that we cooked out roast lamb onThe box and some tools for the maintenanceThe sprag clutch in this alternator is stuck on, and makes a click and grind when trying to freewheelIf you look really carefully, there’s an army convoy in this picture… Hard to see with the camo paint thoughTopped out at 33 degrees today, woah!
Yesterday we ended up at a place on the old Stuart Highway called Churchill Head. It was a small camp area that was surrounded by Spinifex (?); a seriously spiky tough long grass. It’s not tough enough to make you bleed, but it will prick you if you look at it the wrong way. Once we found the spot we set up camp and went about finding fire wood. This was a much easier task than I thought it was going to be.
The land out here has gone through a bush fire not all too long ago, and there are a lot of standing dead hardwood trees. Short trees mind you, only about 2 to 3 meters tall. However the bases of all of these trees sprouted new gum trees with nice green leaves. I walked up to a dead looking tree and grabbed it at about chest height. I pulled on it, and with a bit of force, it snapped like spaghetti right at the base; No splintering, no strands, just the one long stick that was once a tree.
I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to break spaghetti before but you should definitely try it. If you grab both ends, one end with each hand and bend it just until it breaks, you get not just two pieces but most of the time three or even four pieces! That’s what happened to some of these standing dead trees when I broke them down.
So we made a nice fire and it was hot, really hot because of the hardwood we used to fuel it with. So just as we started to relax and think about preparing dinner, I saw a white something sail past us slowly on the road. It squeaked a bit and sounded like a push bike, and it was. This man had been riding his bike since this morning from Renner Springs, approximately 70 km north of where we were. His name was Chris and he was from the South of France; he was travelling from Darwin down to Yulara. On a $70 bike with a $100 trailer attached to it, he told us all of this with a thick French accent and much joy in seeing a nice fire with welcoming people.
After dinner we all went to bed and there was hardly any wind, which was great for the night. I set my alarm for 5:30am local time (6:00am home time) and went to sleep. I got up at about 6am because after the 5:30 alarm went off, I was told that I was much too early. It didn’t matter; I’d rather be early and wait then be late and miss it. I got dressed in warm clothing, and grabbed the camera and video camera and made my way up the hill towards the communications repeater tower; the highest point around.
I got there and I waited… and waited… and waited… and there it was! At 7am the sun brimmed the mountains, and filled the valleys with an abundance of sunshine. I took many pictures and a video of the sun rising over this marvellously coloured land. After all of this I walked back down to the camp site where everybody was up, including Chris. We all said good morning and started to cook breakfast; bacon, eggs, tomato and baked beans. This time there was also toast, yummy!
We completed all of this and packed up camp yet again, setting off at a leisurely 9am headed for Katherine, a good 600km to the North.
More Pictures!
This is what awaited me on top of the hillThis is what I had been waiting forThis is how I set up the video camera to capture the sunrise (we forgot the tripod)cinematic view of the long grass near the hillIt is quite beautiful, especially with the scattered clouds near the horizon
Yesterday ended with celebrations including a beer that I have never had before, and will endeavour to find it again when I get home; “150 lashes pale ale”. We got to my cousin’s house where we were all welcomed with open arms, a warm fire, and a cold beer. This continued on to become one of the very best meals I have ever eaten. This man could send me into a food coma if he so desired, I haven’t eaten that well even in a restaurant.
We all spent the night there, having hot showers and warm, comfy beds to sleep in. However the morning approached fast and swiftly, we were all up and out by 7am. Joining us on our trip westward is my uncle and aunty, never a dull day is had with this company.
On the road we saw the sunrise on our right as we headed west north west toward Camooweal. Just a side note, when I heard everybody saying that we were headed to “Camel Wheel” last night I couldn’t help but picture a giant hamster wheel powered by camels. Imagination is a wonderful thing!
Once in Camooweal we stopped for morning tea, at this point it was about 9:50am. My uncle had a fuel filter warning light pop up on his dash, so we checked it out. In the end we just ended up replacing the filter, though there were no signs of anything untoward about the filter or what was inside it.
Anyway, now we are on the road again, headed further and further west, and slightly north. We passed the Northern Territory border at 10:25am (AEST), and jumped back a whole half hour in time! Amazing what time zones can do to your GPS clock.
Not one minute after we crossed the border, the speed limit on the Barkley Highway opened up to 130 km/h. My first impression of the Northern Territory is getting better and better! The road signs are informational: “WARNING: Headwinds increase fuel consumption.”. There is also a depiction of a three trailer road train, with a caption below it stating that the train is 35.5 meters long. I thought that was a bit too descriptive for what it is, but I’m not one to judge too much.
Well it’s now 11:00 am (AEST) and it’s still only up to 18 degrees; I think we’ve got some cold nights ahead of us. Especially with this major lack of cloud cover lately, it’s been going on now for two days straight.
Picture time!
Into Winton we go!The unfortunate disaster of the Waltzing Matilda CenterThe famous pub from Crocodile DundeeThis was the first of many formations quite interesting
Last night was pretty good, very cold and unexpectedly comfortable. After we stopped for lunch just North of Augathella I said that I would drive for a bit. So at 12:30 I hopped into the driver’s seat and drove to the next stop, which was the Darr River rest area (pictures at the end). We stopped at 4:35pm, so I drove at total of approximately 7 hours yesterday (including the 2:30-5:30am shift), awesome!
We got to the Darr River rest area and the first thing that stuck out to me was this old windmill on the other side of the river. It was big, it was still working fine, but it had an ominous squeak every rotation. It reminded me of something out of the Hunger Games movies, I don’t recall exactly what it is out of the movies, but yeah.
We had homemade hamburgers for dinner, with an attempt made at sweet potato fries, which didn’t turn out exactly as expected, but they were nice never the less. We also had some barbecued corn so all in all it was quite nice. After cleaning up we got to bed just before 8pm which was kind of strange, coming from going to sleep anywhere from 10pm to 2am on a regular basis.
The sleep was well appreciated as I got out of bed at around 8am, a solid 10 hours at least. When I did get up I found that the lowest temperature last night was 6.5 degrees, and it was only 9 degrees when we were walking around getting breakfast ready. Speaking of breakfast, we had bacon, eggs, croissants, baked beans and barbecued tomato. All of this was absolutely delectable, however I don’t eat eggs, so that bit was left up to mum and dad.
We eventually got packed up and out of there by 9am, and we are currently on the road headed to some relatives in Mount Isa, we hope to be there by about 4pm this afternoon.
The Squeaky Windmill, thankfully it stopped squeaking at night when the wind dies downThis little guy was in one of the towns we passed throughThe mum and the dad cooking the breakfastThese guys showed up in the morning, no idea what the breed is
Saturday, 1:20am. It’s cold, I’m tired, but there’s an excitement in the air that propels me forward to the sweet warm water of the shower. It’s time to go on that four week holiday I’ve been waiting for, trudging through my final examinations to get to.
I was first up for driving, so we all piled into the car at approximately 2am and I set off down the driveway as we all said a quick goodbye to the house; we will return in about a month.
Straight onto the highway we went, headed southbound onto the gateway motorway through the city and over the toll bridge. The majority of the drive was general chit chat between the three, then the two of us; Mum fell asleep after about an hour and a half.
The temperature was interesting to keep track of; it started at 9 degrees and then slowly rose as we went more towards the city, up to 12 degrees. Once we passed the outskirts of western Brisbane the temperature dropped again back off to 9 degrees. The lowest it got down to was 6 degrees, out near Toowoomba.
As I write this, the sun is peeking out from behind the blanket of cloud cover that has hung over us all morning, and now it’s gone again. It is nice to see and feel the sun’s warming rays of goodness! Though it is still only 10 degrees…
Another news flash: The town we are in is called “Muckadilla”, complete with Muckadilla creek. We just passed through it and in the time it has taken for me to type those words we are completely through that town and back to the 110km/h zone of the Landsborough Highway headed towards Longreach.
Lots of great flat scenery, numerous shades of green and a long, straight, unending stretch of black rocks. All in all; the trip so far is going very well.
Just to show the temperatureThat stretch of black rocks tho…
Camping; the activity of spending a holiday in a tent.
That’s the definition Google gives me on a quick definition search, but it could be a little more descriptive. Here, I’ll give it a shot.
Camping; the act of spending about three fifths of a copious amount of money on a canvas walled, weatherproof (hopefully) portable house, warm clothing, and bedding. Then finding a place to assemble aforementioned behemoth, usually for a price. The final act of this activity is to survive in your surroundings.
Yeah, I think I summed it up pretty good. Though it could be drawn out even further, however I won’t be doing that right now.
Alas, as much as I think I slammed camping just now, I do rather enjoy it. The fresher air, the lack of suburban noises, screeching tyres, buzzing transformers, yelling, screaming and the constant noise that everybody has. Mine is about a C sharp, and amplifies when there’s no other noise. So I suppose I wasn’t telling the whole truth, that little noise doesn’t go away, it gets worse! It must like camping too!
I bring all of this up because I do find camping a bit of a conundrum. It confuses me in the way that I do find profound relief in such a simple act. Lately I noticed that my eyebrows get pulled in toward my nose bridge, as if I’m getting angrily confused over time. This happens periodically, and when I notice it, I correct it by stretching my face muscles, just raising and lowering my eyebrows vigorously.
This happens periodically when I’m alone, working on stuff like right now writing this post. It happens unnoticed until I do something else and notice it there, fixing it and awaiting it to happen again. This is one of a few things that happen on a regular basis at home and at uni.
When camping however, this has not happened that I’m aware of. I’m constantly having my eyes open to something in the scenery, or just appreciating where I am. When I’m camping, I’m pretty relaxed, but also get bored rather quickly, and I don’t mind that.
This is strange, I get bored quite quick while camping, so I go do something; like chop up some wood for the night, or make a snack, or go for a walk or something like that. Hey that rhymed! So I may always have angry eyebrows, but I don’t notice them.
I don’t mind getting bored, and the reason I think this is, is because of the atmosphere of the situation. Take the atmosphere at home for example; I’m surrounded by electronic devices specifically designed for my personal entertainment and communication. Little effort is needed for a great entertainment return. So getting bored seems like something that shouldn’t happen, and that’s how it feels at home.
However, when camping, there may not even be any mobile reception, no external power source for mains electricity (unless you go glamping). So in the onset of boredom, there’s no immediate means to entertainment, there’s no quick fix, unless you’re really quick (if you know what I mean… if you catch my drift… if you comprehend what I am portraying… if you understand what I am depicting… if you… yeah you get it. It’s a sex thing.). Alas, to quench this famished need for entertainment, you require a negative investment of energy and effort, and you subconsciously know this.
Hence, being bored is an ok thing to be while camping. I am ok with it, even though there are things I can do to avoid it.
I’m not sure exactly where people are reading this from, or when. So, I’m going to set the time of year, and season; it’s the start of May, and it’s the beginning of winter. I’ve gone camping with friends out to Kenilworth homestead, this place I have never been to before, but it’s not too far away and the price isn’t too much.
We arrive and the gate says that entry is not permitted before 2pm on Fridays. Dammit, they should probably signpost this on their site or something more obvious. They probably did, because we were the only ones that didn’t know (or so it seemed).
So we got in at 2pm and set up camp next to a steep hill down to the next camping area. All set up and the sun is about 30 minutes from setting, time to start the fire. Cool, nice fire started, sun is just about to give it’s last wink of light and warmth for the day. It disappears, we realise quickly that we all need another layer of clothing.
FYI: This fire was a nice fire until somebody decided to comment that “This is a nice fire, not like those mean fires.”. As if on queue, the fire collapsed, and turned “mean”. Flames died and wood was reassembled, and the fire was given another hour to restart by itself. It worked but dang it man, that was a cold time.
We cook up dinner and sit around the fire for a time, after which we called it a night and crept into our shockingly cold beds. Zipped up the tents and the sleeping bags and slept until morning, as you do.
The morning came and so did the fog, holy crap the fog. So much of it in fact that my friend says she could look directly at the sun and all she could see was a round white/yellow ball shining in the sky. Of course we all are concerned that she was looking directly at the sun for extended periods of time, but what can you do. But realistically, the fog restricted visibility to about 500 meters, and it slowly faded away completely by about 9am.
We stayed from Friday afternoon to Sunday lunch time, and it was a nice trip with friends. The relaxation was definitely appreciated; however the bad cold I proceeded to develop over the next two days was not very nice. On Monday I could only breathe through my mouth and had limited use of my pulmonary system, due to my inability to utilise any extended utilisation of movement.
On Tuesday I had the vocal cords of a young and tone deaf Barry White, which brought a smile to my face, and so I made a doctor’s appointment. On Wednesday the voice had gone, and my original voice was half-reinstated. Only allowing a few words before cutting the fifth or sixth one short for an almighty cough. In the afternoon, the doctor looked at me, listened to me say “I think I have a bad cold”, and quickly did an examination and printed me out a prescription for antibiotics.
Dang he’s good; those tablets fixed me up within two days. So now I’m here, writing on my computer, surrounded by easily accessible entertainment devices. Tapping buttons, pressing keys, swiping on screens and listening to music; so easy, so simple.
Yet even just having been away for the weekend I find myself wanting to go back, to a simpler place, with simple needs, and an easier way to pass time. As for right now, I’ve got at least three assignments to work on, and four final examinations to look forward to. Yay *waves hands in air with a blank facial expression*.
So if you read this whole thing, let me know; what little thing do you do that you sometimes notice? As I type this I release my eyebrows from their confused/angry expression.
So I have been working on a way to cut power to my Raspberry Pi after it shuts down properly, and to do this I thought I’d be sneaky and use a MOSFET or two.
I learnt from work that MOSFETs are actually sensitive to ESD, so I have been grounding myself frequently when working with them, just for good measure.
Hold on hold on… I should probably give you some background on where this Pi is, then it’ll make a bit more sense as to why I’m doing this.
This Raspberry Pi (version 2, with the quad core : D, or should I say, : D : D : D : D) is installed in my car, and is running an installation of OpenCarPC by Andrei Istodorescu which is working quite nicely, with a few modifications to get the USB ports to the front of the car (more on this in a future post).
I trialled just straight running the Pi off of a 12-5V DC-DC converter from the car’s battery, permanently on. This drained the car’s main battery enough to need a push start in 3 short days. I give many thanks to my good friend that gave it a push in the pouring rain to get me going.
Then I put the Pi on the accessory circuit of the car (the one that turns on when you turn the key one click), this worked well, the battery was not draining 24/7, but the Pi was getting a brown out as soon as I tried to start the car (the crank drained the volts enough for the Pi to turn off and on again).
This was not good for the OS, and became corrupt within a week, that poor OS… So then I though to plug it into a USB power bank, and charge said bank when the car was on. This meant the car’s battery would not be draining and the Pi would be on and not getting corrupt.
Nope, USB bank ran out of power within three hours of running the Pi, it takes a lot more power than I originally thought! So I decommissioned it (unplugged the power) until I could implement a better way of doing things.
I quite recently built a little circuit that switches the output (5V) from different sources, depending on if said source had enough power. The three sources are:
– Small solar panel (connected through 12-5V converter)
This (I thought) would work a treat, and it did! In theory anyway.
So what would happen, is that when the car is turned on, the relay would switch the output from USB power to 12-5V converter, and charge the USB power bank at the same time. If the car was off, and there was sufficient sunlight, the solar panel would generate enough power to trigger the 12-5 volt converter and switch the relay, charging the USB power bank.
That works awesomely! So I go to test it and when I switch from USB power to 12 volt supply… The Pi restarts. What? Why?
Well, it’s because I’m using a relay to switch Pi power, and in the time it takes the gate to switch from USB power to 12-5v converter power, there is nothing going to the pi. Mind you, this is around 50ms of time, very little amount of time to you and me, but to something that lives off of power, this is enough to shut off.
So, I’m at work, and I go to the boss man (experienced electrical engineer) with my idea of using a super capacitor to hold up the voltage when the relay is switching. He agreed and said that’s a good idea, and I asked how to implement it in the circuit He drew up a quick circuit with a resistor for charging and a schottky diode for a fast reaction time and a low volt drop, I went home that night and built it, and it works flawlessly.
My testing went like so:
Ok, plugged in, voltage in the cap is rising… rising… rising…
2 minutes later: rising… rising… yay! 5v!
Plug in the pi on USB bank power, let it boot.
Unplug the USB power so that the Pi was running on the discharge of the supercap only, go.
Ok, good Pi is still running… still running… still running…
Yeah that went on for a solid 20 seconds before I was baffled enough to plug it back in and say “Good god I like supercaps”. Pi was still running, all is well.
Alright, implementation time. I mounted the Power bank in the back of the car near the Pi, plugged it in and it booted right away… That’s when I realised how silly I was. Dang it man, this is going to drain the power bank in three ish hours.
Which brings me back to the start of this post, cut the power to the Pi when it is turned off.
How do I do it? oh, easy man! Use a relay, turned on when the Pi is on, and off when the Pi is off. Ok, good, but how do implement that? Well you just uh… um… hmmmm…
Yeah that ensued for about 2 minutes, and I remembered playing with the GPIO a while back in python. If I find a pin on the Pi’s GPIO that is off by default, then turn it on once booted, it’ll turn back off again when the Pi is safely shut down. Good, that’s the off part, but what about the on bit, how do I get the Pi to start?
This problem is trickier than it led on to be, you see, when you get in the car to start it, you get in, put the key in, turn it (accessory circuit), then within a few seconds (less than 10) start the car. As said previously, this dims the voltage from the battery enough to turn off the pi for a few seconds (that’s what the supercap/relay is for! Woot!).
Cool, so, connect the relay to the accessory circuit, and to the power on the Pi, that will turn it on, and when the voltage from Acc (accessory) dims, the USB bank will take over for a few seconds, and keep the relay closed, keeping the Pi turned on.
Ok, now to turn it off, I said I would use the GPIO to give me a 3.3v signal when it was on, and 0v when it was off. However, when the Pi is first switched on, said GPIO pin is 0v, kinda fundamental to the whole thing. Now this brings about a problem.
If I start the car, the Acc starts the Pi, and the GPIO pin has to turn the power back off when it’s dead. But the pin is dead, so the power turns off straight away… Dang.
New thought pattern:
3v3: “Pi is on, keep alive”
GPIO: “I’m on, now listen to me (disregard 3v3)”
GPIO: “I’m off now, so cut power”
I needed a way to implement this as an analogue circuit, and I found the way through some leftovers from another project.
After much deliberation, a design was decided upon, it included three N channel MOSFETs, a 9v battery to switch the relay when 12v power was not available, and both relays. I haven’t actually soldered the circuit together yet, but I plan to very soon.
Here we have come to the reason for this post, as my desk holds on it the sprawled remains of projects past and future, some APA102 LEDs, tools, multimeter, soldering iron, aforementioned 9V battery, an Arduino UNO, a 100m roll of wire, 4 notebooks, document wallet, and various other electronic things; I can’t help but be wary to not touch some of it, as the ESD might kill it.
On a different note, I was shuffling through my music collection, and the Goo Goo Dolls played, and damn now I can’t get them out of my head, not that I’m complaining or anything.
So, University life; you could call it that, I suppose, but you’re not really alive in Uni. Its more of a horde of shambling bodies, possessed by a combination of new TV shows, food and an urge to learn.
Yeah that last bit is only half true, you don’t go there to learn as much as you can, you go there to learn as much as you need.
Group work is an interesting aspect of the University experience, or really any job requiring too much work for one person. The main point I want to type about is the train of thought that just goes:
“… Wait wasn’t <Person A> supposed to do this bit?”
“or was I supposed to do this bit?”
“… *breathes in through teeth*”
“Oh. Nope it was <Person B>’s job.”
Then they have the same train of though, and its an endless circle.
Then to order came in the next day (dang they have fast shipping), and the Super Capacitors I ordered were… I’m gonna say misplaced, but they sent me out two black plugs, meant for a ruggid four core wire connection. Sent them an email and they fixed it up straight away, but my friend and I had a little chuckle.
Then my friend said that he ordered the wrong thing for himself, and so he was making another order for parts, and again asked if I wanted anything else.
Much obliged! I ordered $50 more of parts, including but not limited to:
First time owner of an arduino, but I have played with software/hardware integration before with a Teensy from Uni. That was actually lots of fun, made a tank game.
I got this dev board to do some experimenting and testing for the light switch control circuit and temperature monitoring for the house. Also to see just what this thing can do, so excited!
Oh the days where a glimpse of sunlight brightened not just my day, but my outlook of said day. Yes, over the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th of April this year, my immediate family and I went down to Georges Creek, NSW (Coordinates for those enthused: 30°45’09.1″S 152°11’26.3″E). Of course, the Easter long weekend would not be complete without more people we know (and some we don’t).
These people were my Uncle and his family, my cousin and her fiancé, and her (to be) in-laws. 10 of us all up, quite the merry bunch, full of stories and goodhearted humour.
So, on with the recollection of the Easter weekend.
It all started at 3:30am on Friday the 3rd of April, it had been raining the entire day Thursday, and all night before I woke up in a sleep-deprived state. I had been anticipating getting up so early that I was excited about going, so naturally, I hadn’t slept for more than half an hour straight that night. However, the alarm did sound from my phone at 3:30am, and that meant that it was time to awaken from my warm, cosy, relaxing bed.
Into the morning I sprang!jumped!walkedslid slumped, stumbling to the shower in hopes of washing away the tired face I had grown overnight. I had enough time to have some quick breakfast, and check my emails. Whilst sitting in a posture that I’m sure will one day come back to hurt me, sipping the “Up & Go” liquid breakfast I had so cleverly remembered to put in the fridge a few days ago, I saw that I had a new email from my Uncle. It said that Mum and Dad needed me to bring down some advantix for Billy, he had been swimming and the stuff seems to not work too well after he gets wet.
I grabbed the pack of advantix from the cupboard and placed it on the dining table. It was time to go, so I grabbed my car keys, locked the house and armed the house alarm. Off to my Uncle’s I go!
Awesome.
Yep, I’m here.
Forgot the frigging advantix.
It’s a 20 minute drive back home… Nah Billy will be fine. I knew Mum and Dad only wanted the stuff as a precaution, they didn’t need it urgently.
Yeah he grins… One of many faces…
[FYI: No, he was not with me at home, this is just in here because I like the pic.]
Packed my bags into the car and awaited my cousin and Auntie to finish packing their things into the car as well. Things packed, check. Still raining, check.
Cousin says she wants to drive the first bit into the city to pick up her Dad, says she never gets to drive the first bit, no arguments here. Coolios, she drives us into the city, with mum back-seat-driving from the front passenger seat (as all good mothers do). We get to the pickup point, and we wait in the pouring rain at 4:35am for my Uncle to get off of shift.
I switch seats with the driver- here’s the bit I’ve been waiting for, driving the car, well, not really a car, more like a 2.8 ton Diesel bumper car (it was really raining).
Now I’ll tell you what the car is and why it is important for me to tell you this: The car is a LandCruiser Prado 150 series, 3L 4cyl Turbo Diesel, with a DP Chip. This car has a HF radio, a CB radio, I’m pretty sure it’s got a satellite beacon in it somewhere, and a GPS navigator. It also is attached to a large, 1.4 ton silver and khaki anchor, also known as a camper trailer, though everything is quite new, so there’s no real danger here, just got to be extra cautious about braking distance in the wet.
I did track my journey from the City to Grafton, all 308.24 km of it (took 3hr 35min of non-stop driving). We did stop in Maccas at Grafton though, and I got hotcakes, hash brown and orange juice, omnomnomnom.
It was at this time that the rain dropped off the radar. Well, actually we just drove away from it. Turns out that if you drive far enough, you can run away from bad weather.
My cousin drove from there to Ebor falls, which was about an hour and a bit away from Grafton (I did not do any more tracking until after the weekend).
This is the Upper Falls at Ebor, quite spectacular with this amount of water
We must press on! However this place is pretty pretty, but we’ll be moving pretty quick pretty soon, so better get going- But not before a quick driver change, we had just come through some narrow roads (still dual lane carriageway, but no shoulder) and my cousin decided she would like a break until the roads are a bit nicer.
Little did she know that the roads were only going to get better from here! By better I mean narrower, more dirty, and in about 80km, it’s going to turn into loose gravel. My Uncle said that he should drive since I did 3 and a bit hours this morning, though I felt fine and was raring to get back into the driver’s seat.
A bit of back and forth, and we switched again (I am now driving, yay!). We pulled out of the park and came to a T intersection, and I had misjudged the braking capacity of the car/trailer combination just a bit… so braking was slightly uncomfortable. However, nobody seemed to be having a stroke, so I’d call it mildly successful.
About 45 minutes down the winding black road we came to a graceful part, an exciting turn of events, an unravelling of joy between my Uncle and I. It was dirt. But not just ANY dirt, it was dirt we could DRIVE on! An unspoken veil of invigorating happiness, along with some giddiness and mostly just anticipation of the moment. That was what fell upon the two of us in the front of the car, hitting us just like the subtle drop of the level of the road.
I can’t speak for the two occupants in the back of the car, but I can imagine that the grips on the doors and seats tightened somewhat as we experienced a slight amount of drift around every corner.
We reached the top of the range leading down to the camp ground; only about 25km left to go until we can pitch tent and relax.
We had just regrouped with the other people travelling down with us to enjoy this long weekend together. The Hulix went first, calling out any cars coming up so we could find a place to pull over safely and have enough room for the people coming up to pass by without getting bogged in the mushy side of the road.
Good thing too; the road wasn’t wide enough for two cars in most places, and it was an almost fatal drop off of one side, and a wall of rock and dirt on the other. But we made it down swiftly without a hitch; I met up with Mum and Dad and of course, the Bilbo Baggins. Dang that dog is soft.
We all set up camp and had some afternoon tea as we watched, grimacing at the dark grey clouds looming over to the south east. They floated ever closer, like a Caddy Shack joke in a pool, nobody wanted it, but this wasn’t chocolate, it was just… just wet.
So it rained… And rained… And rained.
I decided enough is enough, we’re camping, and dang it, we’re going to have a camp fire. I’m tired of everybody huddled under their own awning away from each other, being all anti-social.
I asked around, and sure enough one of them had a cheap tarp they didn’t mind putting high over the fire place. I assured them it wouldn’t even get warm, the rain would cool it, and the heat from the fire would dissipate enough at that height anyway.
Up went the tarp, on went the sticks, the blocks, and then the log. It was a nice fire, if only we could sit around it without getting wet from the rain…
Up went another tarp, next to the fire this time, in came one, two and three other people. Awesome! It worked! I felt like a shepherd of people.
Good time ensue.
Still wet, still darkBut pretty
The rain died down a lot, enough for me to salvage what was left inside my little tent, trying to get it dry. The bedding was touching the floor (NOOOOOOOOO).
It was soaked. Damn.
Luckily got it dry in time, don’t do that again. Sleeping bags are good.
Saturday night comes, I pull out my Easter eggs, ready for the morning, going to get up early and put them everywhere around camp, give everyone a nice surprise when they get up.
Sunday morning, Easter is here! Woot woot!
The rain has cleared, the birds are singing, and its 5:30am, time to hide the eggs!
Dad was already up, he said he didn’t sleep too well, back was a bit stiff, but Bill was there for him, so that was a nice walk for them both. Dad helped me hide the eggs, I gave him half of them, we hid them in plain sight, and everywhere else.
I put some on car door handles, one in a cutlery drawer, one on a tap, on a tarp edge, everywhere!
Everybody else, one by one, got up, did their morning routine, and completely missed ALL of the eggs!
Good god people, I know it’s early, but wow.
Anyway, I put them in places they had to use in the morning (tap, cutlery, etc.) so it was inevitable.
They noticed! Awesome, laughter and chocolate enjoyment ensued.
That was pretty much the entirety of Easter Sunday, then the afternoon came, filled it with board games, card games and snacks.
Night fell, my Uncle asked around to see if everybody wanted to do a communal dinner in a camp oven (known as a Dutch oven, not to be confused with a Dutch oven). It was an absolutely delicious meat and vegetable stew, beef, potatoes, carrot, onion, sweet potato, peas and a few other things, along with some port and some nice wine.
As if that wasn’t enough! He then made a self-saucing chocolate pudding!
I like my Uncle; he makes really nice camp meals, and also loves radios.
The self-saucing pudding. I’m a rather quiet person, don’t usually speak up or out at much. But in the right company, I’ve been known to say some rather funny things.
I said, to my dad, “Hey, so when are we getting that… SelfSaucingChocolatePudding?”
“Some… SelfSaucingChocolatePudding?” Said Dad,
“Yeah, that SelfSaucingChocolatePudding.” I said,
So then dad yells out to the rest of the camp, “Hey! When’s that SelfSaucingChocolatePudding gonna be ready?”
“I’d really like some of that SelfSaucingChocolatePudding!” he continued.
He repeated this in similar statements, always including, sometimes twice, the “SelfSaucingChocolatePudding” conglomeration.
It was a “you had to be there” kind of thing, but I thought I should share it anyways.
So we had the SelfSaucingChocolatePudding… My god it was so good. We had it with custard and dollop cream, and I think it was the best desert I’ve tasted yet.
We stayed up a while longer, knowing we had to pack up and go the next day.
We all enjoyed the last night thoroughly, it was a memorable weekend, and it had ended on a very satisfying high note.
Monday came around and the sun was up, the tents were drying, and the tarps were finally taken down from the fireplace.
We packed the trailer and hooked it up to the car, said our goodbyes and headed up the range. We got about 10km into the drive and saw what we had been camping in. We had been in the valley of the mountains, and the cloud had condensed enough not to be able to get over the mountain peaks, and was trapped in the valley. It was quite wonderful to behold.
The clouds were stuck in that valleySome nice greenery in the foreground, but the clouds were quite niceDad driving up the range, chasing the clouds
Once we made it to the top of the range, we drove further and the loose gravel turned to asphalt. Sweet, sweet asphalt.
I don’t know what it is, but once you’ve been on bitumen for a while, you want to drive on dirt, then when you’ve been driving on dirt, you embrace the relief of smooth black road like a long lost friend- warm, comfortable, safe but completely platonic.
Dad drove most of the way, up until we hit Guyra, NSW. I drove from there to home, rather uneventful drive, but Bill didn’t seem to mind what anything was. He was asleep.
Once we got home, we set up the tents to dry them out completely before packing them away again, ready for another relaxing, good-memory-making trip.
Ok, now that (I think) was a long post.
Here’s some more Billy.
Look at me, I’m in a chairWe call this face “Puffy Lips”… Can you guess why?I keep asking people “Have you seen my dog at night?” They say “No”, I say “… Neither have I.”He actually quite enjoys Ice Cubes
So, Easter is fast approaching, and my family and I have plans!
Wow, plans!
So this morning I am up from 3am, leaving home by 3:30am, to go to my uncle’s house, pick up his car, and drive it to him in the city where he’s just finished his night shift. We then go from the city down south, for about 7 hours.
Down into NSW, to a lovely camping site near Georges River, near the bass Lodge. Last time we went down there, “Tour De Rocks” was on, it is a large charity bike ride from Armidale through the mountain range roads down into the camp site, it was awesome!
This time I couldn’t go down at the same time as mum and dad, I had an exam on Thursday (they left on Wednesday night). So they took the fluffy, and yeah I’m headed down there really soon, awesome!
Will upload pics when I get back, but for now, I gotta go.
