Thompson Family Life & Travels
Follow the Life and Times of the Thompson Family ….
Its Summer time – finally …
0January 22, 2012
We have been waiting for a while but it looks like summer has finally arrived with a week ahead with 35 degree plus temperatures.
We were going to head up to Roonka for a couple of days but Jenny and Rachael weren’t up to it after a day in the sun yesterday playing softball.
As I had planned to hide a geocache on the way to Roonka at Sedan which was to be published tonight, I still needed to head that way.
Jenny and I headed to Sedan, hid the geocache - Mosaic Sedan, checked up on my others hidden there and then it was off to Mannum to Jenny’s parents.
I took the chance to find the new geocaches around town, which included at the lookout, riverfront, oval and cemetery. It is amazing the change in the River Murray now that there is water flowing in it.
Time to bundle some dogs into the car including Jenny’s sisters dog that had been boarding for a week and head home stopping at Pallamana for a couple of other geocaches.
Riverland geocaching …
0January 17, 2012
by Scott
in Geocaching
After having to work yesterday at the Glossop Fire on my day off, I made use of today as an alternative day off and took the opportunity to spend the day geocaching around Cobdogla, Kingston-on-Murray, Barmera and Waikerie.
Crane2 had spent a week out at Loch Luna and hid a series of seven geocaches that had been published overnight and I had a good chance of being the “First to Find” but I didn’t take into account someone camping up nearby going for the FTF’s during the night. I ended up with a silver find on all of them. It was good chance to see some scenery that I haven’t seen before – will put it on my camping list to do.
There were some good views of the River Murray. It is amazing the difference a year makes. A little over 12 months ago the river levels were way down but after some major floods in the eastern states and now the Murray is looking very healthy.
Factory Fire in the Riverland …
0January 16, 2012
by Scott
in Uncategorised
Another day and another fire in a Regional Area – this time in Glossop.
The pager had gone off at 5:45 am notifying of a Factory fire that had gone 4th Alarm in a Country Fire Service area adjacent to our Berri Station.
When the pager went off again at 7:15 am indicating for me to respond as Safety Officer, I thought it may have been in error – after all it is a 2.5 hour drive and I am on my day off (still on call though).
It turned out that we had a large number of MFS resources on scene from Berri, Renmark and Loxton and were responding some aerial assistance from Adelaide.
It was an uneventful drive arriving around 10:00 am.
After checking in with the CFS Incident Controller, time to meet with our crews and see that all was well.
The damage to the factory which had 3 business running from it was extensive although there was some good saves at the north western corner. The overall damage bill ended up at around $2 million.
I ended up spending the day here in the 40 degree heat dealing with 3 acetylene cylinders that had been heated and were venting. We had cooling streams running all day and also build a sandbag wall around them utilising the SES, in case the cylinders decided to explode.
At the end of a long day, I met up with my sister and her family for tea at Berri before hitting the hay in the Berri Resort Hotel.
No 12 of 12 today ….
0For the first time in a couple of years I have forgotten to do a 12 of 12.
I woke up on Friday the 13th and realised that the 12th had passed and I had not taken a single photo.
Oh well, I better remember February 12th ….
Melbourne here we come …
0December 28, 2011
With a few days of leave available for both Jenny and I, we decided to take the kids to Melbourne. They have not been there and both Jenny and I have been there numerous times for work.
After an early morning dental appointment, we hit the road at 10:00 am. Luckily we were pretty well packed last night.
Weather was fine and warm but it was really only me getting out of the air-conditioned car to grab some geocaches along the way.
Lunch was at Keith, bought some almonds at the Victorian Border then a brief stop at the Giant Koala at Dadswell Bridge.
A few more caches then finally made it to Ballarat for the night on sunset.
December 12 of 12 – a caching day …
1December 12, 2011
Quite a busy day this month with a start at the chiropractor to get everything in line as I had some walking to do.
It was then up the Freeway to Callington and then onto Rockleigh & Bondleigh to tackle a couple of hike-in caches on the Lavender Federation Trail. The caches on the radar today were:
The first cache took me past the old Preamimma Mine which is an old copper and gold mine which was mined in the late 1800′s. Like the nearby Kanmantoo Mine, there is a bit of interest to rework the area for copper, gold and zinc. However today there was just me, a few grasshoppers and a cache.
The second cache was further north towards Bondleigh, where I parked near a few old ruins and rusting old farm machinery. The walk around to the cache startled a couple of kangaroos but that was all the wildlife I saw. It was then a matter of picking the right crevasse in the rocks and I soon had the cache. The walk back to the car took me through an old stone walled drive to what could be called a hermits shed or at least an old weekender.
As I came up to the back of the shed, I got a bit of a fright as I nearly stepped on a snake all curled up trying to get some heat although today was a little cool and overcast. The cool conditions probably helped as it was very sluggish and gave me a chance to get a couple of metres away.
It looked to be around 1.5 to 2 metres long with a body the size of my wrist. Initially I thought it might be some sort of python but following a bit of research it was more than likely to be an Eastern Tiger Snake. I tried to get a photo but by the time the camera was ready it had slithered back into the stone wall.
Picked up a couple more caches in Kanmantoo, Nairne and Mount Barker. The cache in Nairne called Pumba’s walk has had me beaten a couple of times but I found it today. There were a couple of DNF’s (did not find) and these were both hidden by the same person – I think there is more work required in his hiding methods.
A quick stop at home to pick up Rachael to get her down to the bus depot to pick up her purse that was left on a bus last week. Luckily everything was still in it.
The project for tonight was to get the Xmas lights up and running. We actually pruned out a few of the old ones that have seen the end of their useful life and added a few new ones. All are good to go.
That’s it until next month.
November 12 of 12 ……
0November 12, 2011
We were up at the Thomas Hill Hostel sitting around the camplight (camp fires were banned) for the “Come Remember with me” geocaching event and someone said it has turned midnight and shouldn’t I be taking pictures for the 12 of 12.
I didn’t realise it was that time again – this last month has flown but then again I have spent a bit of time all over the country in the last month.
I looked up at the sky and saw the full moon with a jet trail just under it. There was photo number one. 
Not long after it was time to head up into the roof top tent and grab some sleep.
Woke up not long after dawn but couldn’t get a good photo so back to bed for another couple of hours sleep.
Went inside to find the big table full of laptops, GPS’s and mobile internet devices. There must be a lot of nerds here or geocachers or both.
After everyone updating GPS operating systems and loading the geocaches it was time to do the drivebys on the caches within the property. These would normally require a lot of hiking to get.
Didn’t take long to see our first snake but missed getting a photo – it was a 1 metre brown snake.
We headed out on the various tracks which 12 months ago were wet and slippery but today dry and dusty. I was out caching with Honeysucker, Skippy and Semik. Out of the 6 caches we did at this time, I had found them 12 months ago except for one.
Back to Thomas Hill for lunch then headed out to grab a few more very clever caches involving the use of water, air pump and magnets. We were joined by Scoobster and Dazzatron for these ones.
Time to head home then it was out for dinner at Jenny’s brothers to finish this months 12 of 12.
Fun in the Sleaford Dunes ….
0October 28, 2011
This was our final day in the Lincoln area and it was going to be a fun one especially for the Nissan drivers (oh that would be me )
Today we were going to tackle the Sleaford-Wanna Track through the sand dunes. Everyone had been building up confidence in their driving abilities over the week and it would be put to the test for many before the day was out.
Again the wind and the rain were prevalent today so the sand was firmer than it would normally be so the first bit through the Wanna dunes was fairly easy going for all. There were a few clearance issues for some of the lower cars but all got through OK.
At one point where there was a memorial for someone who drowned in the area, there was a pod of dolphins frolicking in the surf. Not long after this we found a lunch spot near Salmon Hole then made it to the end of the dunes at Lone Pine.
We were going to head back the way we came as it didn’t take as long as expected. That was before we descended on Tinah Beach.
We had passed it on the way in and now that the clouds were dispersing and the sun coming out, why not go for a drive on the beach – it looked firm enough.
We stopped for a line up of vehicles for a photo and maybe we should have turned around there as the Ford Territory got bogged as they tried to move off, so I got to pull out my first vehicle.
While we were pulling Helen out the radio came alive. Barra who was leading the charge in his Toyota Landcruiser up the beach had become bogged as had Carolyn in her Nissan X-Trail and CJ in his Mazda Tribute.
After pulling out Helen, I let some more air out of the tyres and headed up to the others. There were 3 that hadn’t continued further up and I had to leave their tracks and go around them in the soft sand which was fun but I made it.
CJ just needed a little digging and some manpower and he was moving. Carolyn was a bit more of a priority as the tide was coming in on her vehicle. The bulk of the group worked on her car and I continued up the beach to Barra. He was stuck fast.
He had been trying to turn around and come back but got stuck. That’s OK, he has diff lockers. The only problem was that it buried him even more. It would have been easier to cover it with sand – it was that deep.
It was going to be a tricky pull as he was only 20 metres from the soft dunes, so a pull at an angle was required. We started digging him out and after about 15 minutes put on 2 straps and attempted a pull. I moved him a little but not enough for his tyres to get grip.
Half an hour or more later of digging with the rest of the group as they had freed the other vehicles and there was clear air under the car and a ramp out of the hole. A couple of decent pulls and Barra was free but not for long.
He attempted another turnaround and down the car went again. This time he waited for me with the straps before trying to dig himself deeper. From the GPS log we had spent 2 hours on the beach for a total 2.7 kilometre drive.
Despite the challenges today, the club all pulled together and helped each other out, learnt some new skills and told stories of the day over drinks that night at the Port Lincoln Hotel. We held the final dinner for the trip here which topped off a great week.
Geocaching time – Port Lincoln here we come ….
0October 27, 2011
Today was another free day so Garry and I headed into town to see how many of the Where’s Wolly caches we could find.
On the way out of the park we grabbed some of the Cove Man caches as well as getting a FTF on one that hadn’t been found since it was hidden in July. It was definitively well hidden.
We concentrated on the urban caches and near the town. We traveled on some tracks that probably weren’t tracks as well as coming across a druggies stash only a metre from the cache container.
There were some good caches and some number caches.
We still travelled 142 kilometres for the day before finding 37 geocaches.
In the footsteps of whalers and others at Whalers Way …
1October 26, 2011
Our travels today took us to Whalers Way which is a privately owned property with a lot of historical significance to the whaling days during the 1800′s. There were spectacular cliffs and coastline. One little known fact of this area is that it was where the Australian TV series Survivor was filmed back in 2001.
One of the first stops was the Theakstone Crevasse. What looks to be a man made fissure is formed on a fault line that goes underground around 30 metres but this can only be seen if you venture past the fence – boys will be boys.
Next stop was the Caves. This had some amazing geology with some large caves formed by wave action and we saw some of that wave action but it wasn’t enough to form new caves but breathtaking all the same. We couldn’t believe our eyes as 2 sea-doos with passengers went past in the pounding surf – not sure where they came from or where they were headed.
Just down the road was the Baleen Rock Pool and blowhole. It was a clear rockhole with signs saying “Don’t swim in it” but I would imagine that would be for when the sea is pumping and today wasn’t that day as the blowhole failed to impress.
Barra & I headed over the rocks to find the ocean where the waves breaking put on an impressive show but when we returned, we were in the bad boys corner as the others were waiting – I guess we lost track of time. 
It was then off to Red Banks Beach for lunch and some more rocks to explore. I am glad we did as there was a lone Fur Seal putting a show for us about 30 metres from where we were sitting. The trek back up from the beach was fun as there was a sand bank leading up to the cliff ladder and it seemed for every 2 steps up you slipped back one. I even had to push up Christine’s Mum as she was struggling.
It was time to visit some of the other attractions on offer which included Moonlight Bay and the Osprey Nest (but the Osprey wasn’t home). Seemingly the same Osprey has been nesting here for 32 years.
At the Ski Jump and Cape Wiles, there was supposed to be a Fur Seal colony, but to see it you needed a telephoto lens as they were way down there on the rocks. It wasn’t until we looked at our photos that we realised there was an albino Fur Seal down there. It made our encounter back at Red Banks Beach all that much special.
The sink hole made all too clear how little crust there is on these roads. Back when they were making the road using heavy machinery, the limestone crust gave way to form the sink hole about 10 metres deep. That road doesn’t go through any more.
We were getting weary but made a couple of stops before leaving Whalers Way. The first was Whalechaser Crevasse and again the limestone crust depth was evident. The final stop for the rock climbers was the Swimming Hole. This involved climbing down a cliff face using a bush-rigged ladder. Unfortunately we didn’t have time for a swim but Barra went for a walk through the water.
The group split up with a few of us grabbing some last geocaches at Mary Ellis Wreck Beach before heading back to camp for another spectacular sunset. We covered 162 kilometres today and found 12 geocaches.
