All posts by Scott

Big Drive today – Alice Springs to Mataranka …

June 13, 2012 Scott 1 Comment

It was a cool start today for the big drive with overcast skies and a few drops of rain but this was short lived with clear skies for most of the day.

I didn’t make too many stops today as there was a mission of getting to Mataranka and a soak in the thermal pool – a drive of 1065 kilometres which was achieved in 11 hours with fuel stops.

The fuel gauge went down a little quicker in the first leg to Tennant Creek as I sat on 125 kph (the speed limit up here is 130 kph). For the second leg I dropped it back to 115 as the roos were starting to appear but they are only little ones. 🙂

Tomorrow is an easy drive of 400 km into Darwin.

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12 of 12, 4WDing, Geocaching, Holidays, Out and About

Coober Pedy to Alice Springs – June 12 of 12 …

June 12, 2012 Scott Leave a comment

What a great day for travelling – clear skies and not too warm and no wind (although there was a little cloud around Coober Pedy). Today was another big day on the road with a 700 km drive from Coober Pedy to Alice Springs.

After filling up and a quick drive around town it was time to head north. The landscape around here is a bit of a moonscape with all the diggings – you wouldn’t want to stumble around here in the dark.

Made the diversion to the Breakaways and was surprised to see no-one else out there.

The further north I went you could see the results of the good rains over the last few years with plenty of growth in both the trees and the grasses. The colour of the soil also changes to a deep red.

Continuing along the Stuart Highway through Cadney Park, Marla and then crossing the border into Northern Territory. Of course there is the obligatory photo at the border. 🙂

While at Marla, I checked wotif.com as I knew that accommodation would be scarce in Alice Springs including the caravan parks due to the Finke Desert Race having just finished. Although there were a lot of cars and bike returning south, the locals were cleaning up with their rates and minimum stays. I managed to book a room in a B&B for only $10 more than what the caravan parks were asking for an unpowered site. My digs tonight would be the B & B Pathdorf.

It is almost as soon as you go over the border that the rocks start to rise from the ground with a lot of Ranges starting to appear. Next couple of towns are Kulgera and then Erldunda.

I had filled the tanks at Coober Pedy thinking that I had plenty of fuel to get through to Alice Springs. From previous experience, when the low fuel light came on there was about 10 litres of fuel left which equated to 80 kilometres travel. At about 80 kms out from Alice Springs, the low fuel light came on. I slowed it up a bit and took it easy into Alice Springs.

After arriving in Alice Springs, it was a struggle to find a petrol station that was open and eventually found one with only 4 litres of fuel remaining.

Through Facebook, I found that a work colleague was in Alice Springs as well so we met up in town and had some steaks at Bojangles Saloon – this place would look right at home in the Wild West and the meals were good too.

That is it for today. Tomorrow will be a bigger day as I have 1000 km to drive to get to Mataranka.

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Geocaching, Holidays, Out and About

Day one up the track …

June 11, 2012 Scott Leave a comment

Another below zero start to the day and once again the Clare Caravan Park’s power system overloaded and our power went off (we had been lucky to miss out all weekend).

This meant that we packed up to keep warm in the cold conditions. The final event for the weekend was the Riesling Trail Recovery Ride but unfortunately I had to hit the road for Coober Pedy. After getting a few photos of the riders and waving them off I started north through the Bundaleer Valley grabbing caches along the way.

One of the caches was at the Bundaleer Aqueduct. This was constructed back in 1903 and is some amazing engineering for the time. If it wasnt for geocaching, I probably wouldnt have found this.

The rest of the day was travelling through to Coober Pedy, taking in the Outback regions north of Port Augusta and the Woomera Prohibited Area.

Finally arrived in Coober Pedy around 7:30 pm, bunking down for the night in the Stuart Range Caravan Park.

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Geocaching, Out and About

A new Geocaching Power Trail for SA …

May 19, 2012 Scott 3 Comments

South Australia is starting to get a reputation for being the Geocaching Power Trail State of Australia. To keep the reputation going, I spent today out near Port Wakefield and Inkerman laying yet another Power Trail.

The series that I have put out is the “Premiers of South Australia“. Originally when doing the research, I thought. “how many could there be?”. Well there has been 45 in total since Parliament started in South Australia in 1856. Some like Thomas Playford were in for a long time (27 years) while others were only in for a few days such as John Baker. The early years of South Australia were obviously very tumultuous.

Rather than just a long line of geocaches, I hid them in the shape of South Australia and was lucky to find some roads that fit the shape well, just south east of Port Wakefield.

After spending a few hours hiding the caches, it was time to grab some of the caches that I have been passing by over the years due to lack of time. Most of these were along the coast and required a 4WD and some others didn’t but did require a lot of patience – a nano cache on a Leopard Tank. 🙁

Following the coast down, I traveled through Port Parham, Thompson Beach (couldn’t miss this one) finishing up at St Kilda on sunset. A good finish to the day. 🙂

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12 of 12, Family Life, Geocaching, Out and About

May 12 of 12 – quiet sort of day …

May 12, 2012 Scott Leave a comment

It was a funny sort of day today. Bradley had his Year 12 formal last night and was needed to be picked up at 4:00 am. As I was on call, there was no guarantee I would be around the place so Jenny headed out to pick him up.

I had a few projects to do today.

The first project: Waeco Battery Pack. Our battery pack is a few years old and doesn’t hold the charge too well. A replacement is $335 so I bought a couple of replacement batteries for $150 but my soldering iron wasn’t up to the task. First stop was Jaycar Electronics for a soldering iron with more power and then replace the batteries. Both tasks completed OK.

Second Project: Sleeping Bag zip. One of our sleeping bags has had issues with the zip with the slide breaking. It should be easy enough to get a new zip slide. Headed to Spotlight but they only had zips. So grabbed a short zip with the right size zip and took the slide and put it on the sleeping bag. New slide on OK but there seems to be other issues with the zip. 🙁

On my travels, I returned the suit that Bradley wore last night for his formal. The suit had been hired from Ferrari Formal Wear.

It was a good afternoon to be out and about and there were a few new geocaches around the Edwardstown and Morphettville areas and I made 9 geocache finds. Even one down near Morphettville Racecourse while the historic race with Black Caviar was being run.

Third Project: Film Canisters. South Australia is starting to get a reputation of having geocaching power trails. These involve many geocaches hidden close together along a road in a country area. There may be 50 to many hundred geocaches in a power trail. I recently completed the ET Highway Power Trail in Nevada which had 1500 geocaches. I have plans for a couple of trails but not to the size of the ET Highway power trail. Today I readied 220 film canisters for this task. It involved printing log sheets and putting one in each canister, then printing labels and labeling each canister. Task complete now to go out and hide them 🙂

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Geocaching, Out and About, USA 2012

Does it ever stop raining in Seattle …

April 19, 2012 Scott Leave a comment

With the presentations all finished for the International Association of Wildland Fire Conference, I didnt feel like spending the evening in my room. I was originally supposed to be going Geocaching with some other Aussies but they bailed on me – something about rain. It is only water – you wont rust. 🙂

So I donned some wet weather gear and started to walk around Downtown Seattle. I headed south towards Pioneer Square as I had heard that there was a Firefighters Memorial in Occidental Park. Not quite opposite was the Headquarters for the Seattle Fire Department as well as a lot of homeless people. This seems to be the area that there are a number of food centres for them.

Following the GPS, I found myself on the wharf area and it was getting wetter and I was getting hungry and there was a choice or McDonalds or Ivars Seafood & Chowder. I chose Ivars for a nice big steaming bowl of chowder. There is even an undercover heated outdoor eating area where you can watch the kids feed the gulls or the Fire Station next door. They even have a statue of Ivar feeding the gulls.

The Fire Station next door is Station #5 and as well as the normal Fire Truck it also houses the Fireboats out the back. Continuing on after tea, I made it back to Post Alley and the Wall of Gum looking for a Geocache on the wall. After 20 minutes I was unsuccessful – all the gum looks the same. 🙁

Up the hill and back up to Pikes Place Market for a coffee at the Original Starbucks (the place was empty tonight) and then headed back to the Hilton Hotel as it was still raining and my coat was starting to let water in.

Tomorrow is the field trip for the International Association of Wildland Fire Conference and then it will be time to pick up Jenny and the kids – they have spent the week at Whistler.

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Geocaching, Out and About, USA 2012

Day One of the International Association of Wildland Fire conference …

April 17, 2012 Scott Leave a comment

Day one of the International Association of Wildland Fire conference. It was amazing the numbers of Aussies attending, in fact around half of the presentations were by Australians. The conference was similar to the Bushfire CRC conference back in Australia with presentations by researchers into fire science and the like.

After a big day as the presentations were only 20 minutes long starting at 8:30 am and continuing til 5:00 pm, it was time to head out and grab some fresh air.

As it happened, a couple of Aussie geocachers were also in town. It was Mary and Mark of Aussie M&M. Mark does some work at Boeing on and off. Tonight we would cache around Downtown Seattle getting some of the favourite caches as decided by other cachers.

It was a little drizzly but not too bad and after caching until dusk it was time for something to eat. We chose a random sports bar called Floyds Place which wasnt too bad. It was then back out and caching until around 11:00 pm.

We even got questioned by security around the Zoo but once we explained we were geocaching he continued on his rounds.

$\"Changing Form\" at Kerry park$

$Floyd\'s Place$

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Out and About, USA 2012

Moving day in Seattle …

April 16, 2012 Scott Leave a comment

Today was a moving day. Jenny and the kids were headed to Whistler for the week and I was heading into the Hilton for the International Association of Wildland Fire conference. After a little pushing we had the car loaded and I took them into town to catch the bus to Vancouver on time.

For me it was back to the apartment for a final cleanup and load up then spend the morning doing some sightseeing before checking into the Hilton.

First stop was the locks and drawbridge on the Lake Washington canal. There is also a fish ladder here but I could only see one lonely fish – not sure where his mates were.

After watching a few boats go through the locks, I continued around to the coast and into Discovery Park. This area includes an old Army base of which some of the land has been handed to the City. Even got to check out the West Point lighthouse.

It was then time to check in to the Hilton and get the car back to the airport before 3pm. Managed it with 1 minute to spare. Caught the light rail from the airport back to Downtown. This is a funny sight with half the train filled with people and luggage just coming off flights and the other half just normal commuters getting on and off at the stops along the way.

Tonight was spent in the hotel getting ready for the conference start in the morning.

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Family Life, Out and About, USA 2012

Skiing at Stevens Pass …

April 15, 2012 Scott Leave a comment

Another day and another battle to get the kids out of bed and even with us heading to the snow at Stevens Pass. We eventually got on the road and heading through some breathtaking scenery as well as a few of those little US country towns you see in the movies.

By the time we got our skis and lift tickets it was midday. We were lucky enough to get some ski hire coupons from one of Chip and Joans sons, Bill and the ski hire cashier gave us one more as well as it was her last day on the mountain.

This meant that we got top of the line skis and boots for $22 each for the day.

Being a Sunday meant that we had to share the mountain with a lot of others but this wasn’t an issue as the runs and snow was plentiful so the lines moved quick at the lifts.

Today was one of the last days of the ski season for Stevens Pass (Australian ski fields would kill for these conditions mid season) so some novelty events were held. This kept the runs less crowded as well.

The events were the dummy run and the pond skimming. Both involved skiing over a 30 metre pond at the bottom of a run near the ski lodges.

The first runs were dummies set up on skis. It was then extended to anyone and around 200 took the challenge. Some were successful and others got horribly wet.

At the end of the day, we headed down off the mountain to a little village called Skykomish. Chip and Joan had a cabin (although it was more like a house :)) in town and spent each Sunday up here. Chip is also the Captain for the Skykomish Valley Fire & Rescue.

Chip took Bradley and I on a tour of the Fire Station then we went over to look at one of their unsuccessful saves. Only last week, there was an arson attack on the Whistling Post (the local pub) following a raid on the ATM in the wall. Even though the building was lost, they did prevent the fire spreading to adjoining buildings, remembering that all their buildings are old and made of wood.

A walk next door to the Cascadia Cafe for dinner and once again, the kids had eyes bigger than their stomachs.
Bill, Lorri and Sean made it down off the mountain to meet us then it was time to head back to Seattle.

One last “highlight” for the day was being pulled over by the King County Sherriff. I had the setting wrong on the lights (not on automatic) so as it go dark I had lights at the front but no taillights. He was good about it so no spending a night in the cells with Bubba.

It turns out that Chip knows this sherrif so is going to give him a hard time for pulling over the “Aussies”.

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Family Life, Geocaching, Out and About, USA 2012

From New Planes to Old Planes at Paine Field ….

April 14, 2012 Scott Leave a comment

After spending a day on Thursday looking at the latest aircraft being built at Paine Field we ventured back to Paine Field but to the other end to visit the Flying Heritage Collection.

Paul Allen of Microsoft fame began acquiring and preserving these iconic warriors and workhorses, many of which are the last of their kind. Allen’s passion for aviation and history, and his awareness of the increasing rarity of original WWII aircraft, motivated him to restore these artifacts to the highest standard of authenticity and share them with the public.

We were lucky enough to be shown around by a World War II veteran (Chip Davidson) that flew many of these planes and was also stationed at Paine Field at the time. It is complicated but we met Chip through another Australian that stayed with him and his family many years ago on a Rotary exchange.

Chip took us on a very comprehensive tour of the collection and provided a detailed background of each of the aircraft. We were then taken to sample some local cuisine at the Speedway Cafe. This consisted of burgers you couldn’t climb over as well as drinks topped with “real” cream. 🙂

While we were out and about, it was time to check out a beach at Mukilteo Lighthouse Park, although the beaches aren’t what we are used to as beaches. Instead of the fine white sand we have at home, the beach is covered by small rocks. This park had a historic lighthouse and was the landing for the ferry to Whidbey Island.

One more stop for the day. Jenny and the kids wanted to get into a Costco and Chip was a member, so they got their chance. While they checked it out, I managed to grab a couple of geocaches in the car park. After they were kicked out at closing time we headed out with Chip and Joan to Chan’s Place at Woodinville for a Chinese meal.

Chip and Joans hospitality did not finish here. One of their sons is tied up with Stevens Pass ski field so after tea, he gave him a ring to see if we could be fixed up with some deals for tomorrow. We managed to get some vouchers for reduced ski hire. 🙂