Category Archives: 12 of 12

12 of 12, Family Life, Home Life, Rachael at School

November 12 of 12 …

November 12, 2012 Scott Leave a comment

Today was a quiet sort of day. Being a Monday meant that it was a day off but I didn’t have a lot planned for the day.

8:00 am was the time my on call for the weekend ended so off with the magnetic roof lights until Wednesday when I am on call again. It was then school drop off time, taking Rachael to Blackwood High School.

After getting a $1400 electricity bill, solar is starting to look attractive. Had the first salesman come to go through the options, get up on the roof then give me the price. Have another couple of companies coming around next week. I can see a lot of confusion coming with all the different options of inverters and panels.

It was time for some chinese massage time on the lower back – one day it will be normal again. A long overdue haircut then back home for a couple of toasted cheese sandwiches and a coffee for lunch as well as get some pathtags ready to post to the US.

Being a Monday meant that Rachael finished school early at 2:25 pm – they never seem to be at school. Bradley has already finished his last high school exam and is getting ready for Schoolies.

Last task for the day was an inspection on our rental property to see what cost I am up for for repairs. Seems to be a lot of electrical stuff with some plumbing and painting. Hopefully it isn’t too much.

That is it for November 12 of 12 ….

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12 of 12, Family Life

October 12 of 12 …

October 12, 2012 Scott Leave a comment

Yesterday would have been a more interesting day as I headed out for a day of geocaching down south finding 46 geocaches and driving 250 kms, but the 12th fell today. 🙁

This morning was spent logging the 46 finds from yesterday as well as submitting 4 new caches hidden while out yesterday. These 4 caches will form part of a series highlighting towns around South Australia that may be the location for the 2014 Oz Mega. The actual location is yet to be announced.

Jenny has been busy getting the pool ready for swimming but after the weather on Wednesday with hail, snow and rain, I am not sure that the Mother Nature is ready for the pool. 😉

In the middle of our family room is a mountain of mess that has spewed out of Rachael’s suitcase. She has been back from Japan a week now – you would think that it would have found a home by now.

A visit to the post office to send off some pathtags to the US and pick up the mail. It was obvious that ETSA wanted to make sure that we knew there is a change to our power supply as there were 2 letters from them.

Tonight there was a family gathering to celebrate 5 birthdays on Jenny’s side of the fence. It was held at the Blackwood RSL. Given that it was a Friday night and we had booked in 40 people, the staffing would have been appropriate but it wasn’t and we had to wait 2.5 hours to get a meal. I was very hungry by the time it came. At least we had cake. 🙂

That’s it for Octobers 12 of 12.

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12 of 12, Family Life, Holidays, Skiing

September 12 of 12 in the snow …

September 12, 2012 Scott Leave a comment

We were never going to get another day like yesterday. Even though the skies were clear and it was sort of warm (8C), there was a wind that dropped the wind chill down to -5C. Also as the temperature didn’t drop below zero last night, the slopes didn’t start the day as well as previous days.

But you make do with what you have and we headed out a little earlier than other days to enjoy another spring day of skiing at Falls Creek. The plan was to start over on the Summit and move across the mountain finishing up at Main Street. This seemed to work yesterday well.

The plan changed slightly once we got to the top of the mountain. Rachael needed some video for a school project so a few runs down Main Street before heading to the Summit.

We made it over to the Summit earlier than yesterday but the conditions weren’t the same as they never groomed the mountain so it was very similar to what was left yesterday afternoon. A couple of runs here then we headed over to Ruined Castle and Scotts. This seemed to be the pick today.

Eventually the wind won and I headed back to the Schuss Lodge while Rachael went for her second snowboard lesson while Jenny pottered around with a Blackwood Mum who was on the mountain as well.

Tomorrow looks like it may have some fresh snow falling – I guess the sunny days couldn’t last forever but it has been a great week so far. That’s it for the September 12 of 12 …. with a bonus video 🙂

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

August 12 of 12 …

August 12, 2012 Scott Leave a comment

A clear start to the day, not as cold as expected and we were soon on the road heading to Axedale. Today we were meeting up again with the Central Victorian Geocachers for a 4WD trip through the hills around Bendigo. The event for the day was CVG 4×4 Adventures #3 – Fosterville. In all there were 8 vehicles attending with around 30 geocachers.

It was pretty easy going early on with a couple of hill climbs and descents. Then we came to the mother of all hills and there was a new cache at the top – On top of Fosterville for the seriously insane! We were not set up to drive up this one as you would have needed some serious clearance and winching. So it became a heart starter with a climb to the top.

Continuing on again we came to an issue with washed out tracks which were not suitable to all our vehicles so a change of plans saw us not get some of the new caches that had been placed out for the event.

A stop for lunch at the Gunyah Picnic Area with another 22 caches published in the area for the Event and we were off trying for as many “First to Finds” as we could. We managed to get 10 FTF’s 🙂 – not a bad effort for the day.

The sun was getting low and we had one other task for the day. My GeoBuddy Garry was on track for his 5000th find and we found It’s all about the NUMBERS Challenge #1 as this milestone. It was time to head back to the cabin but not before grabbing some more geocaches on the way.

Another 12th of the month is finished.

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12 of 12, Geocaching, Out and About

A stormy day for the 12 of 12 July ….

July 12, 2012 Scott Leave a comment

I guess my 12 of 12 started yesterday afternoon with a return to night shift after a number of years. It was a busy night in Adelaide station but I only had one incident to attend – a motor vehicle accident at Flinders Park.

With the lights and bells going all night, I was a weary boy this morning and after collecting the mail from the post box, I was met at the door by Molly – our maltese shitzu. It was then to bed to catch up on a few hours sleep.

The house was busy when I woke with Jenny and Rachael taking a load of bottles up to the wood yard to get the refund money. Rachael is busy raising money for her World Challenge Expedition to Vietnam next year and bottle collecting along with chocolate selling and baby sitting are some of the ways she is raising money.

After lunch I decided to go walking through the grounds of Flinders University and then O’Halloran Hill Recreation Park to find some geocaches. This was about the same time as Adelaide and surrounding areas was getting hit by thunderstorms. The Barossa area became white with some large hail stones blanketing the area.

After a quick stop at the Scouts Rally SA office to do some maps and other administration things then it was back to work for my second night shift in a number of years.

$O\'Halloran Hill Park$

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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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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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12 of 12, Family Life, Holidays, Rally, USA 2012

April 12 of 12 – Boeing Plant and the Freemont Troll

April 12, 2012 Scott 1 Comment

For our 12 of 12 this month, we were in Seattle Washington and made a visit to the Boeing Assembly Plant in Everett and then went down to Freemont to visit the Freemont Troll.

Despite leaving our digs at University Motel Suites around 1/2 later than planned (nothing unusual for us), we arrived 1/2 an hour earlier than expected for our Boeing Tour so we managed to get onto the earlier tour.

We visited this plant 20 years ago and it has expanded a lot since then and they are producing another different aircraft since then. Back in ’92, they had just begun on the Boeing 777 range and now they are now just beginning producing the Boeing 787 range. I wonder what they will be making if we come in another 20 years time. 🙂

Again it is pretty mind blowing the sheer size of this sort of operation particularly with the number of staff working in this facility (17000 at Everett) but it looked like most of them were just walking around. The kids were also suitably impressed.

Rachael would like to have one of the Boeing Business Jets to travel around in but I don’t think that is going to happen anytime soon. Also I don’t think we will be buying a 737, 747, 767, 777 or 787 anytime soon – my bank balance just wont go any where near.

The tour of the plant took 1.5 hours and of course the kids were hungry so it was lunchtime in the carpark – a bit like an American tail-gate party in the parking lot 🙂

Back inside to the Future of Flight to have a close up view of jet engines, the new composite 787 and even got inside the cockpit of a 727.

Looking across to the mountains, we were glad that we didn’t go skiing as it looked like the rain was pelting down – hopefully it hasn’t washed the snow away but with a 5m base, you wouldn’t think so.

We headed down the 99 towards Freemont but got way-laid as Jenny and the kids wanted to go into Costco but they couldnt spend any money as there are no longer visitor cards. 🙂

The temperature had dropped down to 10C as we arrived at the Freemont Troll. Jenny said “Oh it is an actual troll”. It is a sculpture that looks a bit like the Bunyip at Murray Bridge but this one doesnt move. Of course there was both a Geocache and a Munzee here to be found.

That was almost it for the day. We spent 20 minutes driving around Freemont scouting out Groundspeak only to find it about 100 metres from the Freemont Troll. We have a visit scheduled for tomorrow afternoon.

Another stop at Safeway for provisions and back to our digs.

So ends another 12 of 12. I know there are 14 photos but I had to prune it down from 34 so there are a bonus 2 for this month. 🙂

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12 of 12

March 12 of 12 …

March 12, 2012 Scott Leave a comment

Today was a public holiday here. It was for the Adelaide Cup – a horse race. For this 20000 go and watch some horses race and the rest of us (1 Million) get a public holiday. I will take them however they come. 🙂

After a little sleep in this morning it was time to do some Community Service.

One of the members of my Volunteer Fire Brigade – Coromandel Valley Country Fire Service, lost his son in a motor vehicle accident last week, so it was decided that the Brigade would spend this afternoon helping out around their orchard to get them back on track.

We started out burning off old fruit trees and accumulated timber, then went down to the cold stores and washed out the fruit bins ready for the fruit which is currently being picked. They are in the middle of harvesting plums and pears.

After a few hours working on the orchard it was time for a BBQ then head home.

The day was finished off with a visit to the car wash to rinse off the weekends dust from the Riverland.

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12 of 12, Family Life, Geocaching

February 12 of 12 …

February 12, 2012 Scott Leave a comment

One would be forgiven to think that it either spring or autumn but we are in the middle of summer. Today was another day of mid 20’s weather but at least it was sunny.

This morning we celebrated the 2nd birthday of my nephew, Angus. He is a cheeky little kid and is going to cause issues for my brother as he grows up. The bouncy castle was the big winner at the party.

This afternoon, it was still sunny but not too warm so perfect to take Molly on a walk at Brown Hill Creek to grab a couple of geocaches.

Brown Hill Creek is one of the creeks that flows out of the Mt Lofty Ranges and through Mitcham ending up at Glenelg. It is also is said to have caused flooding through the suburbs in the past but you would think that the normal drainage of the suburbs would be more of an issue. There is a proposal of putting up a flood control dam in the area and understandably there is a lot of public backlash over the proposal.

Found a couple of caches, one a puzzle cache, More @#$%&, found in an old quarry and I managed to get some battle scars on this one. The second was a traditional, “Dam” Stupid Idea, involved a walk along the Wirraparinga Walking Trail and then some hill climbing to the final location.