recently a colleague at work prodded me (gently ;-)), saying she still looks
forward to seeing my holiday photos...of which there haven't been any
for too long.
well, i haven't been camping since last year's trip to haddon corner...but mid-september i took a short little trip to girraween NP, in the
granite belt region pretty much on the QLD-NSW border.
click here for the rest of the story...
[ published on Sat 05.11.2022 20:28
| filed in
interests/au
| tagged camping, hiking
|
]
finally - two years after the last big trip there
was an opportunity for another, not quite that long but
still good little trip out west.
this time the tentative target was mainly queensland's channel country region, with particular spots of interest being
currawinya national park, the burke and wills dig tree, haddon corner and
diamantina national park.
not everything worked out exactly as hoped...fine, that's life. i still enjoyed
it quite nicely, even if i did cut it somewhat short, to ten
days.
here's what (little) i've got to show and tell about the trip.
click here for the rest of the story...
[ published on Fri 24.09.2021 21:41
| filed in
interests/au
| tagged roadtrip, camping, outback
|
]
elvis, who? i don't think there are many people left who care about
that guy anymore. lots fewer will care about the fact that i, too,
have left a building...and a town, and an area.
4 weeks and 4 days ago my house went up for sale, 4 weeks ago i signed
the contract and today i've left both house and gold coast behind, for good.
16 years in the same house was enough.
until i find a new nice place for sale near my new workplace (archerfield
and/or carole park) most of my stuff is staying in rented storage,
an i'm staying at a friend's place...not quite a hobo :-)
[ published on Sun 09.02.2020 18:43
| filed in
interests/au
| tagged gold_coast
|
]
..but just maybe they might mellow a bit, can't hurt.
i just read that the
ACT has decided to legalise personal cannabis use;
one of the odd things here is that the ACT is the last state you'd
expect to make such a move, with a demographic dominated by
politicians and governmental agencies.
the other odd thing is that the legalisation means not much, apparently,
as you could still be charged under commonwealth laws. oh
the convolutions!
[ published on Thu 26.09.2019 18:03
| filed in
interests/au
|
]
i've just returned from a four week road/bush/camping trip not quite halfway around australia.
the plan this time was pretty mininal: let's travel to and through central
australia! (off the boring main roads where possible.)
the idea was that i'd go at least as far as alice springs following the outback way, and bail out there if i didn't enjoy the trip; otherwise
to continue on to WA via the great central road, and back from there
somehow, either via the australian bight or the far north. clearly not an
exceptionally precise plan; more an example of making it up on the go.
as you can see on the map above i did reach WA eventually, then opted for looping via the far north and got
to broome and the timor sea, thus covering both sunrise and sunset beaches.
read on for some musings from my travel diary and some photos.
click here for the rest of the story...
[ published on Thu 19.09.2019 18:28
| filed in
interests/au
| tagged roadtrip, camping, outback-way, great-central-road, gibb-river-road
|
]
last year they printed
400 million 'new and improved' banknotes with a typo on them. nobody
noticed for a few months, but then who cares about responsibility (or
spelling).
i also suspect that there aren't that many companies outside the
australian market that would proudly call their engine starter spray
"start ya bastard"
and market it for a target audience of 'frail people who are not
strong enough to pull a start cord quickly enough'.
the last time i had to use a similar product must have been about 30
years ago, helping my dad to convince one of his his citroen gs/gsa to
start...all of which were indeed bastards to get started.
apropos nothing: other australian things.
[ published on Wed 31.07.2019 13:50
| filed in
interests/au
| tagged oz
|
]
...is that there's lots of space.
we've got 25 million human inhabitants, but less than 500 000 live outside the
coastal areas (the yellow area on this map from amazing maps)
you don't have to drive very far inland to get away from everybody.
for somebody like me who can stand humanity in small doses only that's
a pretty good thing.
[ published on Sat 20.07.2019 11:22
| filed in
interests/au
| tagged oz, truesize, space
|
]
for me A$970 paid for all of a three week, 4922km,
camping/hiking/sightseeing/road-trip south along the great dividing range.
2/3 of that went for 420l of diesel (my car is reasonably economical
even with the brake parachu^W^Wroof top tent in place), and the
remainder covered (national park and other) camping fees, some grocery
shopping and a few coffee and cake breaks.
i mostly camped in cheap or free places and somehow i can't bring
myself to eat out even when i'm on the road (at least when travelling
solo), which should explain the low cost.
i've long wanted to see more of australia. being off work right now
makes this the perfect opportunity to travel, except that the season
is not ideal for visiting central oz (late summer/early fall is both hot
and normally the rainy season); furthermore the current drought makes
the inland regions a bit less appealing than usual (ie. many creeks and rivers
are bone-dry, fire bans in many national parks and so on).
so i decided that i'd tag along the great dividing range towards the
south, visiting most of the higher areas on the way - for the views,
the hiking and a bit of cooler weather. the tentative plan also
included visiting the victorian alps and possibly the great ocean road
as well, but that part of the plan went up in smoke - lots of nasty
bushfires in victoria, pretty much exactly where i wanted to go - so
the eventual southernmost goal shifted to mt. kosciuszko, the highest
hill in oz.
here is the whole trip as a single track;
read on for photos and more details.
click here for the rest of the story...
[ published on Sun 31.03.2019 15:38
| filed in
interests/au
| tagged camping, hiking, travel
|
]
well, this is australia so it's not
edelweiß but
flannel flowers. the
leaves have exactly the same texture though! these were observed at
yuraygir national park, on a hilly headland maybe 500m from the beach.
as you might tell from this i've been camping a bit; read on for some more
photos and a bit of a report.
click here for the rest of the story...
[ published on Wed 23.01.2019 15:35
| filed in
interests/au
| tagged camping
|
]
today i did a little time travel (a 15 min drive across the border to
NSW, where the
timing sucks but
the alcohol licensing
apparently doesn't),
and bought austrian beer at aldi:
it's quite obvious that australian beer prices are mostly driven by
very high taxation, when aldi can make a profit selling the far
travelled egger märzen not that much dearer than local(-ish) beer: the
egger goes for $5 per litre, whereas aldi's nice kiwi low-carb goes for
$4.42 per litre (that's aldi prices, the other booze 'discounters' are
nowhere near except for headache generators like xxxx gold...).
[ published on Wed 12.12.2018 19:25
| filed in
interests/au
| tagged beer, taxes, egger, austrian_beer
|
]
after reading my recent post about my new car
one of my austrian friends asked for more details; not exactly surprising
as utes like that are not exactly common in austria.
so here are some more photos and phacts.
for comparison here is a photo of my old subaru outback, an average
length station wagon ('kombi').
the colorado just fits into the garage, ie. iff i drive up to
and carefully bump into the wall. stock length is 4.9m, add
about 25cm for the bull bar on mine.
stock weight is about 1920 kg (cf. 1460 kg for my previous car, a forester),
but this one lugs around a bull bar, winch, canopy and dual battery;
installing a lift kit is very much in planning.
it's got about 120 kW and lots of torque thanks to the turbocharged
diesel; agility is...well, this is not a race car. it doesn't feel
underpowered but there's the inertia of 2 tons of car.
[ published on Mon 26.11.2018 14:18
| filed in
interests/au
| tagged toy_car, 4wd, chick_magnet
|
]
i'm now driving what might conceivably be called a chick magnet car
-- with the understanding that the magnetic attraction is confined to within
the cabin, and the repelling forces work all over the outside. net
result: it'll take a woman of superhuman persistence to actually come close...
click here for the rest of the story...
[ published on Fri 09.11.2018 16:43
| filed in
interests/au
| tagged chick_magnet, toy_car, 4wd
|
]
i don't watch much tv. never have, likely never will. ("not much"
is no more than half an hour a month.)
i definitely watch no live tv at all as that amounts to cruel
and unusual punishment; instead i use my fairly old twin-tuner
topfield disk recorder which does time-shift pretty well.
click here for the rest of the story...
[ published on Sat 10.03.2018 13:16
| filed in
interests/au
|
]
i had to laugh when i saw the caption for the top photo
on this current news story about politicians having sex: harold holt, curiously misplaced prime minister, and his fishy "mistress
(not pictured)".
[ published on Fri 16.02.2018 16:23
| filed in
interests/au
|
]
...finding that photo. i still find it pretty funny.
[ published on Fri 22.07.2016 20:47
| filed in
interests/au
|
]
I don't know why I'm so reluctant to document or write about trips; do
and see and sponge up experiences and enjoy: yes,
absolutely. photograph stuff and write up: not really. So it's no
surprise that I've been back a full week already before writing this,
and haven't got too many photos to show.
Anyway, to the story: this year I booked three weeks of vacation in
one go, with the aim to hit the roads and dirt tracks westwards and
see what I can see and wander around until I run out of time or
energy. One tentative aim or pivot point, so to speak was to be
Cameron Corner, where
the borders of Queensland, NSW and South Australia meet in one spot.
click here for the rest of the story...
[ published on Fri 07.08.2015 21:57
| filed in
interests/au
|
]
...is pure hardship, just plain horrible.
[ published on Mon 08.06.2015 18:27
| filed in
interests/au
|
]
The British Isles have a reputation for being a culinary
wasteland (pickled eggs, offal pie, absolutely dead mashed vegetables
combined with meat red enough to hop of your plate, etc. pp.),
but I guess this here might be an example of colonial one-upmanship:
This Australian wooster sauce boastfully claims that it's made
from 50% recycled plastic. I'm not quite sure whether I want
to know about its other "premium quality ingredients".
[ published on Mon 16.02.2015 17:59
| filed in
interests/au
|
]
I find it very interesting how Stiegl is
increasingly present in the Australian beer market; a few years ago
you'd find it only in very very very special beer pubs, but that's
changing. In December I had a few here on the Gold Coast, at the Bier
Cafe in Broadbeach. (On tap, not bottled.)
And now even
Aldi has it
- except that for silly hysterical raisins most of Oz still requires
totally separate bottle shops, and in QLD Aldi's booze branch is
mail-order-only for that reason.
With the also ridiculously high alco taxes factored in,
the lovely Stiegl costs about 50% more than the decent local brews; $7.6/litre
vs $5/litre. No surprise that lots of Australians do home-brew; even I do
it every now and then.
While I intensely dislike the City of Salzburg (it's the anus mundi as
far as I'm concerned), I wholeheartedly endorse the products and/or sevices
of the Brauerei Stiegl :-)
[ published on Sun 08.02.2015 13:45
| filed in
interests/au
|
]
...but the local weather sucked nevertheless: still 86% humidity at 2100.
Today is also the day on which I gave in (to a recommendation by a friend)
and spent $249 on a Rowenta DH4120 dehumidifier (on special/clearance
at Hardly Normal, RRP $590 or so). It's now been running since 1730 and
I just emptied out 4l of water, and the relative humidity inside is now 68%,
not qute perfect yet but not as dripping wet as earlier.
We'll see how the thing does over the next few days, especially whether it's
big enough to handle the 200m^3 of my place.
[ published on Wed 14.01.2015 21:54
| filed in
interests/au
|
]
"Gold Coast Show Day" - das ist ungefähr so
weltbewegend als wie ein Kirtag in der Provinz irgendwo hinter St. Blöden.
Mehr weltbewegend find ich das Feiertags-Faktum an sich; etwa so unglaublich
als wie wenn in Wien alle frei hätten und alles zu wäre, weil's in Sopron
den "Tag des Kukuruz" zelebrieren.
[ published on Thu 28.08.2014 22:09
| filed in
interests/au
|
]
bundjalung n.p. was pretty nice, if busy and very windy. we had a good
time nevertheless :-)
[ published on Mon 09.06.2014 18:58
| filed in
interests/au
|
]
...für sonst nix gut aber immerhin brauchbar als Anlaß für Feiertage.
Bissl ein Kontrast: In Ö feiert man
jeden noch so mickrigen Heiligen - hier in AU hauptsächlich die Scheinheiligen.
[ published on Fri 06.06.2014 11:52
| filed in
interests/au
|
]
Start with this:
Minus all this:
Plus this:
Gives this:
It's somewhat obvious that I have spent a bit of money
at subaXtreme, isn't it.
Weird coincidence: just a few days before the coffi^Wpallet arrived a
total bimbo bumped into my car: I was waiting behind her in a right-turn
lane, she committed to turning, successfully crossed the two lanes of
oncoming traffic - and then suddenly decided, for no good reason
whatsoever, to reverse back across those lanes...all the way into my
bumper - thunk.
I guess the new bar will be pretty good not just for the silly roos
but also for brainless suburban bimbos.
[ published on Wed 28.05.2014 23:56
| filed in
interests/au
|
]
It's pretty obvious that 15.875mm is more than 11.1125mm. It's
certainly not immediately obvious that 5/8" is more than 7/16".
(and by immediate I mean "at a glance, without mental effort".)
[ published on Wed 28.05.2014 19:41
| filed in
interests/au
|
]
my father wanted to know what kind of car i drive; apparently the
soobies aren't exactly common in austria? - at least that was his excuse
for not associating my answer ("2006 forester") with anything.
well, here you are:
[ published on Tue 18.03.2014 19:45
| filed in
interests/au
|
]
the elevator billboards in the office building lobby have not shown
the correct weather screen a single time during our four months there.
mind you, the stock tickers are current down to the
milli-cent, but the weather? "feels like undefined".
i on the other hand feel reasonably good about work, what i do and who
i do it with. sure, the last five months have been pretty busy and
occasionally quite stressful but that comes with working in a small
startup.
it's nice to be able to make a difference; the downside is of course
that you do make a difference, whether you want it (e.g. having a stroke
of genius) or not (e.g. having a bad day slogging through hard-to-grok
undocumented complex tangles).
but i'm not complaining, except that i'm often too tired come
saturday morning to even consider going flying - and that, combined
with the vagarities of the wind & weather isn't ideal...
[ published on Sat 15.03.2014 22:25
| filed in
interests/au
|
]
sure, it's just an article in the local rag (quality: above Krone but way below derStandard) and they got a few minor bits wrong, but nevertheless not bad for opmantek.
[ published on Thu 06.02.2014 08:39
| filed in
interests/au
|
]
With the new job I tend to do my bicycle runs much later, usually after
dusk or at night. That time of day has its own special challenges: occasionally
I get mobbed by bats and flying foxes, one of the trails is full of
frogs or toads if I'm really late, and oh, there are lots of homo sapiens
automobilis who are blind as bats.
Since the number of the damn saps who pass me much too close is
a lot higher at night I decided to replace my dinky red flasher with
a Really Annoying Red Light.
So I spent the grand sum of $22 on a set of "Tioga Dual Eyes", and the
better light seems to help - it's really bright and obnoxious, might not
be good for epileptics but that's SEP. Very much recommended.
[ published on Sun 08.12.2013 19:35
| filed in
interests/au
|
]
On today's 26km cycling loop I had 4 swooping attacks - a new record :-/
[ published on Tue 24.09.2013 18:47
| filed in
interests/au
|
]
newer...
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