http://www.oceanhippie.net/ News and blog updates from oceanhippie.net Wed, 27 Aug 2008 19:35:20 GMT en-uk http://www.oceanhippie.net/images/14Avatar.png http://www.oceanhippie.net/ http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1139 http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1139 Wed, 27 Aug 2008 19:35:20 GMT nbsp; Move along, nothing to see here, this website is closed, Tom is watching TV at home in Brighton. Go travel and make your own blogs. Next time something annoys me I'll probablynbsp;usenbsp;this to rant about it (watch out the abrahamic religions, you irritate me) other than that concider this website closed. I will of course be dillagentlynbsp;re-editing all my posts and fixing typos untruths dodgy positioins and running a spell checker over the whole site. Well maybe tommorow....... http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1138 http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1138 Tue, 19 Aug 2008 02:32:14 GMT Have any of you attached ANY significance to the Medal Table of the olympic medals and more to the point the relative possitions of Austrailia and Great Britain? We're doing quite well for us, sailing's helping. Were above the aussie Its produced yelps from all the Aussie papers. Editorials incuding "Pommies Winning, how the hell did that happen" and the cartoon below. According to the Ausie's we're doing well cos we pinched their coaches and techniques Which is probably true, sporting ecelence is a major aussie export. However yeah the ashes between Austrailia and England I can get into that rivalry, but world wide games we're happy to see the Aussies get on we don't think the competitions just between us and them. Now beeting the french and germans THATS important. http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1137 http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1137 Tue, 12 Aug 2008 23:35:56 GMT Sunsets on Sydney Harbour Its a dinghy with a cabin. Mind you the cabin is in Mei's garage (weighs too much). Just moving it back to the mooring we got a score of 10.9knots on my GPS, got 10.2 yesterday, aiming straight into to a bay with rather a lot of wind. Gybe was "interesting". Should have been warned, when restoring the main to the boat and fitting the reefing line I asked Matt "Where does this go?" he replied "Dunno, never used it". I've been on yachts before, the usual rule is when the stanchions get wet then your over powered, Matt on the other hand seems happy with the TOP of the stanchions under water. This results in wet arse when when you tack and lean on the rail. Nice view from up here Matt claimed, (later, in a pub) that he did reef once. But in his defense(?) he is claiming it was 40 knots (F9 going on 10) at the time. I'm not a celebrity, GET ME OUT OF HERE. The harbour is awesome, though there is a small marine excusion zone around the opera house. Apparently an americas cupper kind of rammed it. It may be archetectuarally stunning, but its certainly not streamlined. Makes a mess of the wind. Going racing tomorrow, 2 handed, is there a strong wind warning? DOH! Those about to die salute you. httpSee the photos here http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1114 http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1114 Thu, 07 Aug 2008 02:07:15 GMT I think I see the problem.... When I were a lad we used to break down all the time, could fix anything, with chewing gum. When we could aford chewing gum, upper classes would pay us half ha'pney a week just to chew it for 'em. Tell that to the youth of today when whats left of their laptop screen keeps a swichin off randomly in a loverly little town left behind when the freeway took all the tourists away waiting for a new fan and a radiator for there camper van and they won't belive it. Anyone seen the disney cartoon cars? I've seen it repeatedly my Godson loves it, well this place might as well be radiator springs. In my case litterally, Oh dear laptop screens gone again. Can't see.... Help where's the submit button. Yep the amazing self repairing laptop has died and reserected its self again, nearly. How many more lives has this thing got? I'm in The Corrigated Cafe in Pete's Ridge (filled the radiator up and drove off quickly before all the water had a chance to run back out again). Waiting for a new radiator to come from Sydney. The fan on the front of the engine flew off, a massively over engineered fan if you asked me When it came off the radiator didn't stand a chance. last night the NRMA bloke, having been told by his dispatcher, that my fan belt had gone, sugested I nip up the hill to the "Country Club" and get a snack. I do love these call centers staffed by computer controled automatons. You tell 'em exactly the problem. So that everyone knows the score and the computer sofware, probably with drop down boxes, then wrecks all your decription so a confused bloke in a hi vis jacket turns up with a fan belt. I describe the problem they hear "bla bla bla fan bla bal bla" and behold a fan belt. The country club worried me, I thought golfing trousers members only "hello, nice to see you, could have you killed, I own Devon" in reality this is Austrailia, so it was full of truckers in hi vis jackets saying things like "I was doing a dollar thirty, this fella came passed in the wet doing a dollar fourty at least". I think a dollar fourty is 140 kmh...... Food was good (thai green curry) and beers 3 dollars 70 a schooner. Pretty good. Stayed over night in the car park. Yesterday went (by accedent) to an RAAF base and visited the fighter museam. Not quite duxford. But they've some cool stuff and it looks much better when you have the noise of F18 Hornets taking off just out side. Theve the number 1 aussie buit Mirage I fighter, another, french buit mirage an ausie built Saber, a Glouster meteor, a Mig 21 foxbat (I think tis a foxbat, forgetting my Tom Clancy) a DeHavalnd early jet, which I should remeber the name of but can't and a couple of others, more in a hanger being restored. Nice toy The also have several gatling guns removed from their mounts, trully scary pieces of kit. Many with their leccy motors wired to a button so they spin. The place was slighly runind by the historic collecion of Japanese airoplane related video games, but at least they were partly drowned out by the Horents taking off. The other thing they appeard proud of was a fiberglass replica spitfire that was too be honest a bit pants. I doubt it would even have fooled a WWII battle of britain movie luftwaffer extra at 30 thousand feet... They have a couple of cockpits you can sit in. Not really designed for the likes of me, there's a reason Tom not-very-tall-really cruise got cast for top gun. Bigger bloke wouln't have fitted. Its no fun being an adult. You fiddle with the dials and try and pretened to be giving them a scientific, educated apraisal, whilst really wanting the just wiggle the stick like a 5 year old and make machine gun noises, knowing that you can't do it cos there's people looking. Going to Bondi today (radiator allowing), the Bondi YHA is cheaper and advatises free surfboards. Hope they have wetsuits too tis a bit nippy down here. Gonna ring up the bloke with the spares, comming from Sydney. Hopfully it won't be a PFY* with a fan elt**. haven't had an apologetic telephone call for a while, maybe he's broken down? * PFY = Pimply Faced Youth, see BOFH** One of the previous many deaths of Tom's Zombie laptop was the demise of the B key. Its not exactly cured just in remision. http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1113 http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1113 Tue, 05 Aug 2008 11:28:22 GMT Dunno who the lass on the righ is.... Been out wine tasting. Read drinking. Some of it was right good. Roos in the road, chilli schnaps (eugh). Took in a cheese factory (yum), 5 wine tastings at various vinyards. Many of them fortified. White Port? Recomended. Fizzy red wine? Georgeous. Mind you it was 40 bucks a bottle. The last one was the chilli schnaps place. Didn't enjoy it, had to wash it down with half the tasman sea. Yep thats a sensible thimg to do after drinking wine all day, go surfing. Recomened the Newcastle Beach YHA, open fires, 5 ucks surfoard hire. Nice. All the people here have been great. ack to Cow and Chicken tommorow. nbsp; http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1112 http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1112 Mon, 04 Aug 2008 07:51:02 GMT Not the tallest tree in NSW Cow and Chicken is sitting in a garage, with its lights on, the fuse resolutly refusing to blow. I KNEW this would happen. I've checked into the YHA in Newcastle, even in midwinter the locals don't wear jackets. Actually they do and whine about the cold. More over I can unserstand their accents. Not like the real Noocastle at all. Staying here tonight and going on a "winery" tour tommorow, guess that means I'm staying tommorow as I'm not spitting it out, foul habit. I don't like drinking and driving, and even if I did I'd want my tail lights to work so I didn't get pulled over..... I always meant to write some system to send updates to my website instead of uploading the database lockstock and both smoking barrels each time. Its got quite large now, takes a while to upload. Thought rather than do it properly I'd cheat and compress it before I upload it. Then I thought does WinRAR compress from the command line? Of course it does. Does WinSCP operate from the command line. Of course it does! Does WinSCP have a sycronise swich? Of course it does. After 2000km in garish van and before that 14000Nm on a yacht I've finally reailsed what should have been bloody obvous, my database exporting batch file could quite happily have not just exported the database, but compressed it and uploaded it as well not to mention shunting the blog ilustrations up automatically. Time to implement 5 minutes. Doh! I'm an idiot, I'm now going to have to find an internet again and test this. Now someone must have measured EVERY tree in New South Wales, cos they know which one is tallest. Not sure why they bothered there's billions of them. The one pictured right is NOT the tallest tree in New South Wales. The tallest one wouldn't fit in the viewfinder either but since there was no scale in that picture it could be a bonsi from really close or the tallest tree from miles away. FYI i can see over C and C, just, so that makes the van about 6ft high. Ther'es another wicked camper outside, the slogan on the back reads "Reality is only an illusion that occures due to a lack of Alchohol" better do something about that, sinanara. http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1098 http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1098 Sun, 03 Aug 2008 07:54:09 GMT whats this bit do? Now Wicked campers come with 24 hour roadside assistance. Which it turns out is a bloke called John. Nice guy. Say the fuse on the tail lights of your van keeps blowing, who ya gonna call? John. When he gets round to finishing a conversation about wenching. He calls you back with the advise that you could ring NRMA, an acronym whose true meaning I'm not familure with, but they're the Auzzie RAC or AA. According to John, when he'd finished talking to the police (whether this was "roadside assistance", or personal I forgot to ask) he informed we they wouldn't be interetsted cos it was a weekend and the car still drove. He also told me NRMA stood for: "No Real Mechanics Available" Add one Cow and one Chicken So just like the RAC then. The modern driver having deteriorated to the point where they can't change a wheel, or use a pair of jump leads without pathetically calling some spotty teenager in a high vis jacket has erroded the service here too evidently. "We fix 9 out of ten breakdowns at the side of the road" isn't saying much. So can I. Nine out to ten breakdowns are flat tires or batteries, loose wires, out of fuel or water. Any fool can fix them. No I'm not a member of the RAC. bird:"I wonder if thats a Misubisi?" John said "Which van you got?" my mouth, as you all know, engages before my brain, so I replied "Cow and Chicken", rather than some licence or code number. Actually that was what he wanted cos he went "oh one of the mitsubishies". Wicked have a LOT of vans. Either he knows them all or this ones got prior. If your bored at work right now you can browse my gallery and the one on wicked's website comparing the state of Cow and Chicken on each. Now it was news to me it was a mitsubishi. There's a large dent on the front where the badge should be. Its probably imbeded in a roo someplace. Or possibly a tree. That was 5 paragraphs of "I've got no lights" damn I'm good, wish I could have waffled like this in my GCSE essays. Well its getting dark, there are scary noises out side, I'm in the Mayer Lakes National Park about 100kn north of Newcastle, wher dear john is too find me a mechanic tommorow. I'm NOT going to be moved on by yogi the park ranger cos I've got no lights. Came back past Port yesterday. Called Al and Jackie, arrrgh I just can't bring mys self to spell jackie with a y. Sorry Jack. Just to check that I hadn't left anyhting at their place. And stopped with 2 teenagers by a river at Lauriton. Now they saw the van and said "at least we know your not the cops", latter it turned out round the fire, they probably weren't suposed to camp there and they'ed "found" the wood "lying arround by someones house". We call that a wood pile where I come from. Big Bird Been to Seal Rocks (man pelicans are big up close). And the gloriously named "Booti Booti" national park. Some nice town and Taree. If you come to Oz give Taree a miss. I did spend some time at the Aussie version of Halfords there that was the highlight of the place. Gonna make all the fuses into a necklace. Wear it with the T-Shirt I'm gonna make that says "I drank Tanna Dry". Tommorow I'm going to Newcastle, to offload that most irritating of problems, an intermitant electrical fault, on someone else and I'm going to pronounce it like a Gordie. "Haweah leek, me fookin teal leets deene fookin wurk", to which the mechanic, if he's got an ounce of commedy and or geordie in him will point at the van and say "looook at thee size of that Heffer" Well the scary bush noises have been scared off by what sounds like a Hells Angel convention with broken silencers. i'm off to investigate. Intened to stop and find an internet tommorow while the vans getting fixed. http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1083 http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1083 Fri, 01 Aug 2008 08:54:58 GMT Cow and Chicken at 4300 ft I took a tour of GC ages ago, been up the top of southern St Lucia and up the volcano in Vanuatu. However today I hit 4600ft, according to the GPS. Dunno what that is in meters but its a lot. Its higher than england, all of it*. It did occure to me, do you have to let air out of your tires if you go too high? If so at what point? I mean will they blow? I mean the fenders on Jackal, infaltable things that stop the dock hitting the boat. They wen't all the way from the nice warm med and then when we got them to Coffs harbour they were all flat due to the air cooling and contracting. Only the national parks today. Dorrigo, one beginning with B, another with rivers in it, and a couple more, there's too many to keep straight. I'm really racking up the miles though. Van's odometer says 200 odd k. Thats the trip one. I forgot to set it when I picked up the van. Drove to Glasshouse NP, around it, to Malulaba, back a bit up to Irwins Zoo back to Brisbane Via some mountains and a National Park. Back to Bris Vagas then re-set it. Before the above list I said 200ks thats having been round the clock. I've done at least 1500ks, its costing a fortune in fuel. I don't own a car in the UK, so I concider me self eco friendly. oops... Going to have to plant a tree or something after this. say no more, they love me. Any way in Armidale. Still 3000 and something feet up. Took alook at the map the altitude and rang the YHA. Too cold for the van up here me thinks. Stopped in the Rainforest at Dorrigo NP at lunch time took another walk, this time through towering rainforest. Lots of photos, may make a gallery, not today. However none of the pictures are very satisfactory. You can't see the wood for the trees. Never can you get the entire tree in the viewfinder, their hundreds of feet tall and too close together. Put em with the flying fish, the milkyway at night and the other things you cannot see on this site. You'll have to see it for yourself. More water falls, 2 in Doriggo rainforest. One 4000+ feet up the New England Plateau. This one was huge. Had to climb over more hazard warning do not enter bloody warning tape. Grinds teeth. Going to split now, go online and try and up load this little lot, then search out a nice warm pub with nice cold beer. Got too many photos in this post already, I've had to leave out the huge McMurder sign in the middle of nowhere, listing the kilometers to the next three Maccydees. Crap food in 78, 168 and 190km. This is where I get sued by McLawers for McLibel.** *Probably I'm off line so can't check, if I'm wrong email me.**The opionions expressed in this email are the personal opinion of the Author who knows a good burger when he eats on, others may disagree, but the're probably fatter than him. http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1082 http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1082 Fri, 01 Aug 2008 01:44:00 GMT The Aussie pub culture is a Myth. Brisbane's best pub is the Fiddlers Elbow in City Backpackers. The rest are soulless over prices and full of suits wtith silly coluored ties. Brabane only has a hand full of pubs (against brighton's hundreds). So i wen't in search of a true ausie pub, just in time it turned out. Now thats a pub sign "The pub with no beer" is a clasic folk song by a guy called Slim Dusty. Know to Al (Pom) but I admit not to me. Not suprising really, my folk song knowlege begins and ends with Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Resteraunt. How ever I saw the brown sign with "The Pub with no Beer Brewery" on it and decided to give it whorl. It was indead a clasic aussie pub, full of locals. For locals read rednecks. I'm pretty sure I can say that, didn't look like they use the internet much. In fact, the plasma screen had been spry painetd brown, with is wires tangled out of it like a 1970's BBC science fiction show. The spreaker cones exposed. The pub sign was an entire tree with the name chainswed in and the beer was EXELENT. Stayed over night on the Village Green accross the road. The new landord is comming in and ripping the Brewery out to put the owners accomodation back in. Shame really. The locals seemed to like me. Not sure they were convinced by the Lady's motorbike rally that came through a few days back. "Dike's on Bikes" they called 'em. Got Hangover, 2 capachinos is a Cafe in Nambucca Heads helping, need petrol (again) driving off now. http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1081 http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1081 Wed, 30 Jul 2008 01:27:02 GMT Went a blasting south to Port Macquarie, Al wanted halp with the boat. Of course the plan changed when I got there, but hey, warm bed, internet, meat raffle twas good. Meat Meat Raffle? Meat Raffle? Yes its a raffle for meat. I got 10 bucks of tickets, Al and Jack got 10 too, Gavin and Anthea got 20 and we managed to win a trully astonishing quainty of meat. There H and S might be out of hand, but if the've heard of political correctness there having none of it. In the UK we'd have Tofu alternatives incase of complaints. As Marcus Brigstock put it "Tofu is proof that Nature abhhores a Vegan". Probably a phsicists joke. Anthea and Gavin. Jacks sister and husband? Remember is siad " you will be tested". Unfortunalty Brenda (see here) saw my little missive about the family, and infoms me, Micheal is with Danny the other brother, chippying for the Summber camp in the US Al's daughter's also at. This changes blog post "I'M ON A TRAIN" of 17th of July. I think there all relived that my Wicked Van has been removed from the drive of their house, i think it was having the same effect on house prices as a Daily Mail exposee of pedofiles in the neighbourhood. Foruntalty my website won't recive bad hits or google ratings from the word pedofiles cos I'm pretty sure thats not how you spell it. At least I write "Kangaroo's run the F****ers down" without hte apostrophy. http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1080 http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1080 Mon, 28 Jul 2008 01:00:10 GMT Up a mountian in Vanuatu, trying to get the Lava out of my hair, being told not to stand near the edge cos it some times collapses into the caldera full of red hot lava, Christian says how we'd never be abole to do this in Austrailia, the volcano would be fenced off a state away. He complained about Ausie H S, but I though. "It can't be as bad as the UK" The'res the mising fence.Half way down a waterfall. Bollocks it can't. The Ausie's have a near infintite number of national parks. There's litterally hundreds of them. They've got more parks than the rest of the plannet put to gether. I've been through about a dozen allready. Springbrook, Glass House, Lamming ton, Tamborine, and that jsut the ones I can remember of the names of. Anyway so far the Springbrook is best, unforunatly and fortunalty H S means you can't miss the attractions, since their signposted to buggery. You also don't need to worry about access. H S will build paths, warn you of slippery bits and so on. In fact if so much as a pebble appears on the path sings go up . Metal gats slam shut and the whole contenent sinks lower under the sheer weight of hazzard warning tape. "Eastern path of Puringbrook falls closed due to rock slide", metal gates 6ft high, signs every where I could have steped over the rickslide! Pebble side more like. "Natural Bridge walk way closed" the massive concreate platform runining hte natural setting had lost its railing. Big heras fence pannel. Hazard warning tap signs. I climed over the fence on bloody principal. http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1035 http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1035 Sun, 27 Jul 2008 06:20:25 GMT this is NOT me - obviously Went surfing, well I say surfing, it was more like being beatern up by waves and holding a board. Cool fun. Water conciderably warmer than the air. The photo right is NOT me for one he's standing up, for 2 he's on a short board for 3 a wave like that and I wouldn't be alive to blog. No I was nearer the shore, on one of those foam tourist proof things. I did stand up for about a second. Some of the waves were big, kerspat. Bruised knackered and with salt water in every orifice. May have to shoot down to Port and help Al haul Jackal out. However I doubt it, next 2 days v stormy says ausie weather forcast. Great for campervaning, just dried the damn thing out (and fitted an extra rubber band on the accelerater, toped up the water etc. etc. etc. Waiting for Campbell to get back from Sydney, he's a Kiwi, its the Tri Nations at the moment. He went to All Blacks v Wallabies. The All Blacks lost. Oops. I as the only Pom will probably have to not laugh (at least in Rugby were concidered more than a joke, unlike cricket, football, tennis err pretty much every sport bar sailing and rugby). He'll get enough stick from the ausie's I shouldn't wonder. http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1034 http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1034 Fri, 25 Jul 2008 05:25:26 GMT "Esoterica" In Main Beach, Gold Coast. And yes I'm back on a yacht already. I'm on "Estoterica" Campbell's yacht. Its much larger than Dreamtime IV his previous boat, which I sailed accross the Atlantic on in 2001. He's kindly let me stay on board a couple of days while I check out the Gold Coast. As preomiced just added some picks of the van. WARNING contains Australian (bad) language. Marina is called "Southport YC", now I thought "Southport" was what posh people said when they didn't want to say "Liverpool". Like "Hove Actually!" Going out drinking laundry, and ahhhhhh, shower. Thats all folks http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1024 http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1024 Thu, 24 Jul 2008 12:10:34 GMT Just a piece of glass away Well I've got my van, its therefore started to rain in biblical proportions. Damn. Even the "save water" signs are soaked through. I've got "Cow and Chicken", IE thats the graphitti paint job on it, wich is fine by me. Photo to follow when it stops raining. Can't charge me camera battery in the van. First trip was north to "Australia Zoo", more recogisable as "Irwin's Zoo". I think it may have been started by his dad. In another piece of epic timing it was raining, record breakingly, and for even more bad timing points today was Bindi's 10th brithday, for those not familure with Bindi, its not the zoo's most famous or cutest animal. That would be Steve Irwin himself. No. Its the Irwin brat. You know the baby he used to wave in front of 10 meter salties? Yep the zoo was overrun with wet kids. Though one of them did nearly get eatern by a tiger. Which was kinda funny. The tiger area has 3 glass screens, one is in the pool. It actually extends bellow the water, the kid was pressed firmly agaist the glass the tiger lept about 8 feet into the pool and ended up nose to nose with the small kid. 75kgs of nearly full grown tiger arriving 1/2 inch from your nose in a hurry would make you jump too. A wet Wallably, actully its a Roo Stopped last night in the Glass House mountins, that must look apsolutly spectactular in clear weather. Seen alot of, usually very wet, bush. Did get mildly lost, mildly for Australia, got a road atlas. But some pages are 100 km to the inch - more in NT. Don't mind getting lost, just making sure I've got a bit of fuel and water. The Van (I was told) had oil and water checked before I got it. It hadn't the heater was working intermitantly wich I've seen before, so I poured in 6 mugs of water. Better. Its a proper banger, I love it. Its done 250000km, the gear lever occationally jams completely and can't be pulled in or out of gear. The throttle sticks, its probaly got a leaky radator. Its dented a lot. Roof leaks, fortunatly under a piece of trim so it runs to the wall. The sensor for the door reads door open all the time and it has the cartoon characters of cow and chicken spray painted all over it. Its great. Only one thing worries me, was damn hard to start this morning. The van's come with helpful stickers, by each door is one that reads "Attention Arsehole, 8th Commandment, thou shalt not steal. God is watching you you theirving bastard. Its a wicked world you will be cursed. Wicked Campers" I manged to beg one of these off the desk. And one of the locks has clearly been fixed, the keys don't match. The dash says "KANGAROO'S (with an apostrophy I'm sure shouldn't be there). Run the f**kers down." Very australian. The hire agreement did state in the middle of the page, capitalsied, in itlaics, underlined... quotated "DO NOT ROLL THE VAN, this is your responciblilty" apparently sweving to avoid roos, kolas, wallabys etc has resulted in this a few times I was told to brake and hit them. I am parked in a layby halfway up a mountain south of Brisbane Tambone I think. Not entirly sure where and were not you are allowed to stop. No signs, counties too big. Going to drive to the Gold Coast and see Campbell tomorrow. My 12volt laptop charger was left in port Macquarie. So I'll sign off now and save battery. Cow and Chicken out Additional: Just submitted this and it said updated where ResID=1024. Hmmm I wonder how big I made the Primary Key field? Find out if my database is full in the next thrilling installment..... http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1021 http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1021 Mon, 21 Jul 2008 09:39:48 GMT Brisbane by Night from the Backpackers Still here in Brisbane, but definatly leaving. I'm going to visit Steve Irwins's zoo. Now Spike Millagan, of the goon show fame, when he died had the words "I told you I was Ill" inscribed on his tomb stone. Wich as eptiaphs go was damn fantablulos. I'm not sure what Steve Irwin had iscribed on his. "Some where out there was a wild animal with his name on it" would be my submision, a man who trully loved animals more than his own life. Oh well the bus from here to there and back again about doubles the entry fee. Fortunatly I have just aranged to rent a wicked campervan, as expected it was mor expencive than advatised. I'm old enough and cyical enough to know that. The idea is to drive arround, visiting Cambell, the skipper of Dreamtime IV, on which I did my second atlantic crossing, pick my stuff up from Jacky's in port Macquarie and return said camper in Sydney in a couple of weeks. Its about 600 miles to Sydney as the crow flies. If booked the van till the 8th of August. When hopefully I'll be meeting Matt. Its safe to go to Sydney now, the Pope's gone home. Probably with a speeding ticket on the popemobeel windscreen. It was blatting allong awfull fast. Take a chance on life, you never knwo you could get hit by a Popemobeele tommorow! Does any one have the faintest idea how you spell "pope mobeelelelelele" or care. If you do please write in to The Shredder,Licence Fee Wasting Dept,BBC Bush House,Shepards Bush,LONDON W1 Or Text in for 5000 dollar pounds a minute to +61448930953 Art Nuff said. Any way I'm the tempoary owner of transport, would be good if I could find a sharer for said. Notice's in you local backpackers. The Wicked Capmers are aimed at the Backpackers. I've got to park mine outside Campbell's mum's house. Jacky's mums house and what ever posh suburb of Sydney Matt lives in. All of them are graffitti artist decorated. Some with quite rude slogans. "its not cheating if its in a wicked van" is a minor exarmple. So I asked for a non-rude one. Damn I'm getting old... Next Installment wrestelling Crocodiles, drop kicking Koalas and, probably, a speeding ticket. Yesterday I wandered, to the Brisbane South Bank. Museam (good [and free]) and art gallery. Not into art, but I've done my token gesture bit of culture for the trip. See left, I'm calling "Humidity Monitor in an artistic setting". I a belated defence of the Art gallery, it was good. There was a small group of musician, piano, oboe*, etc. WIth an increadible singer with an awesome voice. The modern concrete gallery's acoustics where amazing, art is conciderably improved by that haunting voice, which was not so much echoing as swelling through the entire gallery. * See I have got culture - I know what an oboe looks like**** Ok it might have been a Clarinet***** DEFINATLY not a bassoon, how dumb do you think I am. nbsp; nbsp; http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1020 http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1020 Sat, 19 Jul 2008 02:17:51 GMT Now what? Ok I'm not ready to be released into the wild. I'm used to boats. I also suspect I'm the oldest person in the Backpackers, which is cool in way, no guit there. I also appear to be the richest. Which isn't saying much, if I were to put my card in a hole in the wall some money would actually come out, that makes me the exception. Everyone else seems to be scubbing, labouring temping etc. I remember doing that, but don't miss it much. Its not worth my while, I like to think I havn't grown up but the reality is I have, I have no desire to do crappy temp jobs anymore. What I don't understand is why the hell was I temping in a high rent place like brighton? The post office sorting was mostly me sherm and a bunch of spaniard. A comedian I heard once said "Why are there somany homeless in Peckham?", its a very valid question, if your destitute and homeless there are better places to do it than Peckham. Brisbane is pretty un-exciting. Its clean high rise, modern, and about as intersting as the biography of a trainspotter. I've looked at the land marks, the squares and statues, but town hall archetecture and corporate art aren't worth the wear and tear on the memory card. There statue of Queen Victoria is identical to the one on Third Avenue Hove, which I've never given so much as a passing glance. Gotta apply those standards here too. So what now. Well the sort of Plan is Matt, boat, Sydney harbour. You can fly inter-big city for peanuts $78 (Brisbane to Sydney), but interesting places like Alice Springs are more. Campervans can be hired these being the obvious choise. At little more than a backpackers hostel price. Which is very tempting. Old vans and cars can be bought for longer trips. Which is more tempting, though the really good places require a proper car and 4x4 skills. Breakdowns in the outback aren't quite like hte home counties. Both options tempt me. The former short term, for starters the Backpackers in the Gold Coast are apparently hard sell all night party places. Not an all night party person. Going elsewhere than the big cities is expencive by air, slow by train, diesel single track, cheapish by bus, but miserble. Distance is the issue here. I hop up too london all the time, 50 miles. I regulaly go to Cov, after work sometimes! I think of a journey to Sedbergh as a slog, but even that's peanuts to Austrailia. Should I: A: rent a camper and go see Campbell in the gold coast and spend a few days in a Rainforest National Park thingy, return to Brisbane fly to Sydney (assuming Matt has talked his employers and more dificult, Mei into comming over yet). B: Buy a car/van and start driving towards Sydney on the assumption that by the time I get there Matt Mei (bad pun) or may not contain Matt and attept to flog said banger at the end. Giving lifts to packpackers on the way. C: Blow cash on a posh tour to the outback and go home. Option B Makes sence, but I'm less interested in NSW than Queensland/NT. Also it will take a long time to get to Sydney. Passing through places like Coffs and Port I've already seen. Option C is tempting, I'd blow money, but it would be short and sharp and I'd probalby go home earlier. Option A is the most likely at present, its short term non-bankrupting and fits my preliminary plan. An Plan C can be impimneted as esily form Sydney as Brisbane, possibly easier, busses from Brisbane go via Cairns and Darwin to get to the interior. Oh bollocks I'll just sit here posting on facebook, tweak the interactive chart page of my website, the trouble with that is my chart page was not invisged when I designed the database that runs this website, requres use of the Google Maps API, wot I don't understand, and now contians more lashed up code than the govenments NHS database system. For god's sake don't let Kieran see it he'll have kittens. Yes I know the blog map looks like I went backwards and forward through norhtern Vanuatu, live with it. I daren't run it in internet explorer.... http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1019 http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1019 Thu, 17 Jul 2008 14:58:43 GMT There's no need to shout the whole train can hear you. Today's Train, Electric? Nope. Single Track, Yep. 7.5 Hours to Brizy OK those ferverish awaiting my missives and wondering whether I sunk will be disapointed taht I didn't. If your wondering who so long with no blog.... 1: Bed, warm, soft inshort a bed. On a floor not a boat. With springs etc. Not a bit of foam with three car batteries and a kareokee machine under it, strategicly placed to apmlify the primary and halyard winches, whilst gently vibrated by a 50 deisel engine 6 inches away. Bliss. 2: Telly. You've heard of Home and Away and Neighbours? Prisoner (cell block H). With apart from a few cheap game shows thats all they produce the rest is stamped "BBC". Good huh. 3: WiFi. Works in bed. Over night down loads, hell I even ran windows update. Didn't bloody work, but hey when the safter and bugs in you os can only be fixed by internet explorer, you can't expect much. So no long days at sea, no watches. Insort better things to do. "Ahhhhh" nbsp; Jacky has a large family. I was not so much invited as "assumed" into their house. Now if I get this straight. I was in Jacky's room, with a frankly scary number of pictures of Alan. Alan and Jackie where in Jacky's dad's room. After that I am confused. The "Ute", aussie for pickup me and Al used to raise jackals water line belonged to Jacky's brother Mike (who's abroad whereabouts unknown to me). Jacky's other brother is running a summer camp in the US. Alan's daughter is workning for Jacky's brother in the US. All the junk off the boat in in storage owned by Jackiy's other brother (the one with the ute). The cats are called Mischief and Patch (psycotic kitten of super-Nermal cuteness). Brenda, jacky's mum had to go off and look after Blakey Jacky's niece, not of the brothers, of the sister Andrea. Her husband, Gavin, is a locksmith who too about 30 seconds to open the boat when Al? Rember Al? forgot the key to the boat and breeth. Got that? Good there will be a test next period. We made landfall in Coffs Harbour. Froze for 2 nights, since then is been balmy. Regretted not wearing shorts while working on the boat. Christain flew home from Coffs, leaving me and Al to take the boat 68 miles to Port Mcquarie. We were ordered to arrive at 3 PM, fortuntly that was high tide on the infamous bar. The joureny, begun at night was filled with whale worry. Lots of aussie fishermen in bar telling us about whale incedents. The dangers of the Hastings river (Port Mcquarie) etc. More of a real problem was no wind, we had to motor. We'd left early to leave plenty of time. However the engine controls spring is a bit keen. It sits in gear at idle but you have to push it to about 1500+ RPM or it springs back. idle + east Oz current = 3knts (late) 1500 revs = 5knts (early). Optimal 3pm arrival = 4knots. My solution was to run at 1500 and chase whales rather than go the right way to compensate for the extra speed, and boy did we see wales. Humpbacks 3 large groups of them. None of them fortunatly dretly to windward. There are bad smells in this world, a fart in a drysuit will make your eyes water when you take it off, but nothing smells quite like a blow hole....... "There she blows" So here's me. My mask flippers and snorkel, gps, sailing gear and various bits of junk are in a cardboard box in Jacky's folks house. And I'm on a train to Brisbane. Queensland here I come. Backpackers booking and a copy "the Rough Guide to Austrailia". No I don't have a plan. I'm used to being able to navigate my self, charts lat long etc, share the communal shower gel on the boat. Most of the islands are to small to have to worry about getting back. So I'm out of my depth and on the train to Brisbane. Eta seven and a half hours. Austraila is BIG. I mean woa. At least this time I've seen a Kangeroo, and a Koala Bear. Port Macuarie has NSW's only Koala hospital. Gotta be a TV series in that. Everybody say "aaaaaaahhhh". http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1018 http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1018 Tue, 08 Jul 2008 06:44:08 GMT The trouble with being an athiest is that if your wrong the one thing thats really going to get on god's goat (apart of couse from Ant and/or Dec) is Athiests. Maybe there is a god, and he's punishing me for not beliving him. More likley I'm right and this is global warming, which means its more George Dubbya Bush is fault. Right? He invaded Iraq and invented global warming right? The weather's turned rotten again. The planed pleasant last day day of 18 kn norhterly pushing us most of the last 190 miles became 6 hours of screaming 30kn northerly then swiched in the space of about 1/2 an hour to 25 kn westerly. The results of the associated waves of that just caused me to fall over. I was lyng in bed at the time! The waves are large random and distorted. The result is we're doing three knots under engine with the boat bobing around like a rubberduck in a bath full of children high on sugary soft drinks. Jackal Log probably wednesday the somnthingth or other of July, position near austrailia: Weather V stormy, crew V Mutanious, fags V low, magnetic scabble letters must be stuck to compass or I am sailing up Droilsden Gully*,nbsp; GPS just fell on my head, think an albatos just shot at us. Obviously we picked up about 10 inches of rain during the change over. Australia's sufferting a drout, all the water is [SLAM boat falls off a wave rattling teeth and crockery], all the water is here, 75 miles East of the Victoria/NSW border. Falling on us. I don't know why you bother reading this, I'm bored out of my skull, using the laptop in bed with my feet braced on the wall. It fell off the table. I've got nothing better to do than rant about the mid winter weather. I supose I shall have to drag my self out of bed for the daily scrabble game. A game which has become harder since the long lost j apeard a few weeks back in a cockpit locker, and a large and to my mind uncessary pile of vowels tunred up in the bookshelf. I had a feeling somthing wasn't right with yesterdays game, and lo the x was located on the cockpit floor this morning, now I realise what was missing. * Droilsden Gully is a little know industrial sewer in Manchester somewhere, which our beloved skipper once comapred the Grand Canyon too. http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1017 http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1017 Mon, 07 Jul 2008 14:35:49 GMT The 2 nights ago we were horribly dispirited. We've gotten used to our main sourse of weather underestimatint the wind strenght. Its been doing that since about Fiji. But we'd had 2 days of strong hard on the wind when it should have been a light beam reach. Not nearly as plesant. The 15 knot easterly which would have been perfect was in fact a 30 kn south easter. The waves were stacking up and sharp horrible confused shapes. To offset this we we inicially steared right for Brisbane. This wasn't enough. The breacking crests started to slam the side of the boat in furious bangs and sickaning lurches. We turned our stern to them, the bow towards Bunderberg and none of us got much sleep. The gerry cans, sunflower oil lables now faded into invisibility we've had tied to the rail since Panama worked loose, I climbed out to retrieve them. Just as Al took one a huge lurch sent Jackal over on her ear, sending Alan and the gerry can flying across the cockpit, bouncing off the bincale and over the table. He landed on his head on the leward cockpit seat with a badly bruised arm. This sort of thing is to be expected from time to time. It was the future which bothered us. The 10kns of the preceding 2 days forcast had in reality been 25kn. We'd had a standard practice for some time of adding 5kn to the forecast even before that. The forecast was for 30kn northerlies off the Ausie coast early this week. Tommorow and wednesday. Morton Bay, the aproaces to Brisbane is sand bank infested and open to the north. Even if we'd got there we'd never have dared go in. A grib.us forecast of 30 kn was, on current showing, going to be 40 kn in reality. No harbour we could get into before Coffs. No sleep. Chilly by our standards. The next morning the waves, still confused allowed us to set a more southerly course, but 25 kns of wind was still 10 above we were told, so we texted our weather girl, Jackie, with a request she find some Ausie forcast we might trust. Eventually Jackie came back with 15 kn easterly for today. Which to our suprise was bang on the money. The wind should swing to north for tommorow and 18kns. With a 15kn south westerly on wednesday. By the time the text came in the waves though still huge were more consitant and the motion more comfortable. We had a pleasant night sail on sunday night. Today has been flat fast and very pleasant. We're hoping the forcast will hold. The south westerly on wednesday is irittating since it ill be right on the nose, but that is tempered by the help of the favourable East Austrailier current and our overly windy passage has left us with a stash of diesel that if sold to british white van men at current road prices would allow us to buy a small island. We've about a tank and 1/2 left. With all the Gerry cans we can take about 2 and 1/2 tank fulls 700 miles at full speed. All in all we've only 260 nm to go to Coffs. Arrival will be a relief. None of us were looking forward to this passage, plunging south in the middle of winter, a disconcertingly large continent ahead, not the little islands you can nip around and find shelter we've become acustomed to. Its gone from tropical heat to chilly in a week. It will be good to arrive, odd as those who know me might find this sounding, but I have had enough sailing for a while. I'm seriously looking forward to getting my feet on dry land. I've not sleped on dry land once in 8 months. When we reach Coffs I'll have brought Jackal a staggering 10741 nautical miles in a little over 6 months. If Jackal was a second hand car it would be suspect, at 1000 land miles a year for a typical car its done 12325 miles in just 6 months. End of this Journey? Yes, definatly. But the flight home will be shorter than the sail here, so I can hold my head up high and apease my eco concience. I know the world is round. I've been arround it completly, admittedly by airoplane for about a 1/4. When I do get home I'll have seen 2 sunsets less than the rest of you, by chasing the sun around the world twice. I hope I don't run in to some nice Aussie with a yacht, leaving Coffs for euorpe next week and short of crew....... http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1016 http://www.oceanhippie.net/content.php?Res=1016 Fri, 04 Jul 2008 14:48:39 GMT Its the bleak midwinter here. Well not bleak, sunny but down to only warm now. Didn't wear shorts all day today. I'm now as far south as I've ever been. 21deg;15' South being a previous record. Temp inside the boat is now 22deg;c at 22deg; South Latitude. Though it is the middle of the night. Mahi Mahi, aka Dolphin Fish, aka Dorado I pulled my trousers out in Luganville. Boy were they musty. Under a bed in a damp locker in a boat in the tropics for months. Had to wash them. Also had to sew a button on one pair. A result of my weight when I left England, weight gone. May now need belt. If I lose any more I'll be back to stick insect student days again. Just when nice insulating lard would be usefull. We're screaming south, at a degree a day. Coffs is 30 south, a significant distance from the winter sun. Its 12:45 am and my feet our cold. Need to buy socks. The theory of this passage is to head off as a high pressure sytem detaches from the east coast of oz. winds go anti colckwise round a high in the southern hemisphere. So if you arrive on the auzie coast before it leaves you'll be beating into a southerly, if on the other hand you get it right and clip the top you'll get a bit of south east, then east as you pass the top, and north east and finally north as you approch the New South Wales coast. Acording to our calcs we've got it pretty much right. The wind was nearly southerly yesterday, but we were almost able to hold our course, now as we aproach the top of the high we're on course and begining to ease sheets. All is as it should be. Apart form the slamming. Any yacht sailor will tell you how uncomortable it can be going hard on the wind, and therefore into the waves. Every now and again the bow will ride over a wave into open air and smash down into the trough. The thump as it lands shakes the whole boat. A cruisie light beneteau like this with its wide shallow bottom slams pretty unpleasantly. Poor old Al has the forward, largest, cabin. Which looks like heaven in the brochure. I on the other hand when going to windward the bed plunges up and down, it feels like you being thrown up off the bed. I have the cabin in the starboard quarter (back right). Since the winds from the port side and ahead, the nose is lifting and slamming down, and the boat is rolling. Since the right hand side is the pivot point for the roll as thats the side in the water and the pitch pivot is towards the back too as the waves are lifting the bow it means I am sleeping best on the boat. I only get the twist not the up and down motion. Lucky me. Last night we lost the mainsail, just a torn seam, easily repaired. Cluttering up the boat have been all the spare sails. We've got 2 mains and 2 jibs, the shreded remains of a spinnaker and a storm jib and trisail for really bad weather. Trying to re-load in mast roller furling gear with the other main as it got dark motoring into 20 knots and an ocean swell was not fun, reminded me of yacht racing. This main is a tape drive kevlar re-inforced job, nice. Or it would be if the back edge didn't flap cos its battens are missing. Al claims they don't exist I bet somewhere in some forgoton corner they do.