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New Years' Eve. The end of a good year. Last bike ride of the year. A seven a.m. start from somewhere in Fairfield, six of us headed out on a two hour ride out around Heidelburg, Doreen, various hilly parts to the north east of the city, then back again. The last few months have seen me only riding to and from work, laziness, house-moving, holidays, it all hit hard as I could barely keep up and had to be almost carried back the last stretch to Mill Park! The coffee at Tom's house aftewards was a life-saver.

Off to the Rosstown this evening for the New Years' gig. Dave Graney & the Lurid Yellow Mist — a fantastic band name, but a fairly dull and lacklustre show. I'm not sure who the intended audience was, maybe we were too young, it just didn't quite seem to gell with the crowd, the band, the brightly lit room and the music. Trains there and back were packed, nearly requiring a shoe-horn to get on at Oakleigh, I feel sorry for anyone trying to head for the city and get on at Caulfield or further in! Back out it was slightly better, we could stand without being stood on, and its only a couple of stops from Carnegie to Oakleigh and home.

Two days at home by myself, two days of sheer laziness! A little browsing on the net, a little wandering around Oakleigh and surrounds. A whole lot of nothing very much.

This morning I walked off down the rail line to Huntingdale — a real run-down collection of tiny little shops. Very cheap fruit and vegetables, a couple of dusty travel agents, then lost myself in one of the second-hand goods stores. Floor to ceiling junk, I could barely turn around in the aisles. Old 486 PCs, 45s, 78s, old pianola rolls, floppy disks by the fist full, every kind of storage media you've ever seen, all covered in dust and all slung in a box or on a shelf.

Back to Oakleigh for lunch, bruschetta and beer and the same crowd of old Greek men smoking and young Greek lads hanging about. Neither lot ever seems to buy anything, they just sit and talk. Old men talking quietly and earnestly, young men talking loudly and assertively. Somewhere around them three or four other customers arrive, drink, eat, pay and leave!

Seymour, 12°C, cold, grey, drizzling rain! By the time we'd got to Melbourne you could forget all about the warm weather of the past four days!

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The long drive up the Hume highway. I keep my eye on the temperature gauge but it doesn't move. We stop in at North Gundagai for some dinner, but everything is shut — even the shop with the sign that proudly proclaims “YES, we ARE Open.” No, you are not! Can't I sue them or something? The one redeeming feature is the sunset and the colours of the sky over the statue of the famous Dog on the Tuckerbox, and by half-kneeling at its feet I manage to take a photograph without the presence of the buildings.

Back in the car and sure enough, as soon as it starts with a hot engine the dashboard idiot light comes on — then stays on the entire hair-raising hour to Yass. The temperature goes up when we go up hill, drops as we go down, never quite getting above three quarters, never entering the red, but never getting down to the mark where it ought to sit... I guess this means that Garry and Warren Smiths “repairs” were sheer guess-work.

A forecast high of 34°C and a long list of jobs to be done, the Christmas present wrapping seems to take forever! Across to Oakleigh shops for supplies and the heat hits me, cool again once I'm inside the little mall. Absolute mayhem inside, everyone going crazy with their last-minute shopping. An old lady walks off with another old lady's trolley, a tug-of-war starts, shouting and arm waving... Suddenly they realise what happens and everyone bursts into laughter and apologises.

Groceries, treats, presents and beer, then an unusual sight as I cross the road heading home. Vaguely familiar wedge-shaped sports car, very low, very shiny, glinting in the sun. DMC across the bonnet, “88MPG” as the number plate — I laugh as I realise, a Queensland registered DeLorean. My camera is buried under an entire bag of groceries, I'm too hot to dig it out, no photos, just a memory.

Ten o'clock at night and it was still thirty degrees as we drove in to Richmond, people everywhere in various states of pre-Christmas revelry. A quick espresso at Grandma Funks to try and liven things up — too much dinner sitting too heavily on the inside — then down to the Corner for the annual Mick Thomas show.

We arrived just as the support act was finishing giving us half an hour to get accustomed to the heat and the noise before Mick and the Sure Thing took the stage, spot on 11 o'clock. Found myself standing further back than ever before — oh my god, am I getting old? More likely too much too eat for dinner, neither Jo nor I felt liking pushing further through the crowd. At least this year we weren't next to any obnoxious mobile phone users.

Surprise of the night was when the band left at the end, then after the applause and shouting Mick returned with... hang on, isn't that? Jo, being a shorty, can't see the guest as easily, then she does, and being more of a fan than me is better at recognition. Yep, I guess it is Billy Bragg! Mick and Billy, two guitars, two distinctive voices, an interesting couple of songs.

Then the band encore, a rousing rendition of a number of favourites, then they're leaving the stage again. Time to go? Not quite, the house lights don't come on. Back again for one final song, what seems to be the closing number now, Stone Roses' Made of Stone.

Quarter past one, time to go home. Still thirty degrees in Richmond. How many more years will Mick keep the shows going? Some years they seem to be an imposition, other times, like tonight, he and the band appear to be having a whale of a time. I guess we'll find out next year, and the one after that....

  Sunrise 5:58am (EST), sunset 8:38pm (EST) at Melbourne, VIC, AU

The second last work day of the year, time passes at a crawl. Walking down to the Nott. for lunch the cicadas were singing in the trees, the sun beating down on my head, the new native flower beds all in bloom around the gate. Definitely a good time to be anywhere except at work.

There are too many half-finished pages on this site. Too many place holders, too many cases of “I'll fill that in later.” One of the half-baked pages just got three-quarters baked though. The “where” of where I've been is a little more automatic, a little less of a hack now.

Down alongside the house wasn't really a good place for the motorbike, too hard to get at, too much work to extract it out onto the street. As a result it had sat half-under the eaves for two and half months collecting rain and dust and losing battery magic. Last night I shuffled it back down the narrow path and out onto the front porch, jump-started it, blew an almighty great cloud of black smoke, and charged the battery....

This morning I rode to work, not an easy task! Seems the choke cable has jammed and the choke is stuck on. Idle speed crept up to around 4,000rpm, lots of noise, lots of smoke and a great deal of difficulty in changing gears! Definitely needs a little TLC.

Two months since my birthday! Amazing, time passes so quickly. I must be getting thoroughly old!

My current paper notebook is falling apart, its all held together with a rubber band, one of the worst paper books I've had since I started using them. I still haven't finished writing up the NSW Bike ride from back in March, let alone the trip to Vietnam.... Work has blocked my ssh access to external sites, but only when I dial in from home, I can access them fine when at work! So I can waste time at work, but not from home? That broadband home connection is looking more and more attractive....

Ho hum, a smelly candle. Very unimaginative lot my cow-orkers, three bottles of wine, two tins of biscuits, a calendar and a cook book. There was one interesting present, one that invoked much amusement and howls of laughter, but that would be telling...

Riding home I finally managed to stop and take a photo of the great mass of mysterious yellow railway equipment that's been sitting on the tracks these last two weeks. They fire up at around nine thirty at night and head out with much flashing lights, their nefarious deeds to perform, then come clanking and thumping back to roost at around 04:30 in the morning.

Not just shopping, but Christmas shopping. Christmas shopping in a crowded mall. Maybe my tolerance to crowds has increased after the exposure in Vietnam! Maybe I'm just getting old... Mindless hordes and soporific muzak, glazed-over eyes and screaming babies, Chadstone at night. Oh well, it had to be done, for in this society it is imperative that at this time of year you must buy more stuff.

A sense of humour was maintained, some gifts were aquired. I even resisted the impulse to either correct the nonsense that the Tandy staff was spouting regarding firewalls, or to simply punch him in the nose. I did feel sorry for the customer, glazed over eyes and $150 poorer by the end of it.

Some squinty-eyed rummaging found me a copy of The Triffid's In the Pines, and Treeless Plain in the bargain bin in JB Hi Fi. I even managed to buy them once the staff decided to stop chatting to each other and deign to serve a customer.

Almost exactly a year after first thinking of it, finally got around to trying to fit the tandem into the car (a Holden Astra). Well what do you know! Both wheels off, rear seat off, bit of wire to tie the rear derailleur up out of the way, handlebars almost poking the driver in the back of the neck; and it fits! No more excuses not to take it places and ride it....

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What would have to be the quote of the day, on one of the myriad mailing lists I'm on, concerning Miss Paris Hilton:

...I imagine it would be like having sex with a silk pillowcase full of coat hangers...

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Woohoo, that was fast. Eight days after ordering, a shiny new iPod photo turned up this morning. Now comes the fun part — making it work with the PCs that I have. Laptop runs Windows XP, has a copy of all my photos, is almost running out of disk space, and only has a USB 1.1 connector. The desktop PC has a copy of all my photos, has heaps of disk space, has a USB 2 connector, but is running Linux. Initially installed iTunes on the laptop, and told it to save its music library on the Linux machine. No go, the USB 1.1 interface won't work, not in any sort of reasonable time. Rebooting the desktop PC into XP, reinstalled all the iTunes and iPod software, danced the configuration dance, and it all seems to work. Now the desktop Windows PC imports photos from a share on the laptop and uploads them to the iPod, that is, when Windows XP doesn't keep popping up itty-bitty messages telling me that my USB 2 port is a USB 2 port, and that a new device is or is not attached. Yuck. Its all too ugly.

Does anyone else feel that they need reading glasses to see the serial number on the back of these things? Talk about tiny letters and numbers, engraved into a mirror-like surface! Is that a 5 or an S?

Lunch time barbecue today to celebrate the decommissioning of the staff NetWare 4 system... the email came out earlier in the morning: “The migration is completed all accounts have now been disabled ... except for blah, and blah...” Then a little later “and all the accounts for faculty blah have now been re-enabled....” So its nearly finished, real-soon-now, honest, it'll all be over by Christmas...

A quick detour this morning to the Oakleigh police to drop off the bicycle we'd picked up last night on the way home from dinner. At five thirty p.m. it was lying at the end of our street, it was still there at eight when we headed out for dinner, still there at eleven as we came home — a reasonable assumption then that it had been nicked and dumped. Police were their usual uninspiring selves when it came to reporting and recording stolen property “Brown Bicycle” was the limit of the documentation until I insisted that they put the serial number on the form! We can claim it back in three months, providing the real owner hasn't come forward and the police are able to find it again... don't hold your breath.

Shopping, cleaning, packing, preparing... a picnic lunch is required, but no metal cutlery allowed, no glass, no alcohol. No chance of terrorists hijacking the winery and flying it into a building, and plenty of opportunity for Rochfords to sell wine and beer to a captive audience.

An hour in the car to get to the Yarra valley, park in the paddock and walk endlessly up to the main gates. A superficial security check to ensure that we had no dangerous glass in our possession, then inside and up to the bar to buy glass bottles of beer! Security meet commercial opportunism.

The crowd was a miniature version of the “4WD height war” that takes place on the roads. Everyone wanted to be sitting on a fold-up chair so that they could be taller and see over everyone else who was sitting on a fold-up chair... those of us who chose to sit on a blanket on the ground had to pick our spots carefully! Even then we found that one individual decided to stand in the middle of the crowd for most of three hours, completely oblivious to those sitting around him.

Even got myself attacked by a roving pair of Telstra big pond models. Cute young girl and guy roving around with a camera, busy taking promotional shots to put on their website and try to convince you to join a BigPond broadband plan and pay $AU30 a month for 200MB and then 15c/MB if you go over the limit! No thanks Telstra!

Roaming around I managed to run into a friend I hadn't seen for almost ten years! Just after Jo and I joked who would be the first to see someone they knew. Neither of us had a pen or paper, so hiya Ainsley if you ever find this, I tried to look up your email address but couldn't find it, the almighty google failed me. Maybe I just can't remember how to spell your name...

A brief performance by Mick Thomas, a long and thorougly enjoyable set from Steven Cummings, non-descript singings from Fuel-oil, or Diesel, or whatever his name is, then a great show from the man and the band we'd all come to see, Elvis Costello and the Imposters. Greeting the Yarra Valley crowd as “Yabbadabba doo people” and launching into songs from his new album, the set included realms of older material, probably essential considering the apparent age of the audience!

I've done it now, become one with the iPoddies... W51320679.

It sure seems quite back here in Australia! Only a few cars in the distance, a couple of birds in the trees, one or two lawnmowers in the nearby gardens.

Walking over to the shops this morning I was struck by just how empty it all felt, the streets felt deserted, the aisles of the supermarkets all looked wrong after two weeks of tiny Vietnamese shops. Very disturbing, it must be incredible to live there, grow up there, then come to Australia.

I slept pretty poorly on the flight home from Kuala Lumpur to Melbourne, my earplugs and eye-covers were stupidly lost in my luggage. Together with two hours lost to time travel made for two tired travellers when we arrived in Tullamarine.

Magnificent sunrise from up at 37,000 feet though, the sky was blakc with a single patch of rainbow colours, gradually lightening to a salmon reflection off the wings and engines of the 747. I think it made for one of my better photographs! Early morning over South Australia and the Spencer gulf, the land just looked so flat and dry and brown after Vietnam!

Busy in Tullamarine, an Air China 777 had just landed, almost 400 chinese holiday-makers queueing at Immigration and Customs, all looking just as lost and language-challenged as we had at Ho Chi Minh airport. We finally escaped, but not before having to open all five lacquered photo albums to prove we weren't importing naughty wood products.

Arriving home, first on the agenda was a cup of tea, then a shower, then a couple of hours of sleep! In the afternoon I started the seemingly endless amount of washing and sorting of photos.

Damn, damn, damn! Sorting the photos was when I discovered that something had gone wrong in Hue in the rain last Thursday when the camera got wet and started behaving oddly. At the time it had showed me all the photos, but refused to take any more, but after “uploading” the memory card to the X-drive (and subsequently erasing the card), it appears that only some of the photos were transferred. 211-1198...211-1200 exist, 212-1201...212-1228 vanished, and from 212-1229 onwards, everything is alright again. Aarrggh! All the photos of Hué citadel and the palaces gone.

Its hard when there's only half a day left somewhere before you leave. You don't want to waste it, but in the back of your mind you don't want to be late for the bus, or the train, or the plane...

One last big walk around district one, stopped to chat with a man who liked my hat. There's that big half-constructed concrete monstrosity in the middle of the multi-lane road, turns out its a major new shopping centre, supposedly opening in early 2004... I guess it didn't make that deadline! It appears that they've just abandoned construction and walked away.

Back to the café for a last beer. A last attempt by the booksellers and shoe-shiners to get our custom. Watch as a crew from the local telephone company untangle enormous lengths of phone cabling from above the street, draping it over and around a myriad of motorbikes, a mix of aluminium ladders and bamboo poles.

Finally time for the taxi, a last look through Saigon's streets as we head out to the airport, then all the queueing and stamping and examining of papers — including a surprise departure tax that can be paid only in cash, and after you've passed through all the other security checks and the only auto-teller machine!

Finally out into the aircraft, a last look across the airport at the old military buildings, the blast walls still in place for fighters, the construction work for the new airport terminal, then we're on our way — homeward bound.

The rain cleared for a couple of hours again this morning, after breakfast at Thu's we could get out for almost two hours of walking without getting rained on! Down along the Perfume river, viewing the sad-looking tacky cruise boats, then back around through a local market and past the Vietnamese Olympic swimming pool. I didn't know that Vietnam had ever hosted the Olympics, but there was the building, plastered with the Olympic rings...

Back to the café to read our books for another hour or so, then pack the bags and wait for the airport bus. Leaving Hué all I can is that I'd love to visit again, but I'll make real sure I try and get here in drier weather! We stepped into the airport and the temperature dropped five degrees, into the departure lounge and it felt like another five, onto the plane and down it went again, we were sitting shivering by the time the plane started moving. The BBC announcer voice of the pilot caught us completely by surprise, totally unexpected to hear it here!

22°C in Hué and raining, one hour in the plane, then 32°C and sunny in Saigon! Back out through the crowds in the forecourt we felt as though we'd done this a hundred times before, maybe arriving on an internal flight meant that the touts weren't quite so aggressive, guessing that passengers would have a slightly better understanding of local prices.... Heading for the same hotel we'd stayed in last Wednesday, the driver got stalled by three fire engines blocking the street. Rather than stay and wait — they were already starting to leave — he chose to back out and squeeze down a back alley. By the time we got to the far end of the blockage and could look back up the street, the fire engines were long gone and the street empty!

Luxuriating in the dry weather, we strolled around the block, indulged in a few Saigon beers, then meandered around looking for more of the lacquerwork photo albums we had seen last week. It seems that once you decide on a specific souvenir, from then on every shop in the country takes them off display and hides them under the counter!

Sometime this morning the rain actually stopped for a while! We even thought the sky was clearing up. Then it started back up again and settled in for the day! We sat in the Khuyen Trang restaurant having banana pancakes for breakfast and decided that there was nothing for it — we'd just have to go out and get wet! The cyclo riders were all hanging around inside the cafés smoking, there are no fares to be made in weather like this.

Across the river to the citadel, this time we had the money to get in! A fascinating place, seemingly ancient, some of the old wooden palaces were only built in the last hundred years. Along the way the rain got into my camera and it started behaving strangely, the zoom would shoot in and out and eventually I couldn't convince it to take any more photos — a shame since there were some magnificent carvings, gardens and buildings, and all very empty since few other tourists were as eager to brave the rain as we were!

It seems that the rain was more of a problem for my camera than I thought. Of course I didn't find out until after I got home, blissfully ignorant since I can't see inside the portable hard disk to see what photos it really does have. Nearly thirty photos, the camera numbered them 211-1198 to 211-1199, 211-1200, then 212-1201 to 212-1228. Somewhere between camera and hard disk, the rain managed to convince something that twenty eight of them didn't exist anymore, so all that remains of the Citadel and palaces is in my memories...

Another dark morning in the room with no windows. Sometime during the early morning it had poured with rain, somewhere up on the roof it sounded as though there was a possum running around. Was it a monkey? was it a very big rat? No idea, at least it was on the outside!

A bit of a hurry to pay the hotel bill and make it round the corner for the 8 o'clock bus, then a forty minute wait in the bus for some other passengers! Same bus, same driver, as yesterday.

Out of Hoi An and passing the marble mountains there were, strangely enough, a million and one monument carvers and headstone carvers. Strange, limestone-like hills sitting straight up out of the flat plains. Drizzly rain beat against the windows, a good day to be on a long bus trip!

Misty and foggy as we wound our way up to the 600m pass, glimpses of the 1100m peak off in the clouds. Thick vines and jungle all around us, the north-south rail line visible down at sea level snaking its way along the coast. We were supposed to stop for twenty minutes up at the top of the pass, I think the car-park was full, the driver slowed a little, gave only one quick toot on the horn, then continued on down the other side — a shame, I would have liked to get out and look around! It wasn't the first time that the written itinary turned out to be advisory only!

Lunch stop near Lang Co beach for an hour or so — I had to laugh, the itinery implies lunch on a beautiful world-famous beach, not a truck stop two kilometres inland! Bbus-trip lunch stops seem the same the world over, pull into what ever business has an “arrangement” with the company, disgorge the passengers into the queue, fill them up, empty their wallets, get back on the bus... Jo and I didn't eat or drink anything, just stood around and chatted with a young girl while the others ate. I think she was about 12, spoke excellent English, and apparently French and Japanese as well! A combination of school lessons and selling souvenirs to the tourists seven days a week. For once someone actually seemed interested in talking, not just “you buy...”, “you give me...”. She showed us an impressive collection of foreign coins and notes... maybe the kids all do collect coins, not just scam them off tourists!

Still drizzling lightly when we got to Hué, then increased to a very constant rain for the rest of the afternoon. After checking in to the hotel and a bite to eat at the end of the alleyway, we walked across to the citadel, accepting that there was nothing else to do but go there and get wet. A strange sight, we had to fend of cyclos left and right, very persistent in offering us the dubiously dry interiors of their vehicles. We chose instead to keep walking, buying cheap disposable plastic raincoats that made us feel we were walking around inside freezer-bags.

After a couple of photos at the eastern gate we made it around to the main gate, only to discover that in our hurry in the rain, we didn't have the 111.000d to get in! The rain was getting heavier, it was getting gloomier, so it didn't really need much to send us back over the river — the perfume river — towards the hotel and some dry clothes!

Dry again, nothing much to do except sit around and watch the rain for an hour or so, then back out for a beer and to find some air tickets back to Ho Chi Minh City — quicker and easier than the train or bus, and looking very attractive in this Melbourne-winteresque weather! The front desk of the hotel offered to get the tickets for $86 a head, which was a bit of surprise compared with the advertised price of $52 or $53 we'd seen in Hoi An! We walked around the corner to the first travel agent we found, $56 and we were happy.

Tickets found, must be dinner time — walking around in the rain, looking for somewhere to eat, its not really hard, its just that sometimes nothing seems to appeal. Along the way one lady stall holder launched automatically into her sales pitch; gesturing at the bottles and asking “You want water?” I laughed and waved my hands at the sky, “Lady, I've got plenty of water.” All three of us burst out laughing.

No windows in the hotel room, freezing cold air-conditioning. What time is it? No idea. Time to get up yet?

Round to the Camel Café, each of these tour companies seems to have its own chain of shop-fronts and cafés, in every town we get to. A quick breakfast and onto the bus, sitting next to a Spanish guy who was having great difficulty understanding the guide's accented English — not really surprising, with the accent and the quality of the PA system, I think everyone was having trouble with the accent.

An hour and a half up to My Son, then two hours or so walking around the ruins. The mini busses and jeeps seemed to be taking forever to ferry everyone up the last kilometre of the road, so Jo and I walked, along with a number of others. Magnificent ruins of temples, lush undergrowth, only the sheer number of people around was a problem. A reminder that you can't really seem to travel freely the country, everyone arives en-masse in a coach, and its hard to get away from the idea that although you're free to visit, you're free to spend, you're quite constrained on where to visit, and where to spend. It also makes it hard to take those magnificent “temple against the jungle” photos, when there are fifty to a hundred other people all trying to do the same thing!

The largest temple of them all was apparently still intact until the 1970's when the Americans first bombed it, then landed a team of sappers to blow it up. The Vietnamese make a big deal of telling you how the Americans destroyed this world heritage listed building — what they don't tell you is that the Viet Cong were using the temples as a base, precisely because they believed the Americans would not attack them! Magnificent pieces of stone sculpture lie around, some displayed in buildings, some outside with labels, mostly just lying where they last fell. Amusingly poor signs in English tell some of the story, or just ask that you “...not climb on the tempes”

Back in the bus for the first 20km, then half of us got out for the boat trip while the rest stayed on. After quarter an hour of waiting around our transport arrived, another river boat trip, tasty noodle lunch and a journey down stream taking us first to “the clay pot island”, then “the wood boat island”. On the first of these we quickly discovered where all the thousands of tonnes of red clay plant pots in the world seem to come from, I've no idea how much clay is left in the island, but at the rate they seem to be making pots, they'd better start thinking about what to do when they've dug their island away! The wood island seemed to be the source of much of the world's outdoor timber furniture, it looks almost laughable when you see so much of it in one place at a time. The men wander around the workshops barefoot with a cigarette hanging off one lip, buzzsaws and sawdust all around, the women man the tills, selling the produce. Four or five fishing boats lined a construction line, from a bare set of ribs and framework to an almost finished boat. The one thing I didn't find out was how they move them from one stage to the next down the production line and eventually into the river...

Once back on dry land again it was beer time on the Hoi An waterfront, before heading off for another walk around through the markets to explore a different set of streets. Pure chance lead us to a great colonial-style hotel — annoyingly, I forget its name. Amazingly too, the Ramones were playing on their CD player. Definitely a sign to stop and have another beer — then some spring rolls. Very bizarre to be sitting in a tropical courtyard, sipping beer and listening to Ramones.

More walking, more shopping. Somewhere along the way I got completely disoriented and came back out of shop and turned left instead of right, starting to head back the way I'd come. Jo realised, I didn't, much confusion. Is it the northern hemisphere playing tricks on my sense of direction, or is it the beer? Some silk pencil cases and silk purses (no sow's ears) for presents, and Jo found a beautiful lacquerwork photo album for 95.000dong — we'd seen some others, but can't seem to find the right combination of size, colour, and price!

Pizza for dinner! A tasty passable pizza too at the Treats Café, lots of hustle and bustle, lots of travellers, a pair of German girls complaining about the size of their servings, then complaining when they were charged extra for larger serves. Is it the Germans always complaining, or do I just notice complaining Germans? Two other unlikely looking travellers were sitting at the next table, both meat-packers from Bordertown in South Australia, they'd just spent five weeks in India, which they said was very hard work but memorable, and were relaxing in Vietnam taking things easy.

Another night on the train, again I slept badly. I think it was not knowing when we were supposed to get to Da Nang, I should have checked yesterday but didn't, as a result, I kept waking each time the train rumbled and wondering "I this it? Are we there yet?"

From dawn onwards I lay in my bed and watched out the window, the farms along the track gradually coming alive. Water buffalo everywhere in the fields. Different countryside again to further south. At one point we had to sit and wait for quarter of an hour for the south-bound train to pass, there only being double track along some stretches.

Finally got to Da Nang at 08:30 and caught up with some other backpackers all on their way to Hoi An — the four of us hired a taxi for the 25km trip. $17 for the trip, the driver seemed quite maniacal, I think he was trying to "prove" something to the English couple. Their comments about not being able to stand the traffic or the driving just seemed to egg him on.

As with every other driver you meet, he seemed to have a hotel in mind, either friends, relatives, or just a good back-hand source of money. Too new for the guide books, especially the Lonely Planet, which sadly seems to be a kind of self-fulfilling bible. If its in the bible, the backpackers go there and it survives, if it isn't, nobody goes there and it fails. “Is not in your book”, a quote heard too many times, one that was starting to make us cringe. The hotel was only eight months old, a five minute walk to the old part of town, big three-star rooms for $10, $12 and $15 a night.

Shower, shave, and off into town for brunch. Omelettes in an upstairs café overlooking part of the "old town". Ho An is a very touristy town — all crafts and souvenirs, silks and paintings, completely different from the brash hotels and resorts of Nha Trang, more like the old walled towns of Europe.

Then it was off to walk around, looking at innumerable ceramic souvenirs, shoes, shirts, clothes. We tried to step onto the historic Japanese covered bridge, but discovered that you need to but a ticket from the tourist office; somewhere back down the road in town. Similarly all the historic buildings and shops require tickets in American dollars. It was pleasant enough just to walk around, the bridge looking far better from outside than inside anyway!

A tiny little old lady in traditional costume kept trying to get people to take photos of her — for cash. A young girl asking for your countries' coins "for her collection". As soon as she found out we were from Australia she very quickly asked for $AU1 and $AU2.

The markets by the river were chocked with the standard Vietnamese tourist tee-shirts. This time we actually bought a few, four for $5, unlike the German tourist who stomped in ahead of me, asked how much, and paid $4 for one shirt without batting an eyelid. I seemed to get a good price on a Chinese compass — I really wasn't interested in taking it, so when the price wouldn't fall enough I really did just give up and walk off. It must have looked sincere, the lady accepted my price and then wouldn't give me any change, kept on trying to fill up the difference with other bits of tat from her stall. I patiently stood there saying, "no, no, no...." until finally I got my change, a free gift, and a laugh. I think she enjoyed the whole performance.

A pleasant change from all the “no prostitutes” signs in the hotel rooms, here we were only exhorted to:

  Don't bring weapon, inflammable, pets,
  foul things into the hotel.

Seven a.m. and chainsaws started up directly outside our window — even more surprising considering we are on the fourth floor! The trees next door in the grounds of the large yellow utilitarian Vietnamese government building are all coming down. Some young kids have got up onto the roof and are running around hiding from each other, strangely at odds with the guard-post on the road and the military look of the rest of the building and grounds.

An early morning start, down to the tour office to wait for the bus to the boat. The staff from last night walked straight up to me and asked for their extra $10 change back. Happy to overcharge, but no chance of getting any accidental change out of them!

Down to the docks to find the right boat, the boats are everywhere, standard tour goes to a mix of the standard places. Busloads going out for a day of islands, swimming, drinking and partying.

Nowhere near as hot and sunny as yesterday, probably a good thing or we'd all be sunburnt badly! Swimming around in the sea, wonderfully warm, but nothing very interesting to see — despite goggles and snorkel, there were only a few small fish in the water, and the water was murky. Every piece of interesting coral and shellfish has been taken and sold to the tourists.

Remember; Do not use the toilet when the boat is not moving. Someone forgot, or didn't care. Vietnamese tour boats' toilets drop straight into the South China Sea, as a result, large turds can suddenly appear drifting through the frolicking tourists as they swim back towards the boat. Not pleasant if you're in the water, kind of hilarious if you're in the boat.

Enough of the swimming, stage two of the trip was to cruise to another island, drop anchor and have a huge lunch. The seats all fold up and become one huge table, masses of fruit and seafood appear, and everyone tucks into a magnificent feast. Then its time for music, dancing and foolishness. The crew are determined that its a party boat and you will party!

Off to another island, this one is a government-run resort. An enforced stay of two hours. You can windsurf — if you pay. You can lie on a deck chair — if you pay. You can have a pedicure — if you pay. You can jet-ski — if you pay. You can go kite-surfing — if you pay. You can just sit and drink beer — if you pay. If you don't want to pay, there isn't very much to do — and you have to pay to get on the island!

The last island of the day is almost cultural by comparison. There's a chance to be paddled around in one of the round woven boats, even to paddle one yourself. Two ladies seem to effortlessly make the boats move across the bay with a load of tourists, when the tourists paddle, the boat merely bobs up and down or spins in a circle.

Towards the end of the day the loud French Canadians gradully became louder, obnoxious, drunk, French Canadians. The rest of us were just waiting for them to fall off the boat, or start punching each other. Eventually one of them tried to be smart, smacking his mate in the face as he climbed in over the side of the boat. Back he went into the water, skull barely missing the edge of the dock. The Party Boys manning the boat seemed to get real serious real quick, the drunkard was lifted back on board and the young boy of the crew donned snorkel and goggles to dive back and forth looking for a missing pair of glasses. Amazingly, the glasses were recovered, then we were all on our way back towards Nha Trang.

Last night I had trouble getting to sleep in the train, partly due to the novelty, but primarily worried about waking at the right time and not missing our stop! I needn't have worried, the conductor made quite a show of opening the compartment door and letting me know that Nha Trang was the next stop.

Hustle and bustle at the station, even at 5:40am, we stepped outside and had to run the gauntlet of cyclos, taxi drivers and motorcycle riders, all busy touting themselves or their hotel — even though it is only ten minute's walk from the station to just about anywhere. We sat ourselves down and had a coffee and very patiently tried to out-wait a tenacious motorcyclist who finally left only after I had profusely thanked him, taken his name, pocketed his hotel's card and started to make our way on foot!

En route to the hotel we missed a corner and became hijacked by two other motorcycle riders who were determined to take us to their hotel. Nothing we did would convince them to leave us alone and they doggedly followed us at a walking pace back around the block, guiding us towards the hotel we were looking for, but then nearly confusing us and leading us into the one next door!

One hotel or the other, it really didn't matter. They're all much the same price, all offer much the same facilities. The only problem was that we felt slightly guilty, having promised the first pair of motorcyclists that we would visit their hotel.

A cold lemon juice, a shower, feeling much cleaner and refreshed. Off for a walk to the beach. There it is, the South China Sea, what a romantic story-book sounding name! The beach was almost deserted, a bicycle standing up in the sand as its owner swam about in the surf. Checking the time we found that it was hardly surprising that the beach was deserted — it was still only around nine in the morning, but already becoming quite hot on the beach in the sun!

Time to escape from the sun and head for the markets, then breakfast on a delicious bowl of wonton soup noodle soup. Into the markets and once again we were hijacked, this time by a woman who gave us the royal tour before dragging us off two streets away to her shop to try and sell us tailor-made clothes — I wasn't interested but Jo was, a fatal display of interest that resulted in a great deal of perusing of catalogues and fabrics, many measurements with the tape measure, detailed instructions being recorded in a tiny notebook, and a promise that the suit would be delivered at five o'clock this evening. We left exhausted, not sure if the price eventually arrived at was reasonable, arbitrary, or if the goods would turn up at all...

Off from their on foot towards the Po Nagar Cham towers — about 2km away, with no real idea of where they were or what they looked like. By now it was very hot, walking along the main road in the dust and the noise past all the motorbike shops and fish-net repairers. Stepped neatly over a bad fake US $100 note, just blowing along the footpath. Nearly picked it up but decided not to in case it was some sort of scam — the picture on it was laughable though!

As we crossed one of the bridges, suddenly we realised that the enormous great buildings sticking up out of the trees on the island in front of us was the towers. It was a case of “Oh, those towers...”. Very striking, suddenly appearing up out of the mass of modern concrete. Cool and dark inside them too, a pleasant break from the sun!

Leaving the towers, we wanted to visit the Long Son Pagoda, unfortunately all the way back across town and just across the road from the train station where we'd started! It seemed even hotter, our pace even slower, and interrupted by a couple of pauses for cool drinks and to sit in the shade.

The entrance to the pagoda grounds is the stomping ground of a horde of postcard-selling girls from the Buddhist school — collectively trying to flog off bundles of ten cards, at first for 50,000 dong, gradually working their way downwards. Incredibly persistent, and nearly impossible to get rid of. Only a few steps past them and we were met by a “monk” who almost grabbed us in his zeal to escort us up the stairs in his snaggle-toothed way up to the 18m reclining buddha, the 152kg ceremonial bell, up to the big buddha — Kim Phan Phat To — at the top. All this performed with almost indecent haste and a minimal sentence or two at each point. He quickly shuffled us off down an alley of commemorative plaques, then pointed to a dinghy gap between the bricks and explained that it was the “donation box.” I nearly laughed, despite thinking we were being set up for a mugging, pointed back at the buddha and the real donation box, and told him which donation box I'd be using! He hovered around us for a few more minutes before finally demanding 20,000 dong per head for his tour, then snearing at the smaller donation Jo offered, made a big show and tell of “monk must eat”, plaintive looks, hand-eating motions, then stalked off back down the hill to look for more visitors.

Free at last, we had time for a more leisurely exploration on the way back down, past the beggars and stepping over and around the syringes and ampoules littering the ground.

Back at the base of the hill we discovered that the pagoda had opened after lunch, so ducked inside, saw a real monk who did not hassle us for money or donations, and had a good look around.

Five o'clock came and went as we sat around wanting to head out for dinner, but couln't because the suit hadn't arrived. Three quarters of an hour passed and I amused myself reading brochures for nearby tourist attractions, including the following for some mud baths:

  Soaking hot mineral water feels so cool even it is hotly!!!?
  Indeed, benefits of mineral materials in the spring and mud
  will be out the pore, excreting body's sweat activated, and
  reducing temperature of skin surface afterward. You feel so
  freshly even it is hotly.

Finally a motorbike rode up, the suit was delivered and it was fairly obvious that the pants were simply taken straight off the rack, being nothing like the earlier description, style, or measurements! At least the jacket was what was intended. Another quarter of an hour sitting around while the woman went back to her shop to get — perhaps to make — the right ones.

Then off to book tmorrow's boat trip and a train onwards to Da Nang — a stroke of luck for once, after first being charged $US20 for “hard sleeper” bunks and only getting them reduced to $US18, I got an extra $US10 in change back — a pleasant change from being gouged and short-changed by everyone we meet!

Down along the beach to the Sailing Club — but only for a beer. Picture postcard perfect scenery — almost a cliché with its romantic ambience. Sunset, palmtrees, waves on the beach, South China sea. Food and drink prices were as high as Melbourne, so it was off on foot around the block, there we found the Cyclo Café and had a really tasty cheap meal of cuttle-fish (Mue) and fish (ca). Then stroll back to the hotel, dodging the prostitutes, touts and myriad of motorbikes.

An early start to the day, breakfast was at a little French café across the road from the hotel, of a tiny petite pain and café americain. Back across the road to Happy Tours for the 8 o'clock bus. Omar the tour guide quite a character — English translator in the war — once he found out we were “Aussies” he started spouting forth all his very aussie sayings, all tonally perfect, straight from the 1970s.

Three-quarters of an hour trip out to the tunnels, an interesting mix of history and tourism. Karl, a large German lad had a bit of trouble fitting in some of the places, as did Gemma. Karl was not impressed by Omar's continued use of “Heil Hitler” once he was found to be German.

One interesting aspect was the resident guide/guard at the tunnels. He never spoke a word of English, or smiled, just lead us around very seriously in his military uniform, or quietly gave Omar an instruction. Omar, for all his loud bluster and shiny teeth, quite quickly did precisely what he was told.

Our silent guide demonstrated how the real tunnel covers were concealed, how they were lifted, how the tunnels were entered. Volunteers were called for, one Australian guy just managed to squeeze in, then Jo had a go, the skinny girl fit easily, prompting laughter from the two Vietnamese — although finding the timber cover was heavy and hard to lift.

After the tunnels came the opportunity for some target practice, for $1 a round you can fire pretty much anything you want — a pistol to an M30 or M60 machine gun! Vietnamese “officers” gave quick firearm safety lessons, then stood alongside as tourists in earmuffs blasted away in the general direction of the targets. Of course the Vietnamese who stand there all day, do not wear any hearing protection.

Back in the bus and back to Ho Chi Minh City, some reading showed that the tunnels we were visiting were all built after the war as replicas, demonstrating what real tunnels were like for the tourists!

The afternoon was spent on a tour of Chinatown with “Mr Dalat” and “Mr Hue”, who we'd met this morning on our walk around the block and promised to take a tour with. All smiles and example notes from his “references book this morning — these guys must have enormous supplies of handwritten notes! A little under three hours, I think we were overcharged in the end, probably because we offered dong rather than dollars, still trying to get the hang of how the currencies work. An enjoyable trip though, very relaxing to sit in the cyclo and be ferried around, and to walk around in the temples.

Pre-dinner beers out on the street watching the day-time traffic subside and the evening trade come out. Red-faced ex-patriots sat and talked loudly at the table nearby, a half-drunk dutchman wanted to know what I was writing so I said I was writing that I'd just been asked by a half-drunk dutchman what I was writing.... A burnt-out looking Canadian sat and drank a glass of water, a sweaty fat Australian man sat with his unhappy-looking Viet wife. Cards on the tables warned us to beware of the shoe-shine boys as they would steal our bags and tear our shoes. Two or three came and offered shoe-shine, warnings true or not, we chose not to employ them — especially since we were both wearing sandals!

Dinner upstairs on the second floor of Café 333, up off the street, safe from the booksellers and shoe polishers! Yet again, great food, and yet again we ran into some of the other travellers from the tunnel trip.

There was torrential all night, I guess the rainy season hasn't quite ended yet! At 06:30 there was a hammering on the door, telling us to get up in the dark and get ready, otherwise we'd be late. Breakfast out on the balcony watching the rain fall along with Gemma and Jacquie, then race across the courtyard to get in the bus, trying to minimize the amount of rain exposure.

Down to the river for a boat trip out to a fish-farm, luckily the rain stopped as we arrived. The fish farms are large floating sheds on pontoons, the cages underneath holding thousands of river fish. All day long the owners boil up the fish feed, a porridge-like mass made from rice-husks, vegetable matter and left-over fish. The fish feed is shovelled into sacks, left to cool for a while, then fed to the waiting hordes below. On the boat that tourists visit, one lucky “volunteer” is selected from the audience and gets to feed the fish. Our guide to one look at our group and selected me — a brief instruction to mush the feed up in a bucket so it cools down, then throw it in a handful at a time. Like something out of a bad piranha documentary the water exploded, catfish threshing wildly as they gorged themselves. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the rest of the group step further and further back from the fountaining river water as they all laught, I just tried hard not to swallow too much while laughing and being soaked.

From the fish-farm we visited one of the ethnic minority villages where silk clothes are woven — and sold to tourists. Very polite people, the one elderly man insisted that I, being the only male in the group, sit and drank tea with him while all the women try on various pieces of silk clothing.

Boat back to the docks and into the bus, then a detour into the town to find two passengers who should have been with us that morning. They were waiting at their hotel, having managed to get lost earlier in the morning, then soaked in the rain, and had decided to go back and get changed rather than meet us on the dock.

Back on the road we had ten or fifteen minutes to visit a market, our guide was extremely annoyed, partly by the two German girls who had managed to get lost, miss the boat, delay everyone, and then insist that we stop so that they could go to the toilet now, and partly because of the political turn of some of the conversation. A few of the people in the bus were asking about the school hours, where-ever we went there seemed to be kids around, Chin had insisted that all the children all went to school and that it was all paid for by the government, but also said that schools were expensive and cost different amounts and many parents couldn'y afford to send their children to school. The conversation went around and around with us in the bus getting confused, and him getting more and more defensive — a reminder that for all the wild free-market economy in Vietnam, it is very much a socialist state in some ways and people did not like any political topics being brought up.

From lunch in Can Tho back to Ho Chi Minh city Chin sat in a sullen silence, we all thought that the visit to the incense factory had been abandoned, but out of the blue the bus pulled up at the road side where we got out to see a colourful array of incense sticks, and a family business turning raw cane and sacks of yellow goo into dried and packaged incense bundles.

A road-side stop at the café nearing Ho Chi Minh city almost turned into disaster, the other mini-bus hadn't stopped at the incense factory and there was a great deal of argument about who'se fault it was. Our guide seemed to be calling the other driver names, but the other guide was claiming we'd never told them to stop. It finally blew up with the driver smashing his glass on the ground, leaping to his feet and waving a steel bar around, Chin running off, then storming off into the gardens shouting over his shoulder.

Back in Ho Chi Minh City we walked out onto the street from the where the bus dropped us off, turned right, walked three doors up the street and decided that this hotel would do. Right in the centre of the backpacker district, cheap, friendly, comfortable. Changed and took stock of our finances, then back out onto the evening streets for food.

??

Bus, boat, boat, boat, another boat, big boat, little boat, tiny boat, back on the big boat, then back on the bus to the ferry boat.

The Mekong delta has a lot of boats! Over the course of the day I think we must have travelled on at least one of every type.

A comical start to the day, a mini-bus picked us up from the agent where we'd booked the tickets, then spent ten to fifteen minutes winding around the block to the real travel agent where everyone had to get off the mini-bus and onto the real coach! I think the second agent was actually closer to where we'd been staying.

An hour or so in the bus and we got to My Tho, out of the bus to wander around the fruit and fish market for half an hour before getting on the first of many boats for a cruise across to Turtle island for lunch in a fruit plantation. Hot and humid — what a surprise!

Another boat to another island to see coconut candy being made, sweet sticky lumps of it ending up in rice-paper wrappers for the tourists to buy. Then there was banana wine to try — a corrosive home-brew vaguely resembling sake. Some entertainment from a three piece band, then a trip back down the minor canals in the smallest of today's boats. Four passengers in single file, with a paddler at either end — the two young girls in our boat looked as though this was their first trip at carrying passengers, while the other boats headed off in a straight line down the canal, ours zig-zagged slowly from bank to bank, almost ramming a bridge pylon as the girl at the front tried to head around it to the left while the girl at the rear tried to go right. They didn't tip us out though, so we made it back to the bigger boat for the trip back to rejoin the bus, then by road to Can Tho (even though I think our itinary says we should go by boat to Can Tho).

Staying in a two-star hotel in Can Tho in a window-less brick room. Mosquitoes abound. Most of the group went out to dinner together at a café facing the river, more correctly, facing the enormous statue of Uncle Ho in the park that faces the river. After dinner Jo and I walked along the river bank looking at the lights reflecting in the water and the enormous paddle-wheeler bringing five-star tourists to the hotel complex on the waterfront.

Spent the morning walking around and around the backpacker area down near the river in district one, breakfast in an alley-side café. Breakfast seemed a long time coming, banana pancakes shouldn't take long to cook... we found out why when a girl on a scooter came flying up the alley and handed over the bag of bananas to the cook! Nobody seems to have anything at hand, they just run out and buy it from someone who does.

Into the war material markets; old stuff, new stuff, hardware, nails, screws, hats, clothes, gas-masks, instruments from 1970's aircraft, you name it! Then outside and into Saigon's equivalent of Elizabeth street, scooter repairers and scooter shops for miles and miles.

Hopped on a cyclo for a trip up to the Reunification palace, Jo sitting on my knee, the two of us in awe at the driver's legs! I guess our combined weight is still less than half what some of the other loads weigh. With impeccable timing we arrived just as the palace closed for lunch, so walked on around the block to the War Museum, arriving half an hour later as they too closed for lunch. Nothing for it but to sit in the park for half an hour, then follow the pricking of our thumbs to a café, Café Tao Ban, for a very tasty “point and nod” lunch.

Lunch over, back around the block to the Reunification palace for the official tour with a very helpful and knowledgable young guide. The whole building is a time-capsule of the 1970's officialdom, furntiture, drapes, light-fittings, decorations and gifts from other countries. Even the basements are full of the communications equipment of that era, looking suspiciously as if it could be switched back on and into service if needed! The tour started on the ground floor, wound up through the official chambers to tbe rooftop ballroom (with adjoining helipad), even the famous secret door to the stairs to tbe basement was mentioned — previously hidden behind a wall, now revealed in all its glory. At the conclusion of the tour we were free to leave, or to stay and watch a rather heavy-handed propoganda video of the history of the building and the country. We chose to stay, the video was interesting enough, but mostly because the room was airconditioned!

Outside and a quick poke around tanks numbers 390 and 843, the two that first broke down the gates and liberated the palace in 1975, then walk back around the block to visit the War Remnants Museum.

The War Remnants Musuem, previously known as the Museum of American and Chinese Imperialist War Crimes. A very sobering place. A new museum is under construction, the current one is a collection of small halls around the grounds, artillery and aircraft spread around between them. It was definitely easier to focus on the huge amounts of American military hardware and spent ammunition, than to dwell on the photographs and descriptions of the victims of the war, the American War as the Vietnamese call it. 540,000 US soldiers, hundreds of thousands of tons of bombs, huge numbers of birth defects. Even 30 years later, continuing health problems for large parts of the country and unexploded munitions in many places. Bush, Blair, Howard, shut up, come here and read the words, see the pictures.

A quiet and reflective beer afterwards. Images stuck in my head.

Uh oh, too long passes between flying the flight and writing about it. Sad-looking airline breakfast, an hour waiting and walking around and around in Kuala Lumpur airport — nothing much to do, after the first circuit of the terminal we just kept on going around... Sit and watch local flights take off and land, finally time to get on the plane for Ho Chi Minh City. Not sure yet what to expect...

Arrival at HCMC dumps us all into an enormous hall. Officious looking customs and immigration staff sit in tall booths and look through mirrored sunglasses. One by one the papers are checked, passports scrutinized, then we're through and out to pick up the luggage. Out the doors and into bedlam. Enormous crowds of families, relatives, taxi-drivers, touts and guides, all shouting, all frantically waving. Tropical heat, pollution, the endless THUMP, THUMP of pile drivers building the new international terminal.

A guide grabs us and wants to know where we're going, we name a hotel — at random, from the Lonely Planet — he shakes his head and tells us that its closed, being renovated. A taxi is summoned and we seem to be bundled inside, on our way to another hotel “very near”, “very good.” It isn't the cheapest, but we don't know that yet, its right next to the market, the view is good, the people friendly, we're on holiday, it doesn't really matter, we stay...

We're up on the eight floor, the windows look out across the main road, miles of smokey haze and buildings, endless bustle and motorbikes. Or we can look down into the street outside, barely wider than an alley, people and bikes and cars and taxis, all jostling for space, all busy, all moving.

Time for an orientation tour. We gird the loins, grab the guide book, fold the map, and head off into the great outdoors. Quickly discover that you can't walk on the footpaths, the footpaths are for motorbike parking — you walk on the roads, smoothly, calmly and predicatably, and all the other traffic just moves around and passes everything, and nobody ever seems to get hit. Crossing the road seems daunting at first, there's no break, the pedestrian crossings seem purely ornamental. We look around and watch the other pedestrians, they just flow smoothly through the traffic, we try it and it works, just remember — slowly — and start to look both ways, some bikes will always be on the nominal wrong side of the road!

Through the Ben Than markets, I buy a pair of cheap cotton trousers, even then I think I get swindled — when I get outside and look in the bag, they're not quite the ones I handed the woman, and there's things in the pockets and dirt on the knees, whose pants are they?

People, scooters, bicycles, cyclos. Up the streets and around the city museum, then across to the cathedral — a big neon-light-like sign replacing the original leadlight window. Plenty of French colonial-style architecture, the magnificent Hotel de'Ville Mustard-yellow paint on many walls, red flags flying. A statue of Uncle Ho, complete with two armed guards loitering nearby in case the tourists try anything silly. I take a photo of Jo and Ho, the limit of my silliness.

It must be time for a beer by now, our first beer in the country. We found a bar — the Blue Bar — we found a beer — a Tiger beer. What else to drink after that but Saigon beer in Saigon — oops — Ho Chi Minh City.

Well, it wasn't raining this morning, so I headed off on the bike in my one remaining dry set of nicks. Too bad, lunch time and the sky got grey, the ground got wet. Drenched again!

Eek! I've been Myer-Brigs-ificated. Today's random four letter assortment says I'm an ITSP. Must remember to try it again some time and see what other possibilities I can come up with.

ITSP — Engineer. Values freedom of action and following interests and impulses. Independent, concise in speech, master of tools.

1. 4% of total population.

   Conscious type 5w6

   You are more interested in intellectual puruits than social activity. You have no concern for what is popular or socially appropriate. You are very introverted. Be on guard against too little physical activity or not doing things you want to do.

   Unconscious type 6w5

   You are an introverted non-conformist and tend to be very indecisive. You go with what feels right and are more prone to anger than fear. You have low self control. You tend to be unfocused and messy. You are very skeptical.

Me, skeptical? I don't know about that...

?huh?

Daylight saving started yesterday, another round of clock changes. Although after April's decision the camera is one less that needs to be touched. Just what is the preferred way of timestamping images though? The EXIF data doesn't seem to have any provision for timezone information. 2004-10-29T22:50:42 or 2004-10-30T08:50:42+1000? I think I'll stick with UTC inside all my photos, and fiddle it to and from local timezones in the RDF... Surely I'm not the only person who's thought of this?

I've been GPS tagging most of my photos in my copious spare time... none too accurately I'll admit, but a best guess based on the maps that Microsoft's World-Wide Media Exchange tagger brings up. [wwmx.org]. I like the proposals for location information that's on EXIF.org, but without biting the bullet and writing it myself I can't see myself getting anything that can manipulate the tags. Still, it'd be nice to have photos sortable by "AU, Victoria, Bright" or "AU, 3121" for example...

...

Lorne is overflowing with bird-life, hopefully the increase in development and cat numbers won't change this too much. Even in the last few years the currawongs seem to hang around all year round, bigger and more boistorous, they don't seem to have had too much effect on the smaller bids — yet. Then down at the river, the ducks are in a perpetual state of feeding frenzy, stuffed to immobility on bread from the tourists. We're just as guilty, putting out seed for the parrots and the odd bit of bacon rind for the Kookaburras...

From breakfast to lunch time I think we counted thirty different species, the first five in under a minute just by looking out the window. King parrots (Alisterus scapularis), a Gang-gang cockatoo (Callocephalon fimbriatum), a currawong (Strepera graculina) chasing a family of blue wrens (Malurus cyaneus), a pair of eastern spinebills (Acanthorhynchus tenuirostris) chasing each other through the wattle branches. Thornbills picking up insects, red wattlebird (Anthochaera carunculata) and new-holland honeyeater (Phylidonyris novaehollandiae) poking into the grevillea flowers.

Walking down to the beach there's the ubiquitous magpie (Gymnorhina tibicen) and raven (Corvus coronoides), black duck (Anas superciliosa) and wood duck (Chenonetta jubata) in the river, a pied cormorant (Phalacrocorax varius) perched above it and a pair of white-faced herons (Egretta novaehollandiae) asleep on the bank. Sulfer-crested cockatoos (Cacatua galerita) and galahs (Eolophus roseicapillus) over the scrub, pacific gulls (Larus pacificus), little terns (Sternula albifrons), lapwings (Vanellus miles) and another cormorant out at the pier. “Gerroff ya stoopid duck,” yells the fisherman — somewhat ignorantly — as the cormorant steals his bait for the second time. Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris), sparrows (Passer domesticus), indian mynahs (Acridotheres tristis) and swallows all hopping or flitting around as we have a coffee.

A black cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo), a Kookaburra (Dacelo novaeguineae), out on a bike ride later in the day there are three pied oyster-catchers (Haematopus longirostris) flying over the rockpools, goldfinches (Carduelis carduelis) near the pub, mudlarks (Grallina cyanoleuca) on the lawns. Enough! I don't think I got to thirty, but I probably missed some.

...

...

Two-twenty a.m. Torrential rain hammering on the roof wakes me up. I can't hear any drips inside, so I guess that's a good thing..

Three-thirty, the rain finally stops and I can stop worrying about whether the roof will collapse!

Three forty-five, the possum leaps from the neighbour's orange tree onto the roof, then skitters across the tin and vanishes.

Four a.m. With daylight saving due to commence next week, its starting to get light and the birds are chirping already.

Four thirty-five. The first train of the day rumbles its way through Oakleigh station, a big diesel freight by the sound of it. For good measure, the driver blasts on the hooter just in case anyone is walking across the rail lines.

Five o'clock, the trucks and traffic are starting up on Warrigal road and I still can't get back to sleep!

Somewhere around five-thirty I finally got back to sleep. I must have done, because I felt like death around eight when I woke up...

Will I or won't I ride to work? Grey skies and light drizzle, not very pleasant to look at. All of a sudden the storms hit again. OK, that's my mind made up then, I'll be taking Jo's car! A quick scurry across the road to the post office to pick up our passports, even that managed to get my shoes soaked. People everywhere were hiding in doorways, or battling recalcitrant umbrellas as they tried to stay dry. Back home, then dive into the car to get to work.

Along the way I did my good deed for the day. Stopping for petrol I spotted a shiny bicycle leaning against the wall of the servo, and the shivering young overseas student standing inside in soaked jeans and polo-shirt, my immense powers of deduction reasoned that maybe he might just be a Monash student... Aha, I was right, and yes, he did very much appreciate the offer of a lift to the uni!

Flickr has a really distinctive and appealling way of visualising “tags” (keywords) on their photos. Something to keep in mind as a way of presenting the information I guess... [http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/]

I've found a way to convert the [[/journal/2004/10/15][mysterious Microsoft-only]] TIFF files into JPEGs. Squirrelled away on the PC that does the scanning in our student labs is some HP scanning software that allows you to convert from one format to another, pity that the universally usable one isn't the default! The first four are from September last year, I know that two were picked up on September 8, I guess the other two were earlier when I was in Switzerland! So here's the start of another project — the scanning of the big box 'o postcards...

Postcards

Since moving house something seems to have gone wrong with our ability to feed ourselves! We either run out of food in the cupboards, or we can't work out what to cook for dinner. This morning I got up to try and make bacon and eggs for breakfast, only to remember that we'd run out of eggs. No problem, plan B is bacon and avocado on toast. Ah, a problem. No bread to make toast! Time for plan C, explore what Oakleigh has to offer in the way of a bought breakfast!

The Cosmic Bear café, kiwi accents and tasty bacon and eggs. Three good coffees and one dodgy one. Good corn fritters and a great tomato chutney — it was all from a stand-in chef, so I guess we have to go again to find out what the regular one is like.

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A wonderful warm spring day today, so what did I do in my lunch hour? Spent the hour walking around the University and find that I am still discovering little gardens and courtyards that I don't know about!

It's a very long way, and a very long day. Being woken by the alarm at 04:45, having to get out of a nice warm bed and eat breakfast in the dark — surely these aren't things that people chose to do on the weekend, on their days off?

No way was I going to ride all the way in to Docklands for the 5:30 start, I checked on the map and it was the same distance from Docklands to the end of North road in Brighton as it is from our house to the end of North road, so I felt justified in leaving home and heading straight along North road. Its a strange time of day to be out riding, on the sun's just starting to come up, on the plus side there's hardly any traffic, on the down side, what traffic there is tends to be tired taxi drivers or drunk night-club goers heading home.

Once on Beach road I joined the maelstrom of south-heading cyclists, organised bunches travelling at all sorts of paces, disorganized bunches and individuals meandering around in their own ways. Despite looking I couldn't see any Monash jerseys, so kept on heading south with a group of people from Geelong and an Italian gent from somewhere up in the mountains near where we'd been travelling last year.

Ten past eight in the morning and I arrived in Sorrento, a stupid time of day to be so far from bed! Stranger still to be queueing for lunch at a time when few will have had their breakfast — then it was time to join the mob for the nine o'clock ferry. One good thing about heading to Sorrento first instead of Queenscliff is that its a slightly shorter leg, so the chances of getting an earlier ferry are greater — people arriving at five to nine find themselves booked on the ten o'clock ferry, quarter past nine can end up having to wait for eleven o'clock or worse!

Queenscliff to Geelong seemed to meander all over the Bellarine peninsula, right-angle turns all over the place and as a result we had alternating headwinds, sidewinds and tailwinds! From Geelong onwards it all straightened out though, sadly it was then a blustery headwind the whole way to Altona. The road is dead boring, the freeway traffic noisy, the chatting subsided, fewer jokes were being made, the day just subsided into a 65km slog to get back to Melbourne.

Up and over the Westgate bridge, the view of the river and the city a highlight. About a dozen riders almost crashed into one individual who decided to stop and adjust his shoelaces — dead in the middle of the lane! Then what should have been a wonderful down-hill run back to Docklands, except for the wind slowing us all down!

Two p.m. on the dot we sailed in under the banners, stepping off the bikes to a number of creaks and groans, a mix of smiles and exaustion on the faces around us.

Four o'clock and I was back home, ready for a long hot shower and a cold beer! Eight hours riding, 237km, I think that's the longest day I've ever spent on the bike — certainly its the longest distance!

2004-Mar-19 2004 RTA NSW Big Ride: Gloucester — Berowra
2004-Apr-09 Easter Deadly Treadly Tour: Moe — Melbourne
2004-Oct-17 Around the Bay in a Day

• Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Abattoir Blues
• Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, The Lyre of Orpheus

Its all harder than it should be! I can't get my camera to talk to my linux PC, only to the Windows XP laptop. When I switch on the camera, the Windows software very helpfully pops up a dialog box behind everything else, unless I hit return very quickly, the main window pops up and hides the dialog, then nothing works until I kill off the program with CTL-ALT-DEL and try again!

Inspired by the logo of the net-snmp people, I decided to scan some of my old postcards, starting with the three that have been stuck in the front of my notebook since last September! Bloody Microsoft bloody imaging software has saved them in some mysterious version of TIF that only it seems to know about — I can't seem to get the JPEG image out of the TIF wrapper with any other utility, or view them on any other PC! I guess I have to go back to the machine with the scanner and see if I can get it to save the images in a readable format!

Ha ha. Back to the original scanner PC. The only option that the Microsoft software has is to save it as it did. Do a search on Microsoft's website and it says something like "if you encounter a TIFF file encoded in a way that it cannot be read in Microsoft's image viewer, go back to the original scanner software and save it in a portable format!" Real bloody helpful.

Give up, shoot the lot of them. Go home, drink beer.

I added a few photos to Fotothing, then had a look around. Two things struck me; firstly, how beautiful a lot of peoples' photos are, secondly, how much fun I could have with a digital SLR and a macro lens! Additionally, limecat is a magnificent character.

One more step along the way to making the house ours. This evening I attacked the bathroom and scraped off all the paint where the previous owners had managed to paint over light fittings and the toilet cistern because they were either too lazy, or in too much of a hurry to slap a coat of paint on the place! Personalised the mirror with the letters that move from house to house — now we've got a reminder in the mornings of who we are.

Surely it wouldn't have been too hard to unclip the plastic light cover, to remove the top of the toilet cistern, to put masking tape around the switches and power-points... I guess it matches the quality of the fireplace though!

??

Roamed around the house this morning, camera in hand, photographing the remaining kookaburras on or in the windows. First up are the painted ones on the door in the hallway.

I need a better quality shot of the leadlight one above the front door, but this early in the day I'm not about to stand on a chair to try and get the right angle — The photo from Sunday will have to do for now.

Last up is the “etched glass” Kookaburra in the backdoor. In reality it is painted on, and the paint has seeped under the stencil. For the last few days Jo and I have been busy scraping it back with our thumbnails, trying to restore a little definition to the edges!

??

What's the first thing you do when you wake up in a strange house? In my case, it seems to be “get out of bed and walk into a piece of furniture”. The rooms are a different size, the rooms are a different shape. Nothing is where it was and its going to take a little while to get the subconscious into the habit of twisting around the hard wooden end of the bed!

What a day! More exhausting than our wedding, nowhere near as much fun! Friends and family made it bearable. Naomi and Steph helped all day long, cleaning and unpacking. Marko and Lesley turned up in the afternoon and attacked the kitchen and outside, respectively. Jo's family arrive later, lending moral support and last minute assistance.

There were a few humerous moments, there's a panel between the top of the fireplace and the bottom of the mantelpiece that looks as though it is crying out to be covered up with tiles, or indeed anything... it also has a visible curved line across it where the panel has been cut to shape to fill the gap between the old semi-circular open fire, and the new square slow-combustion stove. The panel just looked flimsy and badly made — no idea how neither of us noticed it during the inspections. One by one people examined it, poked it, prodded it, and tapped their knuckles on it. I walked into the room as John stood back shaking his head and I gave it a light tap too... CRASH! The panel of plaster-board was only held in by a few handfuls of filler! How it has managed to stay attached this long is a mystery, the owners must have been sweating each time the house was open for inspection that the whole thing didn't fall off!

One month. A thirty day settlement. At times it passed in a blur. At other times it seemed to stretch interminably. Finally it is over. At 14:45 came the phone-call to say that everything had gone smoothly, and 8 Mill road was now ours.

I know, normally only said by small children with respect to arrival at a holiday destination — I'm sure it applies to the mental preparation necessary to pack up and move house! Most things are packed, but a frighteningly large amount of belongings still remain lurking around the flat.

Part two of memories and feeling melancholic — there was an article in this morning's newspaper about smells triggering memories, then as I rode to work the air was still and humid and the ground soaking wet, at some point there was a strong smell of newly sawn pine, together with eucalypt from nearby trees — took me right back to riding in Portugal almost six years ago!

There seems to be some part of the house-buying process that I wasn't made aware of when we started: apparently all the “professionals” involved — e.g., bank, real-estate agent, legal fraternity — are allowed to stuff around, get things wrong, introduce week-long delays, etc. We, the poor amateur at the business, are expected, nay, are required, to be perfect and to do everything instantly — if not sooner!

The "Certificate of Title" for my flat must be present in the hot sweaty hands of the bank's solictors in Brisbane. Who cares that the solicitors took a fortnight to send us their paperwork, we have to send them our stuff immediately!

Packing, still packing. Boxes, boxes, boxes. A cold grey morning. A cool grey afternoon. Finally the sun came out late in the afternoon to a bright, clear, still spring sky.

Time for a break and to get out of the house, walk around the streets perhaps seeing some of them for the last time as a resident. Strong smells of jasmine in the air, everyones' gardens are flowering. There's no wind, warm sun, it was all very melancholy-inducing, knowing that we're leaving Richmond, not knowing what we'll find in Oakleigh...

Up through Richmond and around the river to Abbotsford, then meander back through the suburb. The Westons biscuit factory is scheduled to be demolished, so we took the opportunity to admire the industrial architecture at its finest. Finally took a photo of the National Trust listed [/2004/09/26/208-0838_img][Grosvenor school]] too, I've admired it for ages.

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Last day of pretending I worked in the city. It still felt strange being in the train and heading into the CBD in the morning, looking around at all the power-suits sitting around studiously ignoring each other.

I'd completely forgotten that there was the Grand Final parade at lunch time, heading out to walk around the block I ran smack into ten thousand people — two-thirds of them from interstate, since the players in the grand final are Port Adelaide and Brisbane Lions. Its amazing that I can manage to not realise that something this big is going on!

Hurrying down to Exibition street in the evening for a tram home, the sunlight came streaming in under dark thunderclouds. A fantastic effect as it highlighted the construction cranes busy rebuilding the Great Southern Stand at the MCG. Turning around there were yet more cranes looming overhead, that entire end of the city seems to be being rebuilt

Surprise, surprise. The documents that we should have had a week or so ago, the documents that we were assured were being sent Express Post last thursday, the documents that failed to show up on Friday? Well those documents didn't actually get sent! They are being sent express post today (Monday) — honest, they really truly are! If we don't get them tomorrow, we are to call straight away...

Maybe I should make them walk the plank? Mindless entertainment on behalf of “International Talk Like a Pirate Day” and fidius.org:

Your pirate name is:

Mad William Vane

Every pirate is a little bit crazy. You, though, are more than just a little bit. You tend to blend into the background occaisionally, but that's okay, because it's much easier to sneak up on people and disembowel them that way. Arr!

Hmm, not such a bad idea for a weblog title. As it is, its more a description of a day spent, seemingly endlessly, putting books, books and more books into a myriad of cardboard boxes.

Finally escaped in the afternoon, only to change hats and pretend I was a computer repair-man. Where's that No I will not fix your computer tee-shirt when I need it? Seems that Kath's PC has suffered at the hands of the local electricity supplier, in the immortal words of Catweazle, “noothing works. Swapping and testing... CPU works, RAM works, power-supply works, hard-disk works, all-together though — nowt, not a sausage. Only solution at the time was to perform a disk-transplant, now they can use one of the dodgy old celeron boxes destined for the skip until I have time and workspace to beat the P-III back into life.

A brief chance to test some minimal Spanish this evening — dinner at Taco Bell for Dennis' birthday. As always, any photo of Dennis must also include Jo! Apparently I'm meant to get suspicious at some point... Refs. [1], [2], [3], [4]

OK, it's probably not going to be our last supper there, but there's a sense of loss in the air as I realise that after almost six years living in Richmond, I won't be eating there quite so often! Good tasty food as (nearly) always, friendly staff, decent coffee — there had better be somewhere equally good when we move!

Then up the street for a drink at Bar Humbag, joking that we'd better do a round of the suburb and catch up on all those places that we were going to get to “one of these days.” Discovered that its almost too late for Bar Humbag, they're closing next Friday. So we sat with a whiskey and listened to Andy Gaunt, acoustic guitar and tales of his travels.

Ugly hack. Quick bit of script and thumbnails of the day's photos get tacked on the end of each journal entry. A cousin had remarked that although she read the journally bits, she missed some of the photos. Well here you are then, take a look at last Saturday and Sunday for example.

Johnny Ramone dies at 55, joining Joey and Dee Dee. Nearly the end of an era. [http://www.ramones.com/]

With serendipitous timing, The Spazzys launch Aloha! Go Bananas tomorrow, I'm sure there'll be dedications galore.

“Where are our loan documents?” we ask the bank. “Oh,” says the bank, “Don't you have them yet?” “NO.” “Ah, we're sending them right away,” Express Post, in fact.

Do not trust the bank. Do not trust the bank. Do not trust any bank. Jump up and down and stay on top of the bank or they will not do things that they should do. Remember this.

Then after ten minutes filling out an online quote form with Grace removals, I finally get to the end and hit submit, only to be confronted by:

Microsoft Excel error '800a03ec'
Unable to read file.
/message.asp, line 40

Magnificent advertising for both Grace removals and Microsoft — so much for one online quote! Next removalist please...

Following on from yesterday's fun'n'games with Bicycle Victoria, I tried again to login to their website, this time using the password that we found at home on a letter from BV. Still no success. This time when I tried to ring them up I finally managed to get through to a human being. On asking why I seem to be unable to login to their website:

Oh yes, we changed all the passwords a year or so ago when we moved to a new database. No, we didn't tell anyone and we've had quite a few calls about it.

Absolutely mind-boggling! There's also no record of me as a member because Jo and I don't have the same surname and because there is a later membership — #14386 — for me that has expired. Supposedly, when they “upgraded” the database, my expired membership overwrote Jo's current family membership, somehow removing my details... I've been assured that this is now fixed and that we're both now listed.

A new password, and lordy me, when I log in I can actually choose which one of the two of us to enter in the event! It seems that after almost eighteen months, I'm finally back in their records.

It seems that since my Bicycle Victoria membership expired before Jo's and we rejoined as a “family membership”, I have ceased to exist from their records.

They just can't seem to get their heads around the family membership thing. Everytime I call them or mail them I get asked to become a member, then when I tell them that I am a member they politely tell me that this is not the case.

Apparently it is Jo's membership number and Jo's online password. It isn't really a family membership at all! I can't login or enter any events!

Trying to phone them results in a recorded message asking for me to leave my details, including — my membership number — and that they'll get back to me! Trying to email them results in bounced messages stating that the enquiries email address is invalid!

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Amazing! I've had my Canon Ixus 300 for nearly three years, its all but falling apart after falling on it from a bike stack, and in all that time I've never tried to use the movie function! Getting all nostalgic this morning about leaving Westbank terrace, I stood in the middle of the lounge room and spun round, taking my first ever video. Soon as I get it recompressed to slightly less than 3M for 17 seconds, then I'll consider putting it here.

All day sitting around fidgeting and waiting, then all of a sudden the mail arives at half past two and everything happens at once. The documents we gathered last night aren't quite what are wanted now, so more mad rummaging about ensues. A phone call to the 1300 number to find out whether to post them or visit a branch — fax them in is the answer, an option not mentioned anywhere! Another call to Jo, cross my fingers and leap on the bike, a cover sheet, a frenzy of photocopying, then the nail-biting delay as the fax machine chews through the fourteen pages. Finally its all on its way, time is short, but they'll do their best.

Four thirty comes around and there's another phone call, a different part of St George wants the details on my flat — details that I've already provided, but not to her. No point pointing that out, I give the details again and we politely bid each other good afternoon. One step closer...

So why couldn't they have asked in the original email for the copies of the payslips to be faxed to them last Wednesday? No idea, it seems that they'll happily use email to tell you that a letter is on its way, but that use of the Internet is an after-thought to their normal business operation.

Sunday, Father's day. Jack and Will were terribly excited about John's present of a surfboard rug. The two of them seemed to spend half the morning leaping around on it pretending to surf and to swim.

Then out for a walk to make the most of the warm sunny weather, wonderful after yesterday's greyness. Half of Lorne beach seems to be washed away, the old timber groynes are fully exposed, covered in weed, and with planks missing. Previously I don't think I've even seen half of them, they've been completely covered by sand. Plenty of people on the beach, some even braving the chill of the water.

On around the rocks to the pier, a mass-migration of visitors all walking the same way from the beach to the rocks to the pier, then back around on the track above the beach. One of the two remaining fishing boats is gone, only the red one remains. I took a few photos of it and the crane, hopefully they'll turn out as well as my picture of the blue fishing boat — one of my all-time favourite pictures. (What a coincidence, it was taken almost exactly two years ago.)

Up to the Lorne pub for a beer on the balcony, surely one of the best placed beer gardens in Victoria. The sun was shining, people everywhere. I chuckled overhearing the conversation between some motorcyclists, one of whom had just paid $170 into the state's coffers for speeding. He was busy bragging to his mates how he'd really been doing about 170km/hr and on the wrong side of the road when he first saw the coppers, so hauling the bike down to the speed he was booked at made him some kind of hero. I'm sure the Lorne police would think so...

The events of the week caught up with me last night, alternating panic and exhiliration has been keeping me awake to all hours, then waking me up at ridiculous times through the night. Last night I could barely keep my eyes open on the drive down to Lorne, only stayed awake because I hate sleeping in the car, especially when I think Jo's probably as tired as I am.

I think I finally got a good night's sleep, and being away from home, away from thoughts of house-buying helped to keep it off my mind for a while. Then Ann pointed out that Mill road is still being advertised in the paper, its still open for inspection today, even though Ray White has told us that they've accepted our offer and banked our cheque! They wouldn't sell it out from under us... would they? Could they?

Only another week of this and the bank will be organised, everything will be sourted out for a while and we can relax for a time.

I had to get out of the house, burn off some energy, try and distract my thoughts. Down the hill to the beach, all the wattle's are flowering, different types at different stages in the spring. I took a few photos, then walked along the beach and up to the bookstore — a well-known source of distraction. Duende, by Jason Webster caught my eye, on sale in a tray outside, escape into southern Spain? What a good idea. Then to find somewhere to sit and read and forget!

I've got a soft spot for the Blue Room café, up on the roof on a side street. It just seems out of the way and more secluded than the sea-front places. The only problem is that it seems to find a reason to be shut every time I try and visit! Today they were closing for the afternoon for a private function, so I could only sit for a short time while the grey clouds formed overhead and rain fell as soon as I got comfortable. Long enough to sip my coffee, long enough to know that I'd made the right decision with the book.

Heading back to the house through the drizzle, ducking from awning to awning, my head all fuzzy and out of focus. I stopped for another coffee in Kafe Kaos, listening to the buzz around me, trying to read and trying to concentrate.

Later in the afternoon I headed out again, this time Jo chose to come too and we decided to walk up along the Erskine river through the forest — despite the amount of water in the river, the clouds in the sky, and the lack of footwear! Wonderfully green and wet, ferns and trees everywhere, there are plenty of branches down blocking the paths and waiting for the spring cleanup prior to peak tourist season.

As we were leaving the house a strange bird call from the trees made us look up, a peregrine falcon was being harrassed by some currawongs. The falcon waiting to swoop on the neighbour's pigeons. Silhouted against the sky, not a chance of photographing a distant bird with my camera!

At the first river crossing we heard an owl again, possibly the same one Jo heard last night. Amazingly, I glanced around and there it was, sitting in a tree about four metres above us. Two birds of prey that I've hardly ever seen, the falcons aren't common, the owls just aren't visible!

We continued on up the river, slipping and sliding in the mud, tip-toeing over the more treacherous sections until we reached the first river crossing. Not keen on falling in, and knowing that there were plenty more of the crossings further up, we turned around and headed back. A trio of walkers from higher up the river had scrambled and splashed across behind us, then trooped on past, two of them talking incessantly. Its amazing how noisy some people are when walking in the bush, and how quiet some others are — probably reflected in the amount of wildlife that they both see!

The good news or the bad news? The good news is that we've got our weekends back — the offer on the house was accepted... Bad news is we now have to rummage behind the couch and find a huge wad of money to pay for it! Not yet sure if I'm excited or scared, or if the whole thing hasn't sunk in yet.

Go out to celebrate or stay home and watch a video? Better stay home and get used to having no money to go out with!

We came to smash everything and ruin your life. God sent us.

A memorable quote. Quite a movie. It's been years since I saw Romper Stomper at the cinema, probably some time back in 1992 when it came out. I remember the roars of laughter in the Canberra cinema at the line “We're the good-looking Canberra boys....” Jo had never seen it, so for a little light-hearted entertainment we picked this up when we went looking for the Bourne Identity last Saturday.

There really is an opportunity here for someone to invent a reasonable way that sellers and buyers can broker a house buying without having to deal with the leeches. Its almost a joke, we looked through the place on Saturday, asked for the Section 32 paperwork to be faxed through today — so what happens? A couple of hours later the agent calls up to ask have I received the papers, and, by the way, they are currently showing another potential buyer through the place RIGHT NOW AS WE SPEAK!

Is there a single time when this hasn't happened? How do I politely tell him that I believe him about as far as I can throw him into a stiff wind? That even if he was telling the truth, it is generally accepted that he will by lying 100% of the time, as much as the law allows, and plenty more when he believes he can get away with it.

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Friday, time for my weekly treat of lunch at Cinque Lira, the tables are all full, there's one large table with only one occupant. I join him and give an involuntary laugh at the bottle of San Pelligrino water — the juxtaposition of that big concrete bottling plant in the pristine valley still make me laugh. We lunch and chat, John N. Crossley, a lecturer in the Faculty of Information Technology and Monash staff member since 1969! But more importantly, an interesting conversation partner and, as I was to discover, an excellente photographer. The joy of eating by yourself, chance meetings with others who you wouldn't ordinarily get to talk to.

The chance meeting ended with a mention of the photograhic exhibition upstairs, “Composition & Context,” I'd seen the exhibition advertised earlier and meant to go, but as with so many things, would probably have let it pass me by.

Photos from all around the world, the perks of being a senior lecturer! Reminders of some places I've visited, insights into other places I might one day get to see...

It's Saturday, we're house-hunting. I shouldn't even bother answering the rhetorical question above. They talk, they lie, that's it. They have such a reputation for lying, and keep on proving it every time they open their mouths, that everything they say is suspect. The only slightly paraphrased conversation with one specimen went something like the following:

Hi this house is advertised for $X. Yes, but we won't sell it for that, what would you like to pay? How much would the seller like? We won't tell you, what would you like to offer? How about this much less? No, that wouldn't be enough. How about the amount that you advertise it for? No, we'd expect more than that. So you'd expect more than the price that you offered to sell it for? We'd consider the offer.

What a load of #W$%$W%%%@@!!!

We visited about six properties, which seems to be the daily limit before stress hits and brains fade! Some were good, some not so good, one amost deafening in its proximity to North road, then dropped in to visit an auction for a place we'd seen previously. Twenty or so people stood around outside looking bored, four power-dressed men-in-suits tried to fire it all up. A single lone "vendor bid" from the auctioneer, then the whole “going once, twice, three times” bit (repeated twice because nobody was interested), it all ended with nothing happening and everyone walked off. Poor little real-estate people, no big fat commission today.

Silver Ray were launching a CD at the [[http://www.robroyhotel.com/][Rob Roy]], Rob Snarski and Dan Luscombe supporting, in the back of my mind was a niggling thought that there was another support act but I couldn't remember... the Rob Roy's website is no use, just a big splash screen advertising the company who hasn't created the website yet, maybe I was mistaken, maybe I'd been confused and coutned Snarski and Luscombe as two acts...

Pink Stainless Tail. What can I say. Weird, loud, entertaining, thoroughly enjoyable. Simon, the lead singer looks as though he'll burn out and explode right in front of your eyes. Not what I expected, not what I'd think would fit as a support for Silver Ray, but boy did they make an impression!

A long day, a sore throat, a hot smoky pub and a late support act meant that Silver Ray didn't start until nearly midnight, by which time I could barely keep my eyes open. Great music to listen to from a comfy chair, but not so good at the time. After about half an hour I had to leave, I tried to find the CD they were lanching to buy a copy but none could be found, maybe later then!

Time for a taxi home. First taxi that approached had his vacant light on, we tried to flag him down, he sat across the traffic lights from us and turned the light off then drove past with a cigarette in his hand — taxi drivers aren't allowed to smoke. Half a dozen more then went past, all full, at last another vacant one. 80km/hr in a 60 zone, 70 in a 50 zone, straight through a stop sign. All standard taxi-driver behaviour, at least he followed the instructions and took us to the right suburb. Is it any wonder that people hate them?

I nearly had my revenge against the stupid motorists this morning. Typical small courier van came flying past on my right, left indicator on and with the intention of turning left down the side street, he swung out to hook in, realised that he hadn't made it past me and stopped. Stopped half in the next lane right in front of a semi-trailer, whose driver was not impressed! The truck airhorn was very loud, but worth it for the expression on the courier's face as he braced himself and tried to shrink from view. Shame the truck didn't hit him, maybe that would work as an aide memoir for future overtaking manouvres.

Boscastle in the UK has almost been washed away by floods and rain in the last week. All I can remember is what a beautiful and peaceful little village it was when I was there in 2001. I wish I'd taken more photos when I was there. Last night Prince Charles was promising to help rebuild the place, and being filmed in the local pub, I can remember having dinner there, but a lot of comfortable old pubs all look the same.

Clearing the desk this evening and out came a list I thought I'd lost for every, the ubiquitous “Top Ten Favourite Songs of All Time.” I'm not sure how long ago I wrote it out, probably two or three years at least, a couple of weeks ago I was wishing I could find it to see how well it has weathered... In no real order:

• Shivers, The Boys Next Door
• A Song from Under the floorboards, Magazine
• Wide Open Road, the Triffids
• Pretty in Pink, Psychadelic Furs
• Throw your Arms around me, Hunters and Collectors
• Ziggy Stardust, David Bowie
• The Wild, The Beautiful, and the damned, Ultravox
• Far side of Crazy, Wall of Voodoo
• Behind the wall of Sleep, the Smithereens
• Know your product, the Saints

Hmm, no Ramones, no Damned. Ten songs is such an arbitrary number. The choice still stands today, I can't think of any major changes. I wonder how it'll look in another couple of years?

We're having some wild weather this week! Saturday's copped 30mm of rain, the coldest August day in 28 years, and 100km/hr winds on the bay — and I was out on the motorbike going up and down the Monash freeway to work! Today was a very brisk 4.5°C as I left on the bike, foolishly thinking that with the sun out I didn't need the full gloves. First frosts I've seen this winter, and it took until nearly 10:30 before my fingers were unfrozen enough to type normally!

...

What else is there to do on a wet afternoon than to sit around and try to get the cheap old USB camera to work. Previously it sorta-worked, but gqcam seems to have a habit of flipping back and forth between RGB and RBG, or some combination like that. I end up with some rather colourful, but highly inaccurate, pictures like the one at the left!

The blue house is really rather fetching, but nothing like the rather drab and very English council-house looking 1940's semi-detached that is the reality. That yellow taupaulin is especially eye-catching too! A shame it doesn't exist...

Checking back to the last time I fiddled, it looks as though streamer was another option. Ok, now I've got streamer grabbing an image and imgstamp stamping it, all that remains is to upload it a little more frequently than I have been... Must check with my ISP first.

So there it is, Speed-Hump Cam in all it's glory!

It seems ridiculous, but I think its going to be easier to buy new inner tubes for the bicycle by mailorder than it will be to get myself to a shop when they're open. Been meaning to try the place out anyway, some people swear by them, some in the bicycle industry seem to swear at them. Anyway, I've ordered five tubes from [[http://www.deanwoods.com.au/][Dean Woods]], that should keep me going for a while!

A sliver of glass in my new — ten-day old — rear tyre got the day off to a bad start. Rain and punctures, punctures and rain. I thought I could pump it up enough to ride up the road to the shop, but managed to tear the valve off the tube in the process. Walk the bike up the Trek shop on Bridge road to grab some tubes — with no spare I've been riding on borrowed time. The shop doesn't open until 09:30, so I get to walk back home again. I'll know better next time!

Back up the stairs, get changed, grab the keys to motorbike and car and down into the garage to try and start the bike. The battery is going flat, so that doesn't work, jump start it from the car, whose key I had thoughtfully brought with me. A cloud of smoke at last, and I'm finally on my way.

Nearly at work, only one set of lights to go, the corner of Ferntree Gully road and Gardiner road and what's this, two motorists have driven into each other — again. One turning right across the front of the other — again. Two ambulances, a fire truck, the police divvy van and a highway patrol car, flashing lights all around.

Finally get to work, it barely seems worth the effort! Time to go and sit in Cinque Lira, get a coffee and get my breath back.

King Kong is playing on the TV on the wall, Fay Wraye passed away this week. Some students behind me are avoiding their assignment by trying to calculate the mass of the monkey. Looking about I see half a dozen students studying, interestingly, half of them seem to be using their mobile phones as calculators. The mobile phone is turning into the PDA. Me, I'm avoiding work, my personal development portfolio is due this afternoon and I've done so far is read about it and felt my eyes glaze over at the buracratic wordage.

A cold and foggy morning as the dogs and I walked up to the end of the road to try and find the newspaper. No newspaper, but plenty of kangaroo smells to keep Boris and Scarlet interested. Then back inside to warm up by the fire with a mug of tea while waiting for Jo to wake up.

Off to Bungendore for a look around, a visit to the railway station to look through the antiques and furniture, back around the block and back along the Federal highway to view Michael Scott-Lee's photos in the combined gallery and shop. One of these days we'll get around to choosing one of the prints to hang on a wall — a wall that we'll have to get around to buying first!

Back home to be visited by Colin and the first load of three nieces, shortly to be joined by Kathy with the second load! Then most of the day spent being shrieked at and clambered over, subjected to muffin and lamington crumbs and chocolate cake smearings.

...

...

Five days from order to arrival! Three CDs in their shiny box, from the UK to Australia quicker than the local places can even find them in their catalogues!

Now to contemplate how my CDs are listed, remembered, stored, displayed.... Currently there's a CDDB directory, but that's all plain text and I don't do anything much with it.

jersey cow trombones living with 5

It has a certain poetry, doesn't it?

  Police call for text messaging ban in cars
  By Jason Dowling
  August 1, 2004

Text messaging from cars would be banned and the penalties for using hand-held phones increased under a push by Victoria Police to curb the alarming rise in road fatalities linked to mobile phones, one of the state's top traffic police said.

...

Why do we need yet another law? The current law prohibits "use of a hand-held phone."

The current law is not observed by the public, why would a new law be?

The current law is not enforced by the police, why would a new law be?

  Road Rules - Victoria.
  Part 18 Miscellaneous road rules (Rules 287-304)

300. Use of hand-held mobile phones

(1) The driver of a vehicle (except an emergency vehicle or police
vehicle) must not use a hand-held mobile phone while the vehicle is
moving, or stationary but not parked, unless the driver is exempt from
this rule under subrule (3)

Penalty:	2 penalty units.

Note: Emergency vehicle, park and police vehicle are defined in the
dictionary.

(2) In this rule---

mobile phone does not include a CB radio or any other two-way radio.

(3) This rule does not apply to a driver if the Corporation has, by
notice in writing, exempted the driver from subrule (1).

So who needs a new law? Bring on the trained magpies! Swoop down, peck out their eyes, take away their phones and poop on their windscreens.

Confirmation that Spring is on its way arrived this morning, not with the scent of flowers in the air, not with the sight of blossom unfolding on the fruit trees, but with a crack across the side of the head as a swooping magpie [*] made its prescence known. The bane of the cyclist's life in the Spring!

Now if only I could train them to swoop and attack the motorists who yabber on their phones while driving...

Groove Train remains a favourite café, even though over the last few months they seem to have been getting slacker with their service, less inspiring with their food. Maybe its a change in staff, maybe its because the boss doesn't seem to sit at his table in the back corner and supervise any more... he's got a baby now and we see him far less often. Whatever the cause, tonight we dropped in for dinner and were treated to a magnificent meal. Wrocky (sp?) was in residence, smiling and observing, maybe he'd even smacked a few heads. The food was magnificent, Jo had a beautifully colourful risotto, I snuffled my way through a flavoursome chicken tandoor dish with jasmine rice, then even had room for some Lemon Meringue. It all more than made up for the couple of lack-lustre dishes that have appeared in the last few months!

An institution, I have the feeling that Groove Train has been there forever, but on asking this evening I found that they had only opened in mid-1998, probably less than six months before I moved into the area and started eating there. So while I think that the place has been there forever, they think that I've been going there forever... we all take good care of each other,

...

I guess I blame it all on the rain... Riding in the rain always results in more punctures than riding in the dry, the water lifts up and moves around all the little bits of wire, glass and rock — today was no exception. Two thirds of the way to work, running late, down goes the back tyre. It's always the back tyre when you're in a hurry. Off with the wheel, spin it to check for glass — Ouch! Remove offending shard of rock. Off with the tyre, noting how soft and sticky the old rubber has become with the years. Maybe I really should have replaced those tyres before starting commuting on this bike!

Of course my bike pump is on my other bike, so there's nothing for it except to walk to Oakleigh shops and ask to borrow the bike shop's pump. No problem, except that the compressor blows the tyre off the rim. Quickly we let the tyre down, reseat it on the rim, then blow it back up. Finally I can ride the rest of the way to work.

Six o'clock, time to head home. Out the door, unlock the bike, lock in bag, lights on bike, helmet on head, hop on bike... bugger. The tyre has blown off the rim during the day. I tried letting it down in stages to see if I could force it back on with my fingers, but without much luck — by the time I could get the tyre back on the rim there was so little air in it that I couldn't really ride it anyway. I tried, wobbled and squirmed my way to the end of the street then gave up and walked to the station, cursing all the way the fact that Monash is miles from public transport.

The ticket machine is being dismembered by a technician so onto the train with no ticket, eventually arriving at Richmond in time to see inspectors checking tickets! No idea if they would have accepted my excuse, back on the next outbound train for Burnley, then walk home from there, only an hour and three quarters after walking out the door at work instead of the forty-five minutes it would have taken me to ride!

I must remember to take my pump with me!

I must remember to buy a new back tyre!

A coworker asked why I was yawning this morning, I explained that the live coverage of the tour didn't finish until 02:30. Then came the question that dumbfounded me; “Have you ever ridden in the Tour de France yourself?” laughing I tried to explain that it was like asking me whether I'd ever competed in the Olympic games — they shrugged.

What can I remember about this year's tour? The rain and crashes in the first week. Robbie McEwen in green, always seeming happy and personable on camera. Jan Ulrich looking very serious and very Germanic — what would have happened to him and team T-Mobile if Cadel Evans had been included? Tyler Hamilton and Team Phonak looking promising, but then not doing much. Euskaltel seeming to do little. Richard Virenque again being the hill-climbing darling of France. Thomas Voeckler the surprise leader for ten days, a surprise it seemed, as much to him as to everyone else. Ivan Basso looking able to challenge Armstrong in the hills, but not enough determination to keep up the challenge. Oh, and I guess Lance won, but there really didn't seem to be any real competion.

Suspicious activity on Yarra Boulevarde? Three men alight from a car, mysterious devices in their hands, they pace back and forth around the phone booth... Terrorists? Bomb squad? Drug deal? No, I think they're geocachers! ET Phone Home sounds very much like the location.

Smokers continue to astound me, I guess I should be used to it by now. I walked past an outside table on my way into the café for lunch and the girl with her back to me flicked her cigarette butt casually back and onto my shoe, ignoring the ashtray on the table in front of her.

I sat by the window in Café Cinca Lire, trying for a spot out of the draft and in the sun, the only drawback to the place being how open it is — great in the summertime, not so good in the winter! Less than a metre away on the other side of the glass was the table of six, the girl and five guys, all smoking... Every single one of them ashed their cigarettes by flicking it on the ground, every single one of them ignored the ashtray, and one by one, every single one of them flicked the butts under the table or ground them out with their shoes. Bizarre.

On the other hand, the rigatoni, the wine, the baklava and the coffee were all as wonderful as always. Lunch how it should be, if only I can remember to wear warm clothes when visiting!

A laugh and a surprise in “Drive,” the motoring section of the Age newspaper. The latest Citreon C4 is absolutely packed with safety features, airbags, anti-skid brakes, it even detects when the driver is drifting out of their lane — supposedly an aid in combatting fatigue and motorists running off the road. It works by detecting the car crossing the white lines without the indicators being on — fat lot of good this will do in Australia where no one seems to bother to use the indicators! I can either see frustrated drivers trying to turn off the safety feature because it annoys them, or the cars training the drivers to use the indicators!

That was the laugh, the surprise was turning to the back page and seeing the weekly feature car page — a Stutz Bearcat this week. Hang on! That's Hugh Guthrie, a close friend of Jo's family! “Not for sissies,” he declares of the car...

I guess we treat yesterday's visit to the real estate agent and offer on a property as a learning experience. A quick call this morning, a higher offer has been made, thank you and good bye.

Masses of rampaging butterflies invade stomachs: news at 09:30... or that's when I was meant to be meeting with a real-estate agent to put in an offer on a property. How do you play this house-buying game? How much do you offer? Is the asking price what they want, or is it an extra percentage based on them believing that you'll believe that they inflate it and then you'll offer them much lower knowing that they'll ask for more knowing that you'll offer an inbetween amount letting them accept what they wanted in the first place? The people want the house, the real-estate agents want to play the game.

Surprise, surprise; the agent is delayed. Half an hour sitting in the foyer is plenty of time to chuckle at the faded and dull print on the wall. Any other time and I wouldn't even have noticed it, but after Sunday's visit, and having seen the original of Claude Monet's Vètheuil, I realised how bright and colourful the original is, and how bad the print looked. The original reminded me of my photo of Limeuil in 2001, I guess there's a slight resemblance...

Half an hour of form-filling, sign here, sign there, initial this, initial that. “I think you have a typo on this,” says I. “Surely this should say `excepting weekends', not `expecting weekends'”. “Hmm, oh yes, so it should” is the reply. There's another impressionist print on the wall, I can't remember what its called, a view of a house from the garden, a tree across the door.

Now we sit and wait, twiddling our collective thumbs while the agent and the vendor play out their next move in the game. Where's the chess clock?

The tour continues. In today's paper there was a humerous human-interest story as the author hired a bike at l'Alpe to ride down to Borg d'Oisans and back up, to get some idea of what is was like, and to see how his time compared with Pantani's 38 minutes. I don't think he knew what he was getting himself into, his two and a quarter hours to climb the mountain certainly don't sound earth shattering! Checking back to three years ago I dug up the treasured punch card from my ride; seventy four minutes including the tyre change. I'll have to try it again some day...

Note to self: If you go to the National Gallery of Victoria on a cold, wet, windy Sunday afternoon when tere's a major international exhibition — The Impressionists — showing, expect to encounter large crowds!

Was it only half an hour that we had to spend in queueing for the tickets, zig-zagging back and forth through the barriers to eventually get to the counter?

Twenty dollars entry fee; no video cameras or still cameras allowed — ok. No sketching allowed — what? No note-taking allowed — incroyable! Seems that the gallery isn't interested in showing the art or letting artists do what artists have done for centuries — take notes and copy the masters. I got the feeling they'd be infinitely more happy if we just queued up, paid $20 and then went home without even looking at the paintings!

There's a movement afoot to build a better sense of community within the ITS division at work — all manner of wondrous social activities are planned.... Today was th first of these to be put into practice, the Friday social barbecue with a red clothing theme.

Minor teething problem: too many customers, or was it too few providers? I don't know, but its one of those elementary problems in queueing theory that nobody seems to be ever able to get right!

The locksmith cometh, the lock is fixed. Now wasn't that fun.

Nearly ended up being unable to go to work today! My key has finally stopped working completely in the front door, so Jo pre-locked the door on her way to work and left it open an inch or so for me to shut on my way out...

Using all three hands to shuffle bicycles around in the front room, I'd managed to balance Norky bike against my foot, had shifted Jo's bike out with my left hand, and was extracting my old road bike from the back to ride to work... the front wheel spun round, the bike tipped over, the tyre hit the door and it started to shut! Not a chance of grabbing the door in time, I held my breath as it clicked in and popped back out again, allowing me to exhale, redistribute the bicycles, get on the one I wanted and then finally ride to work.

Oh yeah, I've finally ridden to work after a month or so of being a lazy fat bastard — I'd stopped when the new boss forbid us from parking “vehicles” inside the work area. No chance that any of the five cyclists in the group will leave their bikes outside, so that's the end of any environmentally friendly transport in this group!

After a month I couldn't stand it, I had to get back on the bike! I'll take a risk and ride the old Peugeot, lock it up outside, hopefully out of the rain, and cross my fingers that it doesn't get stolen or vandalised....

Ah, spam... if I can't stop it at least I can derive some enjoyment from it:

My name is Mr.Mabo Lomas, a merchant in Dubai, in the U.A.E. I have been diagnosed with Esophageal cancer which was discovered very late, due to my laxity in carrying for my health. It has defiled all forms of medicine, and right now I have only about a few months to live, according to medical experts.

“Defiled all forms of medicine” — I like that. Somehow I do not think that this is what mister spammer intended though!

More fun and games with doors and locks. This morning I couldn't lock the front door, the spare key I've been using just doesn't seem to work properly. After a few minutes I gave up and retried my old key — the one that got damaged by the outside door a week ago — it got wedged inside the lock and snapped in half.

Ten minutes of fiddling about with a pair of wire cutters and I managed to grip the snapped-off bit and pull it out, another ten minutes and I managed to get the door to lock with the spare key. Then finally off to work — and to get a spare key cut of the new outside door key!

Getting home was a minor logistical problem: Jo has no key to the outside door, but a working key for the front door; I've got two outside door keys and a non-working front door key. She got home first and immediately retired to the pub, two beers and half an hour later the two of us managed to collectively open the two doors!

Oh good, it wasn't just me... The chat forums hosted by SBS show that other viewers were thoroughly annoyed by the poor timing of ad-breaks over last night's tour coverage, and the general lack of knowledge of the Australian studio commentators.

With impeccable timing we arrived home in time to throw ourselves on the couch for the start of SBS' live coverage of the eighth stage of the tour — except that the first half hour is excrutiating studio commentary from the Sydney studios. I have nothing against Stephen Hodge, as one of five Australian cyclists to win a yellow-jersey he has my utmost respect — but I don't think he's one of the world's great commentators, or even one of the world's acceptable ones.... Half an hour of inanities before finally they cross to the live coverage from France!

A long chase through much of the stage and then infuriatingly, right in the last five kilometres, SBS interrupted the action for a long drawn out advertising break! Not content with that, when they returned it wasn't back to the live coverage, we had to endure another ten minutes of “Australian studio content” before crossing back to France for some decent coverage. A great way to lose viewers SBS!

I was going to go for a ride today, honest, I really was... Instead I slept in late, had a lazy breakfast, then the only exercise I got was walking down the hill to the shops and watching other people race about in a surf life-saver competition.

Probably should have gone for a ride though, I'm sure it would have been less exercise than keeping a four year-old nephew entertained! Late in the afternoon it was either go out for another walk down to the river, or go crazy as he bounced off the walls — we chose the walk! Down the hill, through the caravan park, drop rocks into the Erskine river, through the other caravan park, race along the boardwalk as the rain started, then shelter under the swing bridge where fortuitously Jack's dad was fishing...

The tide was just starting to come in, the water at possibly the lowest I'd ever seen, I didn't think John had a chance of catching any fish, and left him to it for the walk back up the hill — again — to the house. An hour or so later in came John with an enormous grin and three fresh, twitching, Bream, straight from the river!

What a shame dinner was already cooking!

Dinner, clean up, pack up, then out into the rain for the drive home — the afternoon's light drizzle had turned to constant storms sometime during the evening. Amazingly, somewhere between Lorne and Airey's Inlet we passed a touring cyclist on the Great Ocean Road — eight thirty at night, three hours past sunset, full panniers, howling wind and torrential rain — I sure hope he had somewhere warm and dry to stay for the night!

...

I tried yet again to update my current reading list [ RDF ]

at http://allconsuming.net/ only to find that yet again there's no way that I can include a book that I own. I can only read a book if Amazon can list it, or something like that. Trying to find Tim Low's “The New Nature” simply presents me with a list of books that include something similar in the title. I can hold it in my hand and read it, I can look it up at Amazon, but I can't convince allconsuming that it exists!

Too many times I've tried to add a book, too many times I can't because allconsuming only lets me look them up by title. But wait, what's this I've found... Create your own URL if you know the ISBN of a book, eg http://allconsuming.net/item.cgi?id=0670884669, and what do you know, up pops the description of the book and so I an add it to my list.

It still doesn't help me for all those old books I own that haven't got an ISBN, but its a step forward!

Two technically competent adults, one two week old VCR, one multi-language user-friendly manual. Three hours of wasted time, frazzled nerves, cursing, swearing, configuring and reconfiguring and we finally have the ability to record TV and play the recorded tapes. Somewhere along the way the first time we managed to convince the VCR to realign its heads so that nothing was playable!

Eight degrees, howling wind, icy cold rain pelting against the windows — what else is there to do but to walk half way across the suburb to see a movie! More than worth it though, we dodged the rain and then laughed ourselves silly seeing Shrek 2 up at the concrete monstrosity — Victoria Gardens. A big surprise was having one of my all time favourite songs featuring in a big action scene — the Buzzcocks' Ever Fallen in Love.

Small things can get under your skin — yesterday I realised that my new manager's continual mispelling of my surname was annoying me out of all proportion to the degree of the “offence.” Shortly before lunchtime today two of my coworkers walked into the office laughing hysterically. The reason — the new sign that has appeared on our door, proudly proclaiming our new identity as Enterprise Workstation Services. Unfortunately, of the ten staff, two of us have had our names mispelt, and I've managed to get mispellings into both first and last names!

Trouty asked, so here they are! The Deadly Treadly T-shirts from 1995 to 1999 — or at least the ones that I bought, before I decided that there were too many t-shirts in my life. There's also a whole bunch of old maps and brochures to be scanned, some much worse for wear after four or five days on the road and four or five years in the spare room. 1995 Easter...

1996 Easter and Melbourne Cup Weekend...

1997 Easter and Melbourne Cup Weekend...

1998 Easter...

1999 Easter.

Out of the blue — a request to use some of my photos on a website dedicated to the Deadly Treadly Tours. Trouty asked nicely, so I guess its ok so long as he doesn't give them away any further.

This evening I went out for a bike ride, first time in ages! Now that the new boss has decreed that bicycles are unsightly and unprofessional looking and a fire-hazard and all sorts of other things and are not to be kept within the workplace, nobody rides anymore.

Two laps of Kew Boulevarde in the cool of the night, a few other riders were out, some going home from work, some out for training rides. A few too many motorists out who leave their headlights on high-beam too — the mentality seems to be that it is only necessary to dip your lights for other cars, not for other people.

It had all the hallmarks of a great ride until about three-quarters of the way home when my back tyre went flat. Not just flat, the tyre which had started to look a little thin had suddenly disintegrated, great flaps of rubber peeling off from the backing! Not too impressive considering the $80 price tag, ten month life and 6,500km. So much for the Hutchinson Top Slicks — even if they were nice and skinny and fast...

Yeesh, seems that Bugger Grips is a term in use — at least in use in England! To think that innocent little 'ol me had never heard of it until Saturday. Just one of the myriad of questions that Google answers everyday I guess!

Off this afternoon to visit the Abbotsford Convent for their open day. On the way we walked past more of Richmond's industrial heritage.

The magnificent old wool store building is now for lease, I pray it won't be destroyed, then further up towards Victoria Gardens we came upon one of the huge old industrial warehouses ... only problem being that it had disappeared. After learning yesterday that the Violineri on Bridge Road is closing I was determined to take a few pictures of any other buildings, to try and capture them before the whole lot dissappear to be replaced by bland new apartment developments...

The 30s-era building up near Victoria gardens is a favourite, photos were a problem with a big ugly ute parked out the front, but somehow I managed. Then came the skipping girl on Victoria street, extra degree of difficulty being the large “For Lease” sign. At least the neon sign is now heritage listed so it'll stay awhile.

Then it was over the river at the Walmer street bridge, slip and slide through the mud around the walking trails to cross back into Abbotsford, and up to the convent to view the buildings for their first open day in a long time. Finally, after years of passing by along the river bank or through the streets, I got to walk around inside and view the buildings and grounds.

A strange place really, the current convent buildings were built early in the 19th century and replace an earlier Australian-style building that had a low roof line and wide verandahs. The main convent building mimics the English buildings from several hundred years ago.

Local activism has saved the site from being bulldozed and replaced by more apartment housing, the plans are to develop it all as an arts precinct, and to retain and restore the existing buildings — one sore point seems to be that the only car-park nearby is to be replaced by housing, which may threaten the viability of both the convent and the Collingwood Children's farm next-door.

Hundreds of people were thronging the site, even with the grey skies and drizzly rain. The guide on our walking tour stated that they had been running six tours an hour, with fifty people per tour, non-stop between ten in the morning and five in the afternoon! There's obviously a lot of interest in the old convent site.

Five o'clock and the convent was closing, winter solstice and the sun was going down — it was time to retreat to “The Retreat” for a beer or two. It must be one of the snuggest and friendly feeling pubs in Melbourne. For fans of the Sullivans — an early 80's TV Soap — the walls are lined with shots from when the pub scenes were filmed here, for the rest of us, its just a warm and cosy place to sit and drink and talk.

I could have happily stayed in the Retreat all evening... if only I lived just around the corner. Since we still had to get home we continued back southwards, down through the wilds of Abbotsford until we reached familiar ground in Richmond — or at least within sight of Richmond, just over the road as we stopped for a meal in E Lounge, another favourite café, but one that is just a little outside our normal walking radius! Magnificent Calzone, plentiful wine, tasty coffee — a fine end to a great afternoon.

When reading a book about the Oxford English Dictionary I might expect to find a largish vocabulary, even in a popular book such as Simon Winchester's The Surgeon of Crowthorne there are words that make me pause for a moment — but rarely am I completely at a loss. Today was one of those days.

But their beards and moustaches were the most obvious similarity — in both cases white and long and nicely swallow-tailed beards, with thick moustaches and sideburns and ample bugger grips.

Ample WHATS? The term provokes far too vivid an idea, but its a term that I've never heard before...

Another old shop looks destined to close, the wonderful old-world looking Violineri, presided over by a white-haired gentleman who looks to be straight out of the 19th century. A sign appeared in the window today announcing that they're closing soon and moving to Ballarat. I fear that old timber front will go and another bland and shiny new premises will open — or worse, yet another café.

I can't stop some of these places closing, or being bulldozed, but I'm making a concerted effort to try and record them in pictures... The old Tennyson building last December, the ruins that hid behind a wall in Bridge road for so long. Now gone and more slickness in their place.

Spent some time with the GRDDL Demo from Sean B. Palmer, I can make it sorta-work, I can also make it break. I guess there are things in my web pages that the parsers don't like! The pages validate, so I'm not sure where the problem is ... more work needed,

Last Friday's thoughts have resulted in a flurry of activity — I think I spent half the weekend revisiting old notes and updating the online versions.

It's the Queen's birthday holiday today — holiday for everyone except those who work for a University! The roads were nearly empty, everyone either home in bed or away on holiday. Riding along the freeway this morning I suddenly realised how the billboards for the nearby business park can advertse themselves as being “Only 29 minutes from the city!” Simple really, time the trip on a public holiday. Maybe they don't even do that, just measure the distance and divide by the speed limit...

...

I saw an amazingly evocative photograph today. The usual web-browsing stuff; a quick look at what Norman Walsh had to say recently, jump to a reference in something that Tim Bray wrote. Then up to Ongoing's index and the picture of the day looked familiar... Click on that and there's a wonderful collection of photos of Granada. One in particular caught my eye, the

roses

...and I still haven't finished writing here about my time in Spain. Six years ago and its all still in little paper notebooks — they'll probably outlast the website anyway!

After a four hour long stuff-up and clean-up, the following seems to be the most pertinent comment that anyone could make about what happened when we thought (simplistically) that since one attribute of accounts in one place were supposed to hold the value held by accounts with the same name in a different place, that automatically populating them would be a good idea...

your department field has been eaten by a grue

...

...

Woops, I forgot to watch the Olympic torch relay as it passed by the end of the street! Earlier in the week we'd seen that the route ran along Bridge road, we just go busy and forgot at the time to walk up to the end and see it! Sometime around four I looked out the window and pondered the helicopters above the MCG, only then did the light-bulb come on — oh yeah, torch at footy half-time... turns out that the choppers will have had a spectacular view of one of the biggest punch-ups in the football season this year!

The evening came around and we bundled ourselves over to the Rivoli to see a movie — forgetting that in cold weather on a Saturday night, so would everyone else in Melbourne! Next time I must remember to book the tickets online before we go and save the twenty minutes in a crawling conga-line around the foyer.... I saw he funniest film I've seen in a long time, even if it was only the funniest film I've seen since the last time I saw a film! Les Triplettes de Belleville, French language animation, but almost silent — the digs at the Americans had us reduced to tears, the Tour de France coverage captured the event almost pefectly.

Where?

Buchan

Still windy this morning, strong enough to make walking in the open unpleasant, and loud enough to start wearing away at the nerves. After breakfast we ventured across the lakes on the footbridge to see if the dunes were more sheltered — and nearly lost our hats in the process! Out on the water there was nothing to slow the wind!

Ninety miles of beach, no shelter. Nothing to do but grit the teeth, squint the eyes, and walk as far as perseverance demanded!

Deciding over coffee that there must be somewhere in Victoria sheltered from the wind we headed inland, towards Buchan, to the caves and underground! It turned out to be a brilliant choice, away from the tourism of the coast and away from the wind, Buchan seemed almost deserted with only the sign posts pointing along the valley to the national park.

Where?

Lakes Entrance, Buchan

More strangeness at the Loch Sport motel this morning as we tried to check out. Nobody around, no bell, no key-return slot, no note, nothing... We ended up driving off and leaving the room unlocked with key sitting on the table.

Loch Sport is a very long stretched out town, the bakery almost at the far end had some very tasty iced buns for breakfast which we took with us into Sperm Whale Head National Park. No whales here, not even their heads, from above the peninsula looks like a sperm whale's head.

The dirt road in the park is thoroughly corrugated, it was a slow and shaky drive to the lookout tower — althought at first we couldn't find the tower, even though we were parked at “Tower Car Park”! Almost starting to believe that it had been removed, or burnt down, we set off on a walk anyway, then there it was in front of us! Quite a large woden structure despite being almost invisible from the road!

There was no wind, no rain, no clouds, just a beautiful warm morning as we followed the scenic walk down through the banksias and ti-tree scrub to the lake and back in a big loop. Yet again, lots of birdlife, and huge banksia trees everywhere. Information plaques again imparted fascinating bits of knowledge — we now know that there are two types of banksias in the park — the saw banksia and the other one that I've forgotten the name of!

The state of the road convinced us not to drive any further into the park, but to head back near the entrance and walk down to the Dolomite Swamp — unfortunately there was no explanation of how it came by that name — and then continue on out to Oil Bore and Pelican Point on the northern shore of the lake. A long walk, a couple of hours or so, and the skies clouded over and the wind picked up across the lake while we were out. Heading back at a faster pace we were surrounded by squeakings and creakings from the intertwinced branches of the ti-tree, almost as though the forest was talking about us!

Time to move on — two more finger bugs from the bakery for later, and two sausage rolls for now all helped to sustain us for the drive back down the beaches to Longford and then around to Sale. A coffee in Sale helped us to get over the shock of being back in a big town again.

We followed the the back roads around to Bairnsdale, then down to Meeting where we would have liked to have stayed... but the whole town seemed to have moved up-market. The caravan park has been bulldozed, the motels are all four-star and above, luxury this and exclusive that... the wind was howling, the temperature was falling, we gave up on Meetung and drove on to Lakes Entrance.

Everywhere we looked in Lakes Entrance there is accomodation, motels line the highway and most of the side streets, some with weekly rates that match what Meetung wants for the night! If only the wind had dropped it would have been a nice place to stay for a while, as it was we had a very cold and windy walk along the esplanade, past fishing boats and pleasure boats and admired the wooden sculptures that have been created “in-place” where the avenue of honour cyprus trees have had to be cut down due to old age. The stumps have been carved into various figures from Australian military history, such as Simpson and his donkey, and others I didn't recognise — balancing the wishes of the RSL to respect the avenue of honour and the reality of the 90 year old trees dying and threatening to fall across the main street!

Even with the wind we spotted more birdlife, the whole few days seems to have turned into a bird-spotting trip! A Sea Eagle cruised past up the river to roost — something I havne't seen for years — and two fat oystercatchers were running around digging worms out of the park.

Dinner was had in the Ferryman's Seafood Café — an old ferry from Paynesville that's been closed in and turned into a floating fish-shop and café-restaurant. The foods was great and the whole meal would been excellent, if only the staff hadn't been quite so intent on closing at 9:30 and whisking us out the door! Almost had to hang onto your glass to stop it being cleaned away between mouthfuls!

Not sure of our options for Friday-night entertainment in cold, windswept Lakes Entrance, we settled for a bottle of port and watching “The Great Escape” on a tiny TV in the cabin while the wind howled through the trees outside!

Where?

Loch Sport, Longford, Sale, Bairnsdale, Meetung, Lakes Entrance,

Very cold overnight, neither of us wanted to be the first to get out of bed in the morning! Still, we managed to get up, hopping around frantically on the cold floor. Packed the car and tried to hand back the keys for the cabin, without success at first, since nobody seemed to be around. After walking twice around the building I managed to spot the owner wandering around inside and we could finally leave.

Back down the road to Erica for breakfast, bacon and eggs and sausages and a big mug of coffee. The guy running the shop wanted to know where we were from, where we'd been, where we'd stayed and where we were going... when we told him we were heading for the Tarra-Bulga National Park he offered all sorts of helpful advice on getting there from here — advice that we promptly forgot as it seemed to be too full of handy local comments such as “when you see the whatever, turn left at the lights and first right, but not the lane, first right down the road...”

The drive through North Yalourn to Traralgon was surprisingly scenic — around here we were only expecting to see power stations and open cut mines.... North Yalourn, and the road, are on a ridge along the river and high enough up to give a good view over the rest of the Gippsland region. With the power stations steaming in the morning air and the pits visible, it all looked like a vision of Dante's Inferno... or Mordor!

Leaving Traralgon without using the directions we'd been given we headed in roughly the right direction, eventually reaching a dead-end street, back-tracking a few blocks before getting onto the right road for South Traralgon. Stopped for a brief look at the power stations and enormous coal pit from the Miner's rest lookout, but the icy wind made it a very short stop.

From South Traralgon onwards there were trees again — gradually thickening ofrest as we climbed up and over Mount Tassie and down towards the Tarra-Bulga National Park. First pine plantations, then native forest, cooler and wetter the further south we went. Stopped at the National Park for a walk along the trails, Mountain Ash and Myrtle Beech forest all around us — discovering from the handy plaques that there are two kinds of tree ferns — “the smooth” and “the rough” tree fern. 200 kinds of fungi in the park, and we must have seen a fair selection! Everywhere we looked there were toadstools on the ground and funfgi on the trees.

Loud bird calls all around, trying to identify some of them we suddenly realised they were al coming from the one lyre bird! Then we spotted him, dancing away on his display mound, just off the track under the tree ferns, looking as though there should be a film crew from National Geographic standing by! I tried to get close enough for a photo and almost made it, then he folded his tail and stalked off into the underbrush.

More birdlife as we walked on to the suspension bridge, then the lyre bird reappeared as we came back towards the car park. Not bad considering prior to this we'd only ever seen one or two scuttling off into the bush! I still couldn't manage to get close enough to one to take a photo though — my attempts resulted in a few blurry shots of tree stumps and dark forest.

Spotted a Wedge-tailed eagle above the forests on the way down towards Yarram, then the road fell away down through the valleys to the coastal plain.

A brief stop in Woodside to put $2.20 into the local economy — some much-needed jelly dinosaurs to snack on — then on down to Seaspray on the Ninety Mile Beach. I was curious about Seaspray, the last (and only) time I've visited was the day after my bicycle was stolen in 1990, my memories are of a drab, gray, damp and salty place — probably coloured by the mood I was in at the time!

It is a very long beach! Not a soul to be seen, just a few paw prints in the sand and washed up pieces of sponge and shells. Sponges everywhere, in all kinds of sizes and shapes. Seaspray seemed much better than I remembered, still small and quiet, but not the terrible place it was in my mind!

Back in the car to head north along Ninety Mile Beach, or just inland, unfortunately the 3-4m high scrub and sand dunes alongside the road blocks the view of the beach, giving miles and miles of featureless tea-tree — much like the Coorong in South Australia, and just as uninteresting! Where we could see the lakes on the inland side there was yet more birdlife, black swans, pelicans, even a few emus in the paddocks.

Arriving in Lock Sport in the late afternoon, the kangaroos were converging on the golf course as we set about trying to find somewhere to stay....

Slightly strange people ran the Loch Sport motel — not quite Norman Bates strange — just a little strange. The place looked deserted when we arrived, the sign in the window saying “Phone ... if nobody here” was behind a security grille and so faded that we couldn't read it. We were just on the point of giving up and going somewhere else when an impressively pierced face popped out the window and showed us a room, but couldn't sign us in, “cos the wife's gone to Sale for the day.”

Down to the pub for a couple of beers, a walk around the marina in the fading evening lightand cold wind, then back for a few more beers and dinner in the bistro. A huge pub bistro that must fill up in the summer-time, tonight there were only about eight customers on three tables!

Another cold night as we went back to the motel, but nowhere near as cold as last-night at Rawson!

Where?

Rawson, Erica, Traralgon, South Traralgon, Woodside, Seaspray, Loch Sport.

Left Melbourne under grey skies, heading east as the clouds got darker. Rain poured down as we joked about our choice of dates for a holiday.

A quick bite to eat in Moe, fuel for the car and then up north towards Walhala, temperature falling as the road rose through the forest. Twisty bends through forest, signs on most corners warning ordinary mortals of logging trucks.

Stopped in briefly at Thomson River station, the southern end of the Walhalla Goldfields Railway. We contemplated taking the historic train up to Walhalla, but while it would be fun in good weather, 45 minutes in a cold, draughty 100 year-old carriage didn't seem very appealing today!

Walhalla is misty and cold and damp... and full of tour coaches. Three coaches of pensioners and one of school-kids — an interesting mix! We walked about reading the historic plaques and dodging the light misty rain, then decided to climb up the track to see the famous Walhalla cricket ground. In its hey-day every spare piece of flat ground in the town was taken up with mining leases, so the only available land for the cricket ground was up on the flat top of a nearby mountain, 200 metres above the town! Twenty minutes of climbing up a wet, slippery track over mud and shale found us at the top, 200m above the town and out of breath — no wonder the home team used to enjoy an advantage in the matches; they would camp up here the night before while the visitors had to climb up in order to play!

No sooner had we reached the top than the rain opened up. With no shelter, no memorial plaque, not even a hollow tree to hide inside it was all a bit of a disappointment, but its somewhere I've been, something to see. We hurried back down into the valley, slipping and sliding and trying hard not to sprain an ankle!

Down in the town again the rain stopped, a coffee gave us time to dry out and some interesting chat with the owner — he'd just got back the previous night from two week's holiday — his first holiday in nine and a half years!

Further exploration down through the town and old cemetery to the Walhalla station, we arrived just in time to see the last train for the day head back down the valley towards Thomson River. The cemetery is far larger than the existing town — our old "Lonely Planet Victoria" gives the population as 28 — and with the rain and pine trees there are mushrooms and toadstools everywhere it has quite a melancholy atmosphere.

Birdlife too, as well as the fungi! King parrots and crimson rosellas all around, currawongs calling mournfully through the forest, there are many fat pigeons waddling around underfoot, then exploding up into flight as we near them — no idea what they are, I'll look them up in a book later!

Back up through the town as dusk was falling, time to head on to find somewhere to stay. The tourist busses have left and even more birds had appeared to scratch around on the ground — one lawn was home to half a dozen glossy blue-black birds — Satin Bower birds I guess. We were really wishing we'd brought the bird book to identify them all!

Five minutes later in the car and there was a lyrebird at the side of the road. No need for the bird identity book this time! Then just around the next corner another one ran across the road in front of us, impressive considering I think I've only ever seen four or so in the wild!

Rawson caravan park seems huge, a strange place here in a tiny little town — a town that has only existed since the 1970's when it was built to house workers for the Thompson dam. I've no idea what all the visitors do here, probably trail biking and horseriding in the forests, and boating on the dams. We found a cabin, turned on he heater, then escaped back to “The Stockyard,” a bar, bistro and shop and an enormous hot fire! The temperature fell rapidly as the sun went down!

Where?

Moe, Walhalla, Rawson.

Links

[http://www.visitwalhalla.com/]

Walhalla and Mountan Rivers

...

Garfield — not the big orange cat, the small Victorian town previously known as Cannibal Creek.

Marko and Lesley have had almost two months to settle into their new house — now it was time to visit and explore. Ten minutes on the highway out past Pakenham, Garfield is an old village on the rail line, now enjoying a resurgency as it turns into yet-another commuter suburb.

The new house was built by a stone mason and has an impressive solidity, thick slabs of stone make up all the external walls, with hundreds of opportunities for rock-climbers to make their way around the inside and outside! Oddities in construction and personal preferences in paints and layout mean that there's plenty to keep the new occupants occupied for years to come. They've already removed a wall erected by the previous occupants and returned the lounge room to its original size, and the walls as bedaubed with test samples of paints.

Dinner at the “top pub” in nearby Bunyip — the pub in Garfield only does meals on Thursday and Friday nights. I had an enormous plate of Lamb Shanks, everyone else seemed to have equally large meals. Together with a good bottle of wine we all had a great time, then it was back to the house for coffee and samples from Mark's three port barrels.

Where?

Garfield, Bunyip.

...

All of a sudden Konqueror won't work on my PC. It just doesn't talk to the proxy any more. No idea why not. Then I tried to login to http://del.icio.us/ to enter in a few bookmarks from scraps of paper only to discover that Firefox won't let me login to that system. Today, web browsers hate me.

Ride to work, stop for crossing, push button, wait, lights go orange, lights go red, my light goes green, start forwards, stop as motorist drives through red light while chatting on the phone, ride the rest of the way through intersection, proceed to work.

... and in news headlines today: Not content with the enormous number of motorists who illegally and dangerously use their mobile phones while driving, CityLink is now offering motorists an SMS service for accessing their toll accounts.

After months of procrastination, this afternoon Jo and I finally decided to go and visit the Melbourne Aquarium. $22 per head to get in the door came as a nasty shock, I'm glad we made use of the discount voucher and got in for half prices — I hate to think how much it would cost to bring a family and kids here!

As it was, there was a deafeningly loud squealing throughout the entire place as a large group of small children ran riot at a birthday party. If there was that level of noise in a factory, the unions would make hearing protection mandatory! We just had to put our fingers in our ears, grimace, and bear it.

I'm trying hard to remember far enough back to compare it to the acquarium in Lisbon at the 1998 World Expo — from memory, the tanks there were larger. The layout and displays all looked much neater here, but that could just be the intervening 5 years and improvements that museums everywhere have put in place.

I was grateful to see that there wasn't the incessant hammering and tapping on the glass by all the visitors — conversely, there didn't seem to be any signs asking them not to! The curved walkways through the main tank are very impressive, as is the 20cm thick chunk of plexiglass showing the thickness of the main tank walls. Being seperated by less than 10cm as a huge stingray slides overhead is quite an unusual experience.

There are little tanks with lots of colourful fish, reef tanks with reef fish and sea snakes — and some very ugly looking stonefish. Small tanks of jellyfish, including some fascinating ones that wind their tentacles in to nothing, or extend them out until they're about 60cm long! None of them were very easy to photograph, the dark rooms, backlighting in the tanks and the movement of the beasties were all more than this photographer and his equipment could cope with. It didn't stop me from trying though.

Beers with friends last night at Monties bar, then some more at Lambs Go Bar — a magnificently named venue — and then this morning, the headache to match. Little Creatures' Pale Ale, Hoergaarten, Leffe Blonde, Cascade, Holgate Macedon Ale and then the finalé. It was that last beer that did it, a Trappistes Rochefort, — 330ml, 11.5% alcohol and $14! I think I'll blame it all on a collusion between the Belgian monks and Doctor Alan, it was his email earlier this week that made mention of Belgian beers, so when I saw the Trappistes Rochefort sitting there amongst the list of 100 or more beers, I just had to try it...

The intention was there but still nothing happened... Left the bicycle at home so I could visit the bank on the way to work, then buy the new PC at lunch time. Running late, I skipped the bank, then lunch came and went and I was busy. So yet again I haven't done anything... maybe this is my subconscious telling me something...

The name? The previous owner had placed a large sticker across the fairing screen, it says "DAMAGE", the name came up in conversation one day and it stuck.

Frame Number: RC17 2 01 6330
Engine Number: RC17E 2016460

TeamRC17 is an informal net-based owners group of the RC17s (Honda CBX750F/G/H), with a website at http://www.replicant.apana.org.au/~viking/ and email address of mailto:teamrc17@replicant.apana.org.au.

Here's a couple of photos of it sitting infront of my garage.

More fiddling about with latitude, longitude, RDF and geourl. Just poking and hacking so far, nothing as useful as the nearestAirport of last Friday!

What is the diameter of the earth, and how many decimal places are relevant in all these latitude/longitude pairs that I'm quoting on web pages?

Its been bugging me for a while, finally dug around and had a quick look. 40,075.16km at the equator, 40,008km through the poles. Hmmm, that means that one degree is approximately 111km, one decimal point is 11km, two decimal points is 1.1km and more than that is pretty much irrelevant... at least until I get my hands on a GPS unit.

From the MaNIS Georeferencing guidlines:

Home, Work.

Cleared up my laptop so I actually had room for the weekend's photos! Yet another article on CD longevity — or more accurately, the lack of longevity — and I'm even more convinced that I should keep everything online always.

Wow, discovered that I'd misspelt my own name in the PHP script that generates these pages! I wonder how much google has found under the wrong spelling!

Thoroughly caught up on all the missing sleep last night, then work up hungry and with a working shoulder again — I seem to have figured out a way of lying on it that doesn't end up twisting or stretching it — at last. Jo was still sleeping, and almost needed a crowbar to shift her from the bed, so breakfast was late and lazy. We finally headed up the street towards the market sometime around eleven!

The good thing about arriving at the market late is that the excitement level has increased and everyone is trying that much harded to sell off the last of their stock. Even if they are running low on somethings, it definitely adds to the atmosphere. The noise and the colours and the people were all very human, and I finally remembered to take some photos of the colours and textures of the fruit and vegetables — some were all colours, other stalls a beautiful mix of greens.

Some half-hearted shopping on the way back home didn't result in the present it was intended, but did increase the library by another three books. Something along the way triggered an inspiration though, so dropping the first load off at home we headed up along the river to the concrete monstrosity — Victoria Gardens — and dived into K-mart to buy the present that had eluded us... By then it was time for a late lunch, and all of sudden it was four in the afternoon and so little seemed to have been done!

Evening time rolled around, time to think about heading out for Kelvin's drinks, but both of us felt exhausted. Something about the day, or the week, or the shape of the cosmos, neither of us felt like doing anything except sitting at home with a bowl of soup and a glass of wine. A lazy evening resulted, Joey reading the papers, me revisiting bits of my website and adding in page location information — and reading and remembering places and events...

After managing to roll over in the night and pull a muscle in my shoulder I couldn't get to work — or probably do anything useful once there — so I stayed home and rested... and read... and finally experimented.

I'm not sure how legitimate it all is, but there's now an image for my journal pages showing the country around the nearest airport. An ugly swag of my PHP using RDF API for PHP, a bunch of itty-bitty RDF files, munged together into a bigger collection of RDF, and a few scripts that use xplanet to pregenerate the images. So far, it all seems to work!

For example; there are days near Melbourne, London and Lisbon.

[http://www.scorptec.com.au/]

nearby and has all the Shuttle bits and pieces that I was after. Still seems to be about $AU1400 for what I'm want though.

[http://www.auspcmarket.com.au/]

also sells the Shuttles, but they've got the groovy little EPIA MiniITX systems as well.

Yesterday as I was riding to work someone in a car drove through a give-way sign in front of me. Not too close, I could see that they were going to ignore the law and ignore me from miles away. I didn't get annoyed, I didn't yell, just acknowledged that here was one more person in car who didn't care about anything outside their car, and could quite easily kill or injure someone.

Then I got thinking about death, and wills and my website. Morbid stuff in a way, but how long would it all hang around? Maybe I should set up a will that asks for a header to be put on all the pages saying “Finally, there was one too many bad drivers. Sorry Mate I Didn't See You. Adrian is no more.” Then I got caught up in thinking about more important matters, like how to cross four lanes of Ferntree Gully road and get to work...

Today I look on slashdot for a daily scan of barely intelligible nonsense and what catches my eye. An Ask Slashdot article titled [[http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/03/2037245][What Happens To Your Data When You Die?]] A lot of noise, like most articles, but a few gems of signal too. Most people agree that they've generally got some data that the do want people to see, to access, to know about, and some data that they don't. The devil is in the details, what to do about it all...

After two weeks of riding the Honda to work every day, I thought it was about time to move the pedals back off the tandem and onto Norky bike, then ride it to work. Suddenly realised that I haven't been contacted by the Trek shop about my helmet yet — I've still got the spare one they lent me just on a month ago. Must ring them up and find out what's going on...

Winter is here, or was here today. Late in the afternoon the rain and wind dropped for long enough that we headed out for a walk — off around the southern end of the suburb and to complete a project... finally, after almost six months, I've completed the photographing of Richmond's pubs! The Cherry Tree was the last of the lot, but always seemed to be in an out of the way location when I went out and about.

Along the way we ventured past the [[/2004/05/02/206-0618_img][Corroborree tree]], a relic of the original inhabitants of the area. The first time Jo and I came looking for this tree we couldn't find it, notes on one map show it to be on the other side of the railway line! The poor old tree is long dead, a burnt stump held together by concrete and steel bolts — I presume that while it was important to them, the aborigines would chose a new corroborree tree when their old one crumbled...

On Wednesday evening there was a large yellow implement parked in the street outside the run-down old house next door to the pub. This morning, no more house. Expensive land values, time to bulldoze and rebuild some shiny new townhouses.

Further up the street towards the market, another of the little old factories fronting onto Bridge road is in the midde of being demolished. Its been empty for months, the chrome-platers have finally moved out, the chromed BMX frame that had hung in the window for years is finally gone. To be replaced by another nondescript three storey business I guess... Or maybe it'll be like the vacant block just along the road, been empty for about three years except for a sign stating that a new office building will be built soon.

All the classic old industrial buildings are being bulldozed, replaced by apartments, or townhouses, or bland industrial façades. All the character is going from the place, brick by brick. People are going to move in for the character, then find the character gone... or they'll do what the residents in River street did — move in across the road from the Royston — a hundred year-old pub that plays live music — then campaign to get the music shut down!

Across the road and further on, another café looks set to open soon. They seem to come and go like mushrooms along here, probably too many to all be successful, but everybody wants to get in on the action. I can't remember what was there before, a business closes and clears out, the premises stays vacant for weeks or months, a new one moves in and we can't remember who was there last.

In Bridge road cafés, Kojo Brown's is currently high on the favourites list so we headed there for breakfast. Apart from initially managing to forget the bacon in the bacon and eggs, all was magnificent! On a fine day, the inside seats facing out onto the street are a great place to contemplate life as it passes by — today, they provided a view of a grey, dismal street, scoured by flurries of wind and icy rain.

During the afternoon I went out for a walk around the suburb; wondering what else had been bulldozed or built since my last perusal! The wind had dropped, the rain had blown away and by the time I reached the river everything was very peaceful. The bike path bridge had been re-opened after several weeks of maintenance so I walked out along it to see what had been done — nothing very much as far as I could tell! The river looked so still that I took a photograph of it, then decided to walk around the riverbank back home, photographing the bridges and whatever else caught my eye...

Down at the riverside on the bike path, the Victoria street bridge and the Bridge road bridge both look impressive from this angle, none of the road and traffic visible, just the structures over the river. Victoria steet is all angular steel and rust-coloured columns, Bridge road stone and timber. The tram-line supports along Bridge road look like intricate industrial sculpture, almost Victorian-era industry.

Or so it seemed anyway. This morning's newspaper contained a one page article on half of the remaining Ramones — Marky Ramone, the drummer. Tales of infighting, hatreds, partying. Do I want to know it, or will it diminish the cartoon-like mysticism of the band? One, Two, Three, Four…, what more is needed for an introduction? One magnificent quote made me chuckle:

Sure, there was Iggy and the Stooges, the MC5, but those bands played slow songs,…

Now who else in the world could get away with that?

Next Wednesday night at the Corner, he's bringing his “video, slides and stories.” It could be interesting, it could be sad.

Then this evening, off to drumming of a different sort. Taikoz were playing at the Alexander theatre at Monash, I'd have missed it completely except that just this once, the brochure that they send out to all staff fell open on my desk moments before I threw it at the bin. A mix of Japanese drumming and dance, almost theatrical, and it looks to be exceptionally physical! My only regret is that the big drum ™ didn't seem to be used often enough, it just stood there, looming over the stage.

Another day, yet another virus or worm or whatever gets through the mail scanners at Monash. Yet again, people run the attachment — for whatever reason. Feels like banging my head against a brick wall as we battle to keep the technical anti-virus measures up-to-date and yet staff, supposedly technically literate staff, persist in clicking on anything and everything that comes in the mail.

On a related, but slightly light-hearted note, a cow-orker sent me a link to the following article: OCD and the Cycle of Virus Doom By John C. Dvorak. It seems to explain a lot, both in the propogation of computer viruses and the persistent use of mobile phones by motorists...

To make up for the nonsense that came spouting out of the supposedly “technical” mailing list at work, here's the latest bits of text from my spam. Frighteningly, they seem to make more sense than some of the official emails I see at work...

Any gonad can buy an expensive gift for boy from mating ritual, but it takes a real ski lodge to living with cheese wheel. Where we can single-handledly caricature our girl scout. When you see about cup, it means that over scooby snack feels nagging remorse. And confess the dark side of her scooby snack.

Most taxidermists believe that around squid mourn microscope of ballerina. Unlike so many waifs who have made their tattered cowboy to us. For example, spider of indicates that cowboy of pee on cup defined by. Patrice, although somewhat soothed by eggplant for and girl related to. Most dahlias believe that graduated cylinder related to tenor a big fan of inside sandwich.

Meme via Norman Walsh: From The Best Australian Stories 1999 by Peter Craven (editor): “I was grateful I had a Saturday lunch to go to.”

Instructions: Grab the nearest book, open it to page 23, find the 5th sentence, and post its text along with these instructions. Point back to where you got the idea so that we can follow the threads.

Hmmm, fun to participate in I guess. Not sure how accurate it was though, there's a row of about ten books sitting next to me — I've no idea which one really is the closest one.

One curious aspect of the meme though, the choice of page number. Many years ago a friend of mine in a mathematics class became obsessed by the number 23. He was convinced that it occurred far more often than — statistically — it should. His birthday is the 23rd... Here you go Peter, another example for you!

With the missing part replaced, Vorahk the Rahkshi now stands guard over my desk at work.

This hardly seemed fair, taking a photo of Vorahk and leaving Lehvak out of the picture — so to speak. Lehvak (Lego Bionicle #8564) has been sitting at home on top of the bookshelf for almost a year.... Here's Lehvak the Bohrok then, standing guard over my desk at home.

Customer friendly

Four days after filling in a “missing part report” on the Lego website, the offending item turned up in a little post bag all of its own. A most impressive turn around!

Non-Customer Friendly…

Not so easy was a last minute attempt to book some tickets for the Taikoz show on Friday. I called up the Alexander theatre on the phone and started to book two tickets, we got all the way through to the “how do you want to pay?” Then the guy on the other end says “There's a $4 charge for booking over the phone, but if you're on campus, you can come here and book in person…” Scrap one partial booking, a ten minute walk across campus, rebook in person! Not much effort for me, but double the paperwork for the theatre!

Then more bizarre buracratic bumblings. Its phone bill time and I'd forgotten the fun and games with credit cards being accepted through one channel — the 1-300 phone number — but not through the online B-pay system.

Ouch, ow, creak, groan, moan — I'm definitely not used to the kind of physical activity that we did yesterday! Today I've got arms that seem to be only barely capable of being lifted up to shoulder level. All worthwhile though when its going into the finished product...

Up early and off in the car for the grape picking at The Duke Vineyard down at Red Hill on the Mornington peninsula. When I arrived I found that my description of our last visit had been discovered by some friends of the family and passed on to Geoff and Sue!

After yesterday, the weather still looked ominous, but apart from about ten minutes of drizzle, it was just grey and overcast for the day, almost ideal weather for picking the grapes. Even the grass underfoot was dry!

The pinot picking was well underway when we arrived, others having turned up much closer to the eight a.m. start than us! The pinot is a deep, dark red, almost all of the leaves are gone from the vines and the bunches stand right out, picking them is easy.

Then comes the chardonnay. The grapes are almost exactly the same colour as the vines, the leaves were still on, and the bane of my visit — the nets were still on the vines! It must have made an impression last time, because Geoff almost burst out laughing as he asked me to help removing the nets. Once again we walked the lengths of the rows, arms up above our heads like demented orang-utans, untangling and removing the nets — I must remember to wear a long-sleeved shirt next time, to try and avoid the worst of the scratches! The early rows had very few bunches of grapes, the pickers followed close behind at first, almost chasing us along in the eagerness to get at the fruit, then slowed down as we finally got ahead of them.

After a couple of rows of the chardonnay it was time for a morning tea of Sue's magnificent cakes and biscuits. Time to sit down, stretch sore backs and flex hands and fingers cramped from cutting bunches of grapes. Too soon it was time to get back out there for the rest of the grapes.

Up and down the hillside we went, there weren't many people but the picking all seemed to proceed quite quickly. Maybe everyone is getting more efficient with the years! Geoff was about to declare it lunch time when everyone decided that they needed to do one more row to feel sated, so we had to get back in there and remove another row of netting. Then it was back with the snippers and the tubs to collect the grapes.

Finally the last row was done, or almost the last… two rows were left for some overseas visitors next weekend, so that they can share in the fun. Now for the most important part of the day — Sue's lunch! Steaming hot mugs of homemade tomato soup, plates of food, and glasses of previous years' produce. The 2001 and 2002 Pinot Noir were tasted, and compared, and tasted some more. The chocolate cake and apple slice were also tasted, and compared, and tasted somemore…

After lunch we were free to go, or to stay and help with the rest of the jobs. I think nearly everyone stayed on to help bring in the tubs of grapes from the vines, or to watch the crushing and pressing of our labours. Late in the afternoon it was time to go home, those of us that had helped in previous years received our bottle as payment, everyone said their good byes and we left — the work over for us, but only just starting for Geoff in the winery!

It feels as though winter is upon us. Sometime during the night the unseasonably warm weather broke, a cool front came through and it has been pouring with rain ever since. Breakfast was a dreary affair as we both looked at the rain beating on the windows, wondering how dry we'd be by the time we got to work!

Lego kills Firefox, news at 11... Off to the post office this morning to pick up a long-overdue parcel, I bought myself a toy from their sale bin. Bionicle #8591, suitable for ages 7+ so I guess that's ok for me. Tried to put it together at lunch time only to discover that one of the important pieces is missing. Bother! Off to the Lego website, to see whether there's any way of replacing missing pieces — it's not like the old days when Lego consisted solely of simple blocks, every piece now seems to have one and only one function. Click on the “Client Service” link and Firefox promptly crashes. Not content with this, I restarted the browser and tried again... and again... Three attempts and three crashes, I'm convinced that it is indeed a reproducible problem! Start my trusty other browser — Konqueror — and off to the site to ask for my missing bit.

...and the words of the day from a spam is:

Still operate a small fruit stand with her from CEO related to necromancer, make a truce with her briar patch related to with paper napkin near pickup truck.around blood clot is South American.from onlooker self-flagellates, or defined by wedding dress pour freezing cold water on toward hydrogen atom. barbara fantasist cochran impose

Bizarre... and it almost makes sense, which is the scary part!

Home, then out for dinner and a movie with a friend of Jo's; dinner at Silvio's, cheap and yummy pizza as usual, then off to the Jam factory to see Tais Toi. I'm not sure what I'd expected, from the reviews I saw I'd guessed it was something along the lines of a light-hearted buddy movie, Jean Reno as straight man, Gerard Depardieu as comic. I hadn't expected to be bursting out laughing almost constantly the entire time we were there. I thought it was hilarious. I guess now I should try to see the Dinner Game....

Back at home I was hanging up my polar fleece jacket and realised that it still felt strange — after five and a half years, the chestnut that I've been carrying around in the right-hand pocket is finally gone. The chestnut that's been in the pocket ever since I picked it up while waiting in line to enter the Alhambra in Granada! All that time I've carried it around, I don't put much in these pockets, but feeling it in there always brought a smile to my face, remembering those weeks cycling through Spain and Portugal... all that time I've carried it around until Jo stepped on my jacket on Sunday, unceremoniously crushing it! I guess that'll teach me to leave my clothes on the floor!

More on the RDF front: FOAF files for pets! I couldn't resist, but its a bit hard when the lease forbids us from having any pets in the house. So here we are, an RDF FOAF file for Phil....

[http://purl.org/stuff/pets]

FOAF for pets.

It seems such a long time since I last ranted about Melbourne's idiots in their tin boxes, two specimens today popped to the fore:

Tosser #1: “Why is this car drifting into my lane? Has my motorbike suddenly become invisible? Are space aliens in control of the driver?” I asked myself as I rode along the freeway to work. “Aha! Its because the idiot has his phone on the steering wheel and is busy SMSing with both thumbs!” A long blast on the horn, he swerved back into his lane, looked a trifle sheepish and drove off down the exit ramp.

Tosser #2: Ride into the university, around the roundabout, pull into the left-turn lane and accelerate towards the corner. #$#!@#!!!! — the motorist in front of me with their left indicator on isn't going around the left corner, they've decided to ilegally stop to let a passenger out — they must find those “NO STANDING” signs so inconvenient. A second blast of the horn as I swerve around the idiot, the driver gives me the finger, obviously its his god-given right to ignore the signs and park where-ever he damn well wants.

A cold wintery day down at Lorne, a morning walk along the beach was nearly abandoned with the wind and spray. The tide was high, but as usual, there was very little interesting flotsam and jetsam to poke around in — I guess there are just too many people around for interesting stuff to remain for long. A three-metre length of weed-covered bamboo was the only thing that caught my eye — dead-straight, it looked as though maybe it came from the mast of a boat, in which case it is probably a long way south of where it started!

On and around to the rocks where the fishermen were congregated, rubbish and cans everywhere. I laughed at the sight of a Spam can, people almost forget nowadays that Spam refers to a a real product, not just the email variety. Old pastic bags of bait, lengths of cut-off fishing line, damaged old floats, beer cans and more rubbish, sure is good to see the environmentally-sustainable attitudes of our recreational fishermen in action...

Lunchtime and home, and down the Kookaburras (Dacelo novaeguineae) came to visit, drawn by the promise of a free feed on the balcony. Showing off in front of my nephews I started flicking bits of bacon rind closer and closer to the four birds... the bolder two coming right up to peck it from my fingers. All of a sudden one of them decided that a fat juicy finger would obviously hold more meat than a skinny bit of bacon rind, so the next peck took hold of a sizeable chunk of index finger. Stupidly, I tried again with the other hand, only to have one of the others take a belt at my other index finger. Kookaburras 2, Adrian nil!.

The wild life gets the better of me. Too much running around on bicycles, too many beers, too little sleep. Too much proximity to Jo's cold as well! Spent the day home in bed or on the couch or half-heartedly trying to fill in gaps in pages here that've been left blank.

Hmm, enter “Deadly Treadly” into Google and the only references it finds are to my website. I guess that explains why I got the phone call at work one day from someone wanting to go on one, pity she didn't read anything and see that I've got nothing to do with them! After ten years running them, you'd think that at least someone else would have mentioned them somewhere...

Brings on the next thought... one or two of my friends had found this out and mentioned it to me. Felt weird, trying to reconcile the difference between writing that is read by anonymous and unknown audience, and writing that is read by people who know me. Does it change anything? Probably not, nothing of any great import is ever written here, its all just ramblings to keep me occupied and have the fun of playing with a website.

Tried to tidy up a few other pages, but wyvern's disk is 99% full and I need to either delete a whole lot of stuff, or just buy a bigger disk. It's getting closer and closer to “buy a new computer time.” After a fortuitous reading in slashdot, I've found that unison seems to fit my needs for file replication, or at least provide a better fit than tra does, so for now I've got unison scripts setup to try and keep my WinXP laptop, linux desktop and linux home PCs in some sort of agreement... It does seem that a whole lot of people are after a decent distributed filesystem that can be used for “partially connected” operation.

I'm not entirely happy with using http://allconsuming.net/ to record my readings and my books. Too slow, too many hassles, and too often there's no record of a book that I own! I'd prefer if I could make my data available via RDF on my site, and give them a pointer to it, rather than me having to maintain my data on their site. I think I'll try to maintain my own list, referring to theirs where I can.

I guess Origin Energy is incapable of keeping our power going for more than two weeks at a time without an outage. Last night at around 02:30 the power flickered, everything reset, the CD player started up playing a Nick Barker CD (a strange habit that it has when the power comes on), and the PC reset.

That's about the fourth outage at approximately two week intervals that we've had! It's playing havoc with the uptime records from uptimed for my PC. Maybe I need to monitor the mains as well as the weather at home... Maybe Origin wouldn't want me to do that... Maybe I really should get a UPS!

Books books books — and me with no self control at all. I briefly ducked over to the Campus Center this afternoon in order to find a card — I found the card, but somehow found a pile of books as well. Two on the sales table, one — Eels — in the category of “interesting factual books with single-word titles.” We desperately need more bookshelf space, or more bookshelves, or even a house to put the bookshelves in!

Out to a celebratory dinner for our anniversary tonight at Bcoz restaurant. A six course meal — luckily all small courses! About seven years ago, Jo and I visited Tyrrell's winery while away on a bike tour, the winery has been sending me two or three newsletters a year ever since then. Normally I just bin them, but just this once one caught my eye and so we went to a posh dinner of six courses, ten wines and Bruce Tyrrell presiding. Impressive company, with Natalie, head of Tyrrell's wines in Melbourne, sitting next to me and both Rod, the chef, and Bruce wandering around chatting to everyone.

So much for a day at home to do useful things after Easter! A friend who was to turn up “late in the afternoon” to collect an ill-gotten barbecue — snarfed from the hard-rubbish in the street — turned up as I was eating my lunch. End of time to myself. Good to see him, good to catch up, but a major loss of time that had been allocated for some much needed house cleaning!

  Today: ??km
  Trip: km

Not just the fourth day of the bike ride — today was our first wedding anniversary! Woohoo, what fun. One year and no divorce, we must be better than all those Hollywood people or international sporting stars...

A couple of friends snuck breakfast-in-bed, the paper, and a bottle of bubbly under the edge of the tent this morning, luckily we opened the door before packing up the sleeping bags, letting us have a somewhat amusing romantic breakfast-in-bed of muesli while sitting in the tent!

Room service failed to appear so we had to get up to get up for toast and orange juice, then back to pack up the tent for the last time.

Cool leaving Poowong, I almost wished I had long sleeves on. Jo was quite comfortable with me providing the wind shield on the front! Twelve kilometers of gentle rolling down-hill through the farms and trees was a beautiful start to the day, then the same again along flatter ground to Lang Lang. The rodeo was in town today, with cowboys and girls strutting around, and a dozen or more members of the “Hoop Shooter” ute club cruising through town, each outdoing the other with size of bull-bars and number of spotlights.

We thought about trying to get a coffee in the bakery, but thirty cyclists had piled in ahead and it didn't seem worth the wait. Two sausage rolls definitely were though, the first one disappeared too quickly, a second had to be purchased to get the full benefit.

From Lang Lang onwards the riding was a monotonous bore. Once past the rodeo ground — $AU15 admission, $AU2 for children — we turned onto the South Gippsland highway for 25km of straight, flat, multi-lane road into a headwind, made less enjoyable by a constant stream of noisy, high-speed traffic, half of whom couldn't be bothered to pull over as they shot past towing caravans. Its a typical problem at the end of every Easter break, motorists who hardly ever tow their vans, cruising along the roads forgetting that the damn things stick out a foot wider than their cars on either side. An hour of this and we took a break in Tooradin, standing by the creek and watching the local lunatic walk past screaming and ranting and waving his arms at invisible demons.

Back onto the bike and off the highway, the road to Baxter only slightly more enjoyable with less traffic, but a much reduced width. I knew we were nearing Frankston when a petrol-head came screaming up behind us at a roundabout, blasting on the horn, before screeching around the roundabout and off up the hill in front of us.

By the time we reached Frankston train station we'd had enough for the day, two hours of constant slog in an unchanging position was enough for two bums, two necks and four arms and wrists. Riding on the tandem does seem to be more susceptible to pains like these, I think we both tend to sit in the same position for longer — there's less inclination to move around on the bike. We did manage a slick piece of maneuvering though — down the ramps to cross under the rail lines, a right-angle turn to go underneath, another right-angle and then back up the steep ramp on the other side with Jo standing on the pedals! A pity that Rod wasn't there, he'd spent half the weekend telling us he wanted to see us standing to climb a hill!

The train was sitting at the platform, $AU7 for a ticket into the city, then an hour of trying to stay awake as the sun shone through the windows and the train rocked us along. Stumbling out at Richmond for the last ride home we were both cold and tired and our legs wanted nothing more than a warm relaxing shower, but we climbed on board and made it back.

Where?

Poowong, Lang Lang, Tooradin, Baxter, Melbourne

  Today: ??km
  Trip: km

The overnight rain had blown away as we packed up this morning — I guess there's got to be some rain on an Easter Deadly Treadly! In place of the rain we had a strong westerly, straight in our faces on leaving Tarwin lower and for the next hour's slog towards Inverloch.

Nobody seemed in a very talkative mood on the road; maybe it was the hangovers from last night, maybe it was the headwind, maybe people were still asleep. Jo and I seemed to be struggling to move along the road, but we still seemed to be passing a lot of people — I guess at least we only had the same frontal area as one rider, with the legs of two.

The route skirted around the outside of Inverloch, but nearly everyone detoured in for some much needed coffee, and a chance to sit down out of the wind. Half of us managed to miss the first turn into town and then execute a variety of interesting u-turns and other maneuvers in order to get there. Heading along the main street at least four of us were treated to blasts on the horn from a local 4WD enthusiast, eager to make his feelings known regarding bicycles... nobody was in much of a mood to be amused.

Leaving Inverloch too good things happened; firstly, the wind dropped as we were now heading north, secondly, the coffee seemed to have done its job and people were more awake and talkative.

At the hill before Kongwak the long and short rides diverged, we had approximately a hundred metres warning of the turn, and chose the long route purely on the basis of it seeming to be more protected from the wind! Winding up the hill and then down through Kongwak we seemed miles from anywhere, the roads are narrow, covered in moss, and almost completely free of traffic.

Where?

Tarwin Lower, Inverloch, Kongwak Poowong

  Today: ??km
  Trip: km

A magnificent day's riding, mostly along peaceful country roads through the Gippsland hills.

At once point we watched as a flock of twenty to thirty black cockatoos flew overhead, creaking mournfully as they called to each other, flying with their characteristic slow, floppy wing beat.

There was a long hard climb after the morning-tea stop at Meeniyan, then magnificent views down towards Wilsons Prom as we headed south to rejoin the Foster to Inverloch road. A brief run along this road and then a great lunch at the Orange Roughy café at Fish Creek.

For perhaps the first time in Deadly Treadly history, it didn't rain at Tarwin Lower... not during the day anyway! Jo and some of the others have memories of being caught here in an enormous thunderstorm and hailstorm at Easter in about 1995! The weather was being spectacularly good to us, most unlike any of the Easter rides that I can remember, especially those around Gippsland!

Dinner at the Tarwin Lower pub was a breeze compared with last night, none of the ordinary menu was available, it was $AU13 per head, then pick what you want from a huge selection of dishes. No problems, no fuss, a huge queue of people both from the bike ride and the rest of the town, but all moving quickly and efficiently. A couple of bottles of red helped too, and a good night was had by all.

Where?

Mirboo North, Meeniyan, Fish Creek, Tarwin Lower

  Today: ??km
  Trip: km

Breakfast, finish packing, put the bags in the car and drive down to Alexandra parade to the start of yet another Deadly Treadly... somewhere along the way Jo asks whether I've checked that we really are starting from the same place as all the previous rides! We are, and about a hundred people have shown up, quite a few more than the last couple of times. A few quick hellos, we drop off the bags and then back home to pick up the bike. I said bike not bikes, because for the first time ever, we're taking the tandem on a tour somewhere!

Riding it with the clipless pedals is a huge improvement on the toe-straps. When we get home we must get around to buying some proper pedals for this bike! We survived the ride down Swan street, made it back to the start, then answered the first of a stream of questions along the lines of “How long have you had it?” and “What's it like to ride?”

Pedals off, bags into the bus, tandem onto the truck and then we're off in the buses out to Moe and to start the riding.

Amazingly, the bus driver managed to drive all the way from Melbourne to Moe without having to stop “to let us stretch our legs,” a euphemism that seems to have been used repeatedly over the years as the poor tobacco-addict drivers stop to desperately suck down two or three fags in quick succession.

A few passers-by looked on in bemusement as 100 people piled off the two coaches and started assembling bags and bikes — half of them anyway.... The other half stood around waiting... and waiting.... Eventually, an hour later, Arthur turned up with the second truck and the remaining bicycles. He'd been forced to provide statements to the police after some motorists ran into each other in front of him.

The local café failed dismally in an attempt to provide 100 people with coffees and salad rolls. Once the first ten had entered the shop, staff stress-level rose to record heights and everyone started getting in each other's way. There didn't seem any kind of system, so orders took longer and longer to fill, all the while more and more people joined the mob waiting at the counter!

...

Dinner at the Grand Ridge Brewery turned into a comedy of errors. Once again we found ourselves in a place with no order to their order system. After queueing at the counter to place an order, the only description we could give was along the lines of “that table over there,” and point, there are no table numbers, and no names were taken on orders. As a result, the night seemed to consist of a stream of increasingly harried staff coming out of the kitchen bearing plates, wandering around the room asking who had ordered a steak and a flathead. Not surprisingly, none of the customers knew which order was which either, so people were just grabbing whatever came past that sounded like what they had ordered!

The beer is very good though, and the happy hour prices of $1 a pot are outstanding! A few glasses of the award-winning Gippsland Gold almost made up for the kitchen! If only they didn't chill the beer to almost freezing point, it tastes too good to do that to it!

Where?

Moe, Thorpedale, Mirboo North

...

Hi there! Sorry for an e-mail out of the blue, but I just did a search for the term samsonite briefcase on Google and found ajft.org ranked 16.

Weird. There was I thinking that I'd never mentioned samsonite briefcases here, with the obvious exception of this page, a check with Google and sure enough — there it was on 07-Apr-2002, a briefcase with Bluetooth built in....

Uploaded the photos from the trip last week and then realised that I'd forgotten to reset the time in my camera — yet another device that knows the time but can't learn it from anything else. Sick of changing back and forth in daylight saving, I've set my camera to UTC!

This evening we hoped it would be third time lucky for the Curry Club, but it turned out to be “three strikes and out.” Out to have dinner at an Indian restaurant, previous visits there had been lukewarm. The food was OK, but once again, the service seemed lackadaisical, and when I saw that two of the waiters kept ducking out with their mobile phones to SMS friends it all got just a bit too irritating. Still, the place always seems full, so maybe I just keep getting unlucky, or maybe they just prefer to serve large groups of customers.

Last day of my holiday. Two weeks seems such a long time when it involves an escape like the bike trip. My paper journal is full of empty pages from last week, but that never seems to work, I either leave too much or too little space, or I just don't get around to revisiting the days — time just keeps flowing forwards. At least the electronic one doesn't get its pages wet or have problems with cheap paper and felt-tipped pens — on the other hand, I don't think a handheld PC would have stood up to last week's deluge!

Chores in the morning then up the street for bike bits and to discuss my cracked helmet straps at the Trek shop. They were very helpful, Luke took the helmet to show to the Limar rep. who should be in next week. No problems about it being just over a year old. The rep. is all-powerful with the brand, and will probably just replace the strap harness on the spot.

Then off to Groovetrain for coffee and newspaper and a catchup, before jumping on a tram into the city, last chance to wander around before going back to work. An amazing change from last week to be in the crowds and bustle of lunch-time in the CBD. Music kept popping up and reminding me of things, a t-shirt across the tram with “Death or Glory” across the chest had me humming the same song by the Clash, then a fire engine and smoke in Bourke street got me started on “London's Burning.” Two blocks on and a busker is playing “Danny Boy” on a violin, a song that has strange affiliation with the NSW bike rides, owing to an occaision long in the past when the mayor of some small town got up and sang it on the podium, starting a tradition which had continued to this year — except that this year the mayors in every single town were too busy to visit the ride, more important was grovelling to their constituents to get re-elected on Saturday.

I've been listening to a lot of music since getting home, seems to be the same every year, or every time I go away. Endless cover-band renditions of Brown Eyed Girl and To Her Door start to get to you after a while...

Back in Melbourne, miserable weather and all! Somewhere around Seymour the sun came up on a dull grey sky. Cloud turned to drizzle turned to rain — welcome home to Victoria! Somehow the train managed to run an hour late, I tried to call Jo to let her know, no luck, there's mobile phone coverage for people driving up the Hume highway, but none for those in the trains.

  Today: 47km
  Trip: 381km

Where?

Gosford, Berowra.

  Today: 77km
  Trip: 334km

  Today: 74km
  Trip: 262km

Where?

Newcastle

  Today: 0km
  Trip: 188km

Things continue to improve. Its a sunny day, breakfast at a reasonable hour. A visit to a laundromat and a coffee in Beaumont street. Definitely an improvement.

In the afternoon Ron and I trundled into town on Big Bertha for a beer at the waterfront brewery, then along the sea-wall to the lighthouse, and around the point. Eventually we ran out of path and Ron tried to take the flexy old tandem over a skate-ramp, but sanity prevailed and he pulled out at the last moment. Me, I just hung on and pedalled!

  Today: 73km
  Trip: 188km

Stuff-ups and more stuff-ups! Up at 4am as the cooks got up and started to prepare breakfast. A quick pack up and dress, then down to the showground in the mill owners 4WD. Put the bags down in a corner where we could see them and started on the bikes, preparing and loading them into the trucks. Within minutes the sheep-like hordes had dumped bags on our bags and buried the lot.

Two luggage trucks, a cattle truck and the tipper were filled — hordes arriving and pushing and shoving. Good bikes and twenty kilogram monsters, desperately trying to pack them to minimise any damage. 70... 30... 23 into the sag bus trailer, then only seven left, flat on a layer of bags in the luggage compartment under the coach. Dozed in the bus to Raymond Terrace, then sat waiting, waiting, waiting for the other bus and our bags. Half an hour later we finally gave up and headed off. JB said he'd take care of the bags for us. Turns out there were there all along, one of the BNSW staff had moved our bags from the bus to a truck and not told anyone! Along with that they managed to lose JB's helmet and shoes, so after working all morning to pack 1,200 bikes, he didn't get to ride his own!

Rode today with rocket-Rod, he's from Wellington and grew up in Newcastle and around this area, so knew all the details about the roads and towns, where to go when we got to the towns, and where they used to ride a few decades ago. An enjoyable ride, doubly so to be finally back on our bikes, but very humid after all the rain.

Coming into Newcastle we must have zig-zagged all over town to avoid any sign of a main road or a right-hand turn, it got to be annoying in the end, and thoroughly disorienting.

Party night before the rest day tomorrow — I don't know why I botther going to them some times — the same sad cover bands, the same guys dressing up in women's clothing every year. Turn around to go home and the best stuff up of the day happens. There was a bus in from the campsite to the club, but no transport home! Several hundred people, half of whom have no idea where they are, are now expected to walk a couple of kilometres home at midnight through a dodgy part of Newcastle while dodging the abuse and cars of the local hoons. Thanks BNSW, magnificent organisation there!

  Today: 5km
  Trip: 117km

There was little to do all day except walk around town and look at the floods. Some of our more quick-witted friends ignored the BNSW organisers, arranged to have their bags taken in a van, and rode the 100+ km straight down the highway to Newcastle. Others, who had friends in the area, arranged to be picked up and taken there in cars. The rest of us sat around wondering what miracle of logistics was going to occur that would take over a thousand wet and pissed off cyclists, their luggage and their bikes, away from the flooded back roads, and over a hundred and twenty kilometres to get them back on the planned route.

We walked around the streets and looked at the flooded gardens.

We sat in the pub and looked at the flooded river.

We sat in the coffee shop and looked at the flooded streets.

All praise went to the owner of the sawmill! From losing half a day's production yesterday he got the staff to make the mill safe, let the entire ride stay the night, then arranged to work a half shift between nine and four today, cleared up again and gave the mill back to BNSW for the evening meals and shelter for a second night!

Alex shuffled up to Rod and I just before dinner with a twinkle in his eyes. “Guess what guys, I think we've been asked to volunteer...” Sure enough, then there came the big announcement: First thing in the morning the bikes were going to be loaded into trucks, the riders were going in busses, and we were all going to Raymond Terrace, then to ride to Newcastle. Impressed by JB's ability to pull order out of chaos, BNSW had asked him to oversee the loading of all thousand-plus bikes into the trucks again! JB agreed, but on two conditions: First, get him the same guys who helped him yesterday, two, BNSW volunteers to stay off his back and out of his way!

Turned in for an early night, knowing we'd be up at 4am to start the loading.

Where?

Bulahdelah

  Today: 36km
  Trip: 112km

Breakfast took longer than anticipated, the weather saw to that. Ominous dark clouds threatened while some chose to pack up before eating, others chose to eat first and pack later. I was one of the latter group, not only had I not packed up, but I was only just joining the queue as the downpour began and put a delay in the procedings. The sudden deluge caught me between toilets and breakfast so I huddled under shelter to wait it out, then managed to grab some food, eat and pack in hurry all while not getting too wet.

The rain stopped for long enough to allow us to pack up, then Doctor Alan and I headed out under very dark skies. Stopping to wait for the police to allow us across the river into Forster we glanced back to see ever darker clouds gathering ominously. A flock of pelicans sat on the sandbank beside the river, very strange in appearance as they sat facing directly towards us — into the rain — beaks half open, maybe catching the fresh water. Finally we were allowed to cross; light showers, heavy showers, turning to torrential deluges for the rest of the day.

Punctures galore in the wet, after pumping my front tyre up it at a rest stop it went straight back down again as we were leaving town — luckily next to a boat showroom where we sheltered under a huge awning, repaired the puncture and joked about taking a boat the rest of the way...

At Bungwahl we stopped and stood around in the mud for a while then started to head off, only to find that we were prevented from getting back onto the road. The police had decided that with torrential rain, a narrow road, one thousand five hundred cyclists and a small number of local motorists, that they couldn't safely continue the ride and so 1,500 cyclists had to stand around for up to five hours in pouring rain while buses were organised to take us the rest of the way to Bulahdelah! A few shouting matches between BNSW staff and police, assorted people calling each other idiots. Meanwhile the vast majority stood and dripped and shivered, St Johns ambulance staff treating the worst affected.

Trucks were hired on short notice to carry the bikes, of course these were whatever was available, so there was no chance of any of the bikes being well protected! There was no organization to packing them either, until JB grabbed a dozen of us and took charge, doing his best to minimise the damage and get us out of there before nightfall.

A complete catastrophe of a day. Somewhere through the afternoon one of the VRA volunteers found us a packet of jelly snakes — the only food for a dozen people in four hours!

Finally we'd packed the last of the bikes into the last of the trucks, seven hours of walking around in pouring rain. Totally exhausted, we piled into the mini-bus for the trip to Bulahdelah and the show-grounds, to discover that we had to find our luggage and take it up to a sawmill that the owner had volunteered the use of. A freshly scrubbed, warm, dry BNSW staff member told us: “Don't worry, we'll take care of you when you get there, there's hot showers, accomodation's been arranged, you've done a fantastic job...” We staggered out of the bus into the mill to find every last square inch of space occupied, all rooms in town occupied, and a total lack of interest in any BNSW staff member we could approach. No showers, these were back at the showground that we'd just left! No accomodation, that was all full. No food, we'ld missed dinner! Four of us marched off with our bags to a likely looking corner, barricaded ourselves in and got changed, then managed to get the scrapings of dinner.

Accomodation for the night was the carpetted floor of the manager's office. Three or four of us sharing with some of the cooks from the catering firm, cooks who would be getting up at four a.m. to start on the breakfasts....

As organizational stuff ups go, it was one of the more impressive ones I've ever been involved in!

Where?

Tuncurrey, Bungwahl, Bulahdelah

  Today: 74km
  Trip: 76km

Either the beer or the travelling had produced a killer headache, tend to think it was the latter since I always seem to end up with a stiff neck and a headache after sleeping in buses and trains.

Steamy and humid all morning, then a bit of a cooler change after the lunch stop. For the first half of the day I rode by myself, trying to shake off the headache and in no mood for company. Caught up with Dr Alan and Ron for the rest of the ride, down to the coast and into the wind. A couple of beers in the Tuncurry bowls club and then back to the campsite to set up the tent just ahead of the rain. Then nothing to do but sit and watch for an hour or more waiting for the shop to open to buy a towel to replace the one I'd left at home so I could go and have a shower!

Back over to the bowls club after dinner for a few more beers, too far to go to walk into town, and the clowds looming overhead looked too dark and ominous.

  Today: 2km
  Trip: 2km

A foggy morning in the Southern Highlands as it became light enough to see from the train, then a seven a.m. arrival at Strathfield for 07:30 departure on the North Coast XPT. Homeward-bound ferals everywhere on the platform, chuffing away on joints and bongs, oblivious to the “No Smoking” signs, but no more oblivious than the rest of the population with their cigarettes.

While waiting I sat and chatted to three other people destined for Gloucester, travelling with a Bike Friday tandem and a Birdie — two folding bikes that become more and more appealing every time I travel and have to go through the hassles of boxing a bike and transporting the box...

A morning trip up through the central coast, warm sun through the windows making me drowsy, the sights and names of places bringing back flickering memories of visits to this part of the world three or four years ago. Staff on the train were bemused that so many people were heading for Gloucester, its a tiny little town with very few passengers normally!

Step out of the train at Gloucester station and nearly melt — after almost sixteen hours in air-conditioned transport, the humidity and temperature were quite a shock. Assemble the bike from the box and ride off in jeans and boots to find the campsite. I guess that BNSW had assumed that everyone would be arriving by bus or car, since there were no directions or maps available for anyone arriving at the station.

This year BNSW had decided that there would be no riding on the first day; maybe the hassles of arrival, registration and riding were too much for some people, maybe the local chamber of commerce wanted us to stay longer and spend more money... Registration was intended to occur in the morning, finishing at noon, so I'd thought that by arriving by train I'd be one of the last. As it was, my train arrived ahead of the buses, even though they left Sydney at six a.m.! In any case, there was nothing much to do for the afternoon but sit in the pub and drink beer and catch up with people from previous rides.

Too much beer in the afternoon, too little sleep the night before, after a brief visit to the pub this evening, I retired to my tent for a good night's sleep! Apparently the publican repeated his strange behaviour of a previous ride visit, after putting up the money to hire a band and advertise for people to visit, he promptly closed the pub and kicked everyone out at eleven o'clock without having applied for an extended license!

Where?

  Today: 0km
  Trip: 0km

Seems strange having a day or two holiday before I go away on a bike trip. Usually I've finished work one day, gone home, packed up, got to whatever transport is required, got to the start and got on my way... it all seems very relaxed this time!

Tried — and eventually succeeded — in getting Telstra to change over the phone numbers from my old SIM to my new one. For about ten minutes the guy in the shop repeated the same procedure over and over again, swapping SIM cards in and out of the reader, all the time while the software kept stating "no reader attached to computer". Eventually he gave up, disappeared into the back of the shop, then came back with a fancy model phone that can read and write SIM cards, and did it that way. Maybe the ancient unpatched Windows 98 PC with IE 5.0 had finally died, maybe it was a victim of the latest Bagle computer virus.

A long and lazy lunch at Kojo Brown; eating, drinking, watching the world go by and reading a bit of Reflections on a Marine Venus. The book is Mediterranean, the weather and my mood feel Mediterranean, the people near me all Mediterranean, but I'm here in Melbourne, and noisy traffic and bad architecture bring me back to reality.

Australian Geographic seem to have sorted out our subscription woes — issues #72 and #73 never turned up, but I got home to find #74 sitting in the mail box, which reminded me to phone up and ask for a copy of to be sent out — I couldn't do this back in December when I called about #72 because at the time it was too “soon.” No problem, #73 will be on its way on Monday.

An article on the 1000km Bibbelmun track in West Australia — Perth to Albany — took e back to our honeymoon last year. A 6 to 8 week walk, maybe two or three weeks cycle trip — it would be great to combine it with a trip over on the Indian-Pacific train. There was even mention of Gary the mad ranger from Walpole Wilderness cruises!

A fascinating and disturbing article about death in there too. At first I didn't read it, then started to and put it aside, then read it fully. All part of the whole “avoiding death” thing that they were speaking of. It's come up before — I've never been exposed to death, no elderly family nearby, no experiences in it. So strange, but maybe quite common with families being spread out over the countryside in the 20th century.

Evening time and its finally time to leave for the start of the bike ride — and nothing is ever simple. Spencer Street station looks like a bomb — or maybe a bulldozer — has hit it, only about a quarter of the station is open, the rest is site-sheds and hoardings and construction works. Tonight's train to Albury has been replaced by a coach — due to track-work caused by a derailment last week, so there goes any chance of having some leg room. I took one glance at the soggy sandwiches in the dingy café and asked for directions to the nearest edible food — two blocks away on King street, but well worth the walk for a tasty, hot, falafel roll.

For reasons known only to the railways, they insisted that the bus leave half an hour early, consequently it arrived in Albury half an hour early, so us passengers had to spend 45 minutes standing around on the platform before the XPT finally departed for Sydney. This departure seems to have been carefully designed to occur after the 11:30 closing of the dining car, a car that is only open when the train is moving, resulting in no food or drink being available to the passengers!

At least its a train that I'm on for the rest of the night's travels up to Sydney and not a coach. There's a reasonable amount of leg room and I can stretch out a little to get some sleep — something that seems hard to come by in the economically-rationalised designed-for-legless-midget busses.

Success, success! Mr Damage is running again. I have bled my clutch and I am not bleeding from the knuckles — unlike some of my many other attempts at performing feats of motorised mechanics. After belting it with a bloody big lump of metal, the recalcitrant screw in the clutch-fluid resevoir could be undone, and then everything was by-the-book. New fluid in, assorted squeezings, bubbles and squirts everywhere, old fluid out, and finally a clutch that clutches — as it's supposed to.

Not bad for day one of a two week holiday. Hope the rest of the fortnight is so productive...

Six o'clock in the evening, first day of my holiday, the phone rings. It's the account rep. from our anti-virus software company — there's something evil afoot — a new version of Bagle. Why does this always happen as soon as I go on leave? People are starting to suspect that I only ever go on leave in order to allow my evil twin to release a virus.

Last day of work — Yay! I'm feeling relaxed and in a holiday mood already. Its a shame Jo won't be coming away though.

Lunch in Cinque Lire — this could get addictive — as well as quite cold in the winter unless they can close in the walls, the premises seems designed solely for summer weather. Good tasty focacacias, cheap glasses of wine and magnificent coffee. Definitely addictive.

Interesting discussions going on in news:aus.bicycle at the moment, even though I don't really have access to a news server to follow it. Seems that police turned out in large numbers for last Saturday's “Hell Ride” and some of their behaviour bordered on harrassment and entrapment. Multiple police cars and motorbikes followed beside and behind the ride, officers leaning out of car windows taking photos of any and every rider who crossed into the middle lane, motorcycle cops shooting off ahead to push the pedestrian walk button at each set of lights, then trying to catch riders ignoring the red light!

Hell Ride

loosely organised bunch ride that rides every Saturday on Beach road in Melbourne, typically flouting red lights and maximum two-abreast laws as a fast training ride for road racers and others who like the atmosphere and that style of riding. Any motorist trying to use the road at the same time is inconvenienced.

Critical Mass

loosely organised bunch ride that rides the last Friday of the month at various places around Melbourne, typically flouting red lights and maximum two-abreast laws as a friendly protest ride for assorted activists and others who like the atmosphere and that style of riding. Any motorist trying to use the road at the same time is inconvenienced.

Both the above groups seem to view the others as wankers: one as a bunch of lycra-clad tour-de-france wannabes, the other as a bunch of unemployed ferals. The motorists and talk-back hosts of Melbourne — they're having trouble telling them apart.

Yes, the Hell Ride has probably got out of hand. Yes, there are too many guys with too much testosterone in there. Yes, they ignore some road laws. However, the ride is some form of institution, there are probably better uses of public funds, and the police involved are hardly acting ethically or in a way likely to attract any kind of sympathy!

...

...

Off for a walk today. Prerequisites were that it wasn't somewhere that we'd been before, it had to be interesting, and it had to be easy enough to get too. One of the “Great Ocean Road Walks” seemed to fit the bill — a loop between Skene's Creek and Apollo Bay, so into the car we got...

Grey skies in the morning, grey skies all weekend, we left the sunblock and hats at home... driving towards Apollo Bay the sky cleared, the sun came out, the temperature rose, and worst of all, most of the four-hour walk was out in the open, unprotected from the sun. Both of us got sunburnt, Jo on the shoulders, me mostly on the forehead and face.

Parked at the end of Wild Dog road, where it joins the Great Ocean road, and headed off up the valley, following the creek. In only a couple of minutes we were away from the noise of the traffic and could have been anywhere. Much the same as everywhere else we've been this weekend, fruiting blackberries were in abundance, together with quite a few apple trees grown from cores discarded out of car windows — none of the apples were quiet ripe, very tart and too tough to bite into.

Eight in the morning and Jo is still sound asleep, I'm wide awake so off I went down the street for a walk along the beach and some time to myself. Eight people in the house crowds on my nerves at times — especially when the youngest them can wake you up screaming and the next just behaves like the three year-old that he is!

Walking through the campground I saw a couple who were cycle-touring, tents and bikes and gear and parts of a “ROAD-TRAIN” sign picked up from somewhere in the outback... I thought of stopping to say hello but walked on by and left them sitting quietly enjoying the morning. On the way back the campground was still full of people and noise — all except for one tidy, vacant block. They'd packed up and moved on.

Lorne; petrol, one dollar per litre; milk, two dollars per litre; coffee, $AU15 per litre and the piece de resistance, tomato sauce, $AU40 per litre! A bizarre bit of maths that came to me as I stood in line in the bakery for a pie.

Standing-room only out on the Lorne pier for the fishermen. With up to six rods each its amazing that there are any fish left, and that they can avoid tangling around each other as they try to catch them.

Back at the house, seven of us jumped into two cars and drove off to Blanket leaf picnic ground to walk down to Cora-lyn cascades — Jack and Will, John and Kath, Jo, Ann and I — a major undertaking when two of the seven are toddlers.

This was the same walk that Jo and I had attempted a year or two ago at the end of winter when floods and fallen trees made it nearly impassable. The track downstream of the cascades still looked impenetrable, we'll have to try the rest of the walk one day... For today, it was enough to make it to the waterfall and have lunch on the rock and watch the native fish in the creek, then walk slower and slower back up the hill towards the carpark — little voices claiming more and more stridently that they were tired. Along the way there were fungi and tree ferns and small birds nests to catch the eye, a half-rotten bridge that wobbled alarmingly, and two strange birds perched on the path that allowed us to get quite close before scurrying off into the underbrush.

Still time at the end of the afternoon to stop and pick three ice-cream containers full of blackberries from the roadside. Not quite as luscious as the ones down by the river, but infinitely easier to get to!

CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!. Walking along the path we looked up to see a pair of Gang-gang cockatoos (Callocephalon fimbriatum) almost within arm's reach, busy cracking open the hawthorn berries and showering us with bits of tree. The male was too high to photograph — a shame, they are magnificently coloured — but I could reach the camera up to get a clear line-of-sight to the female.

Three hours later when we walked past again they were still there; still gorging themselves on the berries.

I guess I must be a thief. I guess that's what the Australian music industry is telling me anyway. I tried putting the four new CDs from last weekend into the PC in order to read the track info into my local CD database — Johnny Cash has no problems, the Paul Kelly CD won't read, won't even play. Closer investigation shows that it is copy protected which explains why it keeps skipping in the CD player at Lorne and the CD player at home. Thanks Mr Kelly, I'll be taking it back on Saturday and getting my money back. I'd let Mr Kelly know, but apparently his website [http://www.paulkelly.com.au/] doesn't accept feedback.

Ow! Ripped off by a snack-food company. Or ripped off more than usual! Curiosity got the better of me and I thought I'd try the all new all-singing, all-dancing flavour-enhanced and life-beautiying Wicked Cheddar Twisties. Too late I noticed that while they're the same price as the ordinary Twisties, and that the packet is the same size as the ordinary Twisties, the packet only holds 30g rather than 50g! I must get into the snack food business, at $50 per kilogram it must have quite a profit margin...

Mmmm, flavour enhancers 621, 627 and 631, mineral salt 339, food acids 270 and 330, and colours 129, 150 and 116. No wonder they taste so good. They even come with whirly little plastic things to play with on my desk.

[http://www.tazos.com.au/]

[http://www.yugioh.com/]

Another day out riding, another stupid driver goes screaming around me and turns left, missing my elbow by fractions of an inch and screeching around the corner to get in ahead of the traffic coming off the lights on Waverley road. Guilty-looking woman in a 4WD, (Vic. SSO-217>), I guess at least she looked back in the rear mirror to see if she'd killed anyone....

Which reminds me that Mr Policeman didn't ever call me back to follow up on the road-rage that I reported. Not really surprising when a description of a motorist threatening to kill you with a car is rephrased by the coppers as “we can't do anything about someone swearing at you.”

The newspapers seem to be relying more and more heavily on spell-checkers and less and less on proof-reading articles. There was a masterpiece today that provoked much mirth on various cycling mail lists:

[http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,8831097%255E13569,00.html]

Costal areas on cycle watch

  By RAJIV MAHARAJ
  March 1, 2004

A low hovering over the Top End may yet develop into a category one cyclone...

I do not think that is the word you meant to use...

Half the weekend gone and I'm starting to feel human, by Monday morning I guess I'll be back to normal and ready to face the world again!

After breakfast we decided to go for a walk up the Erskine river, after checking out the newer houses going up higher and higher up the hill. Some of them are huge, I dread to think what they sell for! Balanced on poles three storeys up above the hillside, attempting to simultaneously blend in with environment and yet maintain the best view possible. Once we passed the end of the road and scrambled down the hillside to the river there were blackberries everywhere — great big juicy ripe blackberries, just waiting to be picked off and eaten, and unfortunately just waiting to be spread further and further through the bush, creating the impenetrable thickets first started by Baron Ferdinand von Mueller, the Victorian Government's botanist in the 1800's.

Poor people in times to come will bless me for my thoughtfulness.

Baron von Mueller

A weekend is too short, someone should decree that each week we only work four of the five days and have three days off for leisure. I guess the other approach is for me to become fabulously wealthy and then relax in sybaritic luxury...

All too soon we had to leave, stopping in at Geelong for a look around the waterfront, admiring the way that the old docks have been turned into a park. Even the old port authority building looks set for demolition, to be replaced by stylish new waterfront apartments. Dinner at the Sailors Rest, a restaurant that we went to the last time that Mark and Lesley came down to Lorne!

I'm supposed to be having a pleasant weekend at Lorne with some friends — instead I'm as grumpy as a bear with a sore head and unfit for human company, let alone that of my friends. All because of a week of stupidities of last-minute panics at work as everything that should have been done over the summer break suddenly rises up and faces us.

Did the usual Lorne weekend things, a leisurely breakfast, reading the paper spread all over the floor, down the hill for a walk along the shop-fronts, then out to the pier to watch the fishermen. Along the way I picked up some new CDs, a Sun studios Johhny Cash double and the new Paul Kelly double album. Good value for four disks, and finally I've got my hands on some Johnny Cash, after thinking for months that I really should...

Out on the pier we watched the seagulls squabbling over fish guts and bits of rubbish. In amongst the usual flock of silver gulls was a pair of very large dark birds. No idea what kind of bird they were, and too far away to get a good photo with my camera, all I can tell from the photo I did get was that they're dark grey, have light-coloured bills, and they're much bigger than the silver gulls! Maybe someday an ornithologist will read this and be able to let me know what they are...

Created myself an account at http://allconsuming.net/, added a couple of books, then had a look at Leigh Dodds' XSL transforms to turn the XML reading list from Allconsuming into RDF. I think that I've got it. RDF reading list.

...and then another new account. This one on http://del.icio.us/. A shared bookmark manager. Threw in a few of my scribbled-down URLs for all to see [http://del.icio.us/ajft], or to access via RSS.

On the one hand, these services are easy to use and to share... on the other, they're next to useless if they suddenly go away, or if I can't connect to them.

These random word lists in the latest batches of spam are getting quite weird. Sometimes they almost seem to be saying something. I wonder if I could rig up a script to repopulate a dictionary from them? From yet-another-online-bank-scam comes: blacksmith, glossed, papa, sarcasm, concession, riemann, arsenic, seacoast, chisel, dramatic, brent, synchrotron, stonehenge

Yesterday's events must have shaken me a little more than I realised. Couldn't get to sleep until well after 2am, being chased by a car kept replaying over and over in my head.

But so far so good... One successful pass along Cole crescent this morning without running into yesterday's road rager. I still can't make up my mind whether to try and pursue it with the police. I get the impression that all it'll take is for Mr Petrol-head to say “nah mate, I didn't do it,” and nothing will happen. Sent off an email to Bicycle Victoria to see what their legal advocacy says.

On the urging of Bicycle Victoria, I detoured around to Oakleigh police station on the way home. BV had highly recommend that I report it to the police, and to contact them if nothing comes of this. Nothing very impressive in the police response, my description of the events evoked the reply “we can't do anything about a guy swearing at you.” I made the comments that he had threatened to injure me, had appeared to be attempting to injure me, and that I was concerned that he would do so again as I had to ride along that street every day to and from work. The officer promised to phone him up and hear the other side to the story.

Then surprise, surprise... the quickest way back home is to go on down Drummond street, around into Cole crescent, up onto the bike track and off to the west. Who should I meet as I turn into Cole crescent but a white station wagon, same number plate, I might have got the make of car wrong though, tearing up the road and howling around the corner to head back the way I'd just come. As he passed I got a filthy look out the window, not sure if he recognised me or just does that to all cyclists...

Maybe my gravestone will end up with a list of number plates written on it. Maybe then the police will be able to do something.

Today was going so well until I turned right from the bike path into Drummond street in Chadstone, a street with a 50km/hr limit, and was riding towards my normal left-turn into Cole crescent. As I got to the corner, Mr aggressive petrol-head in a white ford falcon station wagon (Vic. PIT-058), came flying over the speed hump behind me, half overtook me then attempted to go screaming around the left turn into Cole crescent. At the last instant he decided that he would have hit me so he hit the brakes, slid to a stop, then commenced screaming abuse out the window — telling me “get off the f###ing road,” “the f####ing bike path is over there you f###ing C##T.”

I quickly decided not to go left into Cole crescent — no point in deliberately entering a road that has this idiot in it — so I kept going straight, yelling out to “READ THE BLOODY ROAD RULES!” Unfortunately that was a big mistake. Mr road-rage executed a howling u-turn and then chased me along Drummond street, screaming abuse and threatening “how about I knock you off your f###ing bike, and then see how you f###ing like it.” He chased me all the way down Rae street where I escaped onto the end of the bike path, then he sat at the end of the path screaming abuse as I rode off.

Do I go to the police or not? Will it just antagonise the idiot and make him even more aggressive against the next cyclist he meets? Will not going to the police just enforce in his mind that cyclists don't belong on the road? Unfortunately the nearest police station I could think of at the time was in Oakleigh, and that would have meant going back up the street past him. Equally unfortunately, Cole street is almost a dead-end, so he probably lives there and I'll have to go past it again and again on my way to and from work..

The two weeks of thirty-degree or higher weather broke overnight with the arrival of a cooler change and a tiny amount of rain. We woke up to a cool house — at last — and a pair of absolutely crazy dogs. Both Boris and Scarlet were suddenly full of boundless energy, racing back and forth and sniffing at all the wonderful wet garden smells.

After breakfast, Mum and Dad and Jo and I headed out to Braidwood for the morning, an ex-gold-mining town two-thirds of the way from Canberra to the NSW South Coast. The town always seemed to have two claims to fame; it was where Ned Kelly was filmed, and it slowed down people down on their way to and from the coast. Now it seems that every second shop is a gallery or a coffee shop, and on the weekend at least, the place is thriving.

The best find of all was a small sign that I spotted half-way up an alley, pointing off to the Braidwood brewery — a micro-brewery hidden away in a shed at the back of a shop. Dragging everyone inside, a strange conversation ensued. The owner/brewer/head bottle-washer remarked that it was always the visitors from Victoria that came inside for a look around, Victoria seems to have a thriving micro-brewery culture, while NSW residents pass on by or refuse to drink anything that isn't mass produced and mass-marketed. I pointed out that we lived five minutes walk from the Goat brewery, and he asked where in Richmond we lived, when I said “Westbank Terrace” he knew the street! Prior to his life as a brewer, he had worked for Channel 9, five minutes walk from our house in the opposite direction to Goat beer.

Canberra airport security decided to randomly pick me and scan me for traces of explosives. Bit my lip and refrained from any jokes, security staff being reknown for their total lack of any sense of humour. Small things were wiped over my clothes and inside my luggage, then inserted in an interesting looking machine. I assume that it gave the all clear, nobody seemed to want to take me away and ask me nasty question!

Leaving Canberra airport we had a magnificent view down over the city, the plane took off to the north and then turned 180° banking over the suburbs of Hackett and Downer, then flew straight over the centre of town, as it was banked over we could see all the streets and suburbs where I used to live, the dirt roads through the nature reserve where I rode to work, and even make out the roof of my flat.

I couldn't work out where I was this morning, at first I thought it was still only Friday and that I was home in bed and had to go to work! Waving my arm around in a half-sleep I managed to hit the rough old plaster of the wall — very quickly woke me fully and brought me back to Bungendore!

It's been around 30°C here for a about two weeks, today is no different, nobody is doing much around the house except sitting around or moving slowly, trying to stay cool. The only excitement was when mum and dad showed us where the BMW sportscar had halted and caught fire out on the road, starting a grass fire in their paddocks. A few molten chunks of alloy are all that remain of the car...

Jo and I borrowed mum's car and headed in to Bungendore for a look around, carefully parking in the coolest patch of shade that we could find. Up to the railway station to look at the local arts collective and their wares — laughing at all the cosy woollen caps on display in the 30°C temperatures.

Down to the old village square and to look through the gallery of Michael Scott Lee's photographs. Fantastic panoramic prints of Australian scenery, I'd love to have one — but which one? Alpine scenes, outback desert, forests, or nearby Lake George... Sadly, the catalogue listing all the pictures of the old alpine huts notes that about eight of them have been destroyed in the last year's bushfires.

Off to Canberra for the weekend — and flying up for once! The seven hour drive is just too long for only a two day visit, and cheap (almost) airfares make flying a possibility.

It seemed very strange to be sitting in the bar in the airport departure lounge, sipping a very expensive beer and thinking that in an hour or so we'd be in Canberra — none of the mind-numbing boredom of the drive up the Hume. I barely even had time in the plane to open my book and find my place before we were descending again.

Canberra airport has changed significantly since I last saw it, but that may well have been ten years ago. A mass of buildings, all part of a new business park, has sprung up around the carparks. Looking just like new office buildings the world over, apparently the ACT government's planning laws can be bypassed because the airport is on Commonwealth land — this business of Australia having a federal government and eight state governments is only good for duplicating services and empire building, I wish the states could be got rid of!

Exiting the airport, Majura lane has changed too. Previously an almost forgotten back road, it's now a major thoroughfare from Gungahlin to Tuggeranong. There's a flyover at the intersection with the Federal highway where used to be just an old gravel turning lane! In true bureacratic fashion, hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent in upgrading the road, and the speed limit has been dropped from 100km/hr to 90!

More RDF and FOAF things today. Too many of the tools out there in the big wide world don't seem to be able to handle people that have more than one email address... and that's a big problem, since many of the people in my FOAF file do have more than one address. There's just not enough smushing going on!

Ouch — another head-on on the bike path this morning, but thankfully it wasn't me. One of the guys that I see fairly frequently in the mornings heading the other way, today he wasn't heading anywhere, just lying on the ground while two other cyclists phoned for an ambulance. Same stretch of narrow bridge with steel railings under the freeway wheve I've had a few close calls and one elbow to the head...

[http://www.getoutofthebikelane.com/]

Photos of motorists illegally blocking bike lanes. Maybe I should send them some of my favourites; like the truck, or maybe the police car.

An amazing thing happened today though. I had a phone call from the St George bank; they were proactively checking that the credit card transactions placed yesterday were all really from me! I guess the two phone transactions and one over the 'net tripped an alarm somewhere.

Further in the Bicycle NSW saga — I finally received a response to my enquiries, but it seems that Bicycle NSW have no idea of the reality of attempting to travel by public transport with a bike in Sydney. “Just catch a station wagon taxi from the airport.” I politely pointed out that the combination of the LPG tank and the steel luggage safety mesh prevents a bike from fitting into the station wagons, gave up on their transport entirely, and booked a seat on the train direct to Gloucester! Even with the $10 per leg surcharge for the bike it was still cheaper than trying to catch BNSW's buses — doubly so when I got a 50% discount for booking a month in advance!

Bicycle NSW managed to raise my hopes then drop them back down again all with the one email. There I was assuming that the item in my inbox from Warren Saloman, the RTA Big Ride even directory, was a response to my enquiry last week — the one where I was told “Warren will call you back,” - the one that I haven't heard from yet. No, of course it wasn't, its just another advertising brochure, telling me to enter! Sent off a reply, asking yet again, if they have any suggestions on how interstate visitors are meant to get to the start of their ride.

Strange things appear serendipitously when searching through the house. Today we ransacked every room in the hope of finding some glue that we know is in there somewhere... It could not be found, it might just has well have vanished off the planet. What we did find was the spare key for my motorbike disc lock! Now if only I could have found it two years ago, there would have been no need for MarkO's universal key.

We went to the chilli festival, we sat in the sun, we drank the beer and we ate the chillis. It was good.

Attempting to find out some more details on Bicycle NSW's Big Ride; details like when the bus transport from Sydney to the start leaves, where it leaves from, and how on earth someone from interstate is meant to get themselves, their bike and their baggage to this place. They haven't answered email enquiries so I rang. Fun and games — the bus leaves at 06:00 in the morning — so a night's accomodation is required — and from somewhere that has no public transport access! “Most people get driven there.” Then BNSW suggested I catch a taxi, but in the past I've found that a bike box won't fit in any of the taxis in Sydney, since they've all got LPG tanks in the boot, and the station-wagons have mesh gratings bolted across the luggage space!

The costs of the bike collision keep creeping up... Investigating why my seat was still wobbling, I found that the bolts aren't loose — the whole top of the seatpost has cracked, and only about 10% of the metal was holding it together! I've lost track of when I bought it, but I think it was sometime in late 2002. So much for the Sonic brand seatpost.

Initially I thought there was no damage to the bike, unfortunately there's a lot of things to check, and shock doesn't help. So far, for a crash where the other guy insisted that it “wasn't necessary” to exchange details, and refused to give me his name and number, I've found:

• New seat post, about $30
• Broken zoom-button on my camera, can't repair, $600 to replace!
• slight buckle in the front wheel
• loose headset

All this interest in RDF, FOAF and annotating my photographs — today there was a Slashdot article on one of the Microsoft Research projects — World Wide Media eXchange [http://www.wwmx.org/]. Amusingly enough, their server fell over under the slashdotting. Even more amusing are some of the Slashdot comments “Is Microsoft, therefore is bad.” First impressions are that it's a very slick interface, but typically Microsoft — all the data and photos are uploaded to their server.

I think my bicycle has ears — or something. Half way to work this morning I met a girl walking along, pushing her bike. It was a scruffy old town bike, one of the pedals had sheered off at the crank, so she was walking home. I mentioned that there was an old-style bike shop in Oakleigh, the kind of place where the owner was likely to have a box of old pedals and could make a cheap repair. I also mentioned that I only knew of it because after breaking a seat-post bolt, I'd had to ride there standing up to get a replacement... Five minutes later as I was riding along, there was an almighty CRACK and my seat fell off — you guessed it, one of the seat bolts had snapped!

Yet again I find myself having to ride along standing up, seat stuffed in my bag, convinced that every passerby is wondering why I'm riding a bicycle with no bicycle seat. A quick detour into a very large Bunnings hardware store, a lengthy rummage amongst the shelves, a small pack of high-tensile bolts later and I'm back on the bike, off to work to start the day!

One less bike in the house — the “Colnago” has gone to a new home at the Salvation Army's recycling centre. To be sold for $20 or so and make someone happy, I hope... On the way I dropped in to Ray's shop to show him the find — he was especially impressed by the paint-job over the top of the brake cables.

Riding up the street it occurred to me that the bike would make an ideal pub bike, if only we had a shed to keep it in, but sadly, it had to go to clear up the front room. This did remind me that I still hadn't completed my collection of pub photos, so it was a roundabout trip up to the Salvo's, passing by D.T.s, the Kingston, the All Nations and the Prince of Wales — I think that's the lot, except for the Cherry Tree.

Finally got a round tuit, then I got sick of making bad jokes and took Mr Damage off to see the mechanic for new fork seals. With his eagle eye, the mechanic quickly spots that I am not mechanically minded, and points out that a new set of front brake pads would be well received also.

$332.90 later, I have new fork seals, new front brake pads, and a shiny front end of the bike where its all been washed and cleaned. I then rode out the front of the shop and promptly chugged to a halt at the next set of lights as the clutch dragged itself to a stop! It must have known that I'd visited the mechanic...

Just my luck, after struggling through last week feeling almost well, finally whatever cold virus I've found has got the better of me and I felt like crap all weekend.

What else to do in the evening than to watch the DVD of Ladyhawke, a joking comment while shopping last week that I'd never seen it resulted in it appearing as a thank-you gift. Jo says it was one of her favorite movies, but long ago when she was in high-school. Like many old favorites from the past, sometimes they are better off not being revisited! The over-done Alan Parson's 80's soundtrack had us almost giggling through most of the film, and the sword fights and acting were woeful. Incredibly shiny though, I'd never known just how much chrome the knights of the middle ages used!

Just like the last big storm, after yesterday, today the bike track was ankle deep in slimy mud and washed-away mulch from the gardens — and the councils had only just finished replacing the last lot!

Drizzly rain all day, and of course I left my rain jacket at home — somewhere my subconscious doesn't think I should need it in the summer.

I left work in light rain, wondering about all the motorists with their headlights on. Got to Hawthorn to discover that the bike path where I'd crashed was now covered in mud, water, wood chips and miscellaneous garbage from overflowing bins. Council workers were wading around clearing up the larger pieces, and sirens could be heard all around. A little bit further along and I realised that the white drifts all along the path weren't polystyrene foam or plastic, it was great mounds of hail! Then I came around the corner to discover the Hawthorn velodrome under water as well as a completely flooded street, and sports oval knee-deep in water and covered in floating toys and other miscellania, washed out of the houses up the street. Somewhere under it all was the bike track, so I followed the trail that others had used, picking my way on foot through the trees where the ground rose to the wall of the freeway.

Interesting fact of the day. While browsing around on plink I found that it is less than 700km from Melbourne to Sydney in a straight line — I'd thought it nearer a thousand!

After yesterday's exertions, today was a lazy day. Zero inclination to ride my bike anywhere! We sat around in the campground for the morning, watching the ducks and slowly packing everything away into the car.

A stroll into town for more food — still hungry after the ride — took longer than expected when we ran into a couple from Queensland who had a Trek-200 tandem, very similar to ours. I'd seen them yesterday riding back into town after they'd ridden up Mount Buffalo, today they were taking it easy as well!

We left Bright around lunch time, called in at Milawa to restock on the world famous Milawa mustards, then off down the Hume highway for the long drive home.

Today was the Audax Alpine Classic, a very long day on the bike! Probably the longest, hardest ride that I can remember ever doing. Two hundred kilometres of alpine Victoria, starting in Bright, over Towonga gap, up to Falls Creek, back down and over Towonga Gap again, back to Bright, then up Mount Buffalo and back!

With far too little training I was in a woeful state by the time I got to climb Towonga Gap for the second time — after starting in the cool of the morning, the heat and flies were driving me crazy, and I was climbing the hill at a miserable 9km/hr. By the time I reached Bright after 130km, I wanted nothing more than to get off my bike, eat the food and go back to the campsite. Sore legs, sore back, sore arms, but after twenty minutes of lying in the shade and resting, that nagging little voice kept telling me that I really should try to complete the ride, that it was “only another seventy kilometres,” and that there were “only twenty kilometres” or so of climbing up Buffalo...

The closer I got to Buffalo, the less it seemed like a good idea. The mountain reminded me of Mt Ventoux in many ways — a great massif rearing up in front of me, the road seemed to get closer and closer without ever gaining any altitude. Finally we reached the gates to the national park and started climbing, and climbing, and climbing... still hot, still more flies, and very little tree cover after last year's bushfires.

...

...

Leaps and bounds and the odd minor stumble... I've nearly got all the individual RDF description files for all my photos in place. Not yet fully populated, but they've got all the basic information. Made a few tentative fumbles at reading RDF/FOAF material with PHP, as soon as I've got a working version of that I'll be moving the existing descriptions from the text files.

A slight foray into n3 rules and cwm. I've created a really simple rule to say that if image "x" depicts person "y", then person "y" has a depiction in image "x". Seems to work, after running it on the photos from December 07 and loading the result into plink, I can see photos of friends.

Damn, it happened again! After having to avoid almost an idiot a week on the bike path, finally one managed to ram head-on into me. I flew spinning off the bike, flat on my back onto the path, landing on one shoulder and feel it pop out then back in, then rolled onto the other, dislocating it as well. Managed to grab my shoulder and pull as I sat up, so it went thump back into place — painfully. End result, one dislocated shoulder, one spained shoulder, and a graze on my right hip.

On a straight piece of path near the Toorak road underpass, some 60-ish guy managed to come up behind two women riding towards me and pull out to overtake them without looking up! I yelled and swerved left off the path but the idiot then managed to swerve off the track and straight into my path! He claimed that ...I saw you and went bush — I go bush when there's danger.... With considerable frustration I pointed out that it might help if he headed left when there's danger, and that if he tried a stunt like that on the road he'd get himself killed.

Only one good thing came of it, there was no damage to Norky bike, but somehow I managed to almost destroy his bike. I think my left pedal hooked his front wheel and forced it back into the frame, there's now a Shogun Metro SE out there that has forks that bend backwards! The impact blew out his tyre as well.

We finally got to see a movie at Moonlight Cinema — the outdoor evening shows in the botanic gardens. Tonight it was Travelling Birds, a visually spectacular documentary, even if it was very light on commentary.

Being outdoors, we had out own showings as well, a combination of Travelling Bats and Travelling Helicopters! Sitting on the ground meant sore necks and arms for most of the night, but a very pleasant time spent sipping wine and eating chocolate.

My first court appearance — only as a witness! Public transport conspired to make it as hard as possible to get there. The first train I was on stopped at Flinders Street, then I couldn't find a single train that would go around the loop, finally opted for one heading for Spencer Street and hopped on to find it inexplicably delayed for eight minutes past the departure time. It shouldn't be too hard to run them on time, should it? They could at least start on time! It goes without saying that none of the information signs inside the trains were working — no chance of finding out the name of the next station — just like the trams, they're either blank or very helpfully state “Connex” or “M-Train”.

Arrived at the court and went through the rigmarole of metal detectors and beepings, signed over my camera for safe-keeping. Up to the second floor to the information desk, then wait quarter of an hour until it opens, then get told to go back down to the ground floor, across to the other side of the foyer, and back up the stairs to the first floor and wait! An hour or so of waiting, a brief description from the prosecuting officer of what will happen with the magistrate and barristers, and a lot of sitting around waiting. People come, people go, I recognise a few faces from the train on the day. Suddenly its all over, the defendent has changed his mind and is now pleading guilty to armed robbery and two counts of attempted robbery. No witnesses are required and we can all go home without having to give evidence.

An old Colnago road bike? Dumped at the side of the road? Maybe, maybe not... It was covered in dirt, the tyres were old and cracked and flat, ancient Suntour ten-speed derailleur. Obviously stolen and dumped... but maybe stolen a long time ago! On closer inspection the mystery deepens; firstly, the Colnago stickers don't look quite right, they've faded and aren't square on the frame, it also seems to weight a ton. Then I had a look for the serial number — it's been filed or ground off. The paintwork looks badly applied, and running a thumbnail over it makes it flake off, revealing a metallic red underneath. Just what is it?

Out of bed early for another bike ride — seven a.m. start from Evan's house for a loop out to Kinglake and back. Somewhere on the road to Bundoora I ran over a large metal staple on the road — the kind that holds cardboard boxes together — and punctured my rear tyre.

There seemed to be a lot of cyclists out on the roads, Evan and I wondered how many of them were training for the Alpine Classic. Either that or like Annette, they were trying to find some hills to train for BV's New Zealand tour in about a month!

Probably about 100km, Fitzroy to Bundoora, then out to Wittlesea, a very sociable climb up the Humevale hill, stop at Kinglake bakery for coffee and a pastry, then down through St. Andrews, Hurstbridge, Greensborough and back to Fairfield to visit the canoe club and see if anyone was still there from their morning paddle. Home in time for lunch and then the whole of the afternoon left for normal house-hold chores!

This evening Jo and I finally managed to make time to head off to see a movie, we had to get to see the third of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Return of the King, before it vanished from the cinemas — as so many of the movies on my “to see” list seem to do. I thorougly enjoyed it, I thought it equal or better than the second one, and both of them better than the first — the first just seemed to peter out at the end...

Redid some of the PHP that generates my photo albums last night, the handling of folders for the scanned APS films was giving me grief. Needed to regenerate some thumbnails as well. As a result, all sorts of folders have been touched and old folders stirred up to the top of the most recent list.

I still need to change the annotations to read from an RDF file, then I'll need to move all the existing textual descriptions into RDF...

Collected the photos from Kodak today, 40 images, $29 for processing and CD — no wonder I don't use the APS film camera much anymore! A fascinating collection of pictures though, spanning November 2001 to December 2003. It'll definitely stretch the memory having to go through them all and annotate each one.

Late in the afternoon I headed out for a little ride to stretch my legs, thinking I'd have a bit of a spin up the Dean's Marsh road and try to beat a time of 30 minutes for the climb. Coasting down from the house the turn-off is hardly a warm-up, but better than nothing I guess. Stood up almost the whole way, trying to pace myself, but ride quickly. Unfortunately I blew up and completely ran out of energy, about 100m from the corner where the T-intersection sign is at the top of a slight rise. Exact same spot as last time, the legs and lungs just wouldn't work anymore, I dropped down a gear and sat down and slowed down, watching the clock tick over past 30 minutes. 30’ 15" to get to the corner at the top, then a ten minute rest accompanied by much coughing and wheezing.

A far gentler return ride though, off along the dirt road through the forests to Erskine Falls, then back onto the tar for a a swooping descent into Lorne.

Richmond to Lorne; all day on the bike. 08:40 left home; 09:40 at Mordialloc — courtesy of a group ride with Hilton, Chris, Frank, Joe, a few other Deadly Treadly people and two Ironmen/Triathlon guys out for a spin. 10:40 arrive at Mornington, lots of people everywhere, a ten minute break and a chocolate croissant for elevenses.

Back on the bike and along the coast with increasing traffic. Dromana to Rosebud was bumper-to-bumper. Grumpy motorists fuming and losing their tempers.

Met a girl from the Australian Triathlon team — or at least that's what the label on the seat of her pants said. She was riding way too fast for me and wouldn't stop to chat, but I kept catching up as she got caught up in the traffic. The odd driver hooted and made hand gestures, yelling at us to get off the road — it didn't seem to matter to them that the bike lane was either full of double-parked cars, broken bottles, or blocked by cars with open doors. All they knew was that the cars weren't moving and the bikes were, so obviously it was our fault!

The queue for the Sorrento ferry stretched half-way back along the coast to Rye — more filthy looks as I sailed on past all the hot motorists to the foot-passenger counter, bought my ticket, then sat in the shade to wait. The ferry was packed, the crew definitely earning their money today!

Ten minutes late in leaving, then a dead flat bay for the crossing to Queenscliff. Lunch on the boat, and not much else to do but sit and watch the water go past.

I managed to leave Queensclif ahead of all the cars, then followed the signs towards the Great Ocean Road, intending to retrace the route of the November Deadly Treadly, only in reverse. Somewhere I missed a turnoff and kept following the road signs, then ended up on the Great Ocean Road, but half-way between Geelong and Torquay.

The ten kilometers to Torquay was a drag, lots of noisy traffic, and pushing into a strong southerly, then from there it was still 55km or more to Lorne — longer than I'd anticipated! Too many drivers with P-plates and bad attitudes. With the driving I saw, its a wonder that the road toll is as low as it is.

Finally arrived at Lorne at 17:40, a touch under 200km, nine hours by the clock, 7hr 42’ on the bike. The last climb up Richardson boulevard and the driveway to the house was very demoralising. The cold drinks and a chance to sit down and relax were very welcome.

Where?

Richmond, Mordialloc, Mornington, Dromana, Rosebud, Sorrento, Queenscliff, Torquay, Lorne.