Июнь 07, 2006
Two in One
6/7 21:14, Brisbane time
Sorry I missed yesterday's; it was a long and draining one and I needed to crash.
I awoke on the 6th, followed my routine, and almost beat S B into the office. It wouldn't have been a contest if I hadn't stopped for gas (by the way, I'm up over AUD$300 in gasoline alone for this trip. I'll pay more in that than in rental fees!). The morning was a rundown of a few outstanding problems, nothing earth-shattering. I did manage to make myself feel particularly useful, putting the after-sales manager of our Australian dealer in touch with С П-ёв (you will remember him, perhaps, from Khabarovsk). С П-ёв desperately needs used trucks of the type we sell into Australia, and the fact that these ones here are right-hand-drive, though a disadvantage, certainly does not stop him from being interested in them. It would be really nice if the two could work out an arrangement to both supply my guy in the Russian Far East with stuff he is currently unable to get and in turn reduce the excess-inventory problem that they have right now pushing down new truck prices. International business.. Got to love it.
The day (and week (and month (and ???))) took a major kick to the head, however, at about mid-day, when I got forwarded a scanned copy of a Delovaya Peterburga article that had just come out about И Ю (now I know you remember him...) having just recently left our company, which aside from my efforts -- said efforts consisting absolutely not at all of supplying actual trucks to sell -- has done vanishingly nothing for or with him in the past year, and has been snapped up right away to be the national distributor for one of our American competitors. There's a lot to the story, and I've been known to appropriate large blocks of other peoples' lives going into it in all its detail, but it may just begin to brush up against sufficing to say that this event (on top of a series of other ones stretching back for further than I like to think about) may herald the end of The Company's once-promising future in Russia. And it is possible that only the depth of my emotional attachment to the Russia project drives me to even use to 'may'. I still, after more than a day of pondering, cannot bring myself to say 'is'. Who knows, I might even be justified in that -- I've been right in everything else I've said about that project so far.
Very distressing. I wish A was here (or I were there).
So, with those happy thoughts enfolding ever more of my attention, after lunch S M and I set out to the west towards Toowoomba to meet a couple of truckers and owners of trucking outfits. I kept a good business face on and performed up to my usual level, but I could hardly say now even one thing we talked about (except for a comment that one of the owners made. His fleet hauls double-decker trailers full of fifty to seventy live full-grown cattle. He said that when one of those flips over at highway speeds, you have a heck of a mess on your hands. Very useful information; I know. Every time I drive out of the cities, the terrain seems less and less desolate. I wonder if I'm just getting used to the visual cues around here.
We had dinner for the second night in a row at The Norman, a steakhouse billed as "Queensland's Worst Vegetarian Restaurant". Good steaks (I was misinformed, coming here; one has to exert a bit of effort, but Aussies can be found who understand quite well how to do steak). We ate outside that night, and a rustling in the trees off to the side drew my attention as we were first cutting in. Looking closer, I saw a shape moving in the shrubs that walled in the dining area. S B glanced over, said, "a fruit bat," and nonchalantly dug in. I simply had to look closer. Sure enough, a humongous (to my eyes) fruit bat, body maybe the size of a large cat was crawling around the bushes. No big deal for an Aussie; they see that kind of thing all the time (show them a squirrel, though...). Then after feed, back to the hotel and bed, still sinking further into my thoughts over the Russia matters.
This morning started off not so well. I had absolutely no sense of concentration at all; kept dropping things and tripping over stuff; frankly, I'm surprised I got out of the parking garage and made the 45-minute drive in to the dealer's office without incident. This bad news weighed on me (and still does). I was able to get things together enough once at the office to be externally unaffected through the day, though. A quick morning there, and we drove up north to Gympie (a small town two hours north of Brisbane that I have now been to/through seven times!) to meet with the owners and managers of a new series of service shops our dealer has just signed along the Bruce Highway up to Rockhampton. We (S B, S M, and I) reviewed the operations, talked a bit of business, and then went to lunch with the owners at a cafe in the main part of Gympie. Over lunch, I inquired about the several signs I had seen referring to a proposed dam (all the signs were against it). Apparently, the government here decided, rather hastily, to offset the souther Queensland water supply situation (the reservior outside Brisbane is at 29% capacity, and doesn't get much higher these years) byh damming the Mary river, whose valleys run through a massive chunk of the prime cattle lands in this area. A huge number of people are to be flooded out, and oposition in the town of Gympie (which will be no more after the dam fills) is almost total. Even people who think it might make good sense to dam -- and, being a government proposal, there have been no studies yet done on environmental impact, transport remediation (9 miles of the Bruce and a similar length of the north-south rail line will be submerged), economic impact, and even whether the reservior will actually do what it is supposed to do (as opposed to the Proserpine one, for example), so the question is in doubt -- find it in their best interest to keep quiet. They say that, no matter how the dam goes, just having proposed it is going to end the careers of several politicians.
S B commented on the way back that the reservior will come up to maybe 20 km from Noosa, and that if it looks like the dam will happen, he plans to start buying up massive acreage in the hills between. The are in ten years will be a major tourist/resort just based on the two features alone. It's all a matter of looking for the bright side.
Afterwards, returning to the office very, very late, I grabbed a burger, stopped at a drive-through liquor store to get the variety pack of booze-n-cola cans and a sixer of four X (XXXX -- how Queensland spells BEER) and back to the room to gnaw at this Russia thing. My pre-journaling was capped by a somewhat unexpected call from И Ю, who through his sources managed to find out that we were sent the article, and wanted to assure me that the reporters had gone way beyond what he had actually said, and that though the facts of the situation were true, he had neither hard feelings nor a particular disinclination towards working with The Comapny -- provided they are actually ever willing to sell him product, of course. I found myself planting in his mind the thought that maybe if things with The Company don't work out, there could be an American who is interested in working for a serious businessman. Just for future reference.
Tomorrow is a driving-all-day; drinking afterwards closer to this trip. I make no guarantees about my ability or interest to post. But then on Friday I have the long, long trip home and I'm sure to have something to say then.
Пока
Sorry I missed yesterday's; it was a long and draining one and I needed to crash.
I awoke on the 6th, followed my routine, and almost beat S B into the office. It wouldn't have been a contest if I hadn't stopped for gas (by the way, I'm up over AUD$300 in gasoline alone for this trip. I'll pay more in that than in rental fees!). The morning was a rundown of a few outstanding problems, nothing earth-shattering. I did manage to make myself feel particularly useful, putting the after-sales manager of our Australian dealer in touch with С П-ёв (you will remember him, perhaps, from Khabarovsk). С П-ёв desperately needs used trucks of the type we sell into Australia, and the fact that these ones here are right-hand-drive, though a disadvantage, certainly does not stop him from being interested in them. It would be really nice if the two could work out an arrangement to both supply my guy in the Russian Far East with stuff he is currently unable to get and in turn reduce the excess-inventory problem that they have right now pushing down new truck prices. International business.. Got to love it.
The day (and week (and month (and ???))) took a major kick to the head, however, at about mid-day, when I got forwarded a scanned copy of a Delovaya Peterburga article that had just come out about И Ю (now I know you remember him...) having just recently left our company, which aside from my efforts -- said efforts consisting absolutely not at all of supplying actual trucks to sell -- has done vanishingly nothing for or with him in the past year, and has been snapped up right away to be the national distributor for one of our American competitors. There's a lot to the story, and I've been known to appropriate large blocks of other peoples' lives going into it in all its detail, but it may just begin to brush up against sufficing to say that this event (on top of a series of other ones stretching back for further than I like to think about) may herald the end of The Company's once-promising future in Russia. And it is possible that only the depth of my emotional attachment to the Russia project drives me to even use to 'may'. I still, after more than a day of pondering, cannot bring myself to say 'is'. Who knows, I might even be justified in that -- I've been right in everything else I've said about that project so far.
Very distressing. I wish A was here (or I were there).
So, with those happy thoughts enfolding ever more of my attention, after lunch S M and I set out to the west towards Toowoomba to meet a couple of truckers and owners of trucking outfits. I kept a good business face on and performed up to my usual level, but I could hardly say now even one thing we talked about (except for a comment that one of the owners made. His fleet hauls double-decker trailers full of fifty to seventy live full-grown cattle. He said that when one of those flips over at highway speeds, you have a heck of a mess on your hands. Very useful information; I know. Every time I drive out of the cities, the terrain seems less and less desolate. I wonder if I'm just getting used to the visual cues around here.
We had dinner for the second night in a row at The Norman, a steakhouse billed as "Queensland's Worst Vegetarian Restaurant". Good steaks (I was misinformed, coming here; one has to exert a bit of effort, but Aussies can be found who understand quite well how to do steak). We ate outside that night, and a rustling in the trees off to the side drew my attention as we were first cutting in. Looking closer, I saw a shape moving in the shrubs that walled in the dining area. S B glanced over, said, "a fruit bat," and nonchalantly dug in. I simply had to look closer. Sure enough, a humongous (to my eyes) fruit bat, body maybe the size of a large cat was crawling around the bushes. No big deal for an Aussie; they see that kind of thing all the time (show them a squirrel, though...). Then after feed, back to the hotel and bed, still sinking further into my thoughts over the Russia matters.
This morning started off not so well. I had absolutely no sense of concentration at all; kept dropping things and tripping over stuff; frankly, I'm surprised I got out of the parking garage and made the 45-minute drive in to the dealer's office without incident. This bad news weighed on me (and still does). I was able to get things together enough once at the office to be externally unaffected through the day, though. A quick morning there, and we drove up north to Gympie (a small town two hours north of Brisbane that I have now been to/through seven times!) to meet with the owners and managers of a new series of service shops our dealer has just signed along the Bruce Highway up to Rockhampton. We (S B, S M, and I) reviewed the operations, talked a bit of business, and then went to lunch with the owners at a cafe in the main part of Gympie. Over lunch, I inquired about the several signs I had seen referring to a proposed dam (all the signs were against it). Apparently, the government here decided, rather hastily, to offset the souther Queensland water supply situation (the reservior outside Brisbane is at 29% capacity, and doesn't get much higher these years) byh damming the Mary river, whose valleys run through a massive chunk of the prime cattle lands in this area. A huge number of people are to be flooded out, and oposition in the town of Gympie (which will be no more after the dam fills) is almost total. Even people who think it might make good sense to dam -- and, being a government proposal, there have been no studies yet done on environmental impact, transport remediation (9 miles of the Bruce and a similar length of the north-south rail line will be submerged), economic impact, and even whether the reservior will actually do what it is supposed to do (as opposed to the Proserpine one, for example), so the question is in doubt -- find it in their best interest to keep quiet. They say that, no matter how the dam goes, just having proposed it is going to end the careers of several politicians.
S B commented on the way back that the reservior will come up to maybe 20 km from Noosa, and that if it looks like the dam will happen, he plans to start buying up massive acreage in the hills between. The are in ten years will be a major tourist/resort just based on the two features alone. It's all a matter of looking for the bright side.
Afterwards, returning to the office very, very late, I grabbed a burger, stopped at a drive-through liquor store to get the variety pack of booze-n-cola cans and a sixer of four X (XXXX -- how Queensland spells BEER) and back to the room to gnaw at this Russia thing. My pre-journaling was capped by a somewhat unexpected call from И Ю, who through his sources managed to find out that we were sent the article, and wanted to assure me that the reporters had gone way beyond what he had actually said, and that though the facts of the situation were true, he had neither hard feelings nor a particular disinclination towards working with The Comapny -- provided they are actually ever willing to sell him product, of course. I found myself planting in his mind the thought that maybe if things with The Company don't work out, there could be an American who is interested in working for a serious businessman. Just for future reference.
Tomorrow is a driving-all-day; drinking afterwards closer to this trip. I make no guarantees about my ability or interest to post. But then on Friday I have the long, long trip home and I'm sure to have something to say then.
Пока
Июнь 05, 2006
Monday
6/5 20:37, Brisbane time
Just a dull day at the office. I did manage to run into M M (you may recall from previous trips) and chat a bit about my weekend jaunt. He comes from Cairns, and tells me that the terrain gets even more rugged as you push up towards the tip of the peninsula -- both in terms of mountains and vegetation. By the very tip, it is almost indistinguishable from Indonesia (not a very good selling point, as far as I'm concerned). That 'recommendation' notwithstanding, a Cairns-Brisbane, along the Bruce Highway drive would make a good week or so's vacation. With A's agreement, I'm going to put that up on my list of trips to take with the family (which means, to take in several years, once Z and G are old enough to appreciate them). I'd regard it almost as highly as travelling the North and South Islands in New Zealand (though still it would not even begin to approach White Nights in Saint-Petersburg).
But all for sometime off in the future... -sigh-
The drive out to Wacol this morning was routine, which itself is a sort of milestone. For the first time, I actually feel comfortable on the wrong-side roads in a wrong-side car. Even driving to lunch, I hit the traffic circles correctly and without incident. Maybe I'll actually be remembering to signal properly by the end of this trip, or during the next one. I even navigated the underground parking garage and backed into a between-posts spot without trouble.
I certainly hope I still remember how to do it in a proper car once I get home.
This evening, driving to dinner -- and it does get dark here early, full black by 6PM -- lightningwas flashing over/one the other side of Brisbane. It was very yellow in color, rather than the white I consider normal. J S explained that they call it 'heat lightning' (I think in the US it is called 'ball lightning'(?)). Ordinarily a dead-of-summer phenomenon, the lightning jumps from cloud to cloud without any rain or even appreciable moisture in the air at all. This being the dry season in southern Queensland, I was a bit surprised at the thought that it might be raining.
Unfortunately (for the purposes of this log; as far as my boss is concerned, it is a good return on his investment) conversation over lunch, dinner, and the various other social times today was all shop. The day was full, but not with things that are particularly interesting. Obscure (though significant) points of Australian law, similarly obscure (to an Australian) points of American, warranty policy discussions, and engineering failure analysis. How I even stayed awake... but it pays the bills.
More (maybe even more interesting!) tomorrow.
Just a dull day at the office. I did manage to run into M M (you may recall from previous trips) and chat a bit about my weekend jaunt. He comes from Cairns, and tells me that the terrain gets even more rugged as you push up towards the tip of the peninsula -- both in terms of mountains and vegetation. By the very tip, it is almost indistinguishable from Indonesia (not a very good selling point, as far as I'm concerned). That 'recommendation' notwithstanding, a Cairns-Brisbane, along the Bruce Highway drive would make a good week or so's vacation. With A's agreement, I'm going to put that up on my list of trips to take with the family (which means, to take in several years, once Z and G are old enough to appreciate them). I'd regard it almost as highly as travelling the North and South Islands in New Zealand (though still it would not even begin to approach White Nights in Saint-Petersburg).
But all for sometime off in the future... -sigh-
The drive out to Wacol this morning was routine, which itself is a sort of milestone. For the first time, I actually feel comfortable on the wrong-side roads in a wrong-side car. Even driving to lunch, I hit the traffic circles correctly and without incident. Maybe I'll actually be remembering to signal properly by the end of this trip, or during the next one. I even navigated the underground parking garage and backed into a between-posts spot without trouble.
I certainly hope I still remember how to do it in a proper car once I get home.
This evening, driving to dinner -- and it does get dark here early, full black by 6PM -- lightningwas flashing over/one the other side of Brisbane. It was very yellow in color, rather than the white I consider normal. J S explained that they call it 'heat lightning' (I think in the US it is called 'ball lightning'(?)). Ordinarily a dead-of-summer phenomenon, the lightning jumps from cloud to cloud without any rain or even appreciable moisture in the air at all. This being the dry season in southern Queensland, I was a bit surprised at the thought that it might be raining.
Unfortunately (for the purposes of this log; as far as my boss is concerned, it is a good return on his investment) conversation over lunch, dinner, and the various other social times today was all shop. The day was full, but not with things that are particularly interesting. Obscure (though significant) points of Australian law, similarly obscure (to an Australian) points of American, warranty policy discussions, and engineering failure analysis. How I even stayed awake... but it pays the bills.
More (maybe even more interesting!) tomorrow.
Июнь 03, 2006
To Brisbane
6/4 15:31, Brisbane time
Now, checked in, showered, shaved (see the Townsville pic below, plus about two days), and settled in for the week, I have the opportuinity to start putting together my shots from the adventure of these past couple days. Please see, below, the first couple processed pictures.
I was up just before the sun rose (the temperature according to my car was 6C), and on the road as it breached the horizon. Seeing it in the light, Gladstone really isn't terribly picturesque. I did manage to stop just south of town to play around with my camera's exposure settings to try to get an adequate representation of dawn on the Queensland coast in a bit more attractive area. It's close, but I definitely need more practice time than a single sunrise allows. I made decent time, with several side-of-the-road-shot breaks, and one significant detour to Tinnam Beach, north of Bundaberg.
Heading south along the coast (more or less), one leaves the mountains that form the Cape York Peninsula. From there down, the major terrain features, other than the periodic lonely hill, are spurs off the Dividing Range, which periodically break up the long, flat plain between mountains and ocean. The beaches range from rocks to fluffy sand, and from grey to brown to irridescent white; the water is the same unreal blue color that I saw my first time at Noosa Heads.
Near mid-day, the appearance of the Glass House Mountains on the horizon (and the Steve Irwin billboards on the roadside) announced the impending close of my stop-and-go day. Brisbane is as it has been every other time; vibrantly active, and pleasantly peopled. Though I'm looking forward already to home -- and to camping with Z this coming weekend -- this bodes to be a very good week.
Now, checked in, showered, shaved (see the Townsville pic below, plus about two days), and settled in for the week, I have the opportuinity to start putting together my shots from the adventure of these past couple days. Please see, below, the first couple processed pictures.
I was up just before the sun rose (the temperature according to my car was 6C), and on the road as it breached the horizon. Seeing it in the light, Gladstone really isn't terribly picturesque. I did manage to stop just south of town to play around with my camera's exposure settings to try to get an adequate representation of dawn on the Queensland coast in a bit more attractive area. It's close, but I definitely need more practice time than a single sunrise allows. I made decent time, with several side-of-the-road-shot breaks, and one significant detour to Tinnam Beach, north of Bundaberg.
Heading south along the coast (more or less), one leaves the mountains that form the Cape York Peninsula. From there down, the major terrain features, other than the periodic lonely hill, are spurs off the Dividing Range, which periodically break up the long, flat plain between mountains and ocean. The beaches range from rocks to fluffy sand, and from grey to brown to irridescent white; the water is the same unreal blue color that I saw my first time at Noosa Heads.
Near mid-day, the appearance of the Glass House Mountains on the horizon (and the Steve Irwin billboards on the roadside) announced the impending close of my stop-and-go day. Brisbane is as it has been every other time; vibrantly active, and pleasantly peopled. Though I'm looking forward already to home -- and to camping with Z this coming weekend -- this bodes to be a very good week.
Finally here!
The City of Townsville
Morning in Central Queensland
From Townsville
And Then from Rockhampton..
My steed. A Holden Calais
On the Beach
6/3 18:26, Gladstone time
Better than half of the way back today. I pulled onto a side route at dusk just out of Rockhampton (which sits on the Tropic of Capricorn – which I have now driven across twice!!), drove up to the water, stashed the car in a dark parking lot, and am now sitting on the beach pecking away at my laptop on a clear central Queensland night. And I mean clear. The moon is only half full, but all of the stars (not Portland’s stars, I might add) are out. It will be cold tonight.
I got up with the sun in Townsville this morning, snapped some shots from my balcony, packed up, bought breakfast at the Woolworth’s (a grocery chain in Australia) and was on my way by 9. Townsville by day is stupendous. I’m not exactly sure what I was expecting, but a near-Brisbane-sized city must have been pretty far from it. See the pictures (yes, I am that big of a nerd).
Then south along the Bruce [highway], pausing regularly to shoot from the side of the road (or a bit off it). Sadly, the wildlife sanctuary was closed, and no wombats were in sight through the fence – and the kangaroos were pretty dinky-looking, compared to the wild ones I’ve seen. Please consider the scenery shots below to be a ‘best of the lot’, as I am disinclined to exert the full amount of time it would take me to format all of them. The mountains and fileds went on and on all the way down; trust me.
Getting gas in Proserpine, I tried to get some climate information from the clerk, asking when their river (the Proserpine River – who’d have guessed) runs high. An interesting question, since the answer for the last decade has been “never”. That is, since a dam was put in upstream to create a reservoir for the region. When built, the reservoir was intended to fill slowly over ten years; a fortuitous cyclone filled it in six weeks. But since then, the level has ontinued to drop. The water authorities are still trying to figure out what went wrong, and how to correct it. Fortunately for the town itself, borewater has been their supply throughout. But the agriculture that has recently grown up in the higher, drier points west may soon be at risk. Things happen everywhere.
One particularly interesting spot, I hiked a bit in to get, is a billabong (semi-dry creek) not far from Clareview. I thought it looked neat, and I was right. It also proved a good place for a pee-stop, and I’m fairly certain I scared off something big getting down there, if the crashing in the bush was any indication.
Something I noticed on the trip, is that the agriculture in coastal Queensland seems to consist predominately of sugar cane and brahma cattle. It just sort of seems an odd match to me.
Anyway, it’s starting to get a bit nippy (it got down to 11C in Townsville last noght, and being further south, I expect it will be even chillier here. And not to forget the clear sky…(. I’m back to the car to turn in for the night. More driving and pictures and so forth tomorrow, ending up showered and shaved) back in my spot at the base of the Story Bridge in Brisbane.
So long.
Better than half of the way back today. I pulled onto a side route at dusk just out of Rockhampton (which sits on the Tropic of Capricorn – which I have now driven across twice!!), drove up to the water, stashed the car in a dark parking lot, and am now sitting on the beach pecking away at my laptop on a clear central Queensland night. And I mean clear. The moon is only half full, but all of the stars (not Portland’s stars, I might add) are out. It will be cold tonight.
I got up with the sun in Townsville this morning, snapped some shots from my balcony, packed up, bought breakfast at the Woolworth’s (a grocery chain in Australia) and was on my way by 9. Townsville by day is stupendous. I’m not exactly sure what I was expecting, but a near-Brisbane-sized city must have been pretty far from it. See the pictures (yes, I am that big of a nerd).
Then south along the Bruce [highway], pausing regularly to shoot from the side of the road (or a bit off it). Sadly, the wildlife sanctuary was closed, and no wombats were in sight through the fence – and the kangaroos were pretty dinky-looking, compared to the wild ones I’ve seen. Please consider the scenery shots below to be a ‘best of the lot’, as I am disinclined to exert the full amount of time it would take me to format all of them. The mountains and fileds went on and on all the way down; trust me.
Getting gas in Proserpine, I tried to get some climate information from the clerk, asking when their river (the Proserpine River – who’d have guessed) runs high. An interesting question, since the answer for the last decade has been “never”. That is, since a dam was put in upstream to create a reservoir for the region. When built, the reservoir was intended to fill slowly over ten years; a fortuitous cyclone filled it in six weeks. But since then, the level has ontinued to drop. The water authorities are still trying to figure out what went wrong, and how to correct it. Fortunately for the town itself, borewater has been their supply throughout. But the agriculture that has recently grown up in the higher, drier points west may soon be at risk. Things happen everywhere.
One particularly interesting spot, I hiked a bit in to get, is a billabong (semi-dry creek) not far from Clareview. I thought it looked neat, and I was right. It also proved a good place for a pee-stop, and I’m fairly certain I scared off something big getting down there, if the crashing in the bush was any indication.
Something I noticed on the trip, is that the agriculture in coastal Queensland seems to consist predominately of sugar cane and brahma cattle. It just sort of seems an odd match to me.
Anyway, it’s starting to get a bit nippy (it got down to 11C in Townsville last noght, and being further south, I expect it will be even chillier here. And not to forget the clear sky…(. I’m back to the car to turn in for the night. More driving and pictures and so forth tomorrow, ending up showered and shaved) back in my spot at the base of the Story Bridge in Brisbane.
So long.
Июнь 02, 2006
A Very Long Day
6/2 20:00, Townsville time
We managed to make Fremantle on Thursday (see photos from the beach). That's one more ocean down, two still to go!
Thrusday evening, R B went his own way on a VirginBlue flight back to Melbourne, and S B and I took Qantas to Brisbane. I managed to grab some sleep on the 4.5-hour flight, which turned out to be a very good thing, as I will now relate.
We managed to get our bags and my rental car (a Holden Commodore this time; quite sporty; I'll get a picture) and get out of the airport parking lot at about midnight Thursday/Friday. I took S B to his home out in Ipswitch, on the other side of Brisbane fromthe airport, got some last-minute directions to the highway, then headed off for points north at no later than 1 AM Friday (wow. that's today...). The drive had some pre-excitement when, yards from backing out of the driveway, a wallaby neighbor of S B's decided it had tired of living and that my car would make a fitting instrument to its end. Fortunately for both of us -- of course the wallaby must have had something to live for, he was probably just going though a hard time -- he failed to properly anticipate the kicking-in of my American instincts, which caused me to swerve not towards the shoulder (the direction towards which he simultaneously leapt) but directly into the oncoming traffic lane. Of course, at 1 in the morning on a residential lane, no harm, no foul. Stupid animal; and off I went.
I drove through the city and then north on highway 1 (the same one we drove in Perth! It follows the coast all the way around!) for maybe an hour before tiredness got the better of me. I pulled into the first roadside spot I saw (perhaps ironically the Noosa Heads rail depot parking lot) and grabbed a couple hours of sleep, until the cold drove me back into motion. But the couple hours proved to be inadequate, and after warming up, I pulled over again at Maryborough for a bit more snoozing.
By 6:30, the day was brightening and I was back on my way for the near-1000-mile (~1,500km, varies between map and road signs, and no mileages include the inside-the-city work) trip to Townsville. There is an answer why I made that my destination, but since it involves a TV cartoon, I'm reluctant to elaborate. I pushed pretty much straight through, wanting to arrive by tonight, then spend a more liesurely Saturday and Sunday making the return trip. Finally, eighteen-and-a-half hours after leaving Ipswitch -- and thirty-six after waking up on Thursday morning-- I got into a hotel and am able to do this quick checking-in. In my haste, I stopped for no photos, but I made several mental notes for the return trip. I plan to sleep in the car Saturday night, but am confident that Sunday afternoon will see a massive posting of "neat things from the coast along the entire length of Queensland" (I am only ~300km from Cairns, but have no intention of making that last push). Who knows, there's a nature reserve just outside of Townsville; I may even get to pet a wombat.
Cheers.
We managed to make Fremantle on Thursday (see photos from the beach). That's one more ocean down, two still to go!
Thrusday evening, R B went his own way on a VirginBlue flight back to Melbourne, and S B and I took Qantas to Brisbane. I managed to grab some sleep on the 4.5-hour flight, which turned out to be a very good thing, as I will now relate.
We managed to get our bags and my rental car (a Holden Commodore this time; quite sporty; I'll get a picture) and get out of the airport parking lot at about midnight Thursday/Friday. I took S B to his home out in Ipswitch, on the other side of Brisbane fromthe airport, got some last-minute directions to the highway, then headed off for points north at no later than 1 AM Friday (wow. that's today...). The drive had some pre-excitement when, yards from backing out of the driveway, a wallaby neighbor of S B's decided it had tired of living and that my car would make a fitting instrument to its end. Fortunately for both of us -- of course the wallaby must have had something to live for, he was probably just going though a hard time -- he failed to properly anticipate the kicking-in of my American instincts, which caused me to swerve not towards the shoulder (the direction towards which he simultaneously leapt) but directly into the oncoming traffic lane. Of course, at 1 in the morning on a residential lane, no harm, no foul. Stupid animal; and off I went.
I drove through the city and then north on highway 1 (the same one we drove in Perth! It follows the coast all the way around!) for maybe an hour before tiredness got the better of me. I pulled into the first roadside spot I saw (perhaps ironically the Noosa Heads rail depot parking lot) and grabbed a couple hours of sleep, until the cold drove me back into motion. But the couple hours proved to be inadequate, and after warming up, I pulled over again at Maryborough for a bit more snoozing.
By 6:30, the day was brightening and I was back on my way for the near-1000-mile (~1,500km, varies between map and road signs, and no mileages include the inside-the-city work) trip to Townsville. There is an answer why I made that my destination, but since it involves a TV cartoon, I'm reluctant to elaborate. I pushed pretty much straight through, wanting to arrive by tonight, then spend a more liesurely Saturday and Sunday making the return trip. Finally, eighteen-and-a-half hours after leaving Ipswitch -- and thirty-six after waking up on Thursday morning-- I got into a hotel and am able to do this quick checking-in. In my haste, I stopped for no photos, but I made several mental notes for the return trip. I plan to sleep in the car Saturday night, but am confident that Sunday afternoon will see a massive posting of "neat things from the coast along the entire length of Queensland" (I am only ~300km from Cairns, but have no intention of making that last push). Who knows, there's a nature reserve just outside of Townsville; I may even get to pet a wombat.
Cheers.
The Beach at Fremantle
The Indian Ocean
