It would be a statement of the completely obvious to note that my efforts in the 'blogosphere' and 'real time' are utterly out of sync. To my great chagrin (and increasing feelings of personal pressure) the disconnect has been increasing. There are four reasons for this.
Firstly, with our arrival in Broome, our journey took on a new dimension...one where I became a man with an even greater thirst for knowledge than usual, driven in part by the thought that we may never go that way again. This inherently made significant demands on both time and effort.
This, in part, created the second problem. In the attempt to miss nothing, we would return from each sortie with the camera card groaning. And, of course, this then means making editing decisions later, a particularly time consuming affair when one is casting back over two months or so.
But as we reached Lake Argyle I thought I had things under control. I had planned to make real inroads into the backlog in two places in particular....there and in Kurrimine Beach. And here I ran into what has become the third and major on-going problem......absolutely no Internet access at Lake Argyle and very limited and slow connection at KB. Seven days completely wasted at LA (from a blogging perspective) and over two months of real and almost daily frustration at KB.
Let me give you a recent example.....the offering on our day out to Wyndham. Even having learnt the trick of now compressing the photos so they upload more quickly, that particular blog took a total of 14 hours to complete! And herein lies the final snag...I cannot stare at the screen for more than about three hours in any one sitting, and there are other things to be done each day. So, in elapsed time, that particular blog took nearly five calender days to post.
And finally, another statement of the obvious....I'm not getting any younger, and I sometimes just run out of puff! But, whilst 'age certainly does weary them', my determination is undiminished. However, given that we are now back on the road and moving relatively steadily south, together with my concern to maintain a proper chronology of events, I can now see that I'll not catch up completely until back in Adelaide.
So, for all who are interested in the current state of play, let me enlighten you now with a 'real time update' before I again retreat to the past.
As my increasingly gnarled and arthritic fingers stumble over the keyboard, it is now precisely 0700 hours, Saturday 12 September, and we are sitting in a very wet and breezy Mackay, on the Queensland Whitsunday Coast.
We left our 'wintering' retreat at Kurrimine Beach two days ago. We spent the first night in Ayr with plans to toddle on down to take a short break in Airlie Beach. So why Mackay? In a word....the weather! A combination of hooting south-easterlies on the nose and a seriously wet front storming across the Queensland tropical coast made the concept of spending a few days soaking up the sun and general ambiance of Airlie Beach and its surrounds a nonsense....besides which we have been there before.
So yesterday morning we decided to push further south and prop in Mackay, a town through which we have previously driven but not stopped. This proved a good decision. Squally, south-easterly winds and driving rain have been the order of the day since we arrived. In fact it was so heavy overnight that we both were up at 0230 hours checking for hail damage and/or leaks.
We plan to sit tight here (and do a general...non-photographic...recce of this area) until Monday when we'll make our way further south on Monday morning.
From here:
Well, there you have it folks. That is the plan, but as we are currently experiencing, a plan is nothing more than a blue print for change (apart from the set dates that is).
When we return it will be back in June at Lake Argyle.
Let me give you a recent example.....the offering on our day out to Wyndham. Even having learnt the trick of now compressing the photos so they upload more quickly, that particular blog took a total of 14 hours to complete! And herein lies the final snag...I cannot stare at the screen for more than about three hours in any one sitting, and there are other things to be done each day. So, in elapsed time, that particular blog took nearly five calender days to post.
And finally, another statement of the obvious....I'm not getting any younger, and I sometimes just run out of puff! But, whilst 'age certainly does weary them', my determination is undiminished. However, given that we are now back on the road and moving relatively steadily south, together with my concern to maintain a proper chronology of events, I can now see that I'll not catch up completely until back in Adelaide.
So, for all who are interested in the current state of play, let me enlighten you now with a 'real time update' before I again retreat to the past.
As my increasingly gnarled and arthritic fingers stumble over the keyboard, it is now precisely 0700 hours, Saturday 12 September, and we are sitting in a very wet and breezy Mackay, on the Queensland Whitsunday Coast.
We left our 'wintering' retreat at Kurrimine Beach two days ago. We spent the first night in Ayr with plans to toddle on down to take a short break in Airlie Beach. So why Mackay? In a word....the weather! A combination of hooting south-easterlies on the nose and a seriously wet front storming across the Queensland tropical coast made the concept of spending a few days soaking up the sun and general ambiance of Airlie Beach and its surrounds a nonsense....besides which we have been there before.
So yesterday morning we decided to push further south and prop in Mackay, a town through which we have previously driven but not stopped. This proved a good decision. Squally, south-easterly winds and driving rain have been the order of the day since we arrived. In fact it was so heavy overnight that we both were up at 0230 hours checking for hail damage and/or leaks.
We plan to sit tight here (and do a general...non-photographic...recce of this area) until Monday when we'll make our way further south on Monday morning.
From here:
- overnight in a free camp just north of Rockhampton
- overnight in Gladstone
- one night in Bundaberg (16 September having diesel heater repaired morning of 17th)
- two nights in nearby Baraga (17 - 18 September catching up with our good friends the Lorenzins)
- a night in the tiny town of Proston (near Kingaroy) with old travelling mates.
- three nights in Brisbane (20 -22 September ...again at the home of travelling friends)
- leave Brisbane on 23 September
- travel up into the Granite Belt through Stanthorpe
- pick up the New England Highway at Tenterfield
- travel south on the New England to Tamworth
- thence onto the Oxley Highway to Dubbo
- from Dubbo onto the Mitchell Highway to Bathurst
- thence south through Oberon and Golburn to Canberra
- arrive Canberra 3 October for two nights (again staying with old travelling friends)
- depart Canberra 5 October.
From here things are a little less structured. We plan to make our way down through Yass to Wagga Wagga and thence west across the Sturt Highway. This is a well worn path for us, but this time we are planning to take advantage of a number of free camps and to put our feet up for one last 'sunfest' at Mildura for five nights or so before making the last push back to Adelaide where we are booked into the Windsor Gardens Caravan park as of Saturday 17 October.
When we return it will be back in June at Lake Argyle.
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