Thesis? Finished. Car? Sold. Flight? 114 hours away.

I finished my thesis today, read it over repeatedly until I couldn't stand to look at it anymore. I pretty much did what I set out to do, though I had to use the backup design in the end, as my highly technical approach turned out to be trying too hard. Still, it works, and I recon I'll get a decent degree out of this. Now I just need to get a job...

I also sold the car today (I have a list of all the things to do before I go home, today I got to tick a lot of things off in a triumphant pose). Was worried I'd get to Monday next week and have to basically give it away, but luckily some guy turned up who also had a tight schedule. I lost a bunch of money on the car but I think that's a given for my first; in retrospect he would probably have paid more, but I would probably have accepted less, so I'm fairly happy. Sad to see it go, thanks for the memories, it'll always look like a delorian to me.

I do need to do something with the bike, keyboard and guitar, and since I no longer have a car I can't easily transport them to the cash converters. I think the local salvos will be getting a lot of donations.

Oh and a few weeks ago I found the society I've been looking for for a year and a half. It's the Society for Aeronautical Engineers, which is apparently "just a name" and actually is a society for all engineers to get together and drink. They have a common room with games consoles and old sofas. So I got there in time to meet lots of new friends I'll not have time to make. Bugger.
When I first got to Australia I did stop at one of the AERO barbecues, but one guy convinced me that as a postgrad I wasn't really welcome in the society, so I didn't inquire further. Now I find everyone is appalled by that idea, "who could have confused you like that?" they ask. Ah well, I did have one good night out.

Everything's drawing to a close. I never saw the reef, never drove through the middle, I never visited Darwin or Perth, and amazingly I never went surfing. Obviously I'll need to come back, but maybe just for a few weeks holiday.

So much still to do

Okay, when was my last... almost 2 months ago?! Whoops, guess I've got caught up in some of my last months in Australia.

My flight home is booked, I'll be back in Glasgow on the evening of the 6^th of July, though probably in no fit state to drink. There will be celebration soon afterwards I'm sure. I want a cheese and onion pastie and a pint of Tennants.

The bad news (for me) is I don't have a job lined up, so I'll need to go through all that; the good news is the uni are paying me for some electrical design work I've been doing alongside my thesis, so will have something to live on until I do get work. I'm expecting to loose a large chunk of it to aussie tax, but hopefully there'll be enough left for a few beers (and maybe food...).

One of the reasons for the lack of blogs is the amount I still have to do in the next few months. The project has a whole bunch of work and documentation that needs done, plus there's that extra work I'm doing. I need to sell the car, my bike, guitar etc. Actually selling the bike might be quite difficult now, as the bearings on the back wheel have come loose (so it shakes and jams, can't be ridden), and the bearing enclosure is rusted solid preventing maintenance. Wondering if I can sell it to some poor sod without telling him?

The other reason for the lack of blogs is that detailed info on how the project is going is really only interesting to a few of my more technically minded friends (and even then, it's a boring project), but there have been a few weekend adventures:

I've been out picking mushrooms a couple of times, for Saffron Milk Cups and Slippery Jacks (lots of walking, staring intently at the ground). Plenty of risottos have been made, and I also tried drying some, which may even make it home if customs don't think they're magic. While I'm on the subject of food, I burnt off all my taste buds with experiments into home-made mustard a month back, which took about a week to regrow. Still, trial and error. I've got a wild goat in the oven right now that I'm expecting great things from.

Bought myself a kindle, which got delivered from the U.S. in 3 days! (just shows what international postage can be like when it tries), so I've been reading through all the great works of Sci-fi that I never did as a child (Dune, Foundation, Contact, Childhood's End, Flatland, etc... plenty still to go. I'm pretty much following this), as well as classics like Don Quixote and contemporary books like the Omnivore's Dilemma. The weather is periodically rainy, but mostly still in the 20°s with bright sunshine, so I read in the local parks.

Getting pretty good on the Bagpipes now (well, the practice chanter anyway. I'll upgrade to proper bagpipes when I have several hundred quid spare and can get them in the McDonald of the Isles tartan). Next new-year's party I'll be able to give the auld lang syne on the chanter (which is still pretty loud). Meanwhile I've got the guitar working through the laptop so have been having fun with effects and not really learning anything new.

Speaking of "through the laptop" that's where I accidentally put my last dram of whisky. My last dram. It went in the keyboard and came out the bottom. Mourning the loss (and in search of a beer), I forgot to turn it off or disconnect the power. Amazingly it mostly still functions, it just killed a bunch of the keys, so I have to use an external keyboard now.

That's not a very fluent blog is it? Well I have a lot to do, most of the writing I do nowadays is in the third person, so I have to be glad that this isn't.

“On the 04/05/2011 between the hours of 22:00 and 23:00 exactly 37ml of 12 year old Caol Ila was filtered through the chassis of a Toshiba Satellite A500, entering through the keyboard [Fig 13]. Initial diagnosis showed minimal adverse effects, however by 08:15 the following morning over 30 keys were unresponsive, including all but two on the home row, necessitating the acquisition of a substitute.”

Cycle into Autumn

Another month, autumn develops and the clocks go back here. It's pumpkin season, and I've been making soup (I've got enough pumpkin left for pumpkin pie but haven't got around to it yet). The weather's cooler too, it got down to 19° a few days ago, brrrr!

The project is coming along nicely; I did a bunch of testing and think I know some of the major problems (and how to solve them), now I just need to simulate everything like a 'proper' engineer, rather than work through trial and error, though that's much easier. Simulating's not as fun though, I had a good time waving a big coil of wire around the machinery (and my head) looking for errant electrical fields, initial testing is fun because it's all discovery. Modelling is basically a software version of join the dots: I know what it's supposed to look like, I just need to get the lines in the right place so it looks pretty.

Anyway, I shall persevere. I've been having business lunches with my supervisor Andrew Nafalski during the week, and business bike trips (do those exist?) at the weekend, which is great as I haven't used my bike since early summer, now I'm going roughly 40k each day at the weekends, to the beach or hills. Last Saturday we took the train to Belair way up in the hills, and cycled (alright, mostly freewheeled) back down. The views were spectacular, so much so that I decided to get pictures, and for a time was hurtling down the road one handed at 60kph getting my camera out of my pocket for a few snaps. Probably not sensible, and took me so long I missed the views, but I have a few good pics of my face at arms length, which I'll get posted to picasa.

The cycling last Sunday may have been a bad idea though, I've caught a cold from somewhere, and the exhaustion of going to the beach and back (cycling furiously alongside a galloping horse at one point) put me to sleep at about 7pm that night. Probably good for the recovery, but I spent Monday drinking chicken soup and litres of orange juice, not getting much work done. Missed out on fencing too.

The cold's pretty much gone now, but I still have a nasty cough, which makes playing my new instrument a little more challenging. I bought it on eBay last week from a guy down the road so I didn't have to pay postage, a bit of an impulse buy. It takes a lot of puff, and it's so noisy that I have to drive to empty car parks to play it, but I'm getting some good sounds out of it. A good addition to my collection.

The Fixer

First up: uni related, techie stuff. Skip three paragraphs to avoid.

Well I got the appeal (finally), I get to do that minor thesis. Actually I don't get to do the one I wanted, the one working on that state of the art electric motor; instead I'm doing a more 'Electromagnetic Compatibility' style project, but it's a decent enough project, and still interesting. 

You could say I'll be solving crippling interference problems in a million dollar university critical remote laboratory; or, on the other hand, you could say they're getting me to fix their broken stuff (and charging me) instead of hiring a professional. Either way I reckon I can do it well, which'll get me a good degree, which'll make it easier for me to get a decent (or any) job → money → house → etc. → win at life. In the meantime I've been frantically working on both the project and my backup courses (taken in case I failed my appeal) which I found to be the most boring hours of my life; very glad I can now drop those and stop going to lectures. 

So, life should calm down now, a little at least, as I have about 3 months to complete this, and it's the only thing I'm working on. Plenty of opportunity to work on other, smaller, projects. I'm going to see if I can bash out a 3d printer before I leave, then use that to print parts for robots and the like. Honestly after the mess I made of the Mechatronics course I could do with the practice. 

Now the non uni, non techie stuff: 

I said I'd mention the crabbing, but I'm not sure my experiences count... The first time we went to a local beach, the wind and tide weren't really in our favour, we sat at the end of the pier anyway and had a few beers with the net down, checking it occasionally. There were kids climbing up onto the shelter at the end of the pier and jumping off into the sea, which looked fun, but may have been scaring any crabs there were. We left just after the sun set, pulling up the net to find a single crab, just big enough for eating (there are minimum size restrictions they enforce to maintain the population). He was very tasty. 

The second time we headed for a beach an hour and a half's drive from Adelaide, where we heard there were tons of crabs all over the beach, and you could catch them with only a rake. After getting a bit lost on unsealed roads on the way there, we arrived, and couldn't find a single crab. There were plenty of rock-pools with tiny crabs in, but no big ones no matter how many stones we turned, or how deep we got. So not really crabbing, but it was a beautiful day, and the sea was glorious, so I had a swim (actually I just floated about a bit getting quite burned) before we drove home. Later we heard the same 'multitude of crabs' stories about beaches much closer to home, so with patience I may still get that massive crab feast. 

Now that uni's started again I'm back on the fencing, getting thoroughly stabbed on a weekly basis. I'm planning to join a few more sports clubs this year, ones which were too far away before I had the car (like rock climbing), or maybe the games club for a bit of chess/LAN gaming. 

So plenty of plans, lets see how many gang aglae.

End of the Summer

Flossie's come and gone, and I'll be starting Uni again in a few weeks.

Slightly concerned (well more than slightly) about the minor thesis, I've got my topic sorted okay, I dropped switched reluctance in favor of the yokeless and segmented architecture those Oxford guys have been developing. That's electric motors for sports cars in case you were wondering.

Problem is, I still don't know which supervisor's dealing with the motor-related projects this year, all official records still say it's Ozdamir Gol, who retired six months back. A few other possible supervisors are currently on holiday and don't answer emails.

The good news, I suppose, is that no-one knows what's going on, which suggests it's the Uni's fault. I emailed around, and found that not even the brightest guys in the year have had any feedback, so we're planning to jump the Program Director at some point this week to get some answers. Uni starts again in March and I should really know what I'm to be doing by now.

Anyway, writing that minor thesis proposal is what I've been concentrating on since Flossie left. She was here from the 24^th to the 5^th, but was rather jet-lagged for almost a week, and kept falling asleep for hours, so our excursions had to be morning focussed, at least initially.

We went to all the usual places: wildlife park/beach/vineyards etc. It was incredibly hot, well into the 40's for a few days, so we had to hide in cinemas and museums with decent air-con, and we both got a little burned at the beach. Overall though, a very enjoyable holiday; I was going to the same places I'd been before, but discovered things I'd missed, for example (and I'm a little embarrassed about this one) discovering the 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th floors of the Adelaide Museum, which I am sure weren't there before Christmas.

I'm getting very good at giving tours, shame nobody else is coming to visit before I make my return journey, which is only a few months away now that I think about it. Looking forward to Greggs, Costa, Irn Bru (though I did find a sweet shop that sells some here), peppered mackerel, Tennants and haggis (which was impossible to find, despite my attempts for Burns' night); and, of course, friends & family and all that.

Not looking forward to: getting a job, probably far from Scotland, so I'll be cut off from all of the above as soon as I return to it. Still, at least getting the job should be easier now.

Also: I did go crabbing recently, which was just fishing with a net really, mostly sitting around drinking, occasionally checking the net. We only caught one, so didn't get much of a meal each, but we're planning to go back to a better beach where apparently you can rake them in (literally). I'll save my detailed description for then, and remember to take pictures.

Also also: pics of the Australia-trip are up (finally), minus panorama shots, which I'll do later. Pics of Flossie's visit to follow, hopefully not with the same delay.

There, and there, and there, and back again.

That's the epic road trip over, the pictures'll be up soon, and I must say I'm glad to be back, not least because I miss hot food, but also because I have to get some work done on my minor thesis (which I may still have a shot at).

The trip, as those of you who follow me on twitter will know, changed quite quickly from the original plan, In fact I made it only as far as Melbourne before taking a short cut north, and the flooding in Brisbane (and above) ruined any chance to see the reef. I hear you really need to get to Cairns for a few days to see it properly anyway, and if I wouldn't be using the car when there, there's no point bringing it. I'll save that for a future holiday and just fly.

I'll be skipping through all the boring bits (or this could take as long as the trip itself), and start with the Great Ocean Road. I managed to get to, and halfway through, the G.O.R. on the first day, and found it crawling with tourists. The road ran along the cliffs at a safe distance, so the only impressive views were had by stopping at one of the many 'photo opportunity' points and walking to the edge. The weather was also slightly overcast, even a bit cold as the evening progressed, so after climbing down and having a walk along a narrow wet beach I stopped to sleep at a town halfway along the road.

The next morning I was up and away as the sun rose, so early in fact that I got a picture of the sun still touching the horizon. This meant:

1. There were no tourists

2. The sun was a beautiful deep orange

3. Nocturnal (and crepuscular) animals were still out and about

In other words I had the eastern half of the Great Ocean Road (that's the half where the road hugs the coastline meters from the water) almost to myself, only sharing with a few early morning runners and bumbling koalas. Honestly it's a wonder koalas don't die in record numbers along that coast, there are so many blind corners leading straight to half blind koalas lolling around in the road; when you stop right in front of them they don't even react, they just keep slowly heading whichever way they were when you found them. The road was epic, but the sharp corners and koala hazards compelled me, for the first time, to adjust my seatback to bolt-upright mode, and drive tightly gripping the steering wheel, watching the road like a caffinated conspiracy theorist (though that would not be for the last time), let's just say I wouldn't like to commute down it.

The G.O.R. ends near Melbourne, and the original plan had been to continue around the coast, but I was anxious to get to Brisbane (having still not watched, read or listened to any local news, I knew nothing of the terrible flooding). I bypassed Melbourne, and spent the day driving north-east. Late in the evening, after the sun had set, the fields I was driving through became filled with huge dragonfly-type creatures. The sun set, the light faded, and pretty soon my headlights were illuminating more bugs than road, that was the second bolt-upright seat-edge experience. The vast majority of them swooped around the car, or deflected off the shallow angle windscreen, but when I opened the bonnet the next day I found my radiator full of them, well cooked by that point. There will be pictures...

The next day was more North-East slogging. Still oblivious to the floods in Brisbane I was somewhat surprised to be hit by a torrential thunderstorm. However, having driven past innumerable 'this road is subject to flooding' signs, complete with two meter depth indicators, I knew flooding wasn't out of the question, and the road was so long and flat there would have been nowhere to retreat to had the levels risen. The sheer quantity of water pouring from the sky preveted speeds of over 40kph, and with my windscreen wipers on maximum, this was another white knuckle experience (still not the last).

I made it to the coastline by nightfall, and the next morning had a swim in the sea. It was still raining, but that didn't seem to be putting anyone else off, and the sea was pleasantly warm. The truly unique thing about swimming in such heavy rain is the collective image of millions of raindrops bouncing off the surface. You'll have seen liquid dropletts hitting the surface in slow motion in adverts, whether water, milk or paint, you get a little well forming on impact, then a little tower rises up, releasing a smaller droplet at the top; well imagine that happening constantly, average 10cm apart, forming little spikes a few inches tall, as far as the eye can see. Crazy. It's like swimming in a spectrum analyser.

After that I headed north to Brisbane, where there was heavy traffic and all the roads were closed. Strange that. I finally turned on the radio to find out what was going on, and learned the extent of the floods. After some consideration, I decided I really couldn't head further north, but I should at least see some jungle, and so headed up into the mountains. The road up was twisty and misty, and once again I had my face inches above the steering wheel as my luggage repeatedly changed its mind as to which side of the car would be best to pile up on. I did try having a walk that evening but had to give up when I discovered I couldn't see where I was putting my feet. The jungle is dark enough in broad daylight, trying to wander around it at night was a bit thick. I arrived back at my car to find my muddy feet were covered in leeches.

I had a more adequately lit walk around the jungle the next day. Lamington National park isn't really northerly enough to be proper jungle, it's in the crossover zone, making it home to both tropical and temperate plants competing for space. You really have to be quick at seizing opportunity to live here, as I discovered in the tenacity of the spiders. You could walk ten meters down a well trodden path, breaking through dozens of spiders webs, then turn around and walk back those same ten meters and a few spiders would have new webs already under construction, and that's only the ones I could feel myself breaking (i.e. the ones at face level). There aren't many dangerous spiders up there, and the ones that are dangerous hide, but getting an eyefull of web (with spider attached in some cases) is still uncomfortable.

Back in the car, back down the mountain. I found the road blocked by rockfall at one point, had to wait for the police and a digger to finish clearing a path. They were very relaxed about it though, must happen all the time. The road down was as twizzly and drizzly as I remembered it. Thoroughly sick of the rain, I headed inland.

Saturday, and at this point (note, only at this point, six days into the so called 'road' trip) I decided I might need a map. "You didn't have a map? You fool!" I hear you cry, well yes, I set out with written directions copied from google maps and a 10cm map on a back page of the Australia book my parents left behind (that's on a scale of 400km per centimeter, like setting out to explore Ireland from a map on your thumbnail). I think I should stop here to explain the preparation I DID do, which was to fill the car with adequate water (too much in fact, I left with 40 litres and only used 20 of them, despite the heat), and plenty of fruit. PLENTY of fruit, I had a 13kg sack of oranges, a few kilos each of bananas, apples and apricots, a box of cherries, small bag of plumbs and dates, and one rather large mango. I did go into a few "No Fruit" areas that were trying to control the spread of fruit fly, but I didn't actually stop or open my car windows until I'd come out the other side of the zone, so I recon it was alright (don't tell anyone though). I also bought a sheet of mosquito net and gaffed it to one of the back windows of the car, so I could have the window open at night but not get bitten, that was a smart move. I felt that covered the necessities of food, water and sleeping arrangements; though the back seats of my car do not fold completely flat, it was surprisingly comfortable, and neither excessive heat nor deafening rain could keep me awake at night.

But I digress, and if I keep on at this rate my personal experience might end up a little novel. After buying a map, and getting my bearings, I found myself in Glen Innes, which is sapphire country: half of the world's sapphires are currently mined around there. Well when in Rome... do as the other tourists do, the locals all got bored with digging a long time ago, so I was on my own in that field, digging and sifting through rocks all day. There's a constant nagging feeling that the next bucket-load will have a huge sapphire in it that'll make you rich, okay not this one but maybe the next (etc.), while wandering around the field deciding where to dig. In the end I found one small light blue sapphire (with bits of red in it, don't know what's going on there but I'm betting it reduces the value) and various bits of quartz, and moreover I learned that rocks are heavy and I don't like lifting them.

The following day up at Lightning Ridge I went in search of Opal, which involved less digging and lifting, but less profit, coming away with only one tiny chip of opal and a bunch of rocks. The best thing about Lightning Ridge was the (free) baths. They have a pipeline to the Great Artesian Basin (huge underground water reservoir... check wikipedia for more info), which supplies the town with water year 'round, and keeps the outdoor baths at a constant 42°C. Too hot for midday, or for vigorous swimming, but great for lounging around in the evening.

Monday I headed South. I covered a lot of ground that day, and was able to see Canberra on the Tuesday morning. The city looks impressive on maps, check one out, actually being there doesn't do it justice. Travelling West that evening I got back to Melbourne on the Wednesday, and actually went in this time. More museums, more city traffic, seems like a nice place to live, but expensive: I couldn't find a caravan park that'd give me a car space for less than $25, and that was 30km from the centre.

Tired of museums, whilst flicking through the guidebook that evening for things to do, apalled by the constant reports of flooding I was hearing on the news, I decided to go to tasmania. A phonecall confirmed there were tickets available the next morning, coming back on the Monday. I took the tickets (though I later found out the phone-booking cost ~$100 more than an online booking would have been) and I went to sleep as quickly as I could (several drams of whisky did the trick, yes of course I brought a bottle). The next morning i got up in darkness and was at the ferry for the 6:30 boarding. The only problem for me at this point was the fruit, which is blankettly not allowed to be transported to Tasmania without special permits and fumigation or something, but I was allowed to bring anything I wanted on to the ferry to eat on the trip. By this point I only had oranges left, so I boarded with a laptop, a book, and fourteen oranges. The journey was slow, lasting ten hours, so I had a lot of time to eat, but after the first nine oranges, and after playing computer games like minecraft made me feel a bit ill, I grew quite sick of them. I did a lot of reading, and just managed to force the rest of them down before customs.

Upon arrival it was raining, and it rained all through the night and the next morning. The number one road safety sign in Tasmania seems to be “People DIE on wet roads” so I gather it must rain there quite a bit. In fact I was told, when I stopped in Scottsdale, that I couldn't go down the East coast because the roads were flooded, turns out I couldn't escape the flooding even in Tasmania. Instead I headed down the main highway to Hobart where it was also raining, but being a (the) major city it had a museum (oh joy... actually it was pretty good, if a little eclectic), and I was able to get fish and chips straight from the harbor (I do miss fat Scottish chips). In the afternoon the weather finally cleared up, I tried to get a full city photo but wherever I went there were houses blocking the view, even up the sides of the hills surrounding the city, so no photo of Hobart I'm afraid.

Saturday was a big day, I set off from Hobart in the morning heading towards the West coast. The West coast of Tasmania being well-known as untamed (or unstained, depending on your opinions on nature), and the further I got from Hobart the higher the trees rose and the thicker the foliage became. The roads wound their way up and down the mountains, where I got caught in the rain again. Lots of rainbows chasing along beside the car, more white knuckles, more right angled seat position (but I do believe that was the last time). It was while driving downhill around a particularly long and smooth left corner that my wheels decided sliding was cooler than rolling, and the car started to spin. The road was banked on the right, so I didn't slide into oncoming traffic, but I wasn't going fast enough for a cool rally type maneuver, so I simply slid off the side of the mountain.

That is of course what would have happened, and may have happened before (remembering the 'people die on wet roads' signs), until a small chain fence was put up to prevent it. I was stopped abruptly by one of the posts supporting this chain. I restarted, reversed, reviewed the damage, and returned to the road. The experience left quite a mark, the post left quite a dent, my impact left... nothing. After I had gone, no trace remained save a little disturbed earth near the post. This sort of thing must happen all the time here.

The annoying thing is I was only a couple of km from the end of that road, and that was the last time I had to drive in such conditions. The road from there was a lot more relaxed, I followed it up to the North coast, getting a few gorgeous pictures on the way, and then headed to the East coast for the evening. The Sunday I spent reading on the beach during the morning, only heading up to Devonport in the evening to be ready for boarding the next morning.

The return ferry was less comfortable than the outgoing, the seas being a little rougher, but that didn't stop me playing computer games until I felt sick, and at least I didn't have so many oranges to finish. On Tuesday I made the final leg back from Melbourne to Adelaide, throwing good mileage to the winds I was speeding most of the way. Flooding throughout New South Wales had spread to Victoria so I had to take a few detours, and a few detours within those detours, but I made it home in the early afternoon, making sure to accompany my arrival with dramatic music. The first thing I did was have a cup of tea and check my emails, then I started work on this minor thesis proposal.

But that's another story.

Total distance covered: 8700km (or 5500miles), total spent on petrol: $750, ferry tickets: $430, parking/attractions: $150, campsites/trailer-parks: $100, food (purchased on trip): $10. There are some things money can't buy, for everything else there's generous donations from your family.

The Six Megameter Trip

That was the least Christmassy Christmas I've ever had, but still thoroughly enjoyable. Gingerbread pancakes on the balcony in the morning sun, followed by a barbecue on the beach and a swim in the sea. All before the sun had even risen in the UK. The back of my neck got especially burned, the sun was so strong that I wasn't even safe under my beach umbrella, I could see my shadow distinctly within the beach umbrella's shadow.
Update: I've uploaded a pic (we didn't take many) of Christmas day at the beach, as well as a couple of my car. They're in the Mawson Lakes folder.

Since Christmas I've been doing a lot of hiding in my room with the air conditioner on, It was over 40º on the run up to the new year, too hot to even think about going outside. I've been carefully preparing for this road trip of mine, the round trip looks like it'll total 3700 miles, 6000 kilometers, that's 6 megameters! Four and a half road trips from Land's End to John O' Groats. That's like driving in a straight line from the UK to the nearest corner of China or India, but it's only... less than a quarter of the way around Australia. This country is big.

The plan is to head south out of Adelaide, go along the Great Ocean Road, then past Melbourne and Sydney, up to Brisbane and further up into the jungle, stopping at Rockhampton. When I get there I'll see how much time (and funds) I have left, and if not much, come back directly through the barrier highway (630 miles of nothing but sand). I've only got 18 days to complete the trip, having to be back to pick up Flossie on the 22nd, so I need to average 200 miles a day. Of course I can cut the trip short or drive straight back through the aforementioned barrier highway if I'm really going to be late, but I want to see jungle if I can.

I'm leaving Adelaide on Monday, tomorrow, at 6am. I had planned to leave today, but after getting involved with a certain friend's hogmanay party yesterday for hours and hours I still have to wash clothes and pack etc. I've got over 40 hours of CDs, 40 litres of water, five loaves and two tins of tuna, so I'm mostly sorted. I also have barbecue supplies for when I want something hot, but then i expect to be able to fry an egg on the roof of my car, so probably won't need it.

I'll blog whenever I can get an internet connection, tweet whenever I can get phone reception, and take plenty of pictures (though I imagine they'll be mostly of the landscape variety). Also I promise not to... well I'll try not to go on about how hot it is.