Relocation

Lots of packing, a quick vacation, and now we are in San Francisco.
B had done her research and on Sunday we saw four apartments. One application later we are just waiting for the signed lease agreeement to come back.

Australia, 2000

River bank, Five Mile Creek

I headed fast up north to beat the tropical "wet" season. It was cold in the New South Wales ranges, but further on it warmed right up. Humidity became perceptible precisely at the Queensland border. On these hot steamy days a cool waterhole was a relief.

North of Townsville there is one on Five Mile Creek. Cars come for lunch at neat BBQs and shaded picnic tables. Afterwards everyone plunges into the clear deep water to cool off. On the upstream river bank this season's shoots grow through last season's bushfire ash. The land is refreshed too.

Rest stop, Flinder's Highway

The typical rest stop along the 1,500 kilometres of highway west from Townsville to Three-Ways Roadhouse (in the centre of the Northern Territory) is little excuse to pull over. A dusty toilet block, a little shelter against the sun, and old fuel drums for rubbish bins.

It was windy season and the wind was hot and relentless. It was like walking on a beach in a storm. My body ached from being buffeted but it was too hot to stay in the car when the air-conditioner was off. Outside the bread of my lunch snap-dried as soon as I began buttering it. I drove on.

Power and water, Birdsville

There is not much to Birdsville. The bare streets are bigger than the house lots. You no longer have to register when you drive the Birdsville Track but the town is still a major meeting place of four wheel-drive trails and city-bred 4WD tours.

I followed one group visiting the Aboriginal Ranger's station and listened to a description of a beautiful dot-painting mural. It was a spatial representation of the local permanent water holes overlaid with temporal representations of Dreamtime stories. Now there is permanent water in the town's tanks and stories are transferred using electricity from a diesel generator.

Tracks in the Dunes, Lake Eyre

The shore of Lake Eyre is exactly like an ocean shore. You park in the dunes behind the beach and trot over the final soft dune expecting to see waves. Early in 2000 the normally empty lake was full but now the water's edge was out of sight three kilometres away. I watched a group of people make a long slow pilgrimage across the vast salt pan to find it. They became tiny figures in a silver mirage. The sun set red. I cooked myself dinner in peaceful solitude.

Peake Hill Overland Telegraph Station

The only access to Peake Hill Overland Telegraph Station is along a rough four-wheel drive track. I was in no hurry and enjoyed skirting rocky outcrops and crossing sharp-edged, dry creek beds.

The roofless buildings were abandoned long ago. Remains of a thin iron bed are in one room. Tourists have laid out coloured pieces of glass and scraps of iron picked from the old rubbish heap.

I backed my Landrover into the L of the main building and lit a small sheltered fire for company. I had found a large snake jaw by the old date palms and slept uneasily with thoughts of beasts and ghosts.

In the morning, still dozing near the car, I could see the back axle was dripping oil. Not good.

Boab tree, Galvan Gorge

I came south-west down the Gibb River road from Kununurra at the very end of the tourist season. In fact I was lucky that the "wet" had not really started and the road was open. "Snowy", a grader driver, told me that in peak season he would see 150 cars a day. I saw maybe five.

Snowy graded ten kilometres of road each day at the Derby end. The rest of the road was pounding and required concentration. Sharp rock ridges ran unexpectedly across it. Recent rain puddles hidden around corners dried muddily. Tidal crocodile rivers needed fording. The gorges were beautiful with clear water cascades, interconnected pools, and deep plunges. Boab trees came in all sizes.

Jetty, Derby

It was either hot and windy in Derby or hot and still. I cannot remember. Either way it was aggressive with a harsh sky. The ocean looked calm but its colour was a forbidding tropical muddy, mangrove, turgid, blue-green.

Outside a shed on the jetty was a 4WD. A map of Australia was painted on its side. "Tour of Australia 1993" read the caption. "Bottles of Beer" and "Crates of Whiskey" were tallied off in great quantities. No route was marked; after seven years the tour had still not started. Inside the shed preparations were being made for a wedding reception.

Gorge, Karijini NP

From the north-west coast I drove inland south towards Karijini National Park. I had driven long; eaten a shady lunch on the banks of a wide river; shopped for food at the end of the day in South Hedland.

I was not going to reach the park by nightfall. In the quick dark my headlights lit wonderful folded rock faces. I detoured up to a lookout and decided to stay. At dawn I woke to a beautiful view
changing each minute as the sun warmed.

The gorges in the park were twisted, deep and mysterious. I scrambled down them, sometimes straddling narrow water, sometimes swimming through curved caverns, sometimes clinging to ledges passing deep pools and small waterfalls.

Sunset, The Pinnacles

I watched the sunset over the Pinnacles. Sitting in the warm desert sand I could see west to the sea. The sun set quickly, golden. The rim of the world went orange. The sky above was blue, then dark blue, then black. I lay in the deepening colours for an hour after sunset. The pinnacles around me stood up into the night. The stars came out.

Breakup Party, Swan River

Lounging in a friend's high South Perth flat overlooking the wide Swan River and the city I felt at home. I was near the end of my time on the road and needed a rest from hard travel.

From the balcony I watched a school breakup party in the park along the river bank. They had played, eaten, chased and laughed. Perhaps now at the end of the day they were sad their time together was over.

This article was originally published in Exposure magazine, the magazine of the Melbourne Camera Club.

Travel Tips from an Infrequent Flyer

I'd forgotten what long-haul flying is like. In the last ten months I've now been around the world twice and traveled return across the Pacific another two times.

Here are my tips for traveling in comfort.

Pay More

Fly with an airline known for its service. Buy a seat in a more exclusive class. (Note to self: Hmmmmm).

Buy a hard-case suitcase. I saw a baggage carousel rip open a soft suitcase just last week.

Make yourself comfortable

At check-in ask for a seat away from the galley, and not the first row up against a bulkhead. Aisle seats allow you to hop up to get to the toilet before the post-meal or post-movie rush.

Take soft foam earplugs. Take noise canceling headphones. Stress from noise cannot be underestimated.

Take soft eye shields to prevent distracting lights waking you from a doze.

Take your shoes off and put your feet on the pillow. This removes some vibrations and elevates your feet. Fold out the "wings" on the headrest to sleep against.

Carry a small water bottle to keep yourself rehydrated.

Take your own food. I've read recommendations about getting your favorite restaurant to prepare a hamper (see note above about flying in a more exclusive class), but for me, if I have connecting flights, I often take sandwiches. Other snack foods can be helpful too.

Take a toothbrush and toothpaste.

Take moisturizing cream - even for tough guys the air-conditioning is savage. Sorbolene is excellent.

Take a pen for customs and immigration forms.

Relax

Take what comes; relax. If you get delayed, don't stress - it won't help.

Go the right way the first time. Ask three people when seeking directions. One person is bound to be wrong, a second and third will confirm each other.

Home

Google Maps satellite picture of where I live now

TagglyWiki: using tags allows grouping of entries

A few days after starting to use GTDTiddlyWiki. I found TagglyWiki. Its use of tags is resolved a problem I had with simple wikis: the ability to group related entries.

I can see why GTDTiddlyWiki caught people's imaginiation. The UI is prettier and it is easier to use than the underlying TiddlyWiki UI. In GTDTiddlyWiki, the boxing of entries makes it easier to scan down a page and read just the main headings. The right-hand alignment of the edit button bar makes it easier to navigate. I can move my mouse faster to the buttons because their position is relatively fixed, compared with TiddlyWiki's and TagglyWiki's alignment adjacent to a variable-width heading.

I modified the TagglyWiki style sheet. I've also changed the code to make the tag view the default view, and to list tagged tiddler entries in a newline separated list. I found the default comma separated list slower to read.

Migrating from GTDTiddlyWiki to TagglyWiki was simply done using the "upgrade" steps. I loaded my wiki in a browser, replaced the GTDTiddlyWiki file with the TagglyWiki file, and forced a save.

Bookmarks

Bit the bullet and started migrating bookmarks to del.icio.us.
Tradeoffs were performance, access from any machine, finding and organizing.

Can't move inside-firewall bookmarks, so partial problem remains.

I then installed Foxylicious 0.3 and managed to overwrite all my remaining Firefox
bookmarks by clicking to install to the top level folder (I think).

Melbourne's Seasons

Seven Seasons of the Kulin People:

• January - February: Hot, dry weather. High temperatures and low rainfall.


• March: Hot winds cease and temperatures cool.


• April - July: Cool, rainy days follow misty mornings.


• August: Cold weather is coming to an end.


• September - October: Temperatures are rising but the rain continues.


• November: The weather is warm, and it is often raining.


• December: Changeable, thundery weather.