Sundown National Park, Qld. Labour Day Long-weekend.

While my home iMac is being backed up prior to loading a new operating system (Yosemite - MacOSX 10.10) I thought I should get around to catching up with my travel blog and write up the trip to Sundown National Park over the Qld Labour Day Long weekend in October. As we were meeting up at the quite reasonable hour of 10 am at the Beaudesert Maccas, I was able to have a bit of a sleep-in as the car was packed and I just had to strap the OzTent to the roof racks. I left home at around 8 am and had an uneventful trip to Beaudesert with hardly any long weekend traffic to hold me up. I got there a little early so picked a newspaper, a sausage roll and an iced coffee from the local shops and had a second Brekky in the park. Then it was off to Maccas to meet up with Adam and Meagan, Josh and Phil, unfortunately Kemsley had been kept back at work (in Mackay from memory) and wouldn't be able to make it away. 

We left Beaudesert around 10ish and headed south towards Rathdowney where we saw heaps of motorbikes and their riders meeting up on some sort of organised trip. We turned off towards Boonah to take the back way to Stanthorpe and avoid any holiday traffic. This involved going past Lake Maroon, White Swamp and Legume and staying on as many gravel roads as possible. We got into Stanthorpe around midday and found a little bakery open and proceeded to have a very pleasant lunch before continuing on south towards Ballandean. We stopped quickly on the way so that Adam could fuel up as he was the only one of us without long range fuel tanks. Then onto the national park where after a short stop to let some air out of the tyres we headed off to our camp site at Reedy camp ground. The road in was rough as usual with lots of dust and rocks but taking it slowly meant we coped quite easily although at one stage Phil had the return of a problem where the engine would cut out but it disappeared after he switched from lpg to petrol. 

We got to the camp grounds at about 4 pm and found only one other family there, so we set up camp on a reasonably flat piece of ground around a nice campfire pit. 

It was about now when Adam wanted to go for a bit of drive that he found out that his main battery hadn't survived the rough roads but he was able to jump start the car easily using his auxiliary battery. After making the short drive to have a look at the Burroughs waterhole camp ground, Adam came back and proceeded to go into fire bug mode and got the camp fire going. We had several bags of firewood for each evening so he was able to pile the wood on, with the rest of us sitting around with drinks and some cheese, dips and crackers. I got the quadcopter out for a bit of a fly but stuffed up the filming on its first run, which also scared the Kangaroos off, I then swapped batteries and had another go which was much more successful. Then it was time to cook dinner as it was getting a bit dark and we ended up back around the campfire for some more drinks and chatting, before heading to bed around 10'ish.

We slept in a little in the morning before having a leisurely breakfast. Then at around 9'ish we headed off for a drive, stopping in at the other camp ground to make use of the pit toilets and to see how crowded it was. All the spots along the river were taken and there wasn't a lot of space left, so we were glad we opted for the less crowded camp ground. Then it was off for a bit of a drive down the wombat hole hill along the creek, finally crossing over the river at the rock shelf with only a little bit of scrapping. 

It was about now that Phil noticed that one of his rear tyres was low so he added some air to it and kept driving carefully. It wasn't long before it became apparent he would have to change it, so we started to look for a nice shady flat spot off the road to do this, however the good spots were taken with campers. We ended up crossing another part of the creek and then found somewhere that the change could happen while we had some morning tea. 

While Adam helped Phil change tyres, I was being closely questioned by another group about the conditions on the Canning Stock Route as they heading there in May of next year. One guy was definitely going to have fun as he was driving a V8 petrol Landcruiser and was going to need a fuel drop well before the halfway point. Some video shot by someone else in his party showed that he used speed and momentum just a little too much in his earlier hill climb where he had the front end of the Landcruiser well and truly up in the air. After the tyre was changed we explored a little more before crossing back over the two creeks and heading back towards camp. 

On the way up the wombat holes hill I found it more difficult than last time as the ground seemed drier and dustier with less grip and deeper holes. I made it to the top with only some beeping from the traction control, fortunately I didn't get the tone of death that indicated that the traction control had overheated would no longer help with the hill climb. As I was first up the hill and I wanted to try out the video on the new iPhone, I got the others to wait while I parked and walked back to a suitable spot. Out of all the cars Phil's long wheel base Paj made the climb the easiest as it seemed to be able to span the holes much better. Adam had his mud tyres on and they made it easier for his shortie than Josh and I with the ATR's. Then it was back to camp for some late lunch and a nice relaxing afternoon. After a bit of snooze and some reading I went for a bit of a wander to try and get some photos of the Kangaroos I had scared off the previous day. The were fairly shy and I took awhile to get close enough to get some nice photos. 

By this time Adam's pyromaniac tendencies had come to the fore and the fire was lit even though it was neither cold nor dark. The remainder of the cheese, dips and crackers made their appearance and disappeared slowly as night descended. 

We sat around the fire for awhile but ended up turning in early as we had had a very tiring :) day and we needed to pack up in the morning to head back to civilization. 

The packing was fairly leisurely after a nice breakfast of bacon and eggs and we ended up leaving the camp site at around 8:30 am. The slow drive out of the park was going well until we caught up to a group in front of us and the last vehicle in their group managed to get a flat tyre on a rocky hill a little bit before the turnoff to Red Rock Canyon Lookout. It looked like he pinched the tyre against a rock and broke the bead, leading to rapid deflation. As Adam was the lead car in our group he somehow became the designated tyre change helper even though there was another four cars worth of people in their group who ended up standing around watching. After that was fixed they waved us on and we continued to the exit of the park where we aired the tyres up and not long afterwards hit the bitumen. 

At this point I split off from the others as I couldn't face heading back through Beaudesert and Canungra as I knew it would be slow and packed with rubber necking tourists, so I said my goodbyes and headed south over the enemy border to Tenterfield. From here I travelled east on the Bruxner Highway to Casino where I stopped for a quick bite of lunch, hoping that the grumpy RBT cop from my last visit here wasn't on duty. Then for something different I headed to Lismore and from there up to Mulimbimby and across the roads at the back of Byron Bay before joining up with the M1 and cruising home with no traffic problems at all. 

I got home around 3'ish and unpacked the car, did some washing of both my clothes and myself and generally relaxed for what remained of a very pleasant weekend. The map below shows my rather roundabout trip, all up just over 650 kms for the weekend. 

First week with the new iPhone 6+

Well it's been just over a week since I picked up my new iPhone 6+ from the Apple Store at Robina, so I thought I would jot down a few impressions so that I can see if my feelings towards it change over time. First thing, it is big, very big compared to my old iPhone 4S. I think this would worry me more if I used it predominantly as a phone however I tend to use it more like an iPad nano. I carry it in my shirt pocket and it fits fine and I've had no problems with it bending. 

The screen as well as being large is incredibly detailed and the colour reproduction is great. The rounded edges make it feel very comfortable in the hand and I find I use it by holding it in my left hand and type or gesture with my right hand. Despite the size it actually feels like it may be slightly lighter than the 4S. Some of the apple apps (e.g. Mail) now have a Landscape mode which presents more info and a better layout on the larger screen. iOS 8 has a slightly different feel to iOS 7 even though they don't look all that different. I was lucky I missed the debacle that was the 8.0.1 update which caused problems with phone calls and TouchID and went straight to 8.0.2. 

I have been comparing the built in pedometer with my FitBit One and the phone always seems to come out with a lower number of steps but the amount can change wildly. When I been simply walking the iPhone shows about 2% lower but if I am walking around shopping and standing around then it can be about 10% lower. I think the Fitbit is perhaps overly sensitive as it shows me having walked steps when I am driving whereas the phone doesn't register any steps. The Fitbit is even worse if I'm not wearing it but leave it on the car seat next to the phone. So for the moment I'll use both but I suspect the phone will end up being more accurate. The steps are logged into the new health app dashboard which has potential to store lots of different health related info, including emergency info in case of an accident. 

The camera seems very good and much more responsive than the old 4S. It has new slow-mo video modes and time lapse which I haven't tried out yet. The burst mode is sensational and takes approximately 10 photos per second while you hold the shutter button down. I tried it for 10 seconds, taking 100 photos with no slow down to write the photos to storage, not sure how long it would continue at this speed. This mode is a bit too easy to activate as I found keeping my finger on the shutter button just a little too long resulted in small bursts of 2 or 3 photos being taken but I suspect I just need to get used to this. The editing in the photos app is much better with more options and very responsive. The digital zoom seems to work reasonably although I suspect it is better to not use it but crop the image later but for a quick and easy shot it's not too bad. 

The panorama feature also works pretty well and is supposed to produce higher resolution images than the older phones. I'm still getting used to holding the phone to take photos and being bigger makes it a little awkward but I suspect it's just a matter of practice to get it right. 

At the moment the feature I am enjoying the most is the TouchID to unlock the phone. After setting up and calibrating with my fingerprints it is working accurately and quickly and makes using the phone for a quick check of something much faster. The only real problem I have noticed so far is that every day or two the wifi connectivity goes wonky and it won't connect to the network, requiring a restart. This has occurred on three different networks and I notice that the Apple Discussions Forum has a rather long post about this but it seems to be a iOS 8 problem and not a iPhone 6 problem. Hopefully it will be fixed in the next iOS update. 

All up I'm very happy with the phone and glad I got the large one. 

Testing blogging from the iPhone 6+

Thought I would test posting to my blog using the Blogger app on my new iPhone and in the process also checked out how fast 4G actually is. In the screenshot below, the top result is my home ADSL 2 and this is about the fastest I get. The second result is via 4G at Robina shopping centre this morning. 

I wish I could have my ADSL download quota and cost with the 4G speed, shame the current government is killing the NBN. 😞

Gold Coast Show long weekend 2104 - Day 3.

Yet another sleep in but after a leisurely breakfast and pack up, I was still able to head off just after 9 am. I turned south at the highway as I was wanting to have a look around Iluka and the southern part of the Bundjalung national park. It was only a short run down the highway to the Iluka turnoff and then I started to explore the little offshoots into Bundjalung, including various picnic areas and to the beach at the ominously named Shark Bay. 

The beach leads all the way back to the black rocks camp ground, unfortunately you can no longer exit from the beach to the camp ground. The camping ground at Woody Heads is a nice looking spot but way too crowded for my liking, would be good for a family trip however. Then it was onto the Iluka Bluff nature reserve which has a nice little beach and picnic area. There is also a short walk up to the top of the bluff, where you get a great view of the surrounding coastline. 

Then I continued on into Iluka itself and after a bit of a drive around the town and seashore, I found a great spot for some fish and chips and Thai fish cake for lunch. 

After lunch it was time to start heading back home but I was not wanting to head up the main highway and deal with any traffic congestion. So after consulting several maps I thought I had found a back way across to The Summerland Way which would take me up to Casino. I headed up the highway a few kms and turned off to Tullymorgan then after a few kms there should have been a turn to the north to the huge metropolis of Gibberagee but the road I wanted to take looked somewhat in disrepair and there was a "No Through Road" sign. Oh well, I headed south through Tullymorgan and then had to go further south towards Lawrence before I found a road heading west towards the Summerland Way. I was never lost as I could see where I was on the gps map app on the tablet and I could see where I wanted to go but it was frustrating I couldn't go the way I wanted. 

I was back onto bitumen roads and heading north and hardly saw another car, making for a very easy drive. The only thing that livened the trip up was a stroppy policeman in Casino doing a RBT. The detector they use in NSW is completely different to the ones up here and he kept telling me to count and I was expecting to have to blow into the detector, so I was a little confused but ended up counting to one and being told to be on my way. Then it was north to Kyogle and then turning west towards Murwillumbah. After 50 kms or so I took the Burrill creek road turnoff to Tyalgum. This started as a very narrow bitumen road winding along the creek and became a very narrow dirt road not long after. The scenery was excellent and about 5 or so kms from Tyalgum the road was bitumen and became wider giving a subperb view of the surrounding mountains. 

The superb views continued on the other side of Tyalgum on the way to Chillingham and I think it was Mt Warning I could see from the back. 

From Chillingham I could have headed north and home through the Numinbah Valley, but I chose to head towards Murwillumbah and then go up and over the hills through Tomewin and into the back of Palm Beach through the Currumbin Valley. 

All up over the three days I had done almost 600 kms and had a very pleasant weekend. 

Gold Coast Show long weekend 2104 - Day 2.

Once again as it was a long weekend, I had a little sleep-in. The sky had been clear overnight and it got fairly chilly early in the morning although I was pretty toasty in the swag, on the stretcher and in the tent. Who said camping required you to rough it. After a leisurely breakfast, I got things ready to do the Jerusalem Creek walk which was a round trip of 8 kms. The walking was pretty easy and this time I had sandals on which made walking through the pools of water much easier and safer. 

The 2 km walk I had done yesterday was called Emu Loop and even though I didn't see any emus either yesterday or today, I saw some emu tracks on the path. I bet they are just waiting to attack the Paj as soon as I drive off. 

It took me about 75 mins to walk the 4 km to where the creek entered the sea, including some detours to look at the creek and the beach. 

After a bit of a rest in the shade and some water I collected a grey plastic shoong bags worth of plastic rubbish to take back and dispose of. I had wanted to walk back along the beach but the high tide meant I wouldn't have made it around the coffe rock without getting washed away. 

It was another 75 mins back to camp and then while I was cooling down and rehydrating I had a local come and check out my camp. With no food around he got bored and wandered away. 

I then had a bit of lunch and to keep in practice did I the crossword and sudoku. 

Afterwards, I settled in for a lazy afternoon reading doing some short walks around the camp as my dodgy knee was playing up a bit after the morning walk. 

I figured I should also start writing up this blog so that it is ready to post when I get a good internet connection again. After dinner, I went down to the beach again for some stargazing as the sky is so full of stars. The wind had dropped off again once the sun had set and I had an early night as tomorrow I would have to pack up and head home. 

Gold Coast Show long weekend 2104 - Day 1.

I slept in a bit knowing that I only had a few things left to load into the car and that it wouldn't take long to finishing packing and get away. Left home about 9:30 am and headed south via the highway, not long into NSW and the traffic started backing up due to an accident, so I made a quick u-turn and headed down the scenic coast road. Stopped and had a look at a couple of the towns on the way, boy is there a lot of building going on around Kingscliff and Casuarina. 

Back out to the highway only to run into more crappy taffic courtesy of the road works happening around the back of Byron Bay. Finally, got past the traffic and cruised down to Broadwater where I turned off the highway and drove through Broadwater National Park to Evans Head. 

This is a very nice town right on the beach where the Evans River meets the sea. It has grown a bit since I was last here but still has a charming seaside village feel to it. I grabbed a pie and sausage roll (both excellent) from the bakery and drove up to the lookout on the south side of the river and had some lunch while keeping an eye put for any passing whales.  Then a bit of a drive around to Chinaman's Beach followed by a drive down into part of the northern section of Bundjalung national park to a little creek which ends up running into the Evans River. You can't go too far into the national park from the north as it is an Air Force exclusion zone. 

Back out to the highway and then south to the turn off for Bundjalung. It's about 20 km of quite good gravel road to the camping ground at Black Rocks. I finally got there at around 1:30 pm and set up camp in my designated spot. The camping grounds have been upgraded substantially since I was last here 7 or 8 years ago. Like a lot of Qld national parks you need to book and pay ahead of time, also there is a car entry fee to be paid as well. I have a two year pass for the car and that saves heaps of money, although camping at Black Rocks is expensive for a single person as they charge per site rather than per person ($20 per night). All the sites are in very good condition and are fenced off and screened from each other. They all have a picnic table, fire place and clothes line and the shared facilities (including BBQs) are in good nick. 

There is enough Telstra signal at the camp grounds for SMS and phone calls but internet is not so good. I walked down to the beach to look at the coffee rock which gives the camp ground it's name and found good (4 bars) phone signal, probably form Iluka and Yamba in the south. 

I walked along the beach to the old car exit from the beach, it is very eroded and it is no longer possible to get onto the beach from the camp grounds. Then it was back to camp for a cool drink. I then went for a quick walk to the canoe launching ramp on Jerusalem Creek to see what it looked like. I had packed the kayak but the wind and current was way too strong for me to try paddling so I followed the short loop back to camp. 

I thought this was going to be a nice easy stroll but they must have had a lot of rain down here recently as quite long sections of the track were ankle to shin deep in water. My Crocs were working quite well as self draining shoes but they have seen a few kms and don't have much tread left, so I almost ended up on my bum in the water in a few spots where there was a muddy bottom rather than sandy bottom to the track. Back at camp I relaxed and as it got dark and set about cooking dinner. Then after eating and cleaning up I settled in to catch up on some reading. When it got really dark I wandered down to the beach and skygazed for quite awhile. The moon was fairly small and setting in the west so I had a great view of the Milky Way and all the other stars you don't normally see when you are in a big city. Then it was back to camp and a bit more reading before turning in for the night. The wind had dropped off as the sun went down but the sound of the surf on the beach was quite loud and that is great to have in the background when going to sleep. 

The maiden voyage of the JCDtanic.

The day started out pretty overcast, so I had a lazy breakfast and went back to bed to finish off a book I have been reading for awhile. After awhile the day seemed to be clearing up so I ended up going for a walk down around Currumbin Creek to find a suitable place to launch the new inflateable kayak. I found a nice spot just to the west of Thrower Road bridge, a grassy area to unpack the kayak and a nice sandy beach for the launching spot. 

Back home I packed the kayak into the Paj, along with some photo gear, towels, sunscreen, etc. then it was down to the creek. I was going to set a camera up on a tripod to film the unpacking as the included instructions were pretty crap and I thought I may need some help when it came time to pack it back up. However, it turns out it would have probably taken me longer to set up the camera and tripod then it did to actually unpack and set the kayak up. 

The inflation was pretty easy with a 12 litre dual action pump, once I found the three main air nozzles. They were excellent because your could close them off before removing the pump hose, so there wasn't a rush of air out of the device as you tried to close the cap. Once all three air bladders were pumped up the craft was quite sturdy. There is quite a few storage areas including one right behind the seat, in here is also another air nozzle to pump a cushion for the back of the seat, but I didn't find that until I got back to shore and started packing up. I stowed the pump and my shoes in here, in case of emergency. 

There is a cover which goes over your legs (it seals wth Velcro) that keeps most of the water out and it also has some storage areas, including one which is supposed to be waterproof. Just to be sure I put my phone in a dry bag and then into the waterproof compartment. I found my legs were getting hot and sweaty from being covered over but on the plus side they were also protected from sun burn. I had planned that I would get into the water at high tide and then paddle up the creek, allowing me to drift back down the creek with the outgoing tide when I got tried of paddling. It didn't really work out too well as there wasn't a lot of water movement as the tide turned, so I ended up having to paddle both directions. :(

It was very nice on the creek, no wind, not too hot and the water was a pleasant temperature. I slowly paddled a kilometer or so up stream just doing a bit of sightseeing and watching the other kayakers. It seems like the standing paddle boards are the latest trendy things, there was way more of them than kayaks. I eventually got used to paddling so that I went in more or less a straight line, this seemed a bit harder than when I was on the sit on top kayak at Lawn Hill but I just probably need a bit more practice. I didn't work out how to adjust the foot straps until I was back on shore so my legs weren't too comfortable, once again I think this is something I'll get used to. 

Packing up the kayak wasn't too bad, I opened all the air nozzles while I got the large plastic tub out of the car, then gave a few pumps using the deinflation mode. I managed to fit it into the 120 litre plastic tub on the second try and it is now sitting unfolded in the back yard drying out before it gets packed up and stored away in my camping room. 

All up I'm very happy with it, I had no problems setting it up and packing it away. On the water it felt very stable although it is probably not as fast as the solid shell kayaks, but that is not what I wanted it for. It's still quite bulky (fits in a 120 litre tub) and will take up a fair bit of room in the car but overall I think it is better for me and my travels than having a hard shell kayak strapped to the roof racks. I think I also now need a little water proof camera to take with me as it was going to take too long to get a normal camera or my phone out of the waterproof container to take a photo of the birds and flying foxes in the trees beside the creek and the fish in the creek. Time to rest the shoulders and have a late lunch.