Basirk in Australia

The continuing adventures of Chris Bassett

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2003-08-14 00:37:05 - Lismore
- Glen Innes

Spent a night at Lismore where we got the compulsory "Green Slip" for the van. This is third party insurance only and is need before you can get a Rego (tax).

As you might imagine, there's not a lot to do in the evenings except sit around at the caravan park. This means that I get to see the night sky pretty much every night. I know the Southern sky now better than I know the Northern sky! It's incredibly beautiful with the milky way appearing as a bright band straight across the sky. At Bargara (near Bundaberg) I borrowed some binoculars off a fellow camper and had a look around. I had bought a book called "The Rough Guide to the Universe" which has a complete star guide at the back. Using the star guide I was able to look at some amazing clusters and nebulae that are simply not visible with the naked eye. I've can also pick out quite a few constelations now, the most obvious being Crux (Southern Cross), Centaurus and Scorpious.

Last night I didn't get a good look at the stars as it was a full moon. At about 7:00pm it rose up from behind a tree covered hill and not half an hour later Mars followed it! I took a picture but I doubt it will come out.

So now we are at Glen Innes having crossed the Great Dividing Range. We've got the van booked in for it's safety test (Pink Slip, MOT equiv) on Monday so we'll have tomorrow and the weekend at Boolabinda to do some Sapphire hunting :) The weather here is a lot colder than on the coast, so if it rains I won't be a happy bunny!

It's sunny at the moment and it's just like an sunny autumnal day back in Blighty.

2003-08-12 01:52:50 - Logan Village

Currently staying with some friends just south of Brisbane. We spent yesterday and today sanding, priming and spraying the top of the van. We ran out of paint and can't be bothered to finish the job. There's some nice, cool VB in the fridge with my name on it :)

Tomorrow we're heading to Lismore to get the van safety checked and then Rego'd (equiv of MOT and Road Tax). Please God don't let there be anything else wrong with it! It's then on to Glen Innes and an itsy-bitsy bit more sapphire hunting. Stu doesn't really want to do it any more but I do so there.

I got a reply from Lester's and they say that I need to get a contract first and then they'll sponsor me. Bit of a chicken and egg situation here as it will be difficult getting a contract without the sponsorship. Oh well.

2003-08-07 22:44:31 - Brisbane

I phoned around a few job agencies asking about IT jobs. Most were unhelpful and didn't understand the consequences of having a Working Holiday Visa (Max 3 month working period for any one company). I finally got hold of a guy in Sydney (who happened to be English) and he told me that I stood very little chance of getting this type of work with a WHV. He recommended that I apply to a company like Lester Associates who can sponser you so that you can work for longer periods as a contractor. Sounds quite good - but they take a cut of coarse! It will probably be my only chance of getting IT work though.

Now looking at notebooks so I can do a crash course in C# and .NET and brush up on my PERL. I never thought I'd say it, but I'm quite looking forward to the prospect of doing some work!

2003-08-06 21:08:21 - Glasshouse Mountains
- Brisbane

The van is fixed, although they've adjusted the mixture so that we aren't getting so much power now. I don't trust those guys at all. The day it went in to have the work done they found that 1 ignition lead was high resistance and cylinder 1 was not showing a drop in pressure. They supposedly checked these things the first time it went in and said they were fine. Either the first test wasn't done properly or they're trying it on. Flippin mechanics. Bunch of cowboys!

We went to the Glasshouse Mountains again and climbed up Mt. Tibrogargan, having climbed Mt. Beerwah on the way up the coast. You can see some pics of them here (external site). It wasn't as tough as Beerwah, but it was really nice to do a bit of exercise after 4 weeks of sitting about doing very little!

After climbing Tibrogargan (it only took 2 hours up and down) we came down to Brisbane. Expect we'll stay here for a few days and then go and visit some friends. They're having a BBQ :)

Weather is good and I hope it stays that way!

I've been thinking about what I'm going to do when I finish travelling around. I could do some simple websites for small businesses (charging between 500 and 1000 dollars for each one) but I'd need a PC, scanner and digi camera to do it properly. I could use an internet cafe PC to do all the work, but then there'd be difficulties with software. The main reason that I wouldn't do this though is because I want to work with other people. If I did internet site stuff here then I wouldn't actually be meeting many new people at all.

So the other option is doing some kind of contract work, which has its own problems due to my visa restricting the time I can work with one company to 3 months. It preperation, I have put my CV up on this website. Time to see what the Oz job market is like...

2003-08-04 12:20:40 - Bundy

Van has gone into garage again today. They are fixing the vacuum hoses, points and timing. Fingers crossed!

Getting restless now - need to be in NSW before end of August to reregister the van, and it's taken us a whole month just to get here from Cairns! I've done some more rust control on the van which makes it look a lot better and should add a bit onto the value when I come to sell it.

Assuming that the van is fixed today, we'll head off tomorrow to the Glasshouse Mountains, near Beerwah (and the Australia Zoo). We climbed one of the mountains there and really enjoyed it so we plan to climb another one!

2003-07-30 22:10:27 - Bundy

Stu has been valiently trying to fix the engine, and after 3 attempts at replacing two gaskets (inlet manifold/block and inlet manifold/carb) the engine is now back to the same condition that it was when he started! Actually it's slightly worse, but I didn't say that.

So the van is going into the garage tomorrow (we didn't take it to the garage the other day in the end). Hopefully they'll sort it without too much difficulty. Interestingly, it looks like we may have been running off 3 cylinders all this time wothout realising!!! You can disconnect cylinder 1 lead without any change in the engine sound.

I've spent the last week patching and spraying rust damage. That's been really good fun actually, and quite a useful skill to learn. I expect we'll hang around here until early next week, especially as the weather is so good at the moment.

It's our 4 month anniversary tomorrow. Amazing, the time has gone really quickly!

2003-07-23 22:11:06 - Still in Bundy!

The van is rusting in places, and Stu did a bit of work patching up a bit yesterday. He also looked at the engine which is idling roughly, and has been doing so since the oil incedent. He had a theory about the cause but gave up when the light started to go. We're taking the van to the garage for them to look at today and we'll decide if it's worth repairing when they tell us how much it will be.

No time for more detail, need some lunch before taking the van in.

It's "scattered showers" at the moment. Ho-hum.

2003-07-21 23:30:48 - Bundy (still)

Bumped into a couple of fellow MR2 Supercharger owners (which aren't that common over here). Went to see their bodykitted Mk1 which looks pretty cool. It turns out that they know quite a few people back in England that I also know (mainly to do with the MR2 clubs). It's a small world!

Will probably head out tomorrow and we'll go back to the Glasshouse Mountains (west of Bribie Island near Beerwah) to climb one of the mountains we missed before. Fun, fun, fun!

Oh, and the mattress was really nice. Still tried to crawl out of the back of the van in the middle of the night though!

2003-07-20 23:00:07 - Auburn River National Park
- Bundaberg

We did a pretty long drive down to the Auburn River N.P. down some really nice roads. There were very few people around and the roads twisted a bit which makes driving a LOT easier (straight roads get very tiring!). The landscape was a little bit hilly and the ground had lots of dry grass and scattered trees growing on it. It looked a little less barren than some of the places further up north that we've driven through and it was quite refreshing.

We had intended going straight to Bundy, but it was taking us longer than we thought so we stopped over at Auburn River N.P. which is a (relatively) tiny N.P. My book said it had some amenities there but when we arrived the place was deserted and had no amenities at all. We made a camp fire and had a really great evening with the music turned up :) The next day we did some of the walking tracks down in the river valley. The river itself is really wide - or at least the river bed is, as there is currently no water flowing. It's been a very dry year in oz! There are really beautiful sandstone cliffs rising above the river (er... bed) and the river itself is littered with huge boulders which provided a couple of hours fun to two budding climbers :)

It was so nice (and quite) there that we decided to stay another night. Only two other people showed up while we were there, and neither stayed the night. For such an amazing place I'm staggered that more people weren't visiting it. Nice for us though!

So now we are at Bundy again. I have been suffering a bad back lately which I blame entirely on my air mattress. I have therefore bought a foam mattress for the van which I really hope will solve the problem. This is my *third* mattress since I've been here.

I'm also having a really bizarre problem at night - I have claustrophobic dreams! Don't laugh! I dream that I'm trapped in a small room/tunnel/box etc and when I wake up I find that I've got out of bed (!) or I've been trying to rip the mozzy net apart or I've been banging on the side of the van trying to tunnel my way into the open. Very strange. I've woken Stu up with shouts like, "We've got to get out of here!"... BANG THUD. Hopefully the new mattress will help.

But that's enough about my subconcious taking over.

Stu has bought an hand axe. This has be worried as he now has all the tools he needs to dismantle the carburetor (the other tool being a claw hammer). I suggested he hide the axe somewhere at night incase some mad person tries to hack the van apart and escape the enclosed space... He didn't laugh.

Went to see Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines last night. I thought it was quite good - better than Matrix Unloaded. We might go and see Charlie's Angels 2 before we leave. Cameron Diaz.... Mmmmmm.

So we'll stay here for a day or two, and then we'll go somehwere else. Same old story. I'm still having a good time, but I'm looking forward to doing something different. It's hard work travelling.

2003-07-16 00:03:19 - Ayr
- Airlie

We stayed at a nice caravan park in Ayr last night (south of Townsville) then came down to Airlie today with the aim of doing my skydiving. I don't know why I plan to do anything though as it seems the weather is intent on causing maximum grief no matter where I am in the world. There are strong wind warnings for coastal Queensland expected in the next couple of days and it is already very windy. Showers are also expected. I'm tempted to just carry on down the coast until the weather picks up enough and there's a skydive place nearby. The trouble is that the further south we go the more chance there is of crap weather.

Grrrrr.

At least the van appears to be sorted now. Total cost of around 1000 AUD (400 quid).

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To contact me and express your profound appreciation of this site, use this e-mail address: auslog@basirk.com

2003-08-14 00:37:05	- Lismore - Glen Innes Spent a night at Lismore where we got the compulsory "Green Slip" for the van. This is third party insurance only and is need before you can get a Rego (tax). As you might imagine, there's not a lot to do in the evenings except sit around at the caravan park. This means that I get to see the night sky pretty much every night. I know the Southern sky now better than I know the Northern sky! It's incredibly beautiful with the milky way appearing as a bright band straight across the sky. At Bargara (near Bundaberg) I borrowed some binoculars off a fellow camper and had a look around. I had bought a book called "The Rough Guide to the Universe" which has a complete star guide at the back. Using the star guide I was able to look at some amazing clusters and nebulae that are simply not visible with the naked eye. I've can also pick out quite a few constelations now, the most obvious being Crux (Southern Cross), Centaurus and Scorpious. Last night I didn't get a good look at the stars as it was a full moon. At about 7:00pm it rose up from behind a tree covered hill and not half an hour later Mars followed it! I took a picture but I doubt it will come out. So now we are at Glen Innes having crossed the Great Dividing Range. We've got the van booked in for it's safety test (Pink Slip, MOT equiv) on Monday so we'll have tomorrow and the weekend at Boolabinda to do some Sapphire hunting :) The weather here is a lot colder than on the coast, so if it rains I won't be a happy bunny! It's sunny at the moment and it's just like an sunny autumnal day back in Blighty.
2003-08-12 01:52:50	- Logan Village Currently staying with some friends just south of Brisbane. We spent yesterday and today sanding, priming and spraying the top of the van. We ran out of paint and can't be bothered to finish the job. There's some nice, cool VB in the fridge with my name on it :) Tomorrow we're heading to Lismore to get the van safety checked and then Rego'd (equiv of MOT and Road Tax). Please God don't let there be anything else wrong with it! It's then on to Glen Innes and an itsy-bitsy bit more sapphire hunting. Stu doesn't really want to do it any more but I do so there. I got a reply from Lester's and they say that I need to get a contract first and then they'll sponsor me. Bit of a chicken and egg situation here as it will be difficult getting a contract without the sponsorship. Oh well.
2003-08-07 22:44:31	- Brisbane I phoned around a few job agencies asking about IT jobs. Most were unhelpful and didn't understand the consequences of having a Working Holiday Visa (Max 3 month working period for any one company). I finally got hold of a guy in Sydney (who happened to be English) and he told me that I stood very little chance of getting this type of work with a WHV. He recommended that I apply to a company like Lester Associates who can sponser you so that you can work for longer periods as a contractor. Sounds quite good - but they take a cut of coarse! It will probably be my only chance of getting IT work though. Now looking at notebooks so I can do a crash course in C# and .NET and brush up on my PERL. I never thought I'd say it, but I'm quite looking forward to the prospect of doing some work!
2003-08-06 21:08:21	- Glasshouse Mountains - Brisbane The van is fixed, although they've adjusted the mixture so that we aren't getting so much power now. I don't trust those guys at all. The day it went in to have the work done they found that 1 ignition lead was high resistance and cylinder 1 was not showing a drop in pressure. They supposedly checked these things the first time it went in and said they were fine. Either the first test wasn't done properly or they're trying it on. Flippin mechanics. Bunch of cowboys! We went to the Glasshouse Mountains again and climbed up Mt. Tibrogargan, having climbed Mt. Beerwah on the way up the coast. You can see some pics of them here (external site). It wasn't as tough as Beerwah, but it was really nice to do a bit of exercise after 4 weeks of sitting about doing very little! After climbing Tibrogargan (it only took 2 hours up and down) we came down to Brisbane. Expect we'll stay here for a few days and then go and visit some friends. They're having a BBQ :) Weather is good and I hope it stays that way! I've been thinking about what I'm going to do when I finish travelling around. I could do some simple websites for small businesses (charging between 500 and 1000 dollars for each one) but I'd need a PC, scanner and digi camera to do it properly. I could use an internet cafe PC to do all the work, but then there'd be difficulties with software. The main reason that I wouldn't do this though is because I want to work with other people. If I did internet site stuff here then I wouldn't actually be meeting many new people at all. So the other option is doing some kind of contract work, which has its own problems due to my visa restricting the time I can work with one company to 3 months. It preperation, I have put my CV up on this website. Time to see what the Oz job market is like...
2003-08-04 12:20:40	- Bundy Van has gone into garage again today. They are fixing the vacuum hoses, points and timing. Fingers crossed! Getting restless now - need to be in NSW before end of August to reregister the van, and it's taken us a whole month just to get here from Cairns! I've done some more rust control on the van which makes it look a lot better and should add a bit onto the value when I come to sell it. Assuming that the van is fixed today, we'll head off tomorrow to the Glasshouse Mountains, near Beerwah (and the Australia Zoo). We climbed one of the mountains there and really enjoyed it so we plan to climb another one!
2003-07-30 22:10:27	- Bundy Stu has been valiently trying to fix the engine, and after 3 attempts at replacing two gaskets (inlet manifold/block and inlet manifold/carb) the engine is now back to the same condition that it was when he started! Actually it's slightly worse, but I didn't say that. So the van is going into the garage tomorrow (we didn't take it to the garage the other day in the end). Hopefully they'll sort it without too much difficulty. Interestingly, it looks like we may have been running off 3 cylinders all this time wothout realising!!! You can disconnect cylinder 1 lead without any change in the engine sound. I've spent the last week patching and spraying rust damage. That's been really good fun actually, and quite a useful skill to learn. I expect we'll hang around here until early next week, especially as the weather is so good at the moment. It's our 4 month anniversary tomorrow. Amazing, the time has gone really quickly!
2003-07-23 22:11:06	- Still in Bundy! The van is rusting in places, and Stu did a bit of work patching up a bit yesterday. He also looked at the engine which is idling roughly, and has been doing so since the oil incedent. He had a theory about the cause but gave up when the light started to go. We're taking the van to the garage for them to look at today and we'll decide if it's worth repairing when they tell us how much it will be. No time for more detail, need some lunch before taking the van in. It's "scattered showers" at the moment. Ho-hum.
2003-07-21 23:30:48	- Bundy (still) Bumped into a couple of fellow MR2 Supercharger owners (which aren't that common over here). Went to see their bodykitted Mk1 which looks pretty cool. It turns out that they know quite a few people back in England that I also know (mainly to do with the MR2 clubs). It's a small world! Will probably head out tomorrow and we'll go back to the Glasshouse Mountains (west of Bribie Island near Beerwah) to climb one of the mountains we missed before. Fun, fun, fun! Oh, and the mattress was really nice. Still tried to crawl out of the back of the van in the middle of the night though!
2003-07-20 23:00:07	- Auburn River National Park - Bundaberg We did a pretty long drive down to the Auburn River N.P. down some really nice roads. There were very few people around and the roads twisted a bit which makes driving a LOT easier (straight roads get very tiring!). The landscape was a little bit hilly and the ground had lots of dry grass and scattered trees growing on it. It looked a little less barren than some of the places further up north that we've driven through and it was quite refreshing. We had intended going straight to Bundy, but it was taking us longer than we thought so we stopped over at Auburn River N.P. which is a (relatively) tiny N.P. My book said it had some amenities there but when we arrived the place was deserted and had no amenities at all. We made a camp fire and had a really great evening with the music turned up :) The next day we did some of the walking tracks down in the river valley. The river itself is really wide - or at least the river bed is, as there is currently no water flowing. It's been a very dry year in oz! There are really beautiful sandstone cliffs rising above the river (er... bed) and the river itself is littered with huge boulders which provided a couple of hours fun to two budding climbers :) It was so nice (and quite) there that we decided to stay another night. Only two other people showed up while we were there, and neither stayed the night. For such an amazing place I'm staggered that more people weren't visiting it. Nice for us though! So now we are at Bundy again. I have been suffering a bad back lately which I blame entirely on my air mattress. I have therefore bought a foam mattress for the van which I really hope will solve the problem. This is my third mattress since I've been here. I'm also having a really bizarre problem at night - I have claustrophobic dreams! Don't laugh! I dream that I'm trapped in a small room/tunnel/box etc and when I wake up I find that I've got out of bed (!) or I've been trying to rip the mozzy net apart or I've been banging on the side of the van trying to tunnel my way into the open. Very strange. I've woken Stu up with shouts like, "We've got to get out of here!"... BANG THUD. Hopefully the new mattress will help. But that's enough about my subconcious taking over. Stu has bought an hand axe. This has be worried as he now has all the tools he needs to dismantle the carburetor (the other tool being a claw hammer). I suggested he hide the axe somewhere at night incase some mad person tries to hack the van apart and escape the enclosed space... He didn't laugh. Went to see Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines last night. I thought it was quite good - better than Matrix Unloaded. We might go and see Charlie's Angels 2 before we leave. Cameron Diaz.... Mmmmmm. So we'll stay here for a day or two, and then we'll go somehwere else. Same old story. I'm still having a good time, but I'm looking forward to doing something different. It's hard work travelling.
2003-07-16 00:03:19	- Ayr - Airlie We stayed at a nice caravan park in Ayr last night (south of Townsville) then came down to Airlie today with the aim of doing my skydiving. I don't know why I plan to do anything though as it seems the weather is intent on causing maximum grief no matter where I am in the world. There are strong wind warnings for coastal Queensland expected in the next couple of days and it is already very windy. Showers are also expected. I'm tempted to just carry on down the coast until the weather picks up enough and there's a skydive place nearby. The trouble is that the further south we go the more chance there is of crap weather. Grrrrr. At least the van appears to be sorted now. Total cost of around 1000 AUD (400 quid).