Brisbane 2006, so far

Hi All,

Well I know it has been ages since I last updated my blog. Actually I was informed that it was October last year! I have a few photos below, but I have been pretty slack on the photography front also.

Anyway, I have been extremely busy with work. If any of you have Google Earth, please email me so I can send you my placemarks. These placemarks are all the places I have visited for work since the start of 2005.

For those of you who don't have Google Earth, here is a list of the places I have visited for work this year:

• Oakly, QLD
• Townsville, QLD
• Millmerran, QLD
• Biloela, QLD
• Hervey Bay, QLD
• Oxenford, QLD
• Broken Hill, NSW
• Gibson Island, QLD
• Nerang, QLD
• Narangba, QLD
• North Stradbroke Island, QLD
• Tully, QLD
• Mt Marrow, QLD
• Southport, QLD
• Changi, Singapore
• Mt Muro, Central Kalimantan, Borneo Island, Indonesia
• Cape Flattery, QLD
• Mt Isa, QLD
• Sebuku Island, South East Kalimantan, Borneo Island, Indonesia
• Gladstone, QLD
• Tanjung Pinang & Kijang, Bintan Island, Indonesia
• Pajingo, Charters Towers, QLD

So I have been jet setting around a lot. It actually gets really tiring. But I don't mind so much, now I have negotiated a new salary package, that sees me rewarded for doing more work.

Well I suppose you want to know what else I've been up to other than work? I have been attending Rovers with Lawnton RC when I am in Brisbane. This has been quite good, but they don't go comping often enough.

Tanya and I went for a day trip through the Blackall Range in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland. It was very beautiful. We went for a bit of a walk down to Kondalilla Falls in Kondalilla NP, as well. I actually have some photos below of the falls.

I took a week's annual leave in July and Tanya and I went camping in the Bunya Mountains NP, QLD and at Bjelke-Petersen Dam, QLD. We visited a couple of wineries (one in Kingaroy and one in Murgon). We also visited a cheese and oil factory, and the cheese was very tasty. Camping out was great as neither of us had done it in some time. We both would have liked some more time off though.

We have had a few visitors at The Groves this year; Tanya's sister, Angela; my cousin, Tom; Tanya's mum, Cora; our friend, Jodie; Tanya's grandparents, Oma & Opa; and my parents, Wendy & Don. So we really haven't had much of a chance to get back to Adelaide to visit you all. However, we will be back on the last weekend of October for my boot ceremony from Rovers as would have turned 26 by that time. We will also be back for the second weekend in November for my brother's engagement party. So I hope I can catch up with some of you for bevvies then. If not Tanya and I will be back over the Christmas break for about 10 days.

When my parents visited, Don and I went away to a property out in Western Queensland near the township of St George. It was a hunting expedition for wild pigs. Don bought up his .243 rifle. However, to our dismay we did not see any pigs in the 3 and a bit days we were away. We still enjoyed ourselves away from it all, and no mobile phone reception either! Whilst we were away Tanya took my mum to the North Pine Country Markets, shopping at DFO near the airport and canoeing in South Pine River. The day after we got back I took Mum and Don to Australia Zoo, home of the Crocodile Hunter. It was actually really good. They have a very well set out zoo, that is extremely clean. The day after we went Maleny and Montville. Mum and Don bought a Cuckoo Clock at Montville, we then ventured back to Maleny to get a nice ice cream. This however was a bad idea as I managed to reverse my car over a kerb into some tables and chairs of the coffee shop that we parked in front of :-(

Tanya has done very well at uni this past semester, even though she was stressed out about getting her results. If she continues studying hard she may have a GPA (Grade Point Average) good enough to apply for Honours. This will also help her decide what field of Science she is most interested in (currently wildlife ecology seems to be in favour). But Tanya may tell you different ;-)

Below are some of the very few photos I have taken this year.

Cheers for now,

Damian

CANCELLED Field Service!

G’day All,

As most of you may be aware, it was my birthday on Monday. However, it wasn’t the best birthday I’ve had. I had to go to central Queensland, Blackwater, to do some field service. Well so I thought anyway.

Monday I travelled to Rockhampton via aeroplane then to Blackwater via 4WD. I spent the afternoon catching up on some paperwork, as I wasn’t due at the coal mine until 6:30am the following morning. I had dinner at the local pub.

Then on Tuesday I went to the coal mine and did the 4hr long induction (which stays current for 12 months). Upon completion of this, I then completed a shutdown specific induction. From here I went to see the contact person on site, only to find out the work had been completed by one of our competitor companies! GRRRRRRRRRRR not happy Jan!!!!!!

So I travelled back on Wednesday, not very happy about the lack of communication on behalf of the contract company doing the shutdown work.

On Tuesday afternoon, I took some photos of the Japanese Garden in Blackwater. I thought this a most unusual feature of the town, but quite nice all the same.

Cheers for now,
Damo

This is the Japanese Garden from the Capricorn Highway.

The plaque commemorating the open of the garden. In both English and Japanese.

One of the many stone monuments in the garden.

Another stone monument.

And another one! I'm sure your getting a bit bored now, so check out the next photo...

Here's another one of my infamous tricky panoramic shots. This pond is the centre piece of the Japanese garden.

This is the traditional raked gravel plot within the garden.

This tree is a boab, or bottle tree. These appear to be native to central Queensland. This one was in the Japanese garden to provide a "local" touch.

This is the garden viewing hut. I took a number of photos from here.

Here I am standing in front of an old drag line bucket. These buckets are used to collect coal from the open-cut mine bed and put in the dump trucks. I think the ones used in the local mines are actually bigger than this one!

Another photo of the drag line bucket, you can probably fit a 3 tonne flatbed truck in here quite easily!

More Visitors to The Groves

Hi All,

During the last weekend of September/the first weekend of October, my younger brother, Michael, and his girlfriend, Jess, came to visit Tanya and me.

We took them on a bit of site-seeing through the Sunshine Coast. We visited the macadamia nut factory at Yandina, drove along the coast and had lunch at Coolum Beach, went for drive through Noosa and then to the Glasshouse Mountains lookout near Beerwah.

On Saturday we went into the city to have a look around, we went for a ride up and down the Brisbane River on one of the CityCat catamarans.

Michael took a heap of photos over these 2 days, which I’ll try and get copies of to post on the blog.

Sunday was more leisurely. We went to the North Pine Country Markets at Kurwongbah. Michael and Jess bought lots of presents to take back to South Australia.

Tanya and I really enjoyed having Michael and Jess stay with us. I was doing my best to convince Michael to move to Queensland and get an environmental job up here; as there are plenty of them!

There are a few photos here, but I’ll try and post some more later.

Cheers for now,
Damo

Looking down onto the production floor of the Macadamia factory. This is the hand sorting and grading table.

This guy had a giant 2-stroke fan strapped to his harness as well as the parachute. He was able to ride the winds as well as change his direction with the fan. It was pretty cool to watch. We saw him at a beach we stopped by on the drive to Noosa.

Myself and Michael at Noosa

Tanya and Jess at Noosa

The Big Pineapple! We also took Michael and Jess here, near Nambour. Mostly we wanted to show them a pineapple plantation.

Pineapple fields...forever...

Ok, ok I know that's a lame Beatles pun!

Here's a teeny tiny pineapple beginning its life on the shrub.

Hot & Steamy Field Service

G'day everyone,

Well it's been a very long time since I updated my blog spot! I have been very busy working all over Queensland and even overseas since my last entry.

During July (20th to 23rd), I had to go to Tanjungpinang on Bintan in Indonesia to do a field service visit. I travelled via plane to Singapore (Changi airport) and then by sea ferry for 2 hours to the island of Bintan. Bintan is nowhere near Bali or Bandah Aceh, so I was pretty safe. It was to do final commissioning of a belt weigher and loss-in-weight system at a pipe coating factory.

The weighing systems weighed the sand and aggregate as well as the cement to make concrete. This concrete is then sprayed onto 12 metre long steel pipes. This increases the weight of the pipe from 2.5 to 8 tonnes! They can then be used to carry fresh water under the sea (they are heavy enough to sit on the sea bed).

I didn't have much time to look around, but one of the guys I worked with, Eric, was an Indonesian and he took me out for a traditional Indonesian seafood dinner. This consisted of chilli prawns, crunchy deep fried white fish (not sure of its type), and sea snails. The snails were actually very tasty.

I didn't get an upset stomach from the Indonesian food, but from the Korean food I ate. The Korean's actually own the pipe factory; and they supplied lunch for all the Westerners helping with the commissioning. I must have had a bit too much chilli :-(

Most people get around on small motorbikes that they run on benzine. I saw one motorbike with 6 passengers! Dad driving, 2 small children sitting on fuel tank, mum sitting side saddle, small child standing at dad's back and mum nursing a baby! Crazy stuff.

Anyway I really enjoyed my time there, and it would be nice to go back again some day. But I guess we'll have to wait to see how safe it will be to travel there.

Yes the weather was very muggy, especially after the huge down-pour in an afternoon storm and temperature around about 35°C!

Well there are a few pictures here, but I didn't get much of a chance to take many.

Cheers for now,
Damo

From the window of the aeroplane, I could see this active volcano on one of the Indonesian islands.

Flying into Singapore on the way over.

This is route the ferry took from Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal in Singapore to Tanjungpinang on Bintan.

This is a night shot of one of the many shops on the main road in Tanjungpinang. I took this after I had been out to dinner with Eric.

Some more night life in Tanjungpinang. There were many of these small street stalls.

This is the conveyor to the concrete mixer from the feeder hoppers. In the background are the two cement storage silos.

Here's the loss-in-weight bin for the cement and the two feeder hoppers for the sand and iron-ore aggregate.

Here's the ship that bought some supplies to the fatory while I was there.

Here's another one of my tricky panoramic shots. This is the quay where supplies were unloaded for use in the factory.

Here's Eric (on right) and one of the onsite electricians at the pipe factory.

Facing the Rapids of the Arkansas River

Hi there,

Well after bagging Pikes Peak, I wanted to discover more of Colorado. So I took up the offer of one of my American co-workers to go white water rafting. I went with Jay and Marilyn, leaving at about 6:30am to drive to the rafting location.

It was a day trip down the Arkansas River. We got breakfast and lunch included in our fee. We started in the township of Buena Vista and went just under 29km (18 miles) down stream passing through almost a dozen rapids.

It was a beautiful sunny day, so I slapped on plenty of sunscreen. This was mainly due to the fact I still managed to get sunburnt climbing the summit of Pikes Peak.

The first few rapids were not too bad, but after lunch they became much more difficult. The one photo below is of our raft travelling through one of the rapids after lunch. Our guide called this rapid “Zoom Floom”.

Shortly after passing that rapid we hit some bigger white water which tossed out one of our crew and our guide! I managed to hang on, as did Jay and Marilyn. We were able to rescue our guide, but another raft had to rescue the lady who went over the side.

After that the rapids weren’t quite as violent and continued without incident. We got back around 4:30pm and I was able to purchase the photo of our raft and some tourist souvenirs.

Then we went out for dinner at a steakhouse. You could only order prime rib-eye in weights varying from 8-20oz (230-570g)! It was still a very welcome meal of protein after my couple of days of activity.

Below are some of the photos I took before I left on the trip. Enjoy!

Cheers for now,
Damo


WEB LINKS: www.inaraft.com

This is another attempt at using the panoramic funtion of my camera. Here you can see about 12 of the major peaks in the Rockies. I took the photo at Wilkerson Pass (elevation of ~2,897m[9507ft]).

The hot air balloon on the right was one of many we saw on the way to Buena Vista.

The plataeu in front of the Rockies is known at South Park. I believe this is where the cartoon is based.

Here's a not so good photo of me at Wilkerson Pass on the way to Buena Vista.

Here's a closer shot of the summit of one of the many that make up the Rockies.

And yet another peak. This photo was taken at Buena Vista.

Here's a van with one of the rafts used on our trip.

Finally, here's the photo of us passing through "Zoom Floom". I'm on the left bow, and Jay and Marilyn are on the right bow and centre.

Bagging Pikes Peak

Hi there,

Well what an action packed week I’ve had.

After working flat out for the week training at the Thermo office in Colorado Springs, I wanted to do a bit of site seeing.

I decided to climb Pikes Peak near Manitou Springs. Known as ‘America’s Mountain’, Pikes Peak stands at 14,110 feet (~4300 metres) above sea level! To hike to the top, I trekked to Barr trail. The trail to the peak from Manitou Springs is 13 miles (~21km) long and starts at an elevation of 6,607ft (~2014m). Now for a comparison, Adelaide is around 350m (~1,148ft) above sea level and Brisbane is around 650m (~2,132ft).

For those of you who don’t know, the greater the elevation, the less oxygen there is. This means it’s very difficult breathe when you’re already struggling for breath climbing to the top.

Anyway, I set out at about 5:35am at Manitou Springs. The reason for starting so early was to try and make it to the peak before the unpredictable weather changed. It was a brisk morning, but then again I was leaving right on sun rise!

I made it to the first flat section of the trail (approx. 2.5 miles) in about 70 minutes or so. To get there I had to trek through about 30 or 40 switch backs. GRRR and I thought they were pretty hard; I had no idea what I was in for.

As I got cracking on Barr trail again, I met some folks from the USAF (United States Air Force). Two of them were seasoned hikers, having climbed higher altitude peaks before. They offered for me to hike with them to the peak, I was thankful for the company and to hike with some experienced hikers.

We made it to Barr Camp (3,100m above sea level) at around 8am. I had the ‘lovely’ photo below taken in front of the hut. You can buy drinks and energy food supplies there. The hut is also accommodates overnight hikers. After a 20 minute break we headed of for the half way point at ‘Timber Line’.

Timber Line is just as its name suggests, the point were trees can no longer grow due to the altitude (this is where the ice cap extends to during the winter months). The last shelter before reaching the peak is here in the form of a little A-frame hut. The hardest part of the hike was to come. Timber Line is around 11,500ft (~3,505m) from sea level and about 3 miles (~4.8km) from the peak.

This was the hardest four and a half k’s I’ve ever walked. Out of the trees, the air seemed to be almost twice as thin, making breathing hard. As we got to around 3.2km from the peak, I was at a real energy low. Thankfully JD, one of the USAF guys, had a spare protein bar. So I wolfed it down along with about half a litre of water. I finally got some energy back, and was able to push on. We made our way across several snow melts and numerous switch backs, and I had to take lots and lots of rests to catch my breath.

Finally after almost 8 hours of hiking this ‘flat lander’ made it to the top of Pikes Peak. At the peak, there is a gift shop and a café. This is because there’s a road and railway to the top. But I decided to get there the old fashioned way, and take the shuttle bus down!

By this time the batteries of my camera had died, and I forgot to pack my spares. So I purchased a disposable camera and took some more photos. I also got someone to take a photo of me at the peak. After doing a bit souvenir shopping I went to catch the shuttle, only to find out I missed it by 10mins! I had to wait almost another 2 hours before I began my decent. An hour or so later I arrived back at Manitou Springs and drove back to the motel.

Below are some of the photos I took on the way up. Enjoy!

Cheers for now,
Damo

P.S. Pikes Peak is NOT the highest mountain in Colorado. It is 31st out of the 54 mountains in the state over 14,000 feet, the highest being Mt. Elbert at 14,433 feet.

WEB LINKS: www.pikespeak.com

www.cograilway.com

The trail marker at the head of the trail, the start of my journey.

At the first switch back of many, many to come. Not much of a view yet.

Sunrise over Colorado Springs and Manitou Springs. This was at about 20 minutes to 6.

The sun peaking its way over the horizon.

My goal: Pikes Peak summit seams so far away!

Two massive boulders creating an arch across the trail.

This is Barr Camp. Note the elevation under the deer antlers and long-horned sheep skull.

My view of Barr Trail as I got about half way to Barr Camp.

Well what a great photo!

As we started to get closer to Timber Line, more of these little creeks appeared.

Here's the back of my fellow hikers from the USAF.

This is Timber Line Hut. This is the last shelter on Barr Trail until you reach the summit.

Here you can see the distinct Timber Line where the tundra starts and the trees stop growing.

This is a yellow-bellied marmot. It's beaver sized rodent that lives in the tundra of the Rockies. I almost got a better shot of it, but the batteries went flat in my camera!