Canoeing down Oxley Creek

The two canoes were still on the roof of the ute from the boys weekend.  The weather was beautiful.  Decided to danoe down Oxley creek.  Numbers grew to include Phoebie, Steven and Cade.  Megan kindly gave up her seat so it was Sarah and Frank and 5 small kids that set off down oxley creek.

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It was a baptism of fire for Sarah having to deal with kids who had yet to lean to paddle let alone help to steer. Sarah was in the red canoe with the three boys. 

I (Frank) took the yellow canoe with Jemma and Phoebie.  The yellow canoe is disproportionaly unstable.  I think the seats are too high or something.

Although we were heading downstream, it took us quite a while.  I think we launched at 12:30.

We rafted up at one stage and shared some lovely sandwiches that Megan had prepared.  During this process, the two kids at the front kept paddling.  By keeping moving, it was much easier to steer a course down the middle of the creek.  When Sarah and I had eaten, we paddled and the two kids at the front ate.

The was a frustrating amount of negativity coming from Dan and really too much from Jemma too.  The visitors were much better behaved.

As we approached Sherwood Road at about 3:30, we spied a pontoon.  Called Megan for rescue and pulled into the pontoon.  This was "Oxley Common" which a leter look at the map seemed to be about 3/4 of the way.

We then carried the canoes up, ate an apple and waited.  Megan arrived in the Vito and Chris (Phoebies Dad) arrived in the ute.  Packed up & drove home.

A lovely day in the sun.


 

Childrens story rich man difficulty getting into heaven Mark 10:35-45

Sean arrived
with garbage bags with dollar sign taped to them. A chair was set up on the dais. To get into heaven you have to crawl through the door (under the chair ) Small and hard to find. Invited a volunteer to try to get into heaven. Jemma stepped up and was given the bags and she tried & (of course) failed. Then Will took up the challenge and like any 12yo boy was determined to prove that it could be done. That he can get into heaven with his money. He tried going under the chair while passing the money round the side and when that was disallowed he tried to contort himself and the bags of money through the door of heaven. Chris. Asked does this mean fat people will have difficulty getting onto heaven. When you try to find God you cant(job) compare with with there is nowhere you can go to escape God. If you have a loss it is sad and you have to face it. If you have to deliberately let go that is really hard. It is hard to choose to let go.

Row 20km

3:45am  - alarm goes off.  Push snooze
3:50am  - Alarm goes off.  Get up.  Get dressed.  Pick up bag convieniently packed the night before.
4:00am  - Drive off
4:20am  - Arrive boad shed.  A few minutes to doze.  Tilt seat back.  Ponder madness???
4:25am - OK get up get going.  Stand around with others.  Carry a couple of oars (ors ores awes) to the pntoon.
5:00am and we are on the water.  Yellow boat and I am in position 7.  A bunch of middle aged guys and our cox - "El".  Who we later discover is doing some kind of drama arts course at uni and was involved in a performance the night before.  One wonders how she made it.
An hour an 10km pass as we row up stream past the Uni, past the green bridge, past the Sommerville shed and Cansdale st (Where I work), past the rock and the green marker.  Further up the river than I have ever rowed before.  Somewhere we passed the tennis centre and then oxley creek.  We can see Indooroopilly bridge.  There is discussion regarding the whereabouts of the start.  A kind man in a tinny drives over and kindly takes our number "6" from the cox and motors up to the bow and takes the light out the holder and replaces it with the number and advises us to row back downstream mid way between the Oxley sailing club and Oxley creek.

6:10 is am.  (There is disagreement on the starting time.) and another man in a tinny says "six go" and we are off.  A head of the yarra time trial.  We have difficulty keeping the boat level so we try rowing with oars on the water on the return.  After an age we pass the green marker and the rocks at Cansdale St.  My lower back is beginning to ache.

We encourage our cox to encourage us.  She is too nice.  Maybe she is worried that we will die.  Anyway she toughens up and we do some effort piecs.  20 hard strokes.  minute on minute off and so on.  That picks us up and interesting the boat runs much better when we are focussed on these pieces.  My back is sore and so is my bum.  I am controlling my breathing.  I do not want to loose it and start gasping.  Blow out as I push back and then in on the return.  We are rating around 23 strokes per minute.

Finally the green bridge is sighted by the cox and some discussion ensues regarding the location of the finish.  Democracy prevails and we agree that the bridge is not the finish.  Nor is the City cat terminal nor the other one.

7:05am
 suddenly someone on shore announces we have finished and then tells us we can stop rowing.  That was a good call.  8.6km (I think). Avoiding the lay down sally thing, I do however arch back and lean forward in an attempt to reduce the pain in my lower back. 

I am all for putting ashore and buying breakfast and a coffee.  Our sister boat that started after us and passed us somewhere along the way has done this.  But democracy prevails and we start rowing for home.  Home is another k or two downstream.

7:30 am
We arrive at the pontoon and as luck would have it, my side (bow side) have their riggers to the shore.  It is our job to get out and hold the boat while the stroke side rowers lean out over the river and release their rowlocks and then exit the boat and take their oars and our up the ramp.  I acomplish my task of exiting the boat by moving my bum off the seat and onto the pontoon.  In order to minimise the pain in my lower back and groin I delay standing as long as possible.

We then lift the boat and take it up the ramp.  Turns out standing is far more comfortable than sitting and when we arrive at a local coffee shop for breakfast, I initially elect to stand.  We then relive the race.  Complain about the rough seas and so on. The other crew join us for a second breakfast and boast that they rowed the first half of the race towing a log and that once it was removed they overtook some boat(s) that had passed them.

Rocktober 2012 Boys weekend

On the weekend 5,6,7 October we (Frank, Chris & Dan) traveled to Paul's estate at Stanthorpe for the annual boys weekend.

In the weeks leading up to it, Dan had inspired the repair of the motor bike.  For details see
http://thomsoneu.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/fix-pro50z-dirt-bike.html

On Friday PM there was a bit of a disaster when the bike fell over and broke the gear changer.  A frantic effort of googling, yellow pages & phone calls lead us to a motor bike place at 3 Spine St Summner Park.  The fellow there produced a new second hand gear changer for $10 and we relaxed somewhat.

We drove in convoy with Bob Manthey in Paul's blue car.  We stopped at the Shell at Aratula for a "Gap Burger".  This was once a huge oversized hamburger with all the trimmings. It appears however that the specification for which has been out-souced, down graded and re assessed.  We received a nice but somewhat normal burger.  Then on through Warwick to Paul's place.

Saturday AM and there was still some work to do on the motor bike.  Bob had a go at push starting it and you can see this on the video.  It did start a couple of times but each time it was worse than before.

Took a break and went on a wonderful bush walk.

Decided to pull the carbie apart (again).  There is some white powder inside it which I assume is some kind of Aluminum Oxide.  Made a coffee and disassembled the carbie.  Then with a scalpel I set about scraping as much of this white stuff off as I could.  Cleaned and reassembled gave the bike new life.  It now seems to be working better than ever.

A big thank you to Paul Koning for organising this weekend.

Travel Insurance

Looks like I need to investigate travel insurance.

 Mastercard - Only for overseas trips

QBE - Annual Multi Trip $650 (No Kids, Aust Only). Covers $5k rental car excess
QBE via Qantas frequent Flyer Annual Multi Trip $550 (No kids)

Allianz - GAve up trying to get a quote on their web site. It kept saying not available.

AAMI - seem to only do international

Southern Cross $453.38. $15 for 1 day in NZ South Pacific. Do not mention Aus???

RACQ - 1 day non member for $5k rental vehicle excess $126.96 wow Frequent traveller (non member) $718

Suncorp 1 day $25.77 ($200 excess for claim) World Wide multi trip $594

Chris's Car

About 3 years ago Chris bought a radio control model car from "Extreme hobbies" I think it was called at Indooroopilly Shopping Town. Now vanished and we have no idea what make or model it is.   We have decided to have a go at getting it going.

The problems were and still are
1.  Would not start
2.  Suspect the front problem

So we went to Hobbie One at Creek Road on Thursday.  Arrived there aroud 4:30 and were advised wait till 5pm when Al who turns out to be a bit of a ledgend was due.  About five to four a stream of people arrived carrying cars in various states of disrepair.  These were presumably the true believers who were "in the know".  The cars were lined up on the counter and Al would go from car to car inspecting, advising and dispatching underlings to dig out some spare part or other from "out the back".

We gained some useful information from Al:-
The fuel system is preasurised.  Obvious when you think about it as there is a hose that comes from the exhaust to the top of the fuel tank and blowing in that hose qucikly showed our fuel system was not pressurised.

We purchased a new fuel tank and hoses and an air filter & fuel.  As you can imagine Al is a good salesman.  The fuel tank was too big and eventually I gave up trying to fit it in. 

A search of the internet showed a previously unkonwn (to me) hobby shop on Beudesert Rd.  Went over in the hope of purchasing a new fuel tank.  They had only one and it was $30.  (I think we paid about $8 at Hobbie one).  So gave up on that approach.

 I went back to trying the fix the seal on the old fuel tank.  I thought the seal had dissolved (so did Al).  But upon closer inspection, the seal turned out to be the same milky colour as the rest of the tank.  It was dismantled and cleaned and re assembled and then using the new hoses checked that it pressurised.

So now we had a clean fuel tank that sealed and new hoses.  Later we dismantled and cleaned most of the carburetta.  But it is still difficult to start.  I am not sure if there is more to clean.  I think we are OK compression wise because
a) when it does start it runs
and
b) if we flood it, then you have to take the glow plug out to get it to turn over.

The fuel tank is not original and was ditched before use as it was too big and touched the exhaust and the flywheel (under the pink air filter).

Front

RHS.  You can see the hose going from the muffler to the fuel tank.

Back

Front Diff.
This seems to have problems. 
a) Siezes sometimes (We think) and stalls the engine.
b) One of the wheels seems to free wheel.

(Ignore the half inserted screw.  This is a field fix from last time the car was used.  We replaced this with a M3x8 CSK screw)

So long to Molong

The final appointment in Canberra was to pay $30 or so to go up the telstra tower and take in the view.  Gee I hope the engineer pressed the right buttons on his calculator as the wind was blowing and in characteristic fashion was dam cold.  Arctic.

Left the Telstra tower and headed toward Molong.  Got as far as the Dickson Shops where Marcus and I went to buy fuel for the car while the rest fueld up at Maccas.  Took me forever to find the bonnet catch which turned out to be hidden under the dash on the passenger side.  Finally left Canberra about 6:45pm












MOLONG

 We arrived 10:30pm at the Molong Motor Inn 02 6366 8099 Jim & Liz.  Same place we stayed last year.  This year we had a family room (sleeps 5) $130 and the room next door which we put Marcus & Chris in for $99.

Our room room was spacious, clean and we think  new split system ac.  We took longer than I would have liked to get up and going so I actually met Jim who is very nice man.

Breakfast was our BYO cerial.

WELLINGTON

Racing along the road toward Wellington and we came across a horific accident.  Two cars upside down and riped to pieces.  Emergency services everywhere.

Then as we arrived at Wellington, we saw the most amazing cemetary.  Flowers on every grave.  Did a U turn and came back to take a photo.


GEURIE
Bought a dozen or so pink lady apples from a roadside stall $6 for 2kg.  I can atest to their good taste.


DUBBO
We commenced a systematic search for coffee and soon realised that the highway does not go down the main street.  Eventually Frank & Marcus bought coffee at some random coffee shop in the main street.  meanwhile the children revolted and Chris walked off in a huff.  Got in the car and drove round the corner to the world famous "Village Bakery" in Darling St.  I got a "Bee Sting" which while good, did not measure up the the one I had bought at the petrol station on the South sie of Holbrook.

TECHNOLOGY
We are driving North of Dubbo.  Amazingly, Vodafone
The macbook air that I am using is shiny aluminum and reflects the sunlight.  I doubt if Mr Jobs tested it in the sunny auusie bush. Equally odd is that Vodafone has coverage but no Telstra.  Also something odd with Crazy Johns which is carried by Vodafone but I can't get Chris's phone to pass data.

10:30am GILGANDRA
The town of windmills and hnece lots of points for everyone.  Makes playing Windmill somewhat easy.  Traded text messages with the Konings as we passed Neptune. They are doing sighteeing while we are on a mission.  The GPS advises that our ETA Brisbane is currently 6:31pm.  We will take longer because we will have a few stops and Marcus is driving.  In NSW, learner drivers are restricted to 80kmh.  Bizzare!  As Fin said "Like mobile spead bumps on the highway" Given the data that shows that L platers are safer than any other driver category by a long shot it is yet another indictment of the way we approach raod safety.



PLUTO
We missed Pluto on the way down.  We figured we had -  and I mean had to find it on the way home.  Google & http://www.solarsystemdrive.com/pluto.html informed us that Pluto was at "Sugar’s Park, Newell Highway, Bellata".  Problem was neither google nor the Navman in the Vito seemed inclined to tell me where that was.  Somewhere along the line I located the longitude and latitude but I could not find a way to enter that information into either google nor the Navman.  Google managed to inform me that there was a "driver reviver" at Bellata and they had a map on their web page and so we were able to coax the Navman into locating Bellata using the "pick from map" feature and there we found Pluto.



View Larger Map

goondiwindi crept closer and finally we were over the river and Marcus could drive at the same speed as the rest of us.  We stopped at a small park and made use of the facility.  Someone probably had a tantrum and we were on our way.  This is tourist driving with purpose.  A mission to be home.

No decision could be made wrt to dinner and we drove toward  Millmerran where I do not believe we stopped although we did drive slowly through a closed petrol station.

6:45
The entry to toowoomba from the south west came with a fantastic view of the moon rising slowly from the horizon into a sky with a little cloud.  One of those views that you just can not photograph.

Petrol was purchased.

The troops suggested that dinner was required.  The petrol station had one solitary sausage roll.  (Not purchased). 

Megan and I had come to the conclusion that Maccas and travel and children just do not mix.  In fact they go in and then half an our later they come out again.  Maccas was therefore off the menu.  We did however spot dominos pizza.  We parked, walked in, ordered a Hawian and a meat lovers and two garlic bread.  We passed on the soft drink deal.  Probably cost the same.  We rearranged the tables so we could all sit in and each had two slices.  Dan had a moment but eventually got over it.

Back in the van and on to Brisbane.  Megan was going to do this leg but she faded and Frank took over.  We finally made it home at about 10:30pm.