Outback2003

Dining in Alice Springs

The internet has brought the whole world closer together. Now siblings separated by continents can stay in touch with instant messeging and video-conferencing. Students in Rio De Janero can read original manuscripts of rare music from museums in Vienna. Balloon-popping fetishists can find fellow travellers around the globe. Enthusiasts of schadenfreude watch the unwitting dine at Bojangles in Alice Springs.

Treat it as a sport, like ornithology. Watch the 'jangleCam and see what atrocities you can spot in real-time action...

• Me asking for the pork ribs, not the revolting beef ribs
• Diners unable to make conversation around the table because the din pouring in from the bar
• Me emphasizing to the waiter that I want the pork ribs, not the beef ribs which I really hate
• Customer dismayed when they're never offered a refill of the 100ml Las Vegas-style courtesy soft-drink they drained in one mouthful.
• Me reminding the waiter to remind the cook that I want pork ribs, not the beef ribs, like happened last time
• Customers hailing one of the no-peripheral-vision waiters for some ketchup for five minutes
• Me flabbergasted when the waitress brings out a heaping plate of beef ribs
• Customer confused by the three thimbles worth of ketchup served in an enormous silver tureen
• Customer unable to find platinum or any other precious metal dissolved in said ketchup to explain paucity
• Me dismayed when the replacement pork ribs arrive, sans sauce or any taste aside from the nasty essence of the sheaths, casings, and sinews of the long-lived hog the ribs were hacked from
• Ignorant staff ignoring all tables except for the large, alcohol-ordering table of aging bikers nearby. Bonus points if you spot the aging, haler-topped 'silver fox' biker woman tattooed as if she was an underboss for the Roppongi Yakuza.

If you are not in a mood for Schadenfreude, the least you can do for yourself is never, ever go to Bojangles of Alice Springs. You should only go there if you are a single, 20-something local who just clocked off the job an hour ago and are looking to stand around a stinky, noisy bar staring at other single, 20-something locals. If you want a decent meal and a beer, goto Todd Tavern or Bar Doppio instead.

Day 2: S 24 25.444 E134 11.183

We spent the morning provisioning and packing, the afternoon driving, early evening setting up camp. Now we're parked in the desert, a a few hundred feet away from the Finke Trail.

Another tedious logistic morning. Ling and I went BiLo and bought groceries for the trip (although I fear I may have been a bit spare. Can imagine we're looking at a lean lunch or two sometime). Matt, Mom and Dad went to Alice Springs K-Mart and bought various bits of equipment and kit we'd need. After a tedious lunch at Bar Doppio (but damn, their espresso roast is really nice) we hit the road, which by now was 1300. At the Mobil Station we went to to top off our tanks their pump (to us) seemed spoiled as it dribbled diesel in at a shockingly slow rate. The manager came out and painstakingly coaxed in the diesel, alloing time for the foam to settle, etc. It drove Matt and Ling into a tizzy waiting, so they took the second truck up the street and filled it at Woolworths, where the pump worked fine.

Finally, finally made it to the Finke route and headed off, right from the start line! The track was narrow "singletrack" generally of undulatin red clay or undulating red sand. These whoops can really pound it out of you. The cheap styrofoam cooler we had lasted perhaps twenty minutes before it exploded. It was 20-40kmh driving for the better part of the trip, until we got to the South Road and then it was flat enough where you could really wind it out (theoretically). Along the way we found an abandoned car in the middle of the road (someone had helpfully stolen the radio and left the door open of course...) The driving wasn't very hard, technically. The one dune we encountered we plowed straight up with no problem.

Shortly I will dump my map track to save some of the route documentation.

About an hour before sunset I pulled over into a wide flat area to make camp. We had the tents set up pretty quickly, a charcoal fire going in a pit (hint: use lots and lots of tinder), and a washing station.

Dinner was some steak, beans, corn&peas, coffee, sweet-potatoes-baked-in-the-earth, and some chocolate biscuits.

Now it's dark, the stars are out in amazing force despite the enormous fire that is blinding us. The other amazing thing is that it is still shirt-sleeves warm outside. Two months ago at this time, we were freezing our asses off. The day doesn't seem to get much over 80 -- it is very pleasant.

After I finish up my blog and sort out our waypoints download, I'll unleash the new digeridoo I bought this afternoon while in town. My parents don't know I have it.

Other irritating things... I forgot to packl my hardcopy topo map of the finke course.... My GPS click stick is still somewhat intermittent. I hit it fiercly with my fist and that fixed it once.

Day One -- Alice Springs

Finally in Alice Springs.

The few days leading up to the trip were irritating and tedious and fidgety. But then once we packed for the flight, the time between events and progress kept halving. Before long we landed in Darwin, spent the morning crashed out in a backpacker hotel (my parents together on a single bed, Ling and I in a double, and Matt in a chair.) The two hour flight to Alice got us in at 5pm exactly.

First thing I did was dash to the Budget rental counter and see if they could call the Alice Springs office to arrange for me to pick up the trucks that evening instead of Monday morning. I knew it wouldn't work -- every logistical efficiency we've tried failed. The Budget people were terrific. The Alice Springs office had already closed. The clerk called the manager on his handphone to not only open the store for us, but to also drive one of the trucks out to the airport so we'd have something to take into Alice Springs. ha! Since I only paid the insurance for the incremental day, and saved at least forty dollars' taxi fare, it was essentially a free service.

Everything else went off without a hitch too... Checked in to our two spartan rooms at the Todd Tavern, enjoyed 'Roast' night at the Todd Tavern, grabbed lunch groceries at BiLo, and then returned for a pint at the Todd Tavern, and finished it with a cold night at the Todd Tavern.

Driving Class With Jol Fleming

After yet another meal at Todd Tavern we showed up at Jol Fleming's business (7 Hely Crescent) and met Jol and Ken. Ken also runs the VKF1 radio network that services Central Australia. (he also knew Len Beadell!)

Jol took a look at our tour itinerary and suggested that we go further past the Witjira and into the Simpson Desert. It sounded pretty interesting. Who knows, possibly we extend the Southern Lobe at the expense of the Eastern Lobe, or perhaps some other variation. We're pretty flexible because there aren't many fixed accomodations scheduled since Molly Clarke and I had a miscommunication over our schedule. (She was under the mis-impression that I was coming in September. I've had bad experiences two out of two times I've dealt with her, so I've given up trying to use Old Andado Homestead facilities.)

After our 'Get Acquainted' session, we inspected the vehicles. Aside from checking the spare tires, fluids, tow points, and other normal items, the orientation showed us a few interesting things like how to clean out and re-prime the fuel filter, the radio arrangements in Australia (a sensible hybrid of Amateur/Ham bands + some organized self-policing networks), and how to use a floor jack in the sand (trick: leave it in the tray, and orient it in front or behind, not to the side of the vehicle).

Then we got on the road. Jol piloted his modified 'Ute' (similar to an 'El Camino') which is setup to allow him to adeptly drive despite having no use of his legs, and limited use of his hands. My parents and I took off Toyota Landcruiser number one, Matt(d) and Ling in Toyota Landcruiser number two. Our trucks are relatively new. We were thilled that one of them has a cargo roof rack. That will allow us to ride on the roof while flying our Kite Aerial Photography rig. The other truck has a cargo cage in the back, which will allow us to fill it to the brim and not be fearful of a sudden stop killing the passengers with an avalanche of debris.

Lesson 1 -- Sandy Driving

Jol established himself as the MAM (Mature Alpha Male) immediately -- taking us down a very loose, very sandy riverbed. He went along easily in his two-wheel drive Ute, while we struggled to push our 4wd's along. We each did a few laps getting familiar with the handling. We were all delighted when my mom even took the wheel and got handy driving back and forth and climbing some steep banks of sand.

Lesson 2 -- Snatch Strap

After we got comfortable plowing around the sand, Jol had us intentionally bog a truck and yank it free with the other one using a snatch strap -- a long, elasticized ribbon tied between cars. In short the tow car races off at redline-rpms in first gear and just when the snatch runs tight, the stuck car redlines his car too, and gets yanked free of the bog. That was a totally new experience for all of us. Eventually we quit forgetting to turn off the hand brake and everything worked fine. Even my mother tore free my dad's car in fine style.

Lesson 3 -- Braking

Afterwards we climbed into cars and headed out the road towards Erldinga (the same road we took to recon the Finke Race). Along the way, Ken would ride in our car and we'd take turns sliding the car to a halt from 80kmh. Amazing thing #1: cars on these dirt/sand/gravel roads stop shockingly quickly. Even more reason not swerve for an animal. I had a gripping session sitting in the rear when my mom took off at 80khm down the road and the locked it up, fishtailing towards a steep bank of dirt. That seriously puckered me, but Ken later dismissed it, "I saw Mother was recovering ok, so I didn't say anything."

Lesson 4 -- Climbing Dunes

The next lesson was at the foot of a steep and typical dune. We took turns plowing up the side of it, practicing techniques to maintain our momentum, apply power, safely crest the hill. We all got a hang for it and stopped for sandwich lunch under a Desert Oak.

Lesson 5 -- Climbing Dunes (pt. 2)

The next dune system we arrived at was steeper and fiercer. I made a run at, almost succeeding, before I bogged and had to reverse back down. That's when Jol revealed Amazing Thing #2: deflating the tires to 20 psi increases their sand-climbing ability enormously. As soon as we drained the tires, we were effortlessly climbing these more difficult hills, and with far less power and flailing about. As a side note, Budget had pre-inflated the tires to 50+psi. This is incredibly high pressure and not at all advisable, regardless of which surface your're driving on. It's much better to put them to 30-35, the typical manufacturer recommendation. Same went for the spare tire.

Lesson 6 -- Climbing

This experience was bizarre. Goto a severely eroded runoff spot -- deep gulleys, steep streambank, and trees. Now stick the car in first gear in the Low 4wd band. This means you have the absolute maximum engine torque going. In this situation you discover Amazing Thing #3: these diesel engines have so much torque that even at idle they can climb incredibly steep slopes. Literally we were crawling over rocks, gullies, and crevasses with both feet off any of the pedals!

Lessong 7 -- Aborting a Climb

For this lesson we went to a steep, long, rocky slope of scree. In our TITs (Trucks of Infinite Torque) we went through the drill of climbing the hill in idle, then halfway there stalling it intentionally and backing it down safely. The routine goes like this:

1) *stall* [engine is dead]
2) pull brake, handbrake [car stopped in its tracks]
3) gear into reverse [sometimes tricky in the problematic Toyota reverse transmission]
4) let out the brake, clutch, and handbrake [engine compression prevents the car from rolling backwards]
...then the leap of faith...
5) with hands off all pedals, start the engine

suddenly you find yourself backing down the hill in a safe, slow, and controlled fashion. If you give up on a steep hill, this is the only way you can safely get back down. Any other way risks you barreling backwards, out of control.

Day's Over

And with that interesting final lesson we headed back to town. While Dad, Mom, and Ling loaded up the rest of the gear we rented from Jol, Matt and I hurried to the 'Bush Fairy' to pick up our outrageously expensive tank of Helium. It fit in the back ok, however, there is no guard for the tank's head. We're afraid of it breaking off and launching a helium-power missile through the car. Tomorrow we'll set up some rigging to prevent a major catastrophe like that.

Matt and I had a beer along the comfortable sidewalk patio of Todd Tavern. Their Pale Ale is fantastic. The late afternoon waitress was humorless and angry. We suspect she ordered the cook to smash all the nachos before serving them to us as a plate of cheese-covered nacho dust.

We ate yet another meal at Todd Tavern, which is fast wearing out its welcome with us. It's bad to eat at the same restaurant so many times in a row. It's just that there are few alternatives in Alice Springs. Coffee is a particular problem for me -- it all sucks. Everyone perked up after a stroll across town for another dessert at Baskin-Robbins. Ling subconsciously induced Matt to eat X-Mint which we all found amusing. Matt also saw a rare Wooden Catepillar along Todd Mall.

It was a fun day, and now everyone feels comfortable driving the 4wds (except Ling, who doesn't really know how to drive a manual). Even my mom accomplished all the same driving tests that Matt, Dad, and I did.

Now everyone else is in bed as I blog. Before I goto sleep I must write up the shopping list for tomorrow and clean my camera lenses.

LEAVING NOW

That's it... everything is packed, taxi comes in twenty-five minutes... Stay tuned for further reports as possible.

Zempt From the Fieldbox

Zempt is now installed on the Fieldbox. It's still only a version 0.3, so can only upload text, no pictures. But better than nothing.

Quick Value Trade

My leather boots are tired. I've never treated the leather since I was in Kyrgyzstan where the granite scree tortured them mercilessly. Since then, they've languished in both the tropics and desert.

I visited a camping store in Singapore today to find a tin of leather-rehabilitator wax. Singapore is perhaps the worst first world country to buy any sort of outdoors equipment. There is no market for it, it has to be shipped here at great expense, and since it's a captive market the markup is enormous.

So I bought a tin of wax and browsed around some more. I saw that they sold sleeping bags, but the price labels were wrong. They were horrendously cheap. But on talking with the salesguy, I found out that yes, in fact, some of the sleeping bags (both down and synthetic) they sell are store brands, and are horrendously cheap.

To cut a long tale short, I was able to buy mom, dad, and matt +10C bags that compress remarkably well. I bought three $65SGD bags for with a 15% discount. Check out REI and you'll see that compares very favorably with some of their synthetic bags.

Sure there are some tradeoffs, and these things aren't ideal, but they work for purposes. For one thing, they avoid you all having to use rented sleeping bags of very uncertain provenance. Although a 0c bag would have been best, if it's too cold, just wear socks and a fleece to top off. In Matt's case, it's possible that the bag won't be long enough. If so, Ling and he can switch. I bought her a Long bag.

We are precipitously close to being able to tell Jol that we don't even need his swags. The only thing holding us back is that we don't have sleeping pads for the three of you.

Thermarest pads are very expensive. The alternative, foam pads, were $85 in Singapore -- a fucking ripoff. If any of you guys can find some cheap alternative (Matt probably is most likely to be able to in California), then we can do without the big, stinky swags. (Those pads are nice in their own right, for just being able to sit on the ground comfortably.

I didn't mention it earlier, but I got a second tent, a very lightweight 2-person job. My current tent is a tight 3-person squeeze. So we're able to ditch Jol's tents, too. (you picked up that tent, MWE?)

Otherwise, we're getting closer, closer. Besides deciding which Jackie Collins Book-on-tape we're going to listen to, we're basically on countdown now. This weekend I'll start tidying up remaining tasks, but they're all pretty minor at this point.

The Quickening

Lots of stuff underway....

Dave Slater v. the Silva Compass

Sixty dollars of sad

By most literature you come to believe that Silva makes the best compass and the best book to learn compass navigation is "Be expert with map and compass, Bjorn Kjellstrom". Both are quite lacking.

The book speaks in generalities and is really meant to get you to become a sport orienteer. The compass is precision injection molded, but does not sight bearings very well, and in my case was off 6 inches in 22 feet. I really expected more for $60.

A much better book for couch potato navigation is "The Essential
Wilderness Navigator, David Seidman" having better compass instructions that
Silva's manual, and covers the full scope of navigation from improving your sense of direction, maps, compass, navigation, bearings, fix, transit, running fix, distance off, practical field navigation, sources of error, natural clues, extreme environs, and finally 1 page on orienteering. I was quite impressed and think I might be able to navigate with map and compass. It was so interesting I actually went outdoors to see if I could read a map, find a known bearing, verify local declination and compare with my gps.

Like all things become after leaving the couch, it was much more difficult than I expected. Tried to find a high ridge out in the open on Browntown road with hopes of seeing Pittsbrugh and surrounds far off with some points to match my 1:150,000 topos which would allow me to measure map bearings to verify local magnetic declination and verify my gps compass also.

Could not find an open ridge line and was chased down the road by two very arge dogs, shortly thereafter the road was closed and we had to return past the ogs. We put up the top and closed the windows and made it past the moonshine guarding dogs sweating profusely. Proceeded to Veltries overlooking the Springdale Valley. Could see about 2 miles so the map scale as too large and no bearings could be measured. Didn't matter much since the power lines and giant guard rails totally screwed up the compass and gps. Took advantage of the hazy view to glean what we could and was able to see riddle road, boat launches, 28, and several unnamed streets that made map sense.

Headed for Northmoreland Park to compare compass and gps in an open field with no power lines hoping to beat the squall line coming in from northern Ohio. My look at the weather radar revealed it was mainly going east but it swung south and time got late so we caught some showers on the way. Disgustedly compared the compass to gps and they got closer than in my back yard the other day. The gps is super sensitive to "levelness" and thinks the declination is 9 degrees. I don't know if it has values stored or what. Will check what it says for other areas of the country sometime.

Returned home and made a setup rig to verify the sitting of the compass. ran a string across the dining room table off into the living room and hung a plumb line at the far end of the room. Carefully aligned the compass to the string and taped it down. Carefully aligned my eye to see center of compass and lower index mark in alignment with mirror center line, then noted the v notch site was 6 inches off to the left of the plumb line. Mom verified. Investigated compass parts alignment, angles, mirror assembly, center line.... all seemed to be in order. Must be me.... pissed around another 2 hours trying to figure out what I was doing wrong or what was wrong with the compass. Only thing is see is the index mark crossest to you is slightly off. Rotate West to the top index mark and expect East to be matched up with the opposite index mark, but no. Instead of being centered on the mark it aligns with the left edge. Ok so I aligned the compass with the left edge of the nearest index mark and the far index mark centered. Even the v notch aligns when the lid is folded 180 out. That's as good as I can align it. Still the vnotch aims 6 inches left, I think that is 1.3 degrees off.

I tried slightly twisting the mirror etc to bring it into alignment with the sight but nothing worked. Finally I decided to mark a new line on the mirror that does align with the compass dial and index marks when the v notch is on the plumb line. It was easy to do and was about 1/32 to the left at the bottom of the mirror and about 3/64 to the left at the top ofthe mirror. Once that new line was marked with a sharpie the aiming was dead on. Mom verified that it was easy to take a bearing now since the new line matches up with the index marks better also.

I would like to understand where the error creeps in. I sure don't see where. Before you buy a compass you better do some high grade looking at it and be very particular about how it seems to align the index marks with the center line. All 3 should align, the top and bottom index mark, and the center of the compass needle. I don't know if that will ensure the compass will take good bearings but it sure wont if they don't.

--Dave

Finding a Star Guide

When I went to Australia, I brought along my National Audobon Society Field Guide to the Night Sky.

I didn't realize until I arrived that the Audobon guide has a bias towards the Northern Hemisphere. Consequently lots of the book is worthless, and there are only a few pages devoted to the Southern Sky.

So what to do, what to bring?

We're not going to be doing Deep Space astronomy, so I suppose some constellation and star maps should be sufficient. So maybe we don't even need to buy any more guidebooks. We might be able to find it all on the web.

StarmapMWO
The first thing I found generates starmaps as a function of latitude, longitude, time, and date. Unfortunately, it seems to only be for the Northern Hemisphere and furthermore it's offline.

Sky and Telescope
S&T Magazine also has an online Star Chart generator. It too isn't very pleasing to look at. The maps it generates look crude and congested. (note: you must turn off Google popup blocking for this to work)

Here you can download a simple southern hemisphere star chart for August 2003. As well the site has pointers to other star guides, including this one and this oft-cited guide.

Does anyone have any clever ideas? It would be nice to have a decent looking star map at least. For sextant-work, we probably only need use a few of the most significant stars. But if we are interested in the sky in a naturalist way, it would be nice to have some decent narrative, too.

Another short project

Problem
The slide film I use, Provia 100, is professional grade. It's got very nice color and no grain. It's also expensive.

Although they say the x-ray machines are film safe, I don't like to run my film through them. For one thing it does slightly fog them each time. Might not be a problem once, but since it's cumulative, and I go through a lot of connections, the aggregate effect is bad.

Consequently I always request a hand check. This results in me standing on the side while an AirSecurityDrone opens, inspects, and closes one hundred rolls of film.

Solution
Imagine the case for a normal film cassette. Kodak film comes enclosed in a black cassette with a grey lid. Fuji has a translucent cassette and a translucent lid.

Now imagine that same cassette, except it is tweve inches long and transparent.

So now you have a tube that holds six films instead of one and can be visually inspected without opening it.

Other details would be that both the top and bottom of the tube have removable lids. Also, the tube is long enough for, say, six rolls of film + a quarter-inch thick red plug that is sandwiched between two films.

Why?

So you are in the bush with a fresh tube:

TOP new new new new new new red BOTTOM

You load your camera by taking off the TOP lid and removing the first 'new' canister.

After you've shot all 36 rounds, you remove it, and reinsert it from the BOTTOM

TOP new new new new new red used BOTTOM

and then take a fresh one off the top

TOP new new new new new red used BOTTOM

That way you can always tell how much film is left.

Implementation
The two challenges are to find the proper tube and good lids.

Tube
Tube can't be too heavy. The film should sit snugly inside it in the same way that it sits in a regular film cassete holder.

Lid
The lids have to snap on and stay reliably. Regular film cassettes provide a pretty good vapour/humidty barrier.

Usability
Should be able to open and close the lid with one hand.

I tried to find an appropraite plastic tubing to use, but I never got far. All I found was gross plexiglass pipe that had walls that were way thicker than they probably need to be. Furthermore, it wasn't clear how I'd fashion a good lid for it. Cramming in a cork or rubber stopper is foul.

Either of you have a good supplier in mind ?