Cairns 2016, December 29 (All These Things That I've Done)

Last full day already. Started the day with another run and no more watch glitches. Didn't have too much planned in advance in case anything was left over from previous days, and just to have a slightly more relaxed day to finish.

Took a short ride over to the local ten pin bowling place in the morning. I found a couple of balls with good hole sizes, but after about three attempts the nail on my thumb had already started to rip off. My scores were terrible in the low 100's.

The pink size 10 ball was still a bit heavy...

The same bus in the other direction ended at Cairns Central shopping centre. It's just a standard shopping place, even most of the stores are just the same as Victoria. Wasn't too hungry for lunch so just got a McFlurry. Had some spare time in the afternoon so booked tickets for a Rogue One session - I would have preferred something else but there was really no good alternative.

Spent some more time exploring the city before the movie started - the west half of the city is just deserted - and had to pass through the bat forest in the middle of the city again, which smells terrible. My main discovery was that there's way too many tour agencies in the city.

Got some quick dinner after watching Star Wars, from the hot food section they had in the Woolworths. Instead of potato cakes they had potato scallops so I had to give them a try - they weren't the best, probably had been sitting around for a couple of hours.

Had to have dinner early because the NBL was starting at 6:30pm between Cairns and Melbourne. Two weird moments before the match started 1) they sell unopened beer cans (projectile missiles) at the venue and 2) the Cairns mascot was throwing out unwrapped snake lollies into the crowd - and kids were picking them up off the ground!

Cairns Taipans.

The (unnecessary) music played during the game seemed really loud, Cairns were up by about 15 before Melbourne quickly caught up, then teams exchanged leads in the last minute and Melbourne won in the final seconds - I guess I go for Melbourne when Sydney Kings are not involved.

Melbourne wins.

Walking - 17500 steps and 180 minutes

That was the end of the trip to Cairns.

• Cairns
• 7 out of 10
• Good
• Close to the airport
• No traffic
• Temperature
• Bad
• Crocodiles
• Jellyfish
• No local sport besides basketball
• Too far to walk
• Missed Out
• Atherton
• Barnacle Bill's
• Scuba diving?
• Swimming in the ocean
• The Big Marlin

Cairns 2016, December 28 (On Rails)

Back to running after a couple of days off, surprising how steaming warm it is already at 6:30am.

Got picked up by a bus in the morning to go to Smithfield where the sky rail (cable car thing) departs from. There is one mandatory and one optional terminal change before reaching the end of the line - nothing to see at the first stop, the second stop was near some waterfall at Barron Falls.

The sky rail at Barron Falls.

The final stop was at the town of Kuranda, quite big considering it's somewhere on top of a mountain, although it was specifically for tourism now, so nothing but craft shops, opal shops and restaurants in the streets. It took a while to find a good place for lunch but eventually found somewhere selling nachos and chips! After a long wait for lunch to turn up had the choice between visiting 1) Bird World 2) Butterfly Sanctuary 3) Koala Gardens 4) All 5) None.

The Koala Gardens seemed like the best option. Inside they had crocodiles, tired koalas, wombats and some free range kangaroos. In the night enclosure all I found was one bilby. The place was alright but you'd be better off visiting an actual zoo I think.

Koalas sleeping all day.

Some member of the Kangaroo family.

With a bit of time remaining I decided to try and follow the signs for Barron Falls Gorge. The signs said it was between two and three kilometres but the road just went on forever, and it was all up and down hill. I gave up eventually since I didn't want to walk forever and there was no sign of the place being close yet. To get back I went via the Jungle Track and River Walk instead which was much more pleasant, the highlight was the rail line running through the forest that reminded me of many episodes of The Walking Dead.

Jungle Track.

TWD.

Jungle Track continued.

Yet again I was dying of thirst so went through about a litre of water while waiting for the scenic railway back towards Cairns. The railway was like a poor man's Puffing Billy - it took about an hour and a half and the scenery was mostly on repeat, a big forest gorge on one side and nothing on the other side but a cliff face. It didn't help that our allocated seats were facing the opposite direction of the train and were at the very end of the carriage.

Train stop at Barron Falls.

Is there a chance the track could bend ?

Walking - 20500 steps and 215 minutes

Cairns 2016, December 27 (We The North)

After breakfast I walked down to the car rental place to get the car for the day, it was supposed to be a Nissan something or similar, which turns out to be a Hyundai Accent, at least it was new. When I got in the steering wheel was blocking the speedometer and the back window view was quite small, I was able to fix the first of those problems at least.

The first stop of the day was Mossman. Driving along Captain Cook Highway was annoying because they have a roundabout every couple of kilometres and you are supposed to reduce speed to 40 kilometres before entering. I found the Hyundai brakes to be quite unresponsive and the acceleration was much more sensitive, so the GPS would often trigger being over the speed limit.

Not a V8 supercar.

Only stopped in Mossman to visit the Woolworths, then back on the road to the Daintree Ferry. Instead of just building a bridge over a small river you have to wait in line for a one-way ferry that can only take about thirty cars at once. I turned off the car while waiting in line, not a good idea as the car became a furnace within minutes. When it was time to start boarding the ferry the car didn't want to start even though I'd left the keys in the whole time. After a bit of random key turning and button pressing the engine finally started up again.

Waiting for the ferry.

The road to Cape Tribulation was very slow and usually only about 40 km/h, a bit like the Great Ocean Road. There are no sealed roads after the town so it was a good place to stop for lunch at Myall Beach nearby. In addition to the jellyfish warnings they now also have warnings about crocodiles at every beach too - how did they get there? Next to the beach was Dubuji Boardwalk which is not like the one in Monopoly, you just get to tour a bit of the rainforest.

Cape Tribulation.

Dubuji Boardwalk.

Similar to the boardwalk was Marrja Botanical Walk a bit further down the road. This one was more like a swamp full of those mangrove trees. After another stop at Thornton Beach it was back across the ferry and over to Daintree Village. This was a better attempt at a town, and they even have their own big thing!

Marrja Botanical Walk.

Thornton Beach.

Daintree Village.

The Big Barramundi !

Back to Mossman again, this time stopping to visit the Mossman Gorge. You can't drive all the way to the gorge yourself, you have to park at the visitor centre and either 1) walk 2) pay nine dollars for the shuttle bus 3) have someone else hand you their shuttle bus tickets on the way out. The main feature of the gorge is the river and rock pools you can swim and explore - without crocodiles and jellyfish - but I hadn't brought equipment for that, plus it was a bit late in the day already.

At the end of the park was a circuit which supposedly was only two kilometres long but took a good forty minutes to complete. That was the end of the day and another slow drive back towards Cairns as they have Great Ocean Road Part II south of Mossman too.

There was a power outage during the night which luckily only lasted for about three hours, any longer and it would have been quite uncomfortable, since you need air-conditioning running all night to survive.

Walking - 18000 steps and 190 minutes

Cairns 2016, December 26 (Adventure Island)

After a bit of confusion around booking a trip with one of the three ferry operators that go to Fitzroy Island we managed to get a return trip departing at 11:00am for the day. I spent most of the boat ride sleeping but all I missed was the water and some islands.

I'm on a boat.

The main purpose of Fitzroy Island is the camping and resort accomodation, but the rest of the island is available to day visitors too. The first stop was at one of their acclaimed beaches after a short hike through the forest. I don't own any thongs or similar footwear so I had to walk barefoot on this beach that was full of rocks and coral I think - it was too sharp whatever it was.

A bit of sand would be nice.

Had some lunch on the beach but the jellyfish take over the water from October to May - basically the whole year then - so unless you have a stinger suit or even a wet suit you risk getting stung. Apparently the jellyfish weren't as common out this far from the coast, but I didn't really care to find out. It would have been to have a go at snorkeling otherwise.

After heading back to the resort they had this glass bottom boat leaving that goes around the island and visits some coral reef. The coral wasn't as colourful as I expected and the glass wasn't very clean either - maybe somebody could order them in some more glass.

Next was a big hike for the afternoon up to the top of the island. The route was ridiculously steep, it was really tricky coming back down since my shoes didn't have much grip left. On the way up I almost tripped over this big lizard just hanging out beside the path, it didn't seem to be concerned with people. Finally made it to the top despite the lack of signs, for a view of not much.

The summit.

Walking - 23000 steps and 250 minutes

Cairns 2016, December 25 (Like Here Comes The Sun)

Had an early start to Christmas morning - and I didn't even have any presents to open. The Cairns park run was one of many locations running an extra event for Christmas, and because it gets hotter than hell during the day they start an hour earlier than usual at 7:00am.

I had time for about 20 minutes of warm up before the start, then realised at the last minute I'd left my barcode back at the hotel - but it wasn't far away so I could get it after the race instead. I wasn't planning to run too fast but ended up trying to catch and overtake people in front like usual, finishing in fourth place in about 20:15. Sadly my Garmin activities for the day got corrupted somewhere as I tried to connect the watch to my phone or tablet, so I lost most of the data for the day.

I included the buffet breakfast in the hotel booking - it had all the standard things like cereal, fruit, toast and yoghurt but it was exactly the same every day, which was a little disappointing. They also had some pancake maker but it was broken on the first day! as well as a hot food section with bacon, eggs and sausages that only weird people would eat so early in the day.

Plans for the first day were pretty limited since I didn't know what would be open, so started with some exploring around the city centre and the esplanade, boardwalk, lagoon pool and marina. I had three hits in a row finding Barnacle Bill's, a souvenir shop and an Asian bakery in just a few minutes.

Cairns city.

It wasn't much warmer than Melbourne's mid thirty temperatures, but felt much more humid and steamy so I found myself always getting dehydrated - probably never properly recovering from the morning running and being behind for the rest of the day. My left leg was already aching which wasn't a good sign, the same problem came after too much walking around Halls Gap the same time last year and took months to recover.

We stopped in at a burger place that had a mushroom burger - almost as bad as meat - as the only vegetarian option so I had to settle for chips and a milkshake.

Big Captain Cook.

After walking all the way back to the hotel and resting up for a bit it was back out towards Centenary Lakes. The short way into the place was closed due to some bridge repair, so had to walk all the way back to the start and go the long way instead. The place offered a freshwater and saltwater lake, some bamboo forest that was alright and a pretty poor botanical garden. At the end of the area was the entrance to the Mt Whitfield walking tracks.

Centenary Lakes.

Great view of the airport.

Mt Whitfield.

They don't like the carbs.

I would have liked to have taken the longer loop under normal circumstances, but with several days still to go I only took the short loop, which was still quite steep and had a lot of steps. There was one view of Cairns along the way, but was partially blocked by some trees - you did get a view of Cairns Airport at least...

Finally made it back to the hotel and recovered in the pool from too much walking. Heading out in the better direction in search of dinner there was some half Asian, half non-Asian restaurant. I ordered a big bowl of chips and steamed rice and never stood a chance of getting through both.

Should have taken the water birds advice.

That was the end of the first long and thirsty day.

Walking - 28000 steps and 300 minutes

Cairns 2016, December 24 (Closer)

A five day trip to Cairns was all I could manage this year.

The flight is a little over three hours, but without daylight savings you get a bonus hour on the way there. The airport was pretty empty compared to Melbourne, not a lot of flights coming into the domestic terminal at the same time. There was some bus options from the airport to the city but the information was pretty poor, so I just got in line for the taxi instead of wasting any more time trying to find out about it. It was funny that there was about ten groups of people in line and one car would turn up about every minute.

The hotel was a couple of kilometres north of the city centre, not ideal as it turned out, but it was about the best option for a late booking. There wasn't a lot of food options around, even the local Subway had incredibly closed after lunch on Christmas Eve, but there was at least one pizza shop still going. After dinner I found out there was a few more options in the opposite direction, so at least that was good information for the following days.

The room had a few Foxtel channels, about four of them were Fox Sports but no ESPN - I think one channel was dedicated to darts for the entire week, one to rugby and one to some useless cricket matches with either Bangladesh or Sri Lanka involved.

November Review

This is the November review - should try to do more than one blog post a month.

I managed to run six days in a row for the first time in a year, only it resulted in a minor hip injury that same afternoon. I was able to get by with a bit of rest and set a new course best time at a park run afterwards, so my 5 kilometre speed (under 19 minutes) is finally getting better, but my long distance is still really bad. At the City2Sea I just missed out on 15 kilometres in 60 minutes, which was about 3 minutes slower than last year but not too disappointing given my lack of fitness.

I took it easy the week after that race, and was just on a casual morning run near home when someone ran up and attacked me. I thought it was just some idiot messing around so I was ignoring him, but then the next thing I knew I had regained consciousness after about 10 minutes and had already walked a few hundred metres away from where I was knocked down. For the next couple of minutes I couldn't even work out where I was, but somehow I managed to get home although I don't remember how. The worst injuries were to my ribs, which still hurts the same two weeks later, and my right jaw which started to improve after a few days. The most frustrating thing now is to have yet another multi-week injury when this one was no fault of my own.

My shares had a terrible run prior to the USA election, then the next day all the experts were positive again as if there was nothing to worry about. I had planned to start saving some money but somehow ended up putting $5000 in The Reject Shop because I think it has room for short term improvement. I've started tracking my shares and super total at the end of each week since the crap websites can't even do that automatically. Somehow between two jobs I got only $200 deposited into my Super for the month, hopefully that is just a delay somewhere...

I went to two matches of the NBL to watch Melbourne vs Sydney both times. The first game was an easy win to Sydney but the second match Melbourne had the lead all the way, the Kings managed a comeback in the final quarter so it was the much more interesting of the two, but only tied the game once at the end before losing in the last two seconds.

My regular NBA betting website William Hill took away all the player over-under bets which I was having success with last season, instead they replaced them with these 'player will get 10 or more of some stat' bets and they made the odds really bad too. Since I like to have the option of betting under I signed up with Sportsbet instead.

Nothing much happening with the to do list due to some other distractions.

I finished up at work on November 4 which was a big relief, the company and the conditions might have been alright, but my job was just depressing. Having most of the development work outsourced (and most of that offshored) was not something I wanted to be involved with either.

I only got a three day weekend before starting my new job the next Tuesday. I spent the first week training at head office, then got assigned out to a company to begin as a senior consultant. The customer's office is just between Southern Cross and Etihad Stadium so it's not bad, except it's not close to either The Tan or Princes Park is the one downside. It's only been two weeks so far but it's definitely an improvement. I am back to zero days of annual leave once again which is annoying.

That's it for another month.

• Books
• None completed, been really tired most days, not sure why
• Movies
• The Barkley Marathons
• A documentary about some ridiculous trail multi-marathon
• Some years nobody even gets close to finishing it
• 8 out of 10
• Music
• I was going to be seeing Grouplove in January but it just got cancelled due to illness
• TV
• Black Mirror Season 3
• Some episodes a lot better than others like previous seasons
• My favourite was Shut Up And Dance
• 7 out of 10
• Brock
• A two-part documentary / drama that aired after Bathurst
• I don't know how much was fictional but some of the events were quite crazy
• 6 out of 10
• Scream Season 1
• Surprisingly good adaptation of the movie on MTV
• 6 out of 10
• Video Games
• Playstation 3
• Gran Turismo 5
• I did a few more license while the Xbox 360 was dead
• Xbox 360
• Console
• My second console died, the red ring again!
• I  managed to find a new 500 gigabyte version on ebay for about $150
• I got all the data transferred from the old hard drive without any problem
• Final Fantasy XIII-2
• Made slightly more progress
• Fun but not so challenging

October Review

This is the October review.

For the first time all year I think I'm injury free, now to see how long it lasts - hopefully I can continue running through summer at least - if it ever arrives. To prepare for the half marathon at Melbourne Marathon I gradually increased my distance training each weekend and mixed in a few fast runs at Lilydale Lake. I'm still a long way off my best but slowly getting better. At the very end of the month I drove up to Bendigo for the third year of the Bendigo Bank fun run, but didn't race very well.

• Melbourne Marathon
• 1:31:05, just missed my target of 1:30:00 due to strong wind
• Bendigo Bank
• 40:49, a full two minutes slower than last year, died going up the hills
• Still 6th place overall somehow, just missed 5th (net time) by under a second

I meant to start saving some money but put it all into shares yet again. I bought Money3 and RXP this time, they lost a chunk of money the very next money but then started making some decent gains. The last week of the month was a disaster everywhere through, I think I lost 1% or more every day - might need to sell some of my shares and lock in the gains - the few that haven't lost money that is. I also plan to make a graph of my total after each week, since the basic website doesn't offer any such facility.

I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the AFL Grand Final this year, and had a great seat in the row front - of the upper level. This was by far the best game yet of all the grand finals I've had a ticket for, and it was great to see the Western Bulldogs finally win.

My to do list has seen a bit of action, but everything seems to be left half done which is a problem.

• Bike
• The new 2017 models have been released now
• Made a short list, probably looking at $1000 to $1500 - once I get paid again
• Car
• Reviewed my short list again, probably down to four cars
• Ford Focus or Mitsubishi Lancer probably
• Subaru Impreza is the next choice, then Subaru Liberty possibly
• Holiday
• Booked in a short - not cheap - holiday for the end of the year
• Study
• I plan to start studying for the Java 8 Exam soon
• I did the pre-assessment test at the start of the book, only got 8 out of 20
• A lot of the questions were tricks so I'm not too worried about that
• USA DV Lottery
• I registered for the lottery just for fun, you don't hear anything until like June 2017

I've almost got my work situation sorted out now. Before accepting the new job they increased their offer without me doing anything, so that was a bonus. My last day of work should be November 4 and I'll start the new one soon after that. I'm a bit disappointed I couldn't make this position work as it was a lot of effort to get settled in, but the job wasn't really going anywhere in the long term.

That's it for this month.

• Books
• Finders Keepers by Stephen King
• The second book in a trilogy following Mr. Mercedes
• It had very little connection to the previous book though
• 5 out of 10
• Movies
• Doctor Strange
• Not another Marvel movie...
• I watched this at Bendigo to kill time, it was too long
• 4 out of 10
• Train To Busan (Korean)
• Pretty cool zombie virus outbreak thing on a train trip
• 7 out of 10
• Music
• I got a Grouplove ticket for January since I missed out in August
• TV
• Containment
• Not bad, but it only had one season but didn't really end with a conclusion
• 5 out of 10
• The Strain - Season 3
• It seems to just keep going with no result now
• 4 out of 10
• Video Games
• PC
• Quake: Episode 5 - Dimension Of The Past
• It was quite difficult, even on medium, with limited ammo and health
• Too bad they didn't make more missions
• Too bad nobody plays multiplayer anymore, instead of these crap new games
• 7 out of 10
• Xbox 360
• Final Fantasy XIII-2
• Just a couple of hours
• Every time I come back I've forgotten all the controls
• I still don't like the real-time battle system, too limited

September Review

Here we are again for September.

At last all of my injuries are close to resolved, such a relief after missing nearly eight months of running, now I just need to get fit and lose weight. I raced in the Sri Chinmoy Yarra Boulevard early in the month, still troubled by hamstring issues at the time so I only managed 44 minutes for 10 kilometres. It wasn't until a park run at Frog Hollow a couple of weeks later that I finally put in a good result and came in at about 20 minutes for 5 kilometres - not a bad course but a bit further to drive to Endeavour Hills.

I went through a bit of a period of buying and selling shares since I don't have any more money to invest. I sold another three companies for a small loss and bought four more, most have performed well so far. September and October is when most of the mid year dividends come through, it's great to get about $3000 coming in for nothing. I did some rough calculations about getting an investment loan for shares, but the initially figures seemed like it didn't come out all that much better - it really depends on the share price growth. I might do some more calculations and also see how it compares to an investment home loan, which has a lower interest rate.

I forgot to buy a reserved seat for the second round AFL finals match between Hawthorn and Western Bulldogs, which turned out to be a great game. Instead I went to Geelong vs. Sydney the following week and could have left after the first quarter. In better news I got a ticket in the grand final ballot, since it was on October 1 it will be in the next report...

We had the annual Brownlow Medal night, this year the coverage seemed even slower than ever. The winner was obvious to everyone, but at least it was still close until the last few rounds.

The NFL is already three weeks down. I watched some of the crap second week while working from home, although most of the games were already over by 6am. It should be a bit better with daylight savings now. The shortcut games come out online within about 12-24 hours and are much better, since they only take about 45 minutes instead of 3.5 hours!

I don't have much happening on the to do list right now:

• Christmas holiday
• Depending on how things go I might be back to having no annual leave yet again!

Work has been very frustrating still, sometimes getting a bit better only because I'm creating some interesting tasks myself to do. I've had a couple of interviews with some other companies, surprisingly making it through to the final interview of both and had to decide which to pursue, more on that next time too...

That's it for another month:

• Books
• Of Mice And Men by John Steinbeck
• Only took about two hours, not as good as The Grapes Of Wrath
• 6 out of 10
• Movies
• Cell
• I was looking forward to this adaption of a good Stephen King good
• Instead it was a complete mess, I would have been clueless if I hadn't read the book first
• 2 out of 10
• The Shallows
• Not bad given the whole movie was about Blake Lively being trapped out at sea by a shark
• 5 out of 10
• Music
• None
• TV
• American Crime - Season 1
• Good acting but just felt a bit slow and went too long
• 7 out of 10
• American Crime - Season 2
• A very cool idea where they bring back the same actors to play different roles
• This story had more depth and again didn't just have a nice ending for everyone
• 8 out of 10
• Rick And Morty
• About half of the episodes are great, the other are just alright
• 7 out of 10
• Video Games
• None

August Review

Another month, another birthday and not much else.

I'm still stuck unable to do much exercise due to various ailments. At first it was just the hamstring carried over from last month (almost two months out of action now) but now my left shin pain (going on eight months) has started to return. To add to that my left leg hurts all day from sitting in different chairs at work now. I think my hamstring might be about 75% repaired, but it's taking forever to repair fully.

I had two short running trips during the month, despite being limited physically.

• Adelaide
• Shepparton

Assisted by a small payout from changing jobs I was able to invest in shares for two more companies, but now I'm definitely out of money. No real change in the share market overall otherwise but at least I have a few dividends coming soon.

It was once again time for the Summer Olympics at an inconvenient time of day (night). I paid $20 for Channel Seven's premium content so I was able to watch replays of all the events, but their website was just horrible - slow and glitched. Given limited time I only watched a few events:

• Athletics - The short distance track events and marathons
• BMX - A fun event but all over in 30 seconds, the final is one race so it's just random luck
• Basketball - Australia were looking great until the semi-final collapse, the USA won but didn't have a great team
• Cycling - I scanned through the road race and time trail since they go for several hours, didn't watch many indoor events
• Swimming - Not many medals for Australia but the events are quick and competitive

In addition to the AFL match in Adelaide I also went to Carlton vs. Melbourne at the MCG. I wanted Melbourne to win actually, so they'd retain a slim chance of making the finals. The opposite happened and Carlton won quite well, then Melbourne lost the following game as well by about 100 points too.

I was a bit preoccupied to address the to do list, which is getting bigger again:

• Bills - Somehow all of my annual bills come in August
• ATO, car registration, MCC, council rates
• Close to $3000 in total!
• I registered for the MCC grand final ballot again, probably another Hawthorn vs. Sydney match

My last day of work was August 10, followed by a trip to Adelaide, and then started work again on August 16.

• Day 1 - Could have been better, I had no access pass and the job requirements weren't clear
• Day 2 - So much disorganised documentation to try and locate and make sense of
• Day 3 - My role was explained a bit better, not a real architect and no development at all - so a double failure
• Week 2 - A small downsizing already, I may have to do production support work now too - probably even worse

I thought I was dead inside while having a reasonable job, but this must be a new low. At this stage I'll doubt I'll stay around for long, but I probably want to see how it goes once I get some real projects to work on.

That's it for another month.

• Books
• The Grapes Of Wrath by John Steinbeck
• A classic old book for something different
• Set in the 1930's great depression, so much despair
• 8 out of 10
• Movies
• Zero Days
• Watched at the MIFF
• A fascinating documentary about cyber warfare
• 8 out of 10
• Music
• None
• TV
• American Crime Story - The People vs. OJ Simpson
• Started slow, but a pretty incredible story
• 7 out of 10
• Guilt
• Just another random UK series about some murder mystery
• Watched a couple of episodes so just wanted to finish it
• 4 out of 10
• Last Chance U
• Great documentary about a lower tier college football league
• 8 out of 10
• Murder In The First
• Another good season
• Not sure why this show doesn't seem to get much publicity
• 7 out of 10
• The Challenge
• Always great
• The new teams are some stupid never trying to get out the veterans
• 9 out of 10
• Video Games
• None

Shepparton 2016

Just two weeks after the last one, it was already time for another big weekend drive, although this one quite a bit shorter, to Shepparton. After a morning park run at Lillydale (not Lilydale) Lake, getting home and packing it was time to leave at 10:30am.

Unlike the trip to Adelaide the speed limit is 110 km/h most of the way - probably close to the limit of what my car is capable of. It wasn't a very exciting drive as there was no small towns to go through on the way and not much change in scenery. Only had to make one stop for fuel and a driver swap with about 45 kilometres left to go.

Finally in Shepparton, we found a pizza place for lunch at about 1:00pm, the four cheese pizza wasn't great - should have ordered the calzone instead. While waiting for the pizza to cook there was time for a quick look around Maude Mall:

• Famous Telstra lookout tower landmark
• Kids petting zoo
• Another regional town that has the NBN already too!

There was also just enough time to pick up the race bibs at Victoria Park Lake before they closed for the day, saving a bit of time tomorrow.

The finish line, a day early.

Back in the car to drive down to Shepparton Market, it wasn't really a market but they had lots of cheap fruit, then back to the city centre for a bit more exploring:

• Just about every shop in the town was bakery, kebabs or pizza
• Monash Park 'moooving art' exhibition - basically the same cow with a different paint job

Look out. Here comes the Spider-Cow.

The hotel check-in time had passed, the room was alright for an overnight but no Foxtel again. Back in the car for more driving to end the afternoon:

• The city visitor information centre had magnets for sale!
• A circuit around Victoria Park Lake to see what the race route looks like

Magnet.

The final stop was Fun City which is like an indoor amusement centre, they had:

• 9 hole glow in the dark mini golf
• Arcade machines
• Electic go-karts
• Laser tag

None of it looked that interesting so just got some food and drink for dinner and went back to the hotel instead. I tried to play some video files from my USB drive (came prepared) on the TV but it would only work with old AVI files, so we just had to watch AFL instead.

The next morning I woke up at about 2:00am due to being freezing cold, since the sofa bed came with only one thin sheet and blanket, and hard pillows as a bonus. I gut up to put on pants and a jumper, but that didn't help much either. After managing to get the split system heater turned on in the dark (need to point the remote at exactly the right spot) I found the heat didn't really reach across the room and had to give up - like a bad episode of Survivor.

After finally escaping the night it was time for the morning race. Jason started 30 minutes earlier than me, so he walked up to the start while I did check-out and drove up and found a good parking spot.

Soon the 10km event was ready to go, surprising only about 200 people or so at a rough guess, I thought it was more like 400 in the result from last year. I set off at 5:00/km pace which was a bit painful in my right hamstring still, but just acceptable with causing further damage (maybe).

After going around the lake and caravan park it became single file across some bridges, since lots of people were coming the other way too. I got stuck behind some slow people but probably didn't cost more than 30 seconds before I was able to overtake. Some bug flew into my eye after about three kilometres but didn't cause too much irritation, that probably comes in third on the bad things that happen during a race list:

• Toilet break
• Serious injury
• Black Bugs
• Going the wrong way
• Missing the drink station

I overtook a couple of people before the half-way turn around and counted 32 coming back the other way, I only passed one of them the whole way back. I crossed the finish line just before being overtaken (not lapped exactly) by the female winner of the half-marathon event, which would have been embarrassing. The official result was 32nd place exactly as I had counted, in 49:17 - 30 seconds behind and 2 minutes ahead of the next person, beating my life time goal of 50 minutes.

The finish line again.

The course was not bad running along the Goulburn River, but not personally enjoyable due to the moderate pain I was in. I had time for a short warm down before Jason finished as well, then it was back on the road by about 10:15am. One last stop at Seymour for an early lunch and then home by about 12:30pm, about 200 kilometres each way.

Adelaide 2016

August 13, 2016
August 14, 2016
August 15, 2016

Adelaide 2016, August 15 (Road Rules)

It was an even earlier start on Monday morning out of Adelaide, hoping to avoid the peak hour in Melbourne in the evening, and working against the time zone difference this time. After maxing out the fuel tank we were off at about 6:45am, to Tailem Bend at 7:45am and Keith at 9:00am for the first driver change - without much sign of back pain so far.

Shortly before the border the speed limit goes down to 100km/h which seems unnecessary. At 11:00am (VIC time) in Nhill we swapped drivers over again, and then made it to Horsham at 12:00pm in time for lunch again. This time we went to one of the local bakeries, where they had the world record for biggest vanilla slice, I just settled for a single serve.

Guessing the previous record was 677.075 kilograms.

We left Horsham at 12:30pm (VIC time) again and stopped for a driver change and the first refuel at Ararat an hour later. Sadly my small fuel tank couldn't get all the way back to Melbourne, and going further to Ballarat would have been a bit risky. I made it 517 kilometres with 35 litres of fuel used, with maybe 5% left on the fuel tank indicator.

Around about Ararat we finally got to return to 110/km again, through to Melton for the final driver change at 3:15pm (VIC time). I missed the turn off at Ballarat Road since I wasn't paying attention, but getting off at the next exit didn't add much time. We got stuck in traffic trying to get through Parkville and onto the Eastern freeway forever, then we were cruising for about three minutes before hitting a big traffic jam due to a two car accident near the Doncaster Road exit - there's no way I could drive to work every day like that without going insane. At last we made it home by 5:00pm (VIC time), just in time to get ready for work again...

If I'd had more time in Adelaide I would have gone to:

• Kangaroo Island 
• Victor Harbor
• Hahndorf
• Mt Lofty
• Glenelg and Magic Mountain
• Port Adelaide (maybe)
• Wine tasting in Barossa Valley (maybe not)

Adelaide 2016, August 14 (Hurt)

I only entered in the shorter 10km event at the Adelaide Marathon festival due to never ending injuries, even that was doubtful but I thought I'd give it a go, although I was only 50-50 about participating up until the day of the event. Jason was running in the half marathon which started at 8:00am but the 10km wasn't until 10:10am, which is very late for a race start.

I walked from the hotel to Adelaide Oval again for the start of the race, and found Jason just as he was finishing his race already. At the beginning of my event I tried to jog the first 500 metres at 6:00/km pace but didn't feel great so I slowed down to 7:00/km, then sadly that become a fast walk soon after, the hamstring injury was still too painful to take any more impact. It was very depressing not being able to run, now I was just hoping to not finish last.

After about four kilometres I had warmed up a bit and managed to get back into a jogging motion at around 7:00/km pace again, and actually overtook a small number of people - some of them might have broken down during the marathon or half marathon though. My right quad was now killing in addition to the right hamstring soreness I'd had for the past month, but more worrying was the left shin stress which took five months to heal last time.

I finished in just under 72:30 or 7:15/km, position 382 of 429 which was of course my worst result ever - I might have come in right around 10th place if healthy. I found Jason again at the finish and went back to the hotel, then to a local pizza place that was open for lunch, it was surprisingly good despite being cheap.

The finish at last.

After lunch we got the free city connector bus to South Terrace in the city - I though for sure being on a bus *and* in Adelaide I would run into Matt but he never showed up. I walked over to the Himeji Gardens for a look, it was extremely small such that you could walk around it in a minute or two, the big sand pit thing was alright I suppose.

Himeji.

A free tram back to Victoria Square next, but the Adelaide Central market was closed on a Sunday - which market wouldn't be open on a Sunday. There was a Bread Top nearby but it had all the same stuff as the Victorian stores, disappointing. A couple of stops further along the tram route and we were at the famous Rundle Mall. It's probably longer than Bourke Street and it has a few more arcades and shopping centres alongside it, but it was generally the same kind of stores. The only purchases I made were an Adelaide magnet at the souvenir store and a new resistance band from the sports store.

Back out of the city again where Uni SA had their annual day. Since it was late in the afternoon already I didn't even managed to score any free stuff! They did have a free simulation tour of a dental surgery, but who would want to do that. After a quick tour along the River Torrens my legs were dead, so we got a free bus back to O'Connell Street in North Adelaide for some food for dinner then another bus back to the hotel.

Karrawirra Parri.

Since we had an early start in the morning the evening was just watching Olympics highlights on TV, the 1.5gb free wifi had almost run out too and I hadn't even installed all of the latest Windows updates on my laptop yet!

Use the forks.

Adelaide 2016, August 13 (CHVRCHES)

It's a bit sad this is my first and only planned 'holiday' for the year so far, but that's how it goes. I left home at 8:00am Saturday morning for the big trip to Adelaide. The most I'd driven the Lancer in one trip before was either to Echuca, Halls Gap or Wangaratta - all pretty similar and about half the distance. Traffic through the city wasn't too bad for Saturday morning, getting through to Ballarat by about 9:45am and then changing drivers somewhere around Beaufort, I forget exactly.

An hour later at Ararat and my back was already wrecked for the day. Coming into Horsham right about 12:00pm was a good time to stop for lunch and to get out of the car and move around for a while. We stopped for about half an hour to get some food at Subway before moving on. I got back into the driver seat and my back was feeling good again, but it only lasted about an hour. I stopped in for fuel at some service station that had huge potholes at the entrance and exit, I think I almost broke the car going through one of them as there was no way to avoid it.

We got to Bordertown at 2:00pm, it seems like false advertising as it doesn't actually appear to be right on the border. Since the day of driving was starting to take it's toll we had to stop a bit more often to stretch out, probably about once an hour through to Murray Bridge at about 4:30pm (SA time), at least there was a bridge over the Murray River this time. I only remembered about the half hour time difference just near the border, a good surprise as it meant a bit more time in the evening than I originally planned for.

Finally we made it into Adelaide about 5:30pm (SA time), the big downhill into the city was probably the highlight of the drive - as well as being able to get out of the car for good. After navigating a few one way streets in North Adelaide we got to the hotel just in time to grab the second last space in the hotel parking lot.

After dropping off the luggage we walked down to the city centre, about two kilometres, past the zoo and university on the way. I picked Fancy Burger's for dinner, lucky one of the three vegetarian burgers wasn't mushroom based, it was alright but not the best I've had.

Rundle Mall.

We made it back out to Adelaide Oval just north of the city in time for the first quarter of Melbourne vs. Port Adelaide. The seats were alright in the top deck, but I soon found out I had some crazy kids sitting right behind me, screaming like mad whenever a Port Adelaide player touched the ball and continually kicking the seat. Thankfully they ran out of energy after about ten minutes, then they left or moved somewhere because I never heard from them again. I was also sitting next to some negative Port Adelaide supporter, at first it was funny but then it just became depressing. I don't even know why he would attend since he was just miserable the whole time, complaining about everything from the worst forward line, being the most frustrating team in the league, they can't win if they start from behind etc.

Adelaide Oval.

Melbourne were always leading the match, but Port Adelaide looked like they might catch up for a while after half time before Melbourne got going again and won quite easily.

Game time.

Only saw one church.