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.

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.