Not much more to report really. Been semi quiet since our friends returned to Perth. We've been slowly getting ready for the long decent into winter.

I've updated my photo gallery (mogbog gallery) with some photos from our trip to the Canberra Zoo yesterday where Rose got to "meet a cheetah" and also put the photos up from our trip to the Western Plains Zoo with our friends from Perth (Darren, Sue and Cailey).

Troy

I have been getting a few people ask what happened to the Murray St, Perth Webcam page that I used to have up.

The webcam itself was not actually mine. I was just hotlinking a URL to the webcam address which was a simple IP address.

It appears that whoever owns/controls the camera has decided that people shouldn't have public access to the camera.

This means that my link delivers you to a HTTP Authentication page which, unfortunately, I have no control over.

It was fun while it lasted

Troy

I did a big hike with a friend on Saturday.

What was supposed to be a 5 hour accelerated hike turned into a 11 hour Epic, with a solid 10 hours of walking involved.

The plan was to walk up fishing gap trail to the top and then hook right and ascend Mt Domain (1506M). We would then follow the ridge line of the "Tidbinbilla Range", taking in Mount Tidbinbilla, Tidbinbilla Peak and dropping down at Camel's Hump.

We'd both been up on the ridge that runs the length of the range before the 2003 bushfires and we figured that, considering back then the ridge was lightly wooded, this time around, after the fires, it would be even clearer than it was.

In reality this was partially true. Areas of heavy rock were indeed still barren of any low scrub. The problem lay with the other areas. Fire ash combined with years and years of dropped seed pods has resulted in largest amount of eucalypt saplings I have ever seen in my life.

From about two thirds of the way up the Mount Domain south spur, we hit a wall of saplings. The height was about 12 feet. Fortunately they were springy enough for us to push through and we figured that once we hit the peak we'd clear this maze.

We reached the Mt Domain summit in the time we expected so we pushed on. The journey from Mt Domain through to Mt Tidbinbilla involved steep decents and climbs of about 300 metres interwoven with these pockets of intense sapling growth. We stopped for lunch at an unmarked peak with incredible cliff faces falling off into the Tidbinbilla valley. At this point looking into the distance towards Mt Tidbinbilla only about 1.5KM away we still felt good. It was only just on 12 and we'd covered about 8KM in the 4 hours since we started. Not too shabby considering it was either all uphill, steep decents or through the "jungles".

From our lunch break spot, we pushed on over "Spot height 1431M" which was crammed with saplings making travel really hard and eventually broke out onto the ridge that leads into Snowy Corner and gazed upon the formidable looking Mt Tidbinbilla just beyond it. What we also noted was that the terain around the "Corner" was jam packed with these sapling. Incredibly jam packed. It took us about an hour to get to the top of Mt Tidbinbilla.

It was now almost 2pm. I'd expected to be home by now. On top of this our water supplies were close to running out. After a discussion we figured that continuing on now to Tidbinbilla Peak and beyond would be a bad decision, not based on the time, but more importantly, water. The decision was made to work our way back down to Snowy Corner and locate the spur line that decends to the Camel Back trail car park. We'd both been up the spur line before the fires. Once you were on the spur as long as you stayed on the high point you couldn't go wrong.

So, after thirty minutes of pushing back down through the jungle of saplings, stumbling on rocks and cracking shins or knees on fallen trees, we decided on what we both thought looked like the spur line and started to decend.

Good signs! Within about 30 metres we spotted some red tape around a dead tree. Obviously post fire so we were on the right spur line. The decent continued. It was tough, slow going pushing through regrowth, stumbling over rocks and trying to ascend scaley slopes that had been broken into a billion peices by the intesity of the 4 fire years before. The decent seemed to go on forever. Both of us ran out of water on the way down. After 2 hours of endless slog through this terrain we had made it about half way down the spur.

We continued on down, every now and then spotting pieces of tape on trees which we vainly hoped would lead us to a well formed track. Eventually we came across some different tape. One piece had the words "Lyre Bird" on it. Yes! We had reached the remnants of the old track system that was available for tourists in the park. The track was still fairly well cleared as well so we picked up a bit of speed. Eventually though the track disappeared (One day I will work out where it went) and we again resorted to stumbling through the bush making our own path.

The bush had changed now too, with those horrible prickly natives appearing everywhere, spiking you through, even through your clothes, whenever you brushed against them. Again we chanced upon some tape and made out a faint track, this time well marked with tape. We pushed along until the tape ran out again. We could see a creek and a quick check on the map showed that we were within 100 metres of the road, just beyond the creek. It took us a good 15 minutes to find a way across the creek, where we replenished our water bottles and filled up on much needed fluids.

Once over the creek, the road was only 20 metres beyond and we forced ourway through the last bit of prickly bush and shin smashing dead trees with much gusto. The track was a godsend. We finished up by following the track 3KM back to the main reserve road and then one final kilometre to the car. Seeing the car was a glorious moment.

In summary, we travelled about 16 kilometres in 10 hours. The vertical component would have been at least 1000M.

This morning I woke up really tired but not really sore. It was definitely an adventure and we've already discussed what crazy walk we will do next.

Here is a video taken on top of Mt Tidbinbilla.



Troy

Update - Happy Birthday Brittney . 8 Years Old Today YAY

We've been just rolling along with normal life lately.

What's been happening in the past couple of months?

- Rose's parent's visited.
- Had a great weekend away in Mallacoota with Donna, Michael & Kids. Photos here
- Awesome Easter in Rutherglen (Wine region Victoria) with Rose's parents. Photos here
- Brittney's 8th Birthday party. Lot's of fun. Photos are up here





Looking ahead there is plenty happening.

- Darren, Sue & Cailey visiting for 2 weeks from 12th April.
- Going to Dubbo (Western Plains Zoo) while they are here.
- Trip to Sydney for Essendon V Sydney Swans.

More to follow...

Troy

The new car has arrived. So much fun.

Sounds so great and has an incredible amount of power!

Here are some photos. There is also an album up in the gallery with more photos.

sunset shot


wheel detail


driving


classy bonnet ornaments


Click on the images to see a larger size

Troy

What are Israel doing to Gaza?

Why aren't more countries governments condoning their latest action against the people of Gaza?

They are not targeting the "terrorists" responsible for the rocket attacks originating from the strip, but are targeting everyone living in Gaza. Men, women, children, healthy or sick, all being treated like sub humans by the Israelis.

More governments, including my own, and especially the US and Israels neighbours should be pressuring them to work out some other way of handling this situation.

Are the Israelis ever going to learn that an "eye for an eye" will never work? That it will lead to further generations growing up with a hatred for each other. Take a leaf from Northern Ireland where they finally managed to find some semblance of peace. It wasn't through constantly depressing the "bad side".

I admire the writers of the Financial Times (UK) for writing this editorial piece. It sums up my feelings very well.

http://www.ft........000077b07658.html

Troy

We made it back from Hong Kong last Wednesday and I have finally processed and uploaded all the photos from the trip.

Click the image below to enter the gallery and view the photos

Enjoy

Troy

Time to update my original Torrent Site list. A number of biggies, the most noteable being Demonoid (RIP) have disappeared from the scene.

Here are the ones I use these days:

mininova (http://www.mininova.org)
- Having a few server dramas at the moment, but still a good spot to find new releases of things. This is the one I use the most.

ISOHunt(http://www.isohunt.com/)
- Not a torrent tracker but a centralised search engine for many different torrent site. A little bit like a torrent google. Very impressive. If you can't find it in here then it probably doesn't exist. I use this regularly.

Torrent Portal (http://www.torrentportal.com/)
- Similar to above. Another alternative to check if you can't find it at iso hunt.

The Pirate Bay (http://thepiratebay.org/)
- An old stayer. Make sure you check out the "Legal Threats" link. Still hanging in there!

Scrape Torrent (http://www.scrapetorrent.com/)
- Another search portal like ISO Hunt or Torrent Portal. I've only used it on occassion.

I have many, many more resources, so feel free to get in touch if you want more I will provide another list at another time.

Well it is all over!

And we have finally, finally, finally gotten rid of that horrible man for good



Howard's Legacy:
- GST
- Sale of Telstra
- Cripple funding of state run hospitals and public schools
- Free trade agreement with USA
- SievX
- Tampa
- General Immigration policies regarding Australian waters
- Invasion of Iraq

Lest we forget!!!

Anyone have a cat?

Seriously this is exactly what Henry is like. Funny stuff.



Troy

A new Radiohead album came out the other day and I must say that it is one darn fine album.

Starts with a kicker electronic inspired track and Thom proceeds to swoon his lungs out for the remainder of the album.

A technically impressive album, with plenty of subtlety.

It seems to have inspiration in part from Air and a hint of Beatles. Of course add to that, Thom Yorke's astounding vocals which at times remind me of Bono's (and I mean that in a good way).

The best thing about the album.... You can download it for nothing if you so please right at this very moment.

That's right, Radiohead have released the album external to a record company and made it available for download from their own site. You get to specify how much you are willing to pay for it ,and yes, "zero" is a valid amount if you desire.

Current estimates from sources (http://blog.wired.com/music/2007/10/estimates-radio.html) have Radiohead pocketing a cool 6 to 10 million USD already from downloads. Not bad and even better considering that every cent is going directly to the band.

If you want a copy of the album, head over to http://www.inrainbows.com and follow the links.

Well worth the download.

Troy

I bought a crankenstein the other week and I finally got around to building a hopper for it.
I also bought 75 kilos of grain.

I am now ready to brew enough beer to keep myself occupied over summer

Video of hopper below:




Double Batch Boil



Cheers

Troy

I've been over in Perth for the past week and a bit visiting family and friends.

Thanks Geoff and Andrea for letting me stay so long. I had a great time.

I'm about to put the photos up in the gallery finally. It has taken a fair while to process all the shots.

For now here are the best of the best.

See ya!!

Troy

I've finally put some new albums up in my gallery.
There are photos from a trip to Sydney and some flowers in our garden and stuff

Take a peek

Here is a sample:



Cheers

Troy

Some nice stuff out lately...

GT vs Project C - Voices of Summer 2007
Absolutely sweet sounds, and best of all you can download it legally from here. Sign up for the forums to find what you want

Paul Van Dyk - In Between
Just listening to this now. Sounds very nice so far.

Armin Van Buuren - A State of Trance 2007
Been out for a fair while but still getting a smashing on my players. Sensational.

DJ Tiesto - Elements of Life
Again a wonderful collection of tracks.

90% of my music listening is these 4 albums at present. Mind you the GT vs Project C set is a whopping 5 CD's worth of goodness.





Cheers
Troy