starting again

Just revamped this blog, well saved it from being blasted to oblivion by Google Blogger, Hope to keep using it while overseas when I need to or have access to upload stuff, so look forward to more posts

Planning day

After a few frustrating sessions trying to upload the pen sessions to Livescribe online. I sent an email to the support people and they suggested that I update my flash player and check for any firewalls that might be on my computer.

I uploaded the flash version 10 and tried again but no luck so I ventured into the Command centre and found the firewall icon and then made it possible for uploads and downloads on Livescribe.

then success, success I was able to upload Graeme's presentation and here is the link


Click on the link and turn up the speakers. Because I didn't write anything in my book it comes up just as an audio file.
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This is an embedded link it took some time to sort out the code but it works

Trial of Smartpen

I am currently trialling the smart pen. After much time wasting I eventually uploaded the file I recorded from the Expert Users group VC this morning and finally got the link to the file, so I thought I would test it out before Tuesday's sessions in the theatre

http://www.livescribe.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/LDApp.woa/wa/MLSOverviewPage?sid=FWKQczhj6xqW

Click on the link to see what it does. This link is from livescribe = send a link rather than the above one which is embedded code.

29-30th April 09

Last day in Tasmania and it was -3 overnight. The grass was really crunchy but at least the wind was not blowing. After breakfast we headed back to Launceston to take back the van and then we headed towards The Promised land just past Sheffield. There is a place called Tasmazia. There was 8 mazes built around the village of Lower Crackpot. It was an amazing little village and the mazes where really great. some of them took some time to crack. Most of the mazes were made from Privot hedges that were well over head height. One maze was a balancing maze that you had to walk on. another was a cage maze that was made of wood. The other 6 were hedge mazes.

When you got to the edge of one maze there was quite a large village of all sorts of houses, etc, all made of concrete and painted. Someone had a great sense of humour as they wrote and named these odd houses.

After a few hours running around the mazes etc, we had some pancakes at the restuarant and then we headed back towards Devonport. On the way back there was a town called Nowhere Else. So we drove through the town just to see it. There really wasn't anything to see.

We eventually got to Devonport and lined up for the ferry back to the mainland. The ferry left Devonport around 7:30. We boarded and found our cabin then went downstairs for dinner.

After dinner we went to see the movie Nights at Rothendale. It was a rather sad movie. After the movie we headed to bed so we could be ready for the drive back to Brisbane.

We woke up around 5:00am, had some breakfast and we were able to get back in our car. We drove off the ferry around 7:20am. We then headed out of Melbourne before the traffic built up in the city and kept driving until we got to Coonabarabran where we stopped for the night.

Alex is hoping to be back in Walloon at lunchtime so it seems that we should be able to get there at this rate.

28th April 09

woke up freezing this morning. The grass was crunchy and the fire hose was slowly leaking and the water formed a stalagmite. You can see some of it in the grass. At least the sun was shining but there was no heat in it at all. The temerature was -2 degrees.

After breakfast we decided to move the van out of the caravan park and then walk around the town of Ross to the women's prison. There was not a lot left of the actual prison except the walls and a few small ruins barely visible under the grass. The superintendant's house was still standing so we went in there for a little while to read about prison life.

we then walked back into town and looked at the other historical buildings, the pub, gaol, town hall and the church on the top of the hill. This is still being used today and looks quite impressive. There was also a Wool centre that showed quite a bit of the history of the industry in Ross. There are plenty of sheep, green pastures and rolling hills around Ross. It was an interesting display. We then moved back to the Ross bridge and I took some more photos of the carvings on the bridge.

We then headed down the street to the Post Office. still the original building with a horse mounting step still there out the front. Across the road is the bakery and tea house that sells the famous Tassie scallop pie so we had to try one. They are certainly delicious with around 5 or 6 large scallops in them with a small amount of curry.

We then headed back towards Launceston to Ellendale and Longford to see some of the historical buildings. We then drove to Westbury to get some more beautiful gelato ice-cream. Can't really think why we would need cold ice-cream as it has been really cold all day with an icy wind blowing but with the van pointing towards the sun it was warm enough to enjoy the beautiful ice-cream.

We the headed to a large steam engine museum. Alex is really interested in steam engines so I tagged along just for him. At least we were out of the wind for a while.

We stopped tonight at Hadspen and prepared ourselves for another really cold night. They are predicting -2-3 degrees again and heaps of frost on the roads in the morning.

tomorrow morning we will take the van back to the airport and then pick up the car and head over to Sheffield and surrounds as there was a couple of places we missed out on seeing. The trouble being that most places only open at 10:00am and we are often on the road before then.

We have to be in Devonport by around 5:00pm for boarding and sadly (but not missing the freezing weather) we will have to say goodbye to Tassie.

We survived the night in the winds and rain. It did eventually stop around 3: rugged up and headed into Hobart to have a tour of the Cascades brewery. We got to within 3 kilometres of the Tasman bridge and we were stuck in traffic. It seemed that there was an accide30am. Extremely cold when I woke up in the morning 3 degrees with a wind chill factor of 15. Went and all lanes were blocked. There is no alternative bridge close by so we hung in there. As we got closer to the bridge we were able to get some great photos of the snow on Mt Wellington. There was snow down as far as 700m. (about half-way to the top).

Finally got into Hobart and out to Cascades by 10:30am. We got out of the van and nearly froze. The wind and cold was coming down the mountain. We had to wait for about 10 mins in the cold before they opened up the visitor centre. Luckily we were able to grab a cup of coffee before the tour. The tour was really good, very informative but unfortunately it was a rostered day off for most of the workers so the brewery was not in operation but our guide did a great job explaining the brewing works, the malting, fermenting, maturation and bottleing areas. As we went around he asked lots of questions and if you got them correct you got bottle-cap. When we got back to the tasting area we realized that these were tokens to allow us to try more beers. Alex and I got an extra 3 tokens between us, so with the original six we were able to try 9 beers/ciders. After 31/2 glasses each we gave the rest away as we still had to drive. They were not just small tasting glasses they were 6oz glasses.

We then drove off to find a warm spot to park the van and have some lunch. We were originally going to do a double-decker bus tour around Hobart but instead we went back to Richmond to see the Model village of Hobart in the early days. It was quite good. We then headed up to Ross for the night. We have decided that because we had to stuff around a couple of days waiting for documents to arrive for signing for our investment property that we would not have enough time to do the East coast so we will come back in a couple of years time and do the East coast. Alex likes to see everything so we really spent a little too much time on the west and the south coast.

I was a little disappointed but that is the way it goes. So we head into Launceston tomorrow night. Drop the van off on Wednesday morning. Then we hope to drive past Sheffield because we missed an attraction that Alex wanted to see. We should be able to see that on our way to Devonport. We hop on the ferry to Melbourne Wednesday night. Luckily we have booked a cabin so that we can get some sleep as Alex wants to drive straight back to Brisbane and be in Brisbane by Friday lunchtime. So it will be a rush trip back once we get off the ferry.

The weather tonight is really freezing. The locals are predicting it to get to below 2 degrees overnight. Hopefully it will be fine during the day as it makes it a little bearable rather than the rain. Luckily the van has a diesel heater so we are using the heater tonight for brief periods to warm the van up.

Looking forward to some warmer weather in Queensland when we get back.

Sunday 26th April

We were warned that today would be freezing cold, gale force winds and rain. It certainly rained during the night but stopped after midnight. It was very cold in the morning but the sun was shining. We rugged up and caught the bus to the Salamanca markets. The sun remained and the markets were really enjoyable. We bought a few souvenirs, woolen socks, Tasmanian timbers and tried some banana and nutella crepes, similar to those that I had in France. Alex was quite impressed with the crepes. After the markets we decided to race up to Mt Wellington as it was still in full view. By the time we were half way up the clouds were starting to close in but we were really lucky and I got some great photos.

It was freezing up on the mountain. We were amazed at how steep the climb up the mountain was. Just as we were nearly finished taking photos it started to snow and the clouds started closing in so we headed back to the van for the decent down the mountain. Hobart was still in some sunshine but it was 2:30 and we were getting hungry so we headed off to Eastlands shopping centre to get some rolls for lunch. We then headed back past the large Anaconda store and browsed in there a while before heading back to the caravan park for a game of putt putt golf.

We got around to the 10th hole and the rain started to come down, we kept playing and nearly gave up at the 12th as the rain was getting heavy. Because we were already wet we decided to keep going. By the 14th the rain had eased but just as we were putting at the 19th hole it started to hail so we ran inside.

We then headed for the caravan to cook dinner. During dinner the wind has really started to blow hard and the rain is so heavy we can hardly hear the TV. Hopefully it will stop during the night sometime so we can sleep as the van rocking in the wind and rain on the roof can keep you awake most of the night.