Check In: Day 3 of Holiday

Today was spent chiefly at Dorrigo National Park, where I spent nearly 5 hours on a bushwalk through the wilderness surrounding the Never Never Picnic Area. This is a spectacular area within the Dorrigo National Park. I could quite easily have spent far more time there trekking up both Sassafras Creek and Rosewood Creek. These are some wild streams that cut there way through the heart of the national park. Given all of the recent rain in the region, they were truly at their best today.

The new camera got a work out today, but I am not completely sold on it – though as a camera for panoramic photos it is fantastic and well worth buying for that function alone. The photo I have included with this post is of Rosewood Creek directly above Coachwood Falls. It is a brilliant place and very wild indeed.

I did pick up several leeches throughout the day, with one attaching itself to me just below the left knee. It wasn’t found for some time and had a good feed and I a good bleed after it was removed. Several more were found in my socks but they weren’t able to force their way through.

I’ll be working on the various photos and videos over the next week or so and putting together various packages for the website, Flickr, YouTube, the Blog, etc. There are some really terrific photos and videos among them. Hopefully today’s shot will whet the appetite for the rest of them.

 

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Google Enters Wind Power Generation Business

Internet giant Google has signed an agreement to invest in offshore wind power generation in the United States. This looks like quite a project. Have a look at the Google Blog post concerning this enterprise at:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/wind-cries-transmission.html

2010 Red Centre Holiday: Destination Videos

I have come across a few videos on YouTube of some of the places I’ll be going to during my upcoming holiday and thought I’d post them here. These include videos of Uluru – Kata Tjuta National Park (Ayers Rock and The Olgas), Watarrka National Park (Kings Canyon), the West MacDonnell Ranges, Alice Springs and Cooper Pedy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NSW Road Trip 2010: A Few Thoughts From the Road

It is now day 5 of the road trip and I have already covered almost 3000km. As you can appreciate covering that amount of territory in 5 days doesn’t leave a lot of time to Blog, especially when I have been trying to keep the website updated as well.

See the NSW Road Trip 2010 website at:

http://www.kevinswilderness.com/NSW/nswRoadTrip2010.html

What I thought I might do in this Blog is just pass on a few thoughts that have come to me while I have been driving around this great state of Australia – New South Wales. Let’s call this post, ‘A Few Thoughts From the Road.’

I have often thought that the governments of this country are wasting a great opportunity in promoting tourism in Australia. With such great distances to travel in Australia, wouldn’t it be great if the governments came up with an action plan to improve the rest areas throughout the country. Certainly some of them have been upgraded to a wonderful state – but then there is a lack of maintenance.

Many of the rest areas I have stopped at in the last few days have no facilities at all. Often they are nothing more than an overloaded garbage bin on the side of a road, with limited space in which to park.

To cut a long story short, I think Australia’s tourism industry would get a great shot in the arm if rest areas were improved across the country. It would also be good if hey could be located somewhere with a good view, an attraction, a small park for families, etc.

To go a step further (and this is perhaps pie in the sky), wouldn’t it also be great for the many Australians that drive throughout the country on camping/caravan holidays, if a percentage of these rest areas had some limited facilities for tents and caravans as well?

Perhaps a lot more people would travel around the country if such improved rest areas were created. There would also need to be some plan to keep the maintenance of these areas up to scratch also.

Another thing that militates against the travelling tourism that is fairly popular in Australia (it could be far greater), is the condition of many of the caravan parks across the country. To be sure, there are some excellent parks – but there are also a large number of parks that charge top dollar for run down facilities and grubby grounds. These poor operators need to lift their games to provide good facilities for their customers or they won’t get the return business that caravan parks depend upon. They need to spend a bit of money in order to make money.

I won’t return to a caravan park in which I had a bad experience – whether it be top dollar for run down facilities, poor service, poor attitudes of operators, etc. Some of these places just have no idea how to run a successful caravan park.

More thoughts to come – these will do for today.

EARTH HOUR: A COLOSSAL WASTE OF TIME???

Earth Hour is to be held this Saturday (March 28) between 8.30 pm and 9.30 pm. All you need to do to take part in Earth Hour is simply turn your lights off for the hour between 8.30 pm and 9.30 pm on March 28.

Earth Hour began as an annual event in Sydney in 2007, when an estimated 2.2 million buildings switched off their lights for an hour. This year Earth Hour is going global for the second year and is giving people the opportunity to ‘vote’ for either the Earth or global warning. By switching off the lights for an hour a person can ‘vote’ for fighting global warning.

Organisers of Earth Hour are hoping some 1 billion people will ‘vote’ for the Earth and hope to be able to give world leaders 1 billion ‘votes’ for the Earth at the Global Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen 2009. The conference is the forum in which world leaders will determine policy to supersede the Kyoto Protocol on Greenhouse Gas reduction.

For more on Earth Hour visit the official website at:

http://www.earthhour.org  

However, is Earth Hour a colossal waste of time? What is really being gained by turning the lights off for an hour once a year? All other electrical devices are still on and a lot of people go for alternative lighting devices that also pollute the environment. Other than awareness of global warming (which I would suggest everyone knows about now and either believes or does not believe – turning off some lights won’t change anyone’s mind on global warming), what does Earth Hour really achieve?

The following Blog post makes for interesting reading:

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/earth_hour_crashes_to_earth/

Am I against reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions? Am I against reducing Global Warming and other associated disasters? Am I anti-environment? The answer to those questions is no! I’m just simply saying Earth Hour is little more than tokenism by most people who are against the Rudd government Greenhouse Gas Emissions reduction policies and other policies that actually aim to make a difference.

 

 

ALL AUSSIE ADVENTURES: SEASON 1 – Episode 3

Having posted the first 2 episodes of ‘All Aussie Adventures’ with Russell Coight (played by Glenn Robbins), I thought I’d now post the next instalment. If you missed the first, visit the URL below:

1.    https://kevinswildside.wordpress.com/2008/09/28/all-aussie-adventures-with-russell-coight/

2.    https://kevinswildside.wordpress.com/2008/10/04/all-aussie-adventures-next-instalment/

The next instalment is below in three parts:

ALL AUSSIE ADVENTURES: NEXT INSTALMENT

Having posted the first episode of ‘All Aussie Adventures’ with Russell Coight (played by Glenn Robbins), I thought I’d now post the next instalment. If you missed the first, visit the URL below:

https://kevinswildside.wordpress.com/2008/09/28/all-aussie-adventures-with-russell-coight/

 

The next instalment is below in three parts:

ALL AUSSIE ADVENTURES: With Russell Coight

Most people who know me know that I love the Australian bush and wilderness, and whenever I can I like to be able to get away from it all and head bush for a while.

Here in Australia there have been a number of television shows over the years that have explored the Australian outback and bush. A couple of years ago a different style of exploring Australia television shows hit the small screen – it was called ‘All Aussie Adventures,’ with Glenn Robbins playing the host Russell Coight. It was a send up of these types of shows and it always gave viewers a bit of a laugh with its light comedy.

Anyhow, I found some of the show on the Internet and thought I’d post some here for those interested in Australia from a somewhat different angle. A word of warning though – don’t take too much that Russell Coight says seriously (you’ll be led astray).

Visit the television shows web site at:

http://www.bigcoight.com/

 

Below: These clips show most of the first episode of All Aussie Adventures.