photo credit: jonathansin

So I’ve had a HTC Magic on 3 for a while now excellent phone. Been patiently waiting for them to release the updated firmware with Android 1.6 and the HTC Sense UI for it. Well yesterday they finally did. Pity it’s completely useless.

The firmware updater will not updated the phone without the HTC Sync software installed (yay more bloatware). The HTC Sync software of course didn’t support Windows 7. Hunt round to find that try to install. Oh it doesn’t support 64 bit either. But no there is no version available that supports 64 bit. Lazy fuckers the Android SDK provides full drivers for 64 bit for talking to the phone but HTC can’t be arsed supporting it in their updater.

At this point I’m going back to using the Android SDK to load the latest Cyanogenmod release back into the phone.

The boys arriving

It’s hard getting the entire wedding party in the shot

Look Annette in a dress! Who woulda thunk it?

For the rest of the photos see Flickr

The penguins at Bicheno

Somewhere on the east coast of Tassie between Bicheno and Hobart

All the rest

Getting off the ferry in Devenport it was bloody cold. Three days ago we where riding through 44° and today not quite 10° as we got off the boat. Not so bad for the others who where all loaded into the car but for me riding my bike off the ferry, what fun.

After unloading and setting off we started passing the imaginatively named New Road, School Road and Smith & Others Road. Then we hit the first of the passes and valleys. Damn that was cold. After stopping and getting all the cold weather riding gear we headed on.

About 3,750km after leaving Perth, Western Australia we arrived in Perth, Tasmania and decided it was a good time to stop for morning tea. It had gotten to a balmy 18° by this point. We did of course have to stop by the Welcome to Perth sign for a photo op.

After Perth we headed down to Campbelltown before taking one of the mountain passes across to the coast and then back up to Bicheno. Good ride, lots of twisty bits and good enough roads that you could actually get into it and enjoy the ride.

Of course the temperature left a little bit to be desired. At the top of the pass in direct sun it was only 12°. Was pretty much frozen solid and hurting by the time we pulled in to Bicheno.

Day 8: Rest Day Woo!

Today we finally had a break, no need to actually go riding it was great. Slept in, had breakfast at 8am, nice and late compared to the 6am starts we’d been doing.

After a long work up finally decided that maybe should do something so went for a ride . Just a short little one to figure out why the bike wasn’t feeling right on the ride in the day before. Took about 10 seconds to figure out now that I wasn’t frozen or hurting. Due to the massive change in base air temp the tyres where 5psi under pressure. Putting air in the tyres and the bike suddenly starts handling properly, awesome.

Day 9: Bicheno to Hobart

Finally a nice short day, not even quite 200kms. Just a short blat down the coast to Hobart. Found a couple of nice spots to stop and take photos. And some great roads. Then of course we made it to Hobart and checked in, myself to the linux.conf.au accommodation and the rest of the family to a nice little place down on Sandy Bay Road (with an awesome Indian place right next door).

Day 4 was by far the hardest day of the trip, while we only had 500 odd kilometers to travel, as apposed to the previous days 700+, the temperature started at 30°C and went up from there. Eventually it reached between 43°C and 45°C at various points along the day’s travel.

Needless to say the days focus was purely on staying hydrated and making it to Adelaide rather than taking photos (it was much cooler and comfortable while moving rather than stopped).

One thing I do remember about the day is coming around a bend, seeing a wind farm on the small hill we where riding along side and thinking “oh crap, the cross wind here is just gonna suck”. I was right.

Day 5: Adelaide to Portland

Not much really to say about this days riding, nice easy no cross winds, pleasant mid 30s temperature. All in all a very nice break from the previous day.

In Portland we went for a drive around town to see if any of the houses my great-grandfather lived in where still standing. Turns out one of them probably is but its been renovated and expended so much that it’s hard to tell.

We did take several photos of some of the older places to see if any are still recognisable to my grandmother.

Day 6: Portland to Port Melbourne

It was immediately obvious the previous day when we crossed from South Australia into Victoria, the quality of the road surface dropped dramatically and the number of signs extolling how much VicRoads is spending and how tired you must be driving on all the ‘remote country roads’ sky rocketed.

Frankly if VicRoads spent half as much on actually maintaining the bloody roads as they did on signs, in one 1km stretch we had 5 sets of signs telling us that the speed limit was 80km/h, the roads might come up to the quality of the worst roads in any other state. Seriously the dirt tracks giving access to the lookouts over the Great Australian Bite, 200km from any sort of civilisation let alone an actual town, where smoother and safer to ride on than National Highway 1 in Victoria.

Originally we’d planned to ride the Great Ocean Road between Portland and Port Melbourne, however because of availability of bookings on the Ferry we where unable to take a planned rest day in Adelaide. This meant that by the time we’d gotten to the Great Ocean Road we’d been riding for 5 days straight, one of which was truly brutal. Figuring we where all to tired and thus wouldn’t really get the most out of riding the Great Ocean Road we decided to skip it for now, catch it on the return leg and just ride through to the Port.

Any way despite the roads we made it to Port Melbourne in plenty of time to load up the bikes onto the trailer, get on the Spirit of Tasmania II and head across.

Of course it couldn’t simply be that simple. I got rather sea sick and Karen managed to fall and sprain her ankle. Which meant I had a rather terrible night and she was gonna have a rather less interesting week than planned. No bike riding for her.

Day 1: Perth to Norseman

Day 1 was a good 700km to start us off, where a bit late getting away but thats life. Unfortunately I was still suffering from a stomach bug so by about 12:30 I was pretty much completely out of it and delirious. So we loaded my bike onto the trailer and I spent a good chunk of the afternoon out of it in the car.

Day 2: Norseman to Border Village

Another 750km today, I felt much better and ended up riding all day which was great. The best part of the days ride was 90 mile straight, Australia’s longest straight section of road. Mum and I took off and did the entire straight in a little under an hour. Great fun.

As part of the day’s travels we also went down through the Madura Pass. The view from the lookout was amazing. Put together a nice little panorama from the lookout.

Day 3: Border Village to Wudina

Day 3 was yet another 700km day, it was unfortunately my turn to drive the car so no riding for me today. The view however along the bite was spectacular. Stopped at a couple of the lookout point to take photos including probably my favourite of the trip so far.

Have to say the place we stayed in Wudina was excellent. Nice spacious rooms, excellent food and best of all plenty of power points in the all the rooms.

New Year’s day and this morning was spent working out how to get the bikes up on the trailer. Finally figured out how to get three up there at once. I suspect we’ll only put three up for the ferry crossings, it’s much simpler putting up 1 or 2.

Any took a few photos with my folks and my sister’s bike up on the trailer, its starting to feel like this actually gonna happen.

By complete coincidence we where up there only two days after the memorial for the HMAS Sydney. So before we left on Sunday morning we headed up to check it out. Quite a view from up there got a few photos which are below.