The Great Aussie Adventure
I’ve worked out my ‘great Australian adventure’. Here’s an image of the route:
Over 18,000km, taking me 40 days. Here’s how I’ve planned it out:
- HOME
- Leave Canberra, head to the east coast.
- VICTORIA
- Follow the coastline down to south of Melbourne.
- Head across to Ballarat, enjoy some tourist attractions I remember from my childhood.
- Head south to the coastline.
- SOUTH AUSTRALIA
- Follow the coastline to Adelaide.
- Head north to Pt Augusta.
- Head southwest to the Great Australian Bight.
- WESTERN AUSTRALIA
- Follow the coastline across the Nullarbor Plain, do some whale spotting.
- Head north to Kalgoorlie.
- Explore some gold mines.
- Head west to Perth.
- Rest, spend a few days with my friend Mel.
- Head north, do some National Park tours (The Pinnacles, etc).
- Continue north, feed some dolphins (Monkey Mia).
Plans for 2009
I hope you all had a merry xmas and a great new year. Did you do anything special or interesting for xmas?
I travelled to Adelaide, catching up with my own family and Deidre’s. It was good. It involved lots of driving, though, but oddly, that was also good.
When I’ve driven in the recent past, I’ve usually ended up with stiff and sore shoulders, where they held the tension while driving. I really don’t know what was different, but I had none of that this time around. And if you knew my shoulders, you’d be as surprised as me…
I can only imagine that I was a lot more relaxed than I have been in the past, holding less tension inside of me. I think that had a lot to do with it.
Merry Christmas!
I’m sitting here at Deidre’s dad’s place, relaxing for the first time in a few days. I’m writing this on my iPhone ’cause my laptop’s mobile broadband isn’t working here. And that’s why I went to the local mall this afternoon to buy a new mobile broadband account. Pity their system was down, so here I am with this instead…
The 10-hour drive from Canberra to Berri in Sth Australia was relatively uneventful. Then onto Adelaide for another 3-hour drive before finally arriving.
And I’ll be doing it in reverse on the 27th-28th going back home.
I came down with a cold the night before leaving, so driving while ill has been interesting.
As I’ve been travelling, I’ve been providing updates via Twitter, including a few photos here and there. You can see these in ‘Alan’s Lifestream’.
Upcoming plans
My busy-ness (is that such a word) has gone up a few levels over the past couple of week. I’m actually in a position that keeps me busy all day!
One of the really awesome things about it is that it’s a management role, and for the introvert in me, that’s just the kind of thing I need to expand my abilities. There’s all kinds of networking needing to be done, staff management, and even the occasional heated discussion with a senior manager if it seems warranted. (No point being a ‘yes’ man!)
And then, after being around people and talking to them most of the day, continuing to be around people is just the last thing I want to do at the end of the day, so I’m usually on Eve Online of an evening.
That’s what life is currently revolving around, so there’s very little to write about in here.
Future plans
Yeh, I know, I haven't written anything for a couple of weeks. I've been spending a lot of time and energy on finishing up my work and looking for another contract to move on to. I haven't got anything yet, but I'm enjoying the free time I have right now. It'll end soon, when I get another role and will become busy again.
One of the issues about contracting is the time between contracts, which can be a little frustrating, so I'm going to do some focusing on full time work instead of just contracting. Bring on some stability. 
With more changes in my life, I've changed the blog template again. I'm after the perfect template, but I haven't found it yet. When I do, you'll know.
