Queensland 2003
The following is an email which gives a pretty good summary of the trip to Queensland during March 2003. Set aside a few minutes.
G'day All,
Well it seems almost like an annual event, when I send an email and tell you about an interstate sojourn, and this year is no exception. Last year the missus and I went to WA, you can revisit the stats and photos from that trip on https://bakes202.tripod.com/wa2001.htm
The latest trip was a 3 week holiday to Queensland. The main purpose of the trip was to attend Simon and Hiroko's wedding in Noosa, and some quick sums quickly justified driving up instead of flying, as it ended up costing about the same for transport. In usual style, we chose routes to and from which were pretty interesting, which blew the k's out a bit, but it was worth it. This trip brings the last 12 months's travel in The General to about 40 000km.
First of all, some stats:
km traveled (from Ballarat only): 5394
Km I drove The General: 5700 (from Melbourne)
Km Deb drove The General: 0
average km/day: 283.9
litres of fuel consumed: 556.34
Cost of fuel consumed: $602.33
Average Cents per litre: 97.54
Average km / L: 9.695
Average L / 100km: 10.31
Average Miles / Gallon: 22.8 (note that this is 12% worse than the WA trip)
Average cents / km : 11.17
Highway km/L of new VY Commodore manual V6 : 14.71
Litres of Petrol the VY would have consumed for the same trip: 366.69 L
Litres of fuel the VK exceeded this amount by: 189.65 L
Approximate extra cost of this volume: $185
% extra spent running The General compared to new VY commodore(approx) : 50% more.
The amount the VY would have depreciated over the month and km: $1000
The amount The General depreciated over the month and km: $5
The amount spent repairing The General on the way: $0 (lucky)
The amount I saved in running the General and not some fancy new VY: $810
Ratio of the the legendary status of a VK commodore over the fancy new VY: 20 million.
Ratio of curses used by driver of a VK when starting it, compared to VY driver:1000.
Areas where fuel economy was best: - flat sections of highway doing 100
Areas where fuel economy was worst: - city driving
(Tanks of fuel where we did a lot of gravel driving, windy mountain roads, and sitting on 110, were not that bad)
Total Food cost: $170
Total Accomodation cost: $392 (see below)
Total Fuel Cost $602
Total Parking / Taxi / public transport cost: 322.4 (see below)
Entertainment : 64
Total trip cost: $1550
Well, now that that's out of the way, a brief description of the trip. We started off driving to Tumut to visit Shane, who orchestrated a complex covert effort to get us past the security at the industrial installation he works at, so that we could drop in for half an hour. Then we took the snowy mountain highway to Cooma, and had a look at the fire affected areas on the way. Then to Canberra, where as Simon's guests of honor, we watched Australia pull off a miraculous win against NZ, well most of it because we hit the sack after getting back from the pub, thinking NZ had it won! At the pub I consolidated my domination of Simon on the pool table, decimating him in the much - anticipated rematch of the previous drubbing.
Further north then to Sydney, where we did the tourist thing and looked at their bloody bridge and opera house and everything in between (first time I'd seen it). Then we went to Kym Schilling's place and had a few beers, during which Kym begged and coerced us into going to King's Cross. Finally we gave in to his ardent manipulation (he was even feeding us beer to thwart our better judgment, although I bet ya Kym will argue that it was my idea…) and went in to look at the freaks. The weirdest thing there was seeing a very fat, unattractive woman dressed in normal clothes, offering herself as a hooker! Struth, you'd have to be hard up. Kym shouted me the biggest steak I've ever seen, so I wont need red meat for a few months now, and the NSW beef industry will look good for the first quarter due to the apparent late surge in sales.
We drove west of Sydney after a couple hours' body surfing at Bondi, driving to the Katoomba area where we hiked down the Wentworth falls. The falls were bloody amazing, and the views of it and the mountains beyond it was absolutely awesome, photos don’t do it justice. I had a bit of a dip and shower (literally) as well, in a smaller section of the massive falls, which still hit hard enough to give you a headache. Next day we drove up and around the northern road, "bells line of road" I think, which took us back across the mountains, where the latent muscle of the Holden 202 Black motor was fully explored - went flat out, working the corners and gears in the legendary VK. On one bit I was dragging a V8 Holden ute around a hairpin and then up a really steep grade - I won the corner, but he wound me in on the uphill. I was absolutely flat out, doing about 60 in 2nd with the foot on the floor, you could hear him working it, the disgruntled rumble of the big Holden 8 as he slouched past. I was proud to be beaten by a mean Holden ute.
Anyway, the color started to return to my knuckles as I approached Port Macquarie, so I called Chris, who used to live there, for some local knowledge. He directed me to a few beaches, which we body surfed at, then did some driving on rough local roads before camping at Plover's point, on a great stretch of the coast south of Crescent Head. Then north to Coffs for a body surf and a snorkel, saw a 4 foot gummy shark, couple of sting rays, and some other fish I've never seen, great little spot just up from the "no swimming" sign. Then to Nimben, at which we broke the previous record, and got offered drugs 12 times. Last time was 9. A cool place, but it suffers from tourists a bit. Same again for Byron, the next port of call, which has become a protectorate of the UK, with heaps of British backpackers giving the place some life. Surf was crap while we were there, but the pub went off, the Cheeky Monkey was awesome.
Then via Tweed Heads etc to the Gold coast, where we stayed a couple nights looking at the glitz and chicks on the main drag and then the next day to Wet and Wild. Had a bloody awesome day, got there early and stayed until they kicked us out kicking and screaming. Was absolutely buggered by the end. Great fun.
Then to Noosa for four days, where we joined Martin, Nick, Rebecca, Brooke, and Sharah to swim, drink and watch Simon and Hiroko tie the knot. Deb and I stayed in a motel for the first time, pretty flash, but in the end I'd rather a tent in the bush and save the $80 per day fee. The boquet toss was a highlight. Good luck to Martin, who is buggered after Brooke obviously put months of training to good effect, and spec-ied the other girls to grab glory. (Although the photos tend to suggest otherwise) Nick and I were pretty pleased with the outcome, after much anticipation, and coaching of the girls who were not our respective partners.
We headed south after that, beach hopped down the sunshine coast before heading west to the Glass House Mountains. These were bloody awesome, the tallest one is a great climb. It had a sign saying "experienced climbers only, 3 hours return". I thought, "yeah bullshit" and went anyway. 4 hours later we arrived back, absolutely knackered, hungry, thirsty, and having spent most of the climb on all fours and struggling in the steel caps to find foot grips etc. and thought, "yeah, that sign's fair enough". It was well worth it, though, an awesome climb, and a fantastic view from the top.
We then ventured to Brisbane where we did a lap of the city, gardens and riverside area. We were pretty impressed with Brisbane until we returned to find the car MISSING. Yep, The General was not where we left it. The Mighty General was gone. Someone, other than me, had moved The General from where it had been! Was I pissed off? You better believe it. Some frantic enquiries revealed that The General had been towed.
Hence, in a David and Goliath like battle, negotiations are currently underway with the shiny and regimented arsehole that is the Brisbane City Council, the main argument being that there was no signage to indicate that we were not allowed to park there. Two hours and $300 later, we had The Mighty General back. Yes. Three Hundred Dollars.
The website now lists:
- The things one can do with $300.
- Previous serious offences for which the fine has been $300.
Indeed, one is inclined to think that a $300 fine for parking at a spot which was not even in the way of anything for a total of 9 minutes, was disproportionate to the impact which it had on society. If anything, I would expect some remuneration from BCC for gracing their otherwise uninspiring streets with the legendary form of The Mighty General. A letter from them apologizing for the inconvenience and expressing gratitude at the privilege of the brief presence of The Mighty General in their otherwise shithouse city is wanting, as is the refund, which is the subject of intense negotiations as we speak. To use some of the rhetoric of George "little dick" Bush, the campaign will be a protracted one.
Anyway, Deb talked me out of setting alight to Brisbane in the spirit of the Fires of London, and having the satisfaction of seeing the city burn in bright red flames in the rear vision mirror, amid the terror and wailing of its desperate and regretful citizens… It was in such a temperament that we drove south in the dark, south to a state park a couple hundred k's from there.
We awoke to drive through The Lion's Way, or something, which is a beaut road as an alternative to the main drag, through a national park or two, just north of Casino. Then west to arrive at a spot just past innesfail, where we camped on a river which was beaut for swimming in, and had fantastic rock formations which formed a natural pool. Unreal. Sitting around the campfire that night was a far cry from having to deal with the arseholes in the big smoke (unfortunately not literally) two nights before.
Woke at dawn and drove to Lightning Ridge, an opal town north east of Burke. It was really impressive. Even bought some cheaper opals. We camped in the bush just south of there before waking at dawn the next day to drive 1100km to a spot on the Murray near Echuca (the usual spot where the lads go) and then drove to work in Ballarat from there the following morning, to start at 9am.
Sorry that the email is so long, well done if you got this far and actually read it all, stay tuned for the website update, which will include this email and photos from the trip, along with many other updates, soon.
Bakes.
