“Of the gladest moments in human life, methinks is the departure upon a distant journey to unknown lands. Shaking off with one mighty effort the fetters of habit, the leaden weight of Routine, the cloak of many Cares and the Slavery of Home, man feels once more happy. The blood flows with the fast circulation of childhood….afresh dawns the morn of life…” Sir Richard Francis Burton – A British explorer from the 1800’s.
After putting this off for a number years, in early June 2009 I finally transformed “ExpeditionOz” from being a blog into a business called “ExpeditionOz Services“.
Here is the blurb as taken from the “about us” page of the website:
Our heritage in planning trips, and later expeditions, started in the late 1980’s when i took on roles such as tour and production manager for a number of bands and live corporate events around Australia and the Australasian region. These roles included organising transport (ie. personnel buses and vehicles, planes, equipment transport trucks, transport planes, boats, etc) and sourcing equipment, accommodation, food services, communications and a variety of staff.
Travelling around Australia for large periods of time and to a number of remote places gave me a taste for exploring not only our own amazing continent but other areas of the world in further detail. Between 1990 and today I have undertaken many trips, the longest of which have included exploring the Swiss Alps for three weeks and spending five weeks in the Australian outback exploring regions such as the Strzelecki Desert, Lake Eyre, the Woomera region including Lake Gairdner, the Painted and Pedirka Desert, the Petermann Ranges, Palm Valley, the Tanami Desert and the east Kimberley.
So this new found love of spending time in the big blue room resulted in the starting of a blog called “ExpeditionOz” in 2003, which was to highlight the personal trips I was undertaking, along with equipment reviews and news of outdoor equipment and gadgets that we found interesting.
Well…after six years, and thousands of kilometres of travelling, the launching of the fifth version of the website is an important step, as it also is the start of turning my little personal website into an expedition planning business called “ExpeditionOz Services“.
While the head quarters of ExpeditionOz Services is located in the mountains of the Great Dividing Range, about 100km east of Melbourne in the Australian State of Victoria, we provide a variety of services for locations both in and out of Australia, which over the next six months will include the following:
Expedition Planning & Services
Online & Offline Mapping
Hosted Expedition Websites
Remote Photography & Video Production
An Equipment Store
Remote Site Surveying
ExpeditionOz Expeditions
We can offer most of the above services at the moment, with the intention being to scale our availability as the need arises, and we are more than happy to work with you on planning your personal, business or scientific expedition, no matter how large or small your expedition or budget is.
In addition to planning your own expedition, we will occasionally be offering the opportunity for people to join with us in some of our own expeditions. Our most current and ongoing personal expedition entails climbing the highest peak in each of the Australian States. A number of expeditions are currently in planning for 2010 and 2011 as well.
The blog portion of the website will continue to highlight my personal stories and photos from my various travels, as well as providing a place to find links and information to some of the interesting places, people and equipment that seem to emanate from the outdoor travel, adventure sport and expedition community, particularly from Australia.
Mick Stanic
CEO – Chief Expedition Officer
Monday the 15th of June 2009
Me on top of Mt Kosciuszko, which at 2,228m is the highest mountain on the Australian mainland.
You can track my (almost) current location, by checking out the items below, which are provided by two different services that utilise a JAVA MIDP2.0 application loaded onto my ZTE T165i mobile phone along with its internal GPS device.
The first two come from TrackMyJourney, which provides a bundle of GPS related data on your phone as well as linking your location (and recent track) into an image that auto-update’s as well as a standalone still image. While this service doesn’t utilise any of the major online mapping services (Windows Live, Google Maps. etc) on your phone, it does provide a utility allowing you to import any maps you do own after converting them to the TMG format.
Unfortunately, for some reason TrackMyJourney occasionally seems to think that i am located at 0°0′0″N and 0°0′0″E
The next service, from GMap-Track, provides a very simple output showing your last reported location on a map (Windows Live, Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, etc) in your mobile, as well as the ability to embed a Google Map into a web page.
While both applications are good and easy to use, and GMap-Track is great from a web page embedding perspective, TrackMyJourney does provide a lot more info and options, but…it would be nice to see it include the option to utilise map images from Windows Live, Google Maps and others if you required them.
“The wild charm and exciting desire that induce an individual to undertake the arduous tasks that lie before an explorer, and the pleasure and delight of visiting new and totally unknown places, are only whetted by his first attempt.” Ernest Giles – An Australian explorer from the late 1800’s..
“I am just going outside and may be some time.” Captain Lawrence Oates – An English explorers last words as he left the tent housing Scott’s antarctic party and wandered off into a blizzard to die.
Since mid October last year I’ve added three new Victorian mountains to my summit list.
Mt Riddell (781m) on the 17th of October 2008
Mt Useful (1435m) on the 29th of December 2008
Mt Selma (1456m) on the 29th of December 2008
I had also planned to finally bag Victoria’s highest mountain, Mt Bogong, (on New Years Eve) but unfortunately a tyre puncture on the 28th of December put my plans out of motion :(
Anyway…photos, reports and maps coming soon for my three new additions :)
“Stuff your eyes with wonder . . . live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.” Ray Bradbury – An American writer
While traveling across Australia (or any country), its always good to know a bit about the local lingo (local language, slang or idiom) because you can often get caught out during a conversation when you don’t understand what someone has just said to you.
Time to move onto the letter “B”
B
Back of Beyond: far out bush as you can get, right out in the outback of Australia
Back of Bourke: the middle of nowhere
Bagged someone: critised or put someone down
Bags: claim, assert your right to something. e.g. “I bags the next go.” means that you are claiming the next turn
Bail up: hold up OR rob OR earbash
Balls up: a mess, terrible mistake, everything has gone wrong
Barbie: barbecue, BBQ, e.g.”I’ll throw some shrimp on the barbie”. (We actually don’t call them “shrimp”. They are prawns in OZ).
Banana bender: a person from Queensland
Bang on: it’s hit the target right in the middle, OR it’s right, or correct
Banged up: pregnant
over with the Bar flies: over talking to the old men who drink and talk in the front bar of a pub from when it opens to when it closes
give it a Bash: you will try something you are not sure of (have a go)
Basket case: someone close to mental illness
Bastard: can be a term of endearment eg. “How are ya going ya old bastard?”
old Battle-Axe: wife OR mother-in-law
Battler: someone who works hard to earn a living by honest means
Beating around the bush: not getting to the point when explaining something
Beaut, beauty: great, fantastic, terrific, something that went real well, (you little beauty!)
Berko: angry or upset (in an unreasonable way)
going to have a Bex: you are going to settle yourself down from some sort of stress (figuratively not taking a Bex which is a drug) but usually a cup a tea, a cry and a good rest
Big note yourself: to skite, that is to say you are better or more important than you really are
Billabong: an ox-bow river or watering hole
Billy: large tin can used to boil water over a campfire for tea, “put the billy on”
past the Black stump: way out in the bush (the same as “back of beyond”)
Block: your head, eg. “I’ll knock your block off if you do that again!”
do your Block: you are angry or lose your temper
go to the Block: go to your vacant piece of land
Blow through: leave town in a hurry
Blowies: blow flies
Bloke: male, man, guy
Bloody: very (e.g. bloody hard yakka)
Bloody oath!: that’s certainly true, too right
Blowing your dough: spending all your money
Bludge: to be lazy, to do nothing at all
Bludger: lazy person, layabout, somebody who always relies on other people to do things or lend him things
Blue: fight or argument (”he was having a blue with his wife”)
true Blue: something that is genuine Australian
Bluey: Nick-name for a red-headed bloke OR pack/equipment
Blue Heeler: policeman/policewoman OR Queensland cattle dog
Bob’s your uncle: Hey presto, what you say when things suddenly fall into place
Bolted: left very quickly (often from the scene of a misdemeanor or accident
Bone to pick: you have to talk with someone who has done something you disagree with, have it out with them
Bonzer mate!: that’s great friend, ripper
Boogie board: a body board, half-sized surf board
Boomer: a large male kangaroo, Australian basket-baller
Booze: alcohol, grog
Boozer: pub or hotel OR a person who is a heavy drinker
Booze bus: Police van used for random breath testing for drink drivers
Brass: money, “have you got any brass on ya?”, (have you got any money?)
Brass razoo: no money (”I haven’t got a brass razoo”)
Breaky: breakfast, first meal of the day
Breadbasket: stomach or tummy
mow the Brigalo suckers: shave the beard
Broken packet of biscuits: someone whose life looks OK on the outside, but is a mess on the inside
Brown dog – “kick a Brown dog”: you are frustrated and going to get your tension out (you don’t literally kick a dog)
Brown-nose: suck-up, give favours
Buckley’s, Buckley’s chance, Buckley’s & none: no chance (”New Zealand stands Buckley’s of beating Australia at football”)
Bugalugs: a friendly endearment
Bugger all: doing absolutely nothing
Buggered: broken, had it
Bull dust: a lie or a tall story
Bullamakanka: imaginary place in the far outback, as far as you can go in the bush
Built like a brick shit house: you are saying someone is very strong or big, well built (outside toilets are usually made of wood)
Bung: to put (bung another snag on the barbie mate!)
Bunyip: mythical creature from the outback
give it a Burl: give something a try, that you haven’t done before
Bush: the Outback, anywhere that isn’t in town
Bush-bash: go off road in a vehicle, forcing your way through bush without roads
Bush telegraph: the town gossip network
what is this? Bush week?: How they respond when you tell someone something that is unlikely or untrue
give it a “Butchers”: short for “butchers hook” it means you will look into it (”look” rhymes with “butcher’s hook”)
B.Y.O.: unlicensed restaurant where you have to Bring Your Own grog (alcohol), also applies to a party or barbecue
“When you’re safe at home you wish you were having an adventure; when you’re having an adventure you wish you were safe at home” Thornton Wilder – An American playwright and novelist.
While traveling across Australia (or any country), its always good to know a bit about the local lingo (local language, slang or idiom) because you can often get caught out during a conversation when you don’t understand what someone has just said to you.
I’ll start with the letter “A”
A
Ace: excellent, fantastic, terrific
Aggro: aggravated, angry or upset
Alf: stupid person
Amber fluid: beer, ale
Ankle biter: young child (see kid)
Ants pants: height of fashion, OR high opinion of themselves
Anyhow mate!: a saying used to change the subject when talking (usually when bored with what is being said – made famous by cigarette company advertising “Anyhow, have a Winfield”)
Apple-eater: someone who lives in the state of Tasmania (apple growing state)
she’ll be Apples!: everything’ll be okay
Apricots: a man’s testicles
Arse over tit: to fall over
this Arvo: this afternoon
Aussie: someone from Australia, an Australian
Av-a-go-yer-mug: someone is not trying hard enough playing their sport, and you want them to! (this is yelled out to encourage them a bit)
During the middle of this week, i finally purcahsed a new phone after my old Motorola RAZR got a crack on its front screen. After being on a really frequent upgrade path and always having the latest and greatest phones between 2000 and 2006, the RAZR was a really good simple phone and survived everything i threw at it.
So…in looking for a new NextG phone three things were on my list of must haves:
A phone that worked really well in regional and remote areas
A phone that could be connected to a computer and used as a modem
A phone that could have an external antenna attached to it
After visiting the new T [life] store in Melbourne, i found all the things i was looking for in the ZTE T165i.
The phone specifications are:
Durable candy bar design with extendable antenna for maximum coverage. Ideal for all users offering top coverage performance in a durable case. Includes FM radio, daylight viewable QVGA display and 2 megapixel camera.
Main features:
Daylight viewable TFT LCD display
FM radio, MP3 player and ringtones
A-GPS (Assisted Global Positioning System) support
Tri band UMTS, Quad band GSM
Extendable antenna
Bluetooth 1.2 with stereo headset support
2.0 megapixel auto-focus camera with digital zoom
Dual camera design for video calling
T-Flash memory up to 4GB microSDHC
Personal organiser / calendar
Speakerphone
Java MIDP 2.0 for games and applications
USB connectivity included
Compatible with handsfree car kit with external antenna
Predictive text and built in dictionary for easy SMS
Large Li-ion battery for long life
Comes with:
USB cable
Windows 2000 (SP4), XP (SP2), Vista compatible PC software
MAC OS drivers and Dial Up Client
Personal handsfree kit
AC charger
User manual
Technical Specifications:
UMTS 850 / 1900 / 2100 MHz
HSDPA 7.2 Mbps*
GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 MHz
250 hours standby, 3.5 hours talk time
TFT display 240 x 320, 262K colours
Java MIDP 2.0
Bluetooth 1.2 – FTP / HFP / A2DP (Stereo) / DUN
Size 117mm x 51mm x 16mm
Weight 119g (including standard battery)
The phone was apparently designed by ZTE in Australia, after Telstra’s request for a good regional NextG phone, and manufactured by ZTE in China.
At the country property, about 100km east of the Melbourne CBD, i have never been able to get my mobile phone to work or had any luck getting a working internet connection (except with a very funky modem and high gain antenna from work). I can’t get ADSL or ISDN because the place is to far from the closest exchange, the standard NextG modem won’t work accorsing to the NextG website, so that left me looking at a possible dual satellite setup. Even with the government rebate, the cost is excessive…for $500 a month you et a 4GB plan (15c per MB on excess) and speeds of 800kbps for downloads and 128 kbps for uploads.
Well…the T165i works fine as a NextG modem (with the external antenna) as i wrote this post with it from the country property :)
