Brilliant :)

In all seriousness though, Les Hiddens (wikipedia entry) is an absolute legend.

It’s running under the Brightcove Internet TV Platform, which i first tested on my SplaTT-tv site back in September of 2006, and it seems to have been running OK since then so i thought I’d get it set up as the ExpeditionOz Video Library and see how it goes.

If you are interested…the camera I will be using is one that I bought last year for the princley sum of AUD $160 and is manufactured by Oregon Scientific. It’s called the Action Cam and it’s a great little unit with the following specs:

• Full-function, hands-free, digital recording
• Waterproof up to 3 meters and shock-resistant for extreme conditions
• Mounts easily on helmets, handlebars, and other sports equipment
• 640 x 480 VGA resolution at 30 frames per second
• USB and RCA cables included for easy playback on PC or TV (NTSC)
• SD card expansion up to 2GB – onboard memory is 32MB
• Operates with 2 AA batteries, not included
• Dimensions: 4.25L x 1.75D x 2.25H (in.)

It’s designed to mount on a bike, or a helmet, so it’s perfect for hiking, rock climbing, canoeing and riverboarding expeditions…it also straps onto both the bullbar and snorkel of my Land Rover Discovery really easily as well…so as I record them…I’ll upload them into the library :)

I covered a huge area, driving around 14,000km in the 29 days and took a heap of photos including shots of the following (listed in alphabetical order): Aboriginal rock art, jumping crocodiles at the Adelaide River, Alice Springs, Arnhem Land from a plane, Ayers Rock / Uluru, Blyth, Boab trees including the Prison Tree, the Bungle Bungle Ranges, camels, the Cat Tree, the Chamberlain River, the Daly River, Darwin, lots of desert terrain, the Devils Marbles, Docker River, my dscvry, Dundee Beach, the East Alligator River, the Finke River, the Gibb River Road, Giles, Giles-Mulga Park Road, the Great Central Road, Grosse Bluff, the Gunbarrel Highway, Island Lagoon, the site of the Island Lagoon NASA tracking station, Kakadu National Park, the Karunjie Track, Kata Tjuta, Kulpi Tjuntinya, Kununurra, Lake Eyre, Lake Hart, Lasseters Cave, Len Beadell paintings, Len Beadells grader, Len Beadells grave site, Litchfield National Park, the Lost City, Nourlangie, Olga Gorge, Oodnadatta and the Oodnadatta Track, Palm Valley and its rare Red Cabbage Palms, the Petermann Ranges, Rum Jungle, the Tanami Desert, the Tanami Road, The Olgas, Tjukururu Road, Tjunti, the Ubirr art site, Warakurna, the West Arm, Wolfe Creek Meteorite Crater, Woomera, the Woomera Rocket Park and areas of the Woomera Rocket Range and Wyndham with its crocodile farm…like i said…I was gone for 29 days.

I’ve made a few trips out to this amazing part of Australia, and even though I’m more of a mountain person at heart, I love spending time in terrain that is so different from what I was surrounded by while i was growing up. Hopefully i can plan a trip out to the region again in the near future…but this time with my good 10 MegaPixel still camera and a video camera as well :)

[album: http://www.expeditionoz.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/dm-albums/albums/2002/200207_santwa/]

I did my fair share of solo trips, including some really big ones like my 29 day trek into the heart of the australian desert in South Australia, the Northern Territory and Western Australia, but i was also out and about with friends from work like Marco, Sean and Rob. It was the year i bought my Sar Major Discovery swag (which i still use today) and fitted out DSCVRY with Coopers Tyres (just about to get them changed for a new set after doing over 100,000km of travel on them), an ARB bullbar and cage, a GME CB radio and and a heap of other stuff i still use today.

2001 was also the year i switched over to a digital camera (the first one wasn’t a great one by todays standards), so i took heaps of photos while out on expeditions. I’ve just uploaded the following sets of photos to the ExpeditionOz Photo Library:

• 20020120 – Abercrombie River National Park, NSW
• 20020201 – Upper Yarra Valley, Dargo, Hotham, Bogong, Kosciuszko and the ACT
• 20020210 – Yengo National Park, NSW
• 20020216 – The Lost City and The Spanish Steps, Newnes State Forest, NSW
• 20020310 – Morton National Park, NSW
• 20020324 – Awaba RV Training Ground, Awaba State Forest, NSW
• 20020401 – Chichester River, Barrington Tops National Park, NSW
• 20020427 – Oallen Ford, Morton National Park, NSW
• 20020512 – Land Rover Training Day, Boat Harbour, NSW
• 20020525 – Lake Burley Griffith and Mt Coree, ACT
• 20020608 – Chichester State Forest, NSW
• 200207 – 29 Day Desert Expedition, SA, NT and WA (coming soon)
• 20020914 – Kanangra-Boyd National Park and Blue Mountains National Park, NSW
• 20020924 – Land Rover Owners Club of NSW “2002 Khanafari”, near Bathurst, NSW
• 20021005 – Kanangra-Boyd National Park and Blue Mountains National Park, NSW
• 20021025 – Land Rover Stand at the 2002 Sydney Car Show, NSW
• 20021117 – 2002 Urban Polaris, Canberra ACT
• 20021225 – Thredbo, Cannonball Run, Island Bend and Mt Kosciuszko, NSW

The biggest photo set of 2002 was from my 29 day trip into the Australian Desert, which i will hopefully add into the library in the next few days…enjoy :)

I have a few small hickups with the system at the moment caching some of the photos from 2007, (or to be more precise, its seems to have lost some of its cache) but i hope you enjoy what you can currently get to and there will soon be a lot more ;)

After a five hour drive I finally made it back to HQ. It was pretty uneventfull drive, though just as i was leaving The General at Mt Hotham a CFA ute and firetruck went screaming though the village heading west. I spoke to someone outside the CFA fire station and they told me that the truck was heading down to a possible fire on the Dargo High Plains.

It was pretty busy in the Ovens Valley and every caravan park or motel i drove past was full, so I made the dash for the Upper Yarra Valley and after seeing one kangaroo on the road between Seymour and Yea, here i am safe and sound at ExpeditionOz HQ.

The speedometer on DSCVRY is reading 119,254 km, so i managed to clock up 1,092 km of driving on this expedition…all in all it was a good expedition and on top of these logs, which i will enter into the blog on my return to connectivity, i’ll try and get around to doing some equipment reviews as quickly as possible…though…i do need to start planning the next expedition ;)

Check out this Windows Live map for locations.

[album: http://www.expeditionoz.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/dm-albums/albums/2008/20080101e/]

I’m absolutely buggered…the walk back was really hot and i ran out of water with about 2km to go which wasn’t exactly a smart thing to do with this heat. I was going to fill up my 2.1 litre water bladder that sits in the back of the pack near the base of the Mt Feathertop ascent, but thought that i had enough left over which was a silly mistake. You would think i would have learnt by now that you always fill up on water whenever you get the opportunity.

Other than the heat and the lack of water near the end, the walk back was pretty good. I had to stop a few times and recoup, but it just meant i got to check out some amazing views :)

When i finally arrived back at Diamantina Hut and DSCVRY, i threw down a couple of cups of water, drenched myself with about 500ml of water to cool down and changed out of my walking clothes into a clean shirt, some shorts and replaced the walking boots with my Teva sandals.

I’ve packed DSCVRY and now I’m heading up to The General at Mt Hotham for some dinner and a well deserved ale…or two :)

[album: http://www.expeditionoz.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/dm-albums/albums/2008/20080101d/]

After reaching the spur at the end of the steep walk down from Mt Feathertop, i decided to dump the pack next to a snow gum and walk up the hill to the top of Little Mt Feathertop at 1,785m.

The views back to Mt Feathertop from the top of it slightly smaller neighbour are spectacular…I would recommend the quick walk up to the top of Little Mt Feathertop to anyone doing the main walk..and don’t forget your camera :)

[album: http://www.expeditionoz.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/dm-albums/albums/2008/20080101c/]

Around four hours of walking through some spectacular terrain and here i finally sit, on the top of Victoria’s second highest mountain, Mt Feathertop at 1,922m.

The walk on the Razorback track crosses over so many highpoints and traverses rocky terrain, snow gum forest, alpine grass and some really steep sections. I took it pretty easy walking in and stopped quite often to take photos. I also crossed paths a few time with an  “older” group of around six walkers heading in the same direction along with a number of people heading back to Diamantina Hut who had spent New Years eve camped out at the Federation Hut site, including a Park Ranger.

I took the “longer” way in at the start and crossed over Bon Accord before falling into the rhythm of going down hillsides, then around hillsides, then up hillsides before starting the process all over again. It started to warm up about an hour into the walk and I packed my North Face Blackhawk windwall and reverted to a trusty Polypro thermal. It’s a little bit warmer with the polypro on in the sun, but as you can round a corner and run headfirst into a strong cool breeze at any moment up in the alpine region, i find that i don’t mind a bit of extra warmth especially as the polypro material wicks the sweat away pretty quickly. I remember visiting the Swiss Alps in 1992 and climbing /walking around the Great St Bernard Pass and up to around 3,000m on the Matterhorn and my trusty polypros of the time worked like a dream.

I’d also loaded up new Mammut Flight 35 litre pack to see how it would handle the trip as a bit of a road test for a longer (and higher) walk I intend to do soon. The other major new piece of equipment i was wearing was my Frillneck Urban Turban which worked really well at keeping the sun of but probably kept me a bit to warm. I won’t go into to much detail about equipment as i’ll get around to doing an equipment review after the expedition.

After doing the last long and steep climb from the ridge up to the top of Mt Feathertop, and taking in the joy of having reached the peak, I took a bundle a photos of all the glorious mountains you can see from up here which include major peaks such as; Mt Bogong and the Bogong Massif, Mt Fainter, Mt Fainter South, The Niggerhead, Mt McKay, Mt Cope, Mt Loch, Mt Hotham, Mt Saint Bernard (not the one in Switzerland), the Blue Rag Trip point and Mt Buffalo. You can also see right over onto the Dargo and Howitt High Plains areas as well.

While i was sitting down and having some lunch the next thing you really notice is the insect life going absolutely crazy up here…there were so many varieties (and since i’m not really an insect expert) it’s to hard to name them all.

1221 hrs – While the breeze up here is quite nice, it’s also very hot as the sun is beating down so i might start heading down the track.

[album: http://www.expeditionoz.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/dm-albums/albums/2008/20080101b/]

So i had a few more beers at The General and then retired for what turned into a pretty restless night trying to get some sleep in the back of DSCVRY, but…i did manage to see the fireworks welcoming in 2008 going off at midnight down the bottom of the mountains at Harrietville.

When i woke up the view was just what i needed to get me in the mood,  as right in front of the car i had a view of the Razorback from Diamantina Hut all the way to Mt Feathertop :)

I’ve had some breakfast and I’m all packed and ready to head out onto the Razorback track and the 10 km walk to the peak of Mt Feathertop at 1,922m. The weather is also pretty strange at the moment with clouds over Mt Hotham and the Bogong High Plains and blue sky over Mt Buffalo and further west, so i’m not sure if its going to rain or of the sun is going to some out and really warm the day up.

Anyway…enough writing…time to hit the trail :)

[album: http://www.expeditionoz.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/dm-albums/albums/2008/20080101a/]