Bendigo Day Trip

On the Sunday of the Queens Birthday long weekend I went for a drive with my mum to Bendigo. Been meaning to post this one for a while, there's nothing like other bloggers posting on a similar topic to spur me into action.

Somewhere under all that cloud is Mount Macedon

We drove there along the Calder Freeway (it's all Freeway now) as far as Elphinstone where we turned "inland" towards Sutton Grange, Mandurang and Strathfieldsaye. Along the way we stopped to do a Geocache by a creek near Sutton Grange, and then went on all the way to Strathfieldsaye just outside of Bendigo.

The next stop was Kennington Reservoir, where I found a second Geocache.

Kennington Reservoir

Next was lunch, had in the car by Lake Weeroona. Sandwhiches from home along with hot jam doughnuts bought from one of two caravans beside the lake.

One of the main reasons for the trip was for mum to visit Bendigo pottery to top up the dinner set. After getting some plates and bowls it was back on the road and into the back blocks of White Hills to look for a house where a relative used to live. Successfully found, we continued on and made our way to Eaglehawk before heading back to Bendigo proper via a round about sort of route.

Shamrock Hotel

Old Buiding, now a museum and tourist
information centre.

I should know what it was originally, but can't remember.
I suspect it was whwere the kept the gold Does anyone know?

I had two more Geocaches on my list for the day, so we went back to lake Weeroona to look for the first. It was really busy on this side of the lake and had to wait ages to get a car park. Then I had to be extra sneaky to retrieve the cache without being seen. While I was waiting for my chance I made friends with a swan.

Lake Weeroona

Black Swan

Tram crossing creek

The Bendigo Creek, now a drain

The final Geocache I found before heading home was near the Bendigo station.

The functional side of Bendigo rail station

We stuck to the Calder Highway all the way back to Melbourne.

Noisy Neighbours

Living near an active military establishment has it's advantages and disadvantages. I am talking about the Simpson Barracks in Macleod/Watsonia which is less then a kilometre across a small valley from my house (If I look out my window I can see it now).

Probably one of the biggest advantages is the large area of bushland that has remained relatively intact. My primary school had a tree planting deal with the army nursery (yes the army grows plants too). The Army took us in the back of some trucks (like in the movies) a couple of times to plant seedling and the like. The Army also let our school grow seedlings in the nursery for planting in the school grounds. That was great fun, but these days I don't think you could get away with it.

The biggest disadvantage is the noise. You get used to the short and frequent bursts of gun fire when they occasionally have target practice. Right now they are firing something rather large, like a mortar or a canon. I'm expecting something through the window at any moment!

The Australian Army school of signals is based there, so I wouldn't imagine much shooting is on the agenda, just enough to be competent with a weapon if it comes to that sort of thing.

I seem to recall there is a shooting range that is shared between the Army and a gun club, perhaps an army gun club.

Most frequently though we hear the sound of music. Being home to the defence School of Music you tend to get lot of that. Concert bands, marching bands, buglers, bagpipes, drums you name it. Throughout the year they put on a number of free concerts. The twilight ones almost always end with fireworks in time to the 1812 overture.

Probably the most intense noise ever was the almost constant throb, drone and scream of Black Hawk and Huey helicopters (it depended how far away they were flying) during some sort of training exercise about 10 years ago. It was pretty exciting at first, but it went on for about a week. The Black Hawks came back during the commonwealth games in 2006, I think they were based at Essendon Airport instead of the barracks.

I should mention that the biggest disadvantage was that this was one of Australia/USA main communications bases for listening in on the Russians, so vaporisation in the face of all out nuclear war was a given, the graffiti near Camberwell Station left over from the 70's says so. Actually my mum used to tell me that too when I was little. A really comforting thing to tell your children... Thankfully they moved that capability to a better location in northern Western Australia somewhere.

Overall it is pretty peaceful, with short periods of extreme noise. There are no complaints here.

Evolution

Mouse over to see the evolution of the 737 from Original to Next Generation

The first image is a 737-200, the later a 737-800. The most obvious external differences are increased length, a different tail fin, winglets and different engines. Less obvious changes to the newer model include a redesigned wing and complete electronic systems. In fact there is very little in common between the two, but for the general shape of the fuselage (which itself dates back to the 707 and 727).

The different shape of engines comes from the move to "high bypass" turbofans resulting in larger engines overall. In order to accommodate the larger engines and stop them dragging on the ground some components were shifted to allow for the distinctive flat bottom. The modern engines are much more efficient and quiet.


The Boeing 737-400 (above) belongs to the generation that sits between these two aircraft. The Generations are, "Original" for the 100 and 200 series, "Classic" for the 300,400 and 500 series, and "Next Generation" for the 600, 700 and 800 series.


Mouseover code from Terrys Playpen.

Mki farce

News today is that myki has been delayed yet again. Honestly I don't know why the government has persisted with myki for so long, but with all the hardware that has been installed on stations trams and buses recently we must be near the point of no return. Really we should have followed NSW lead and dumped the smart card system altogether. Kosky doesn't seem interested, so here is my suggestion.

I don't claim to understand the technicalities of the software problem, but it would seem to be related to the new features rather than the basics. Surely an interim measure can be made to get the hardware working as a direct replacement for the current Metcard hardware, which as the article states has been allowed to run down over the last few years. Just get the hardware selling and validating tickets the same way as the Metcard does now. As far as I can tell the hardware is all but ready to go, why not use it now rather than let it just sit there unused for 3-4 years?!

When the bugs have been sorted out issue a software update to introduce the new functionality.