Sunday, September 09, 2007

Itinerary

A Rough Plan.....
I have devised an approximate schedule so that I can roughly keep
track of whether I am ahead or behind schedule, based on an estimated
total distance of 19,000 km ridden in 340 days i.e. 56 km (35
miles)/day. Given the probable route this suggests that give or take a
few days I will be in the following places at the given times:
- leaving Perth 6 Oct 07
- Albany 16 Oct
- Esperance 27 Oct
- Norseman 1 Nov
- Ceduna 23 Nov
- Port Lincoln 3 Dec
- Port Augustus 7 Dec
- Adelaide 12 Dec
- Mt Gambier 20 Dec
- Melbourne 1 Jan
- Canberra 20 Jan
- Lithgow 27 Jan
- Tamworth 5 Feb
- Warwick 12 Feb
- Brisbane 16 Feb
- Brisbane dep 1 Mar
- Rockhampton 13 Mar
- Townsville 24 March
- Cairns 31 March
- Cooktown 7Apr
- week off! 15 March
- Mareeba 20 April
- Normanton 1 May
- Mt Isa 12 May
- Tenant Creek 23 May
- Katherine 1 June
- Darwin (via Kakadu NP) 15 Jun
- Darwin dep 20 June
- Katherine 26 June
- Kununurra 10 June
- Derby 20 July
- Broome 23 July
- Port Headland 3 Aug
- Nanutarra 17 Aug
- Carnarvon 24 Aug
- Geraldton 3 Sept
- Perth 12 Sept
- Rottnest Island to 15 Sept

Only 3 weeks to go now and it's been non-stop! Not only hectic at
work, but busy in the evenings too - there seems to be so much to do.
Hopefully the worst of the planning is over.

I'm just back after a holiday with Lyn - we've been down near Dumfries for the last week, and this was the first break I've had this year apart from the odd day off. I have been saving my paid holidays to take off during my years leave, so that I will only lose
11 months pay instead of 12. What with work and home I seem to be
spending every waking hour in front of the computer. I expect all the
stress will seem worthwhile once I'm underway.
At times I'm finding the whole idea of cycling around Australia quite
nerve-wracking if I'm honest with myself - it seems such a big
commitment - then at other times I feel I can't wait and feel quite
confident.

I've finally managed to send e-mails from the PDA via the
mobile phone, using the phone as a modem. I've just placed this posting here just as I will in Australia, by (1) typing the text up on the Dell Axim PDA via portable bluetooth keyboard (using the superb Textmaker software, which is better than Word Mobile), (2) connecting PDA to mobile phone and navigating to my gmail web e-mail account, and (3) copying and pasting this text into an e-mail and sending to my blogspot dedicated e-mail address. I was pleased that this average-sized e-mail only cost 11p to send, so this process will be fairly cheap, and more useful in the many places where there will be a mobile signal but no internet cafe available. In any case the latter can be expensive, although some states offer free browsing in libraries / telecentres where available. I will need to buy a new Sim card in Perth on arrival - this will mean phone calls and e-mails will be much cheaper than using a British one.

Anyway that's all for now, more later.