Week 1    (June 19th to 25th)
Tuesday 26th
Well I've been travelling for 7 days and only got out of Victoria yesterday. Of course I'm not on any schedule but if I was then I think I would be way behind. I had a small fire last night with the firewood that had been left there.
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As soon as it was light enough this morning  I put the new battery under the bonnet and unloaded the back of the car again to put the old one back in its place. I got away from the Popitah Rest Area about 9am and cruised north till this turn-off. This is a lovely 300km dirt road straight across to Burra in South Australia.
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The NSW side was fairly corrugated, but small ones. The SA side was beautifully smooth, mainly.
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And this is why it was smooth - there were two graders working on it.
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I turned north towards Yunta which is on the highway from Adelaide to Broken Hill but felt a bit tired before I got that far and pulled off on a timy two wheel sandy track. It went a long way back from the road and was stopped by a deep river gully - dry of course.
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Here I got the new solar regulator out but found it too high to be able to be glued to the back of the panel like the other one.
So put a plug and socket on the leads and will just have it loose. The battery immediately started charging like crazy and certainly proved the old regulator was fairly useless.
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I thought I was reasonably far back from the road for no-one to notice me, but after fixing the regulator a ute with a couple of dogs in the back came down the track. A very nice young lady got out and the first thing she said was did I realise I was on private property. I assumed I probably was but didn't think most farmers minded but apparently the farmers around here are a bit nervous because of some people doing the wrong thing. She said there was no phone service here, which I had already noticed and said I had an EPIRB for emergencies. During our discussion I said I was going to drive across the Nullarbor next to the railway line. She said she had done that as a child but didn't remember a lot about it. I told her I'd be out of here by 8 in the morning and after photographing my driver's licence she called the dogs and left. Apparently a neighbour had spotted me and rung her and she had about a 20 minute drive down to where I was. I was rather glad that she didn't order me off immediately. I decided the nervous farmers wouldn't like to see me with a camp fire in the drought conditions so didn't have one tonight.
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Monday 24th
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Monday night I am at Popitah after a bit of a day. I wasn't entirely happy with the battery under the bonnet before I left home - some mornings it just seemed to be a bit sluggish. But at Kara Kara on a good frosty morning it started without any trouble. However yesterday I decided to get it tested in Mldura and even looked up the address of Marshall Batteries. I also wasn't happy about the solar regulator - it had been lying idle in my place for years when I replaced it because I wasn't totally happy with its performance. So yesterday when it didn't seem to be doing a great job charging the second battery I looked up the address of Jaycar in Mildura - intending to replace it.
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This morning on the banks of the Murray the car wouldn't start - it turned over a couple of times and that was it.I connected the solar panel to it but after a couple of hours it didn't seem to be doing much so I took the regulator out of circuit and connected the solar panel directly to the battery. The battery voltage then started to increase, and increase. It went form 12V to 13V to 14V to 15V to 16V to 17V to 18V to 19V. 19V is about the voltage from a 12V solar panel when nothing it connected to it - so this immediately told me the battery was open circuit internally and would never charge in a month of Sundays.

I was only a  few km from Robinvale and could have called the RAC but decided to see if the second battery would do. This battery is out of the Hilux and is at least 15 years old. Right now it was down a bit as it had been running the fridge andcomputer and lights since yesterday - it was currently 11.9V, and would need a good charge. The other problem is that it is on the floor behind the passenger seat and totally out of sight with the rear seats folded down on topof it, and the fridge sitting on top of them. Everything had to come out of the back of the car.
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The light grey battery behind the passenger seat.
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After everything was taken out.
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The air filter cover has to be removed and things unplugged and disconnected to be able to get the old battery out.
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The second battery was a lot taller but just fitted in.
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I had to keep moving the solar panel around to keep it in the sun because of all the trees and decided to let it charge all day till about 3pm when I lose the sun here.
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I had just moved it to the centre of the track along here when a nice bloke came by in a 4WD and we used my jump leads to start my car instantly. Then it was load everything back in and off to Mildura for a new battery ($150) and solar regulator ($29). Marshall couldn't install the battery immediately and probably would have charged me because of all the hassle of getting it in. I have it and the regulator with me and will fit them here at Popitah tomorrow. It is after 5pm now. Someone had even left some firewood here.
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I did start and stop the car a few times in Mildura using the 15 year old battery so that was nice to know that it will.





Sunday 23rd.
At Kara Kara it took an effort to stay up till 7.30pm because of the cold, but I could have sat up till midnight here.
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Plenty of wood left this morning (and hot coals) and it only took seconds before I was contributing to global warming again.
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Sunday, a day of rest now that I have finished all the little jobs on the car. I have a dozen books to get through.



Saturday 22nd
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Another frost this morning but I was much better prepared last night and was warm and comfortable. I moved the car out into the sun to melt the frost before folding it up.
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Stopped at St Arnaud for a while and bought a new headlamp. A couple of years ago I had two but lost them both kayaking - one during the infamous 12 hour night paddle in Banks Strait last year and the other one in my landing at Rebecca Bay during my Swan Song this year. My watch packed up yesterday so I had a new battery put in it here.
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Stopped briefly in Donald to use the Bendigo Bank ATM, and to stop in the nice rest area next to the Richardson River. Next stop the Murray River. I'm always glad that very few people know about the hundreds and hundreds of free camp spots along the Murray. In fact some of the places are so nice you could almost live here permanently, and just drop into Robinvale every now and then for a bit of food. Next time you are passing by drop in and visit me.
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I put the side curtain up because of a slight breeze blowing down the river.
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Digging the fire pit.
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Could be here a day or two.


Friday 21st
Last night  I had to get up and put on all the long clothes I had - it was freezing, as you can see from the frost this morning.
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I carry a bit of spare firewood from Dodges Ferry for emergency use. I figured it was an emergency this morning, rather than going round picking up frost covered sticks. I just about had my hands in the flames to restore circulation to the ends of my fingers.  But by 9 I was sitting in the sun with no wind or clouds (till the middle of the day). Hung some laundry out but the shorts were still very wet at the end of the day.

The tent has two hooks hanging down to clip under the mudguards - which is fine on the Toyota or Pulsar with steel mudguards. These are plastic so I brought some SS fittings with me to put on instead of hooking the hooks on the edge of the mudguards.


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Cooked a few snags and then pretty well sat in front of the fire for the rest of the day. Moving out tomorrow - possibly the Murray River. I have changed the Tracker to only go every hour instead of the half hour it has been doing.
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The hard drive on this laptop is sounding very sick so may pack up before the end of the trip - no more blog if it does, although I will still have email with my Tablet.
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Thursday 20th
I count today as a good day.



It was still almost peak hour as I found my way to Preston and the shop where I was to buy a new solar panel. It needed to be a specific physical size to fit in the back of the car - never mind what power it was. I'd emailed them and they had one the exact size and it was 100W, and $65. When Elli and I built our huse back about 2003 and bought our first 100W panel it was a little over $1,000. And now they are $65. I can only hope that batteries come down in price like that. Tiny little shop and you almost had to move in sideways - panels and other solar stuff everywhere. He asked if I'd bought from them before and I said yes - online. He checked his computer and then looked at me and said "Dodges Ferry ?????????" Yeh, thats why I've been buying them omline. I told him I'd probably get another 5 on my way home in 6 weeks. "No worries, we buy 100 at a time."
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So then it was out of Melbourne to Kara Kara National Park where I am planning to stay a couple of days. I had to make a lead for the new panel to connect to my second battery, and fit a solar regulator. I'd brought all the bits with me of course.
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And lost little time in connecting it when the glue dried from glueing the regulator to the back of the panel. But it was late in the day so didn't do a lot of charging.
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I'd made a 10m lead at home specially for it. It connects to a  lead coming out the rear of the car. At night time this lead feeds power up into the tent for light nnd power.
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Sat up till about 7pm but fairly cool.
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Wednesday 19th.
Some people may wonder why my route went up the East Coast on the way to Devonport.



Elli and I quite often went this way to Launceston or Devonport - to call in here of course.



For some of these.



Then it was on to Epping Forest for some of the best chips in Tasmania.



Then with the speed limiter set on 95 it was a leisurely cruise to Devonport - even Arthur would have felt comfortable.