Shattered tablet and things electric

This blog is a bit harder to write than usual. Not because of the topic, but because my touch screen notebook computer has a couple of nasty cracks in its screen. I had it attached to its keyboard and it was in my bag. I'm sure I didn't drop it, although the mobile phone hit the deck twice yesterday.

But when I opened it up in class yesterday strange things were happening on the screen. Little bubbles of what looked like air were drifting across the lock screen and nasty flashes of light were happening.

 

Disaster!

 

Carefully holding the screen with one hand so it didn't move I was able to copy off the files for morning classes.

 

So no blogging last night for me.

 

 

A very helpful person suggested I use sticky tape to hold the cracked screen .

 



 



 

 

So I am typing now with big strips of tape all across the left of the screen. So far so good.  K ordered a new tablet and key board online last night, which turned out to be cheaper and faster than getting a new screen sent from overseas.

 

Just blew a few weeks pay! And probably added another piece of equipment to Mr Fix It's pile of things to be rescued.

 

Any way I thought I would tell you about  some things we have done to make battery power easier to manage.  ( K has promised an explanation of our power set up, solar and wind power as well as our batteries.) 

 

Now I am not good with volts and amps and such. I know I studied it all in high school Physics, which I passed quite well, but I never really got how it all works.What I do know is that normal household power in Australia is 240V AC and my caravan battery set up outputs 12v DC.   And therein lies the problem. Some things just don't work of the batteries.....and we spend up to three months of the year off grid.

 

Here are my favourite electric fixes.

 

Most wonderful is the ability to charge mobile devices whether we are plugged into 240v power or not.  K installed a car lighter type socket near the fridge. This beats running out to the car and turning on the car to charge my phone. Of course this useful outlet is in great demand and I have seriously thought of creating a timetable to control access during peek charging times.

 

The 12v fan can also be run from this socket. Great for warmer days at free camps.

 

 

 

 

 

The next fantastic addition to our electric supply kit is the 2000w pure sine wave inverter which magically turns the power stored in our batteries into 240v power just like the mains power in your house.  It has two power points, one of which can power the essential things like the coffee machine, the microwave (tiny 770w one), my stick blender, the crock pot and a computer charger. (Not a kettle or a toaster since they go over 2000w, and not all at once or for long periods of time) 

 

Now, I can get by without these devices. Ok not the coffee machine, but the others, if I have too. But the addition of the inverter to our battery bank and solar/wind power generation increases our capacity to live normally, yet be off grid.

 

The batteries' charge only lasts so long if I use the power too much. K used to be diving under the bench seat to check the charging levels of the three batteries all the time. Off would come the seat cushion and whatever was on the bench, the bits would go all over the bed and he would frown and/or smile depending on what the numbers on his testing thingy said. Sometimes I would precipitate this exercise by asking the question, "We got enough power for the microwave or do I fire up the BBQ?"

 

Then he discovered this useful device. It displays the exact voltage of the batteries at all times. It is placed in a overhead locker and he can lift up the door and look at the numbers to his heart's content. In fact many an hour has been spent monitoring the power generation and consumption without the bench seat being lifted at all. 

 

 

 

 

And then there are these essential outdoor safety features. I cannot see at night. Not at all. Never could. I can't tell the difference between shadows and holes in the ground and I can't see pegs or ropes. I have permanent scars on my knees from this "disability'.

So while it might look like we have pretty lights on the annex roof and around the edges of our camp, they are in fact important safety features designed to keep me out of hospital. Solar powered of course.

 

 

 

 

Sick of chasing the pointer over the screen. Catch you soon

Cheers Sue

A Ferg on the Move

Of clocks and bedside shelves.

When we first bought our van I guess we thought we'd use it for a few years and then trade up. During our first shakedown trip, a gallop up to Brisbane taking in the newly weds of the time in Sydney and then back again, we really fell in love with our little home, and K began upgrading and customising both the internal and external set up to make life easier. Each of these makes it harder to think about starting again in a new home. (A bit like moving house I guess)


K worked for a watchmaker as a holiday job as a teenager, which is why he has a watch from one of the backpackers on the table ready to service. He loves clocks, so one of the first things he did was to put a clock hanging spot out in the annex. The original clock, a souvenir Ford clock of course, still gets hung up as soon as we park the van.
Sometimes it stops. Perhaps it should be replaced. But no!......maybe it is a battery or is it the ants who hide in the warmth of the battery box and short it out. Throw it away. Not likely. It gets cleaned or whatever and off it goes again.

So there is one clock ticking outside and two inside and if he can get away with it the wind up travel clock finds its way onto his beside table as well.  All of these tick at a different time. Drives me mad. At least they don't chime or play music. That might precipitate one of my famous impressions of a nuclear explosion.

Clock, barometer and thermometer rebated into the wall
 between the bed and shower.
And fancy shelf, routed and fitted
with decorative edges.

 

 

There have been other improvements to electrics and water and  other critical functions that I will leave for later but the thing I appreciate most each night and morning is my removable bedside table.

You see I was very short sighted when I chose the left side of the bedroom as mine. In our caravan configuration the bedside unit is on the right. I get the back of the kitchen chairs and a long reach to the table.  I have commented on this unfair distribution of critical bedside real-estate, gently of course, on a number of occasions.

Imagine my delight when after a day or two of mysterious activity involving wood, a router, hooks and other bits of metal I find this beautiful creation next to my side of the bed. Stained, sealed and removable. And I only nagged a little bit.

Removable bedside table
attached to back of kitchen seating

 

 

Life is good!

Cheers Sue

A Ferg on the Move

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fascination with sunrise.

Sunrises are an integral part of caravan life. Light blasts past the curtains each morning alerting us to the new day. A peek outside can reveal amazing sights. Some places we have camped have treated us to gentle displays of rising colour creeping up out of the land into the sky. A perfect accompaniment to a cup of coffee on the doorstep of the van.

Closer to the equator as we are here, sunrises are almost aggressive, the difference between dark and light measured in just a few minutes. If I have to drive some distance to  a community,  like I will have to tomorrow,  I tend to watch these minutes with some impatience. Light means safer driving.

So I just love it that K stopped to watch and take these photos one morning when he was in Mataranka early to unload stores from the 6am delivery truck.

He's looking across the road towards the bush.


I'll let them speak for themselves.


Cheers Sue

A Ferg on the Move




Sunrise Mataranka 6.30am



Sunrise Mataranka 6.30am



Sunrise Mataranka 6.37am



Sunrise Mataranka 6.40am

 

 

 

Camp oven, friends and a good yarn.

 

We were invited to a special birthday get together last night. Camp oven dinner and BBQ.
We arrived to find the fire well alight and half a dozen cast iron camp ovens (Dutch ovens) sitting in the coals with more coals on the lids and the most amazing smells filling the air. One of the hands from the station next door to us, in the NT sense of the word next door, is a master of the camp fire feast. He is a fixture at most of the big get togethers here, doing his magic.

Now we have a dutch oven. I use it all the time on the burners or the BBQ. I used to have it on the back of my slow combustion heater in our old house all the time. K bought a cook book to inspire me and I have used lots of the ideas. I have cooked everything from a roast or stew to a damper or scones in it but I am ashamed to say it has never been on hot coals. It may be very un-Australian of me but I am not fond of a campfire near my camp. Where there's fire there's smoke, and I hate smoke.







Getting back to the party.........
People trickled in in their utes and trucks loaded with chairs and eskies. Kids ran around. Drinks, salads and cakes appeared on the table. Yarns were swapped. For once we were "local", as in we live in town even though we haven't been here for 20 years. Other friends had driven 100km to celebrate. Speeches, some more coherent than others, wound up the formal part of the evening and we got down to the serious business of comparing fishing, hunting, flood and snake encounter stories. Good natured laughter rang out at the expense of tourists and newbies to the outback. Serious local issues got chewed over.

Replete and tired we loaded up and drove home, carefully dodging the 'roos on our road, but behind us the party rolled on in the glow of the fire. I guess many were probably there to greet the sunrise.

Got visitors for smoko today. Better get moving.

My cheese scones

Cheers Sue
A Ferg on the Move

Outback Inspiration. Or I used to paint once upon a time

In my previous life I painted.

I still do sometimes.


Last year I did pastel portraits of my students as an attendance reward. The paintings are in the library and the students took a book home with their portraits and pictures of the things we had done in class as a memento of the time I had been with them.

But painting on large canvas, which is my preferred option,  is not at all practical in the caravan. As much as I miss it, this activity has to wait until we have a bit more room one day. Beside if I have to move K's clothes out of both sides of the wardrobe to fit paints and canvasses in as well as my stash of yarn,  things might not be so contended around here.

Whilst hunting  through the photo archives I came across these. So I hope you will forgive me for indulging myself in some nostalgia for an art not practiced at the moment.  The originals of these have found loving homes with friends and family so I only have the photos to remember them by.

Devil's Marbles

Cordello Downs Station

Murrumbidgee River

Sunset

The View

 

Cheers Sue

A Ferg on the Move

Mataranka, my NT home.

 

The old Mataranka sign with termite mound growing around it.

 

I have just realised that I haven't told you about the place we like to call our NT home. This is our fourth tourist season hear at Mataranka in the Northern Territory. We park our caravan here from the end of April until somewhere near the end of November. K works as "Mr Fix It" here at Mataranka Homestead Tourist Park. (A fancy name for a standard outback caravan park with cabins and basic motel rooms) I have worked reception here, but my main work is in the indigenous schools.

Mataranka is on the Stuart Highway 109 km south of Katherine and is a four or five hour drive south of Darwin. We are 1069 km north of Alice Springs.  The town has a general store, supermarket, pub and three fuel outlets, school, health service and police presence. Three caravan parks compete for the grey army traffic.



A long way from anywhere

 In the tourist season we are inundated with caravans. There are close to 200 powered sites in the town and for six to eight weeks of the year these will be full.

Mataranka's claim to fame lies in two things, hot springs and We of the  Never Never.

We of the Never Never is a novel written by Jeanie Gunn who lived for a few months on Elsie Station. It tells about her experiences as a newly married Melbourne girl who came with her husband to manage the station. We of the Never Never was required reading for many school children of my era.




The Elsey Station replica

 

 

We have the replica of the station house here at Mataranka Homestead which was used in the film shot here in 1982. The movie is played here every day over lunch. Some of the parents of the kids I teach are the children in the movie.

Mataranka Hot Springs on a cool
morning with steam rising. 

There are two hot springs here. Mataranka Hot Springs is accessed through Mataranka Homestead caravan park and is  my favourite part of living here. 30 degrees, fresh water and I don't have to clean it. Mind you I do have to share it with millions of tourists.  The best time is in the morning when the air temperature is lower than the water temp and the steam rises into the air over the water. magic.

Little Roper River

The Homestead where we live is surrounded by three rivers, the Waterhouse, the Little Roper and the Roper River.


Boat ride on the Roper River

Bitter Springs

Bitter Springs is on the north side of town and is a stream you can float down. If you take goggles you can see the world under the water. I am blind as a bat with my glasses off so I have to take K's word for this.




We love here it here.

Cheers Sue

A Ferg on the Move.

 

x

Generosity. Or I have fresh eggs, veggies and a dead snake.

I am always heartened by the generosity of the people who live out here. I think because we are so few we naturally look out for each other.  So tonight I thought I'd show you the wonderful produce that I have been given this week

Last Sunday we met with friends to break bread and encourage each other. Our hostess put on a wonderful spread as usual which went down a treat with a bottle of Western Australian red that K had found in Katherine a few weeks ago. After lunch everyone disappeared into the kitchen garden and came back with fresh broccoli and kale, as well as a reasonable long snake.


 

The snake was dead, cut in half by the shovel that is a necessary tool to carry when you venture into  gardens such as these and, since it was dead, I assume it was not a children's python. I didn't get close enough to check.



Last night I was too bushed to drive back an hour and a bit from the school I was in, so the principal and his wife kindly put me up for the night. They fed me and gave me a bed.  There was buffalo stew cooked in the  slow cooker, rich tender meaty chunks, vegetables and spicy gravy. This morning there was a serve of this stew packaged up for K.


(The buffalo roast we have in the freezer,  and which we are not cooking tonight now, was given to us by one of K's fellow workers who went hunting recently. I love the taste of buffalo but it has a very strong almost grassy smell as it cooks so when it is cooked here the crockpot is banished to the very end of two extension cords.)

I was introduced to the chooks (Australian for hens) all twenty of them who live in a fenced off half a house block with a massive intruder proof night cage. Wild pigs have been known to crash through fences to get to  chooks and eggs, the  camp dogs like fresh chicken, as do the pythons. 


So I have a dozen eggs collected this morning, as well as some vine ripened tomatoes.

Fresh anything costs an arm and leg here so it is especially wonderful to benefit from the generosity of old friends and new acquaintances alike.

Vine ripened tomatoes
 

Cheers Sue

A Ferg on the Move