World Solar Challenge

G'day Mates, I'm back,

Sorry it took so long but we have had a marvelous time in Litchfield Park but of course these adventures will come later. There was no reception, not for Internet and even no phone!

For now I can tell you that our goal; Darwin has been reached and fortunately the World Solar Challenge was on at the time we were there and it was so interesting I'm going to share that with you.

Darwin itself is just another city and very very warm you don't feel doing much so you won't get big stories from me about Darwin.

OK lets start with the World Solar Challenge;  there were 3 classes, Challenger class (one person per car) in which 28 teams took part and two of them were Dutch teams; Nuon and Twente. Then you have the Cruiser class (more persons per car) in which 10 teams and one from Holland; Eindhoven. And last the Gopro adventure class with 8 teams (no Dutch).

Here we are at the scrutineering, explanation;

Team members will be registered, drivers weighed and the solar cars will be presented to the scrutineers for inspection.

The vehicles will be progressively dismantled for inspection and reassembled in a production line process on the scrutineering floor.

Here they are filling bags with stones, the drivers must have a minimum weight of 80 kg, so if you're not 80 kilo you will get a bag with stones you will have to take with you into your car so everyone will have the same change. 

no engine but batteries....

When one is finished, a new one comes in.....

The hall is surrounded by a balcony on which we had a good view of the proceedings and had a nice chat with a few of the Eindhoven solar team; (Fred in the middle of the Eindhoven team)

they had their own media team with them.....

here they have to step in and out of the car all four at the same time....

This is the Stella from the Eindhoven team and the only car which can take 4 people....

here they check the lights and if the driver has good sight.....

Yes! The Stella has passed the tests...

I think it's a beautiful car, very space.....

the Stella had passed the tests and now may go back into its own box....

This is the only thing we have seen from the Twente team, The Red Engine packed in his jacket... 

On Saturday 5th of October;

Qualifying and Time Trials;

One of the few times the solar cars and their teams are in the same place with time to talk. Following a team briefing, solar cars take to the track individually to complete a series of dynamic tests; steering, braking and performance.

The timed “hot lap” will determine their starting position on the big day; The Start.

Just as with the scrutineering, we didn't see the Solar Team Twente, they were finished and went back to their accommodation....

We didn't see the Eindhoven team either on this day but fortunately, the Nuon Team from Delft was still there and so it was very nice to have a chat with them too also because they were participants in an other class then the Eindhoven team.....

Here they have an interview with Wubbo Ockels, a Dutch physicist and a former astronaut of the European Space Agency....

   

The big day; 6th October, the Start....

We did not go to the start as we knew they would come passed our caravan park, so we here standing along the Stuart Highway with our Dutch Flag......

Here is Stella, the first one to pass......

and here a few of the other;

In their Class, Eindhoven with Stella won the Challenge, they didn't get over the finish first but because they had driven most of the time with more then 2 people, they got more points!

In the Challenger Class, Nuon from Delft won with their Nuna7 and the 3rd Dutch team, Twente ended at the 3rd place with their Red Engine.

The Dutchies did very well.

Why were we only involved and supporting the Dutch teams while we live in Australia??

Well, you know, we are torn between two lovers and of course the Aussies have a land full people to support them!!

Hope you have find this interesting, see you next time mates!

Another odd place; Pine Creek

G'day Mates, did you enjoy the Aussie song in my previous blog? OK lets go on then......

Along the way from Daly Waters to Katherine, just a few funny photo's;

Ant Mounds dressed with t-shirts, hats, dresses etc... 

pffff I'm getting tired only by the look of it...

And we were going over..........

Before we're coming to that odd place, we had a 3 days stop in Katherine. We could have gone to Katherine Gorge but we have done that before and the park there was very expensive, but what we can remember, very nice and worth going there if you never been there before.

Instead we stayed in Katherine and did a bike ride along the Katherine River to the Hot Springs;

Here is the hot spring, the warm water just comes out of the ground

I saw this bike at a shopping centre, the owner was an Irish bloke who was biking from Darwin to Adelaide, well he still had a long way to go;

And now; Pine Creek, another odd place to be;

Pine Creek is a small town between Katherine and Darwin, it's bloody hot here and of course, again in the middle of nowhere. What are we doing here?? Haha looking for gold again. Today (9th of September) we have been detecting somewhere in the bush, started at half past 8 till about 12 o'clock.

Actually that's not interesting for you because we don't find anything anyhow but this camp thing is again very special. It’s called Pussycat Flat and it's on a horse racing ground on which the last race was in 2010.

Its located about 2 k's out of the little village Pine Creek on the road to Kakadu National Park. 

The high season here is over so there are not many caravans.
Because we want to know we're to go to find some gold, we thought the first night lets go to the bar, have a drink and fish and ships and talk to some who can know. Well, it happens what I already thought; no one tells you anything!! But we did had a marvelous dinner for just $ 10,- each and a bottle of wine for just $ 18,-. We had two large pieces of fish each, much salad, potato salad and chips and that was much too much. The cook already knew and when she came to collect the plates, she brought a container where we could put the fish in and take it with us. So, the next day we had a nice dinner with left over’s.

The showers are unique too but it's heaven after a few hours digging in the heat.

Every morning about 6 o'clock we were wakened by a bird with a very special sound.

I asked other people who are already for a long time at Pussycat Flat, if they knew its name but no one did so if you know, please tell me by putting a comment to this blog;

At first I couldn't find him but later I saw him, listen to this;

Because there are no horse races anymore I decided to walk the track myself, it's nearly one kilometre all around, but djee guys, it was hot so it stayed with just once. Fortunately we had discovered a nice spot to cool down and have a picnic.....

Although there were no races anymore, there were still horses; Brumbies which are wild horses;

Again a very special place and I hope someone can help me out with the birds name.

sorry Mates, you most probably have to wait a while for a new story as we're going to a National Park soon were we won't have reception, till then; Cheers!!

New State, New Time Zone

Yes people, Australia is soooo big, it really has more time zones, we are heading to the Northern Territory and its half an hour earlier there.

I'm gonna show you the map of Australia on which you can see how much we have travelled since we have started. Now we are in Darwin but I'm not that far with my stories yet, but......... I'm getting close.

Look at the orange line, that's our route

I'm now going to describe the trip from Mount Isa to Tennant Creek and from there to Daly Waters.

The road from Mount Isa to Tennant Creek is approx. 640 k's with only one or two road houses in between.

Somewhere in the middle you can see Soudan, that's the free camp we stopped for a night and had the most beautiful sunset.

At first we were a bit squared to stay because there was only one other car but we were early and thought more people would call in and that happened, we ended up with about 10 caravans, tents, campers etc. so it was safe.

we had a nice spot next to a few trees

enjoy my film;

beautiful sunset

We can ad a country to the lookalike list: America! The road from Tennant Creek towards Darwin sometimes look if you drive in America!

AND THEN.............Daly Waters!!

Guys, this is a little town with the famous, true Aussie Pub;

We have been here twice before and always had a good time......

We stayed behind the pub were there is a caravan park with powered and non-powered sites.

It was a bit (actually a lot) dusty, but you know; that's the outback...

The Pub inside;

Of course Dutchies were here 

Outside in the beer garden;

There was great entertainment and you can eat terrific food. The other times we had dinner there but not this time, we had our own Chilli Con Carne cooked.

After dinner we went back to hear more of this great singer and I made a few films from him. After he had finished I even asked him if I may announce him in my blog and show one of the films and he agreed.

I was very, very disappointed when I found out later that I most probably, had pushed a wrong button during fiddling with my camera in the dark, and all my films had failed.

Still, I cannot withhold you with this last song he sang and even while you cannot see him properly, you can still hear him,

enjoy this fair dinkum Aussie song;

Cheers!