Friday 20th April, 2007

   Feeling happy, healthy and humping my great load I'm off at last. I suspect that my pack weight is a bit up on what it was when I turned up in Hawker.  Besides the extra weight of the satellite phone, its chargers and the (kinda hefty) operator's manual, I also picked up some fruit and fruitcake at the store. And although I am deliriously happy with the way my amateur radio now works, the new antenna with its 20 meters of wire also adds some weight onto my shoulders.

   On the plus side, my next stop is Rawnsley Park which is "only" 38kms up the road, which, I found out, is still bitumen to Wilpena, 54kms from here. Such a short "leg" means that I only have to carry half water which is 4kg instead of a full load of 8.

   Seeing that I have posted my cell phone back to Bill, I have taken a step further away from my "support" and general feeling of being in contact with the world. I have to say that I utilise the phone as much as anyone and this will be the first time this particular "umbilical cord" has been so severed.

   I do have the satellite phone but that is not for general use. The call rate is so expensive that the only calls I plan to make "out" would be in the case of an emergency. I have it turned on to take calls in, and we assume that the media will be happy to pay the high call cost of the calls. The sat phone has already caused some headaches. I got it just yesterday and although I am very good with technology and don't mind "reading the manual", I am nowhere near up to speed on using it.

   And a big disappointment is that I cannot use it for SMS messages. During the many and long conversations with the suppliers I asked and confirmed that SMS services were available. But it turns out that you can only send an SMS out but not receive one in. This makes it unusable because if I sent an SMS it would have to include the info that I could not be reached for a reply. And that was far too unwieldy. And the keypad functionality was "dinosaur-like". I love "modern tech" and can whip out an SMS as quick as a trendy teen using all the built in functions, but this sat phone was a monster.

   But there was a bit of silver lining. It did support email in and out. Via the "clunky" keyboard of course. But it worked. In fact, I had the email to Bill and back again days before I could talk to him.

   Yes, is is a "phone", but, it was nearly a week before "we" had it all sussed out. As usual, part of the trouble was me and my expectations and part "misadventure". In telling Bill the phone's number, the last 2 digits had been transposed, 47 instead of 74. We have blamed each other (as you do:-) for this over time but it was just one of those unfortunate mis-communications. The support guy from the phone company was very good, but he had to contend with his internal trouble concerning this phone's number and that added to the confusion.

  And, would you believe, if you did not answer within the first 2 rings, it went to voice mail. And, the message back to the caller was about the phone being "not turned on or out of reach". To the caller, this seemed that the phone did not even have time to ring, so this also added to the confusion as to why I couldn't get calls in. And the sat phone was too big to carry in my pocket like my cell phone, so it was in the most convenient pocket of my backpack. By the time I heard it ring, and it was miserably quiet, taken off my pack and dug it out, it had long stopped ringing.

   I won't go into the hassle with voice mail, but calling up and listening to voice messages was a nightmare. And sometimes, when I knew I just missed call, I would call into voice messages and the caller had not left one. Aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And these calls were paid for at the max rate.

   Added to all this was the fact that satellite phones are not considered to be in any country in the world. They can be used anywhere, the concept of "country" does not fit with sat phones. So the international phone numbering system had to come up with a strategy to allocate sat phone numbers. This satellite phone company was allocated a "country code" of 8816 and area code of 214 and a phone number of 63874. Soooo, when Bill (or anyone) wanted to call me from Australia they had to call:

0011 To get international dialing from Australia
8816 To dial my "country"
214   For my area code and
63874 For my number.

   That's 0011881621463874. How many satellite phones are there in use? No wonder we were making mistakes! I can't remember (fortunately) what the procedure was for me to call out but it was also tedious to the extreme. And my email address was

881621463874@msg.iridium.com

and I had to turn handstands to send email out. And the cludgy address book hardly made it any easier than typing in the full address each time. And you could not have two or more recipients and no "sent folder" so you had to type in the whole message again.

   Sheesh, I'm glad I have forgotten all this, I would have nightmares. Before I set out to do something like this again, I will make sure that the satellite phone companies have caught up to the technology of the 21st century.

   I don't have a dummy spit very often, but that effort deserves a call to the Guinness Book mob.

  Where was I? Ah yeah. I have just set out from Hawker after 7 days in idle (that's 6 days walking and 9 days "sitting on my bum"). Needless to say it feels damn good to be plodding along. I did have a good time meeting all the folks in Hawker and the 2 days in Quorn, but I also enjoy the countryside and the walking and that is plan "A".

   Just out of town the big green sign tells me that it is 54kms to Wilpena, but there is a caravan park at Rawnsley Park which is at the outer part of Wilpena Pound and more or less on the road. I aim to stop there tomorrow afternoon and remember that Big John has given me the name of the managers.

   On the outskirts of Hawker, there are side roads going here and there and I would be looking out for "The Dairy Farm" which featured strongly on my map and is 10kms up the road, a good distance to stop for "lunch".  But when I had covered the distance and seen the turnoff to Fairleigh station, I realise there is no "The Dairy Farm", or at least I didn't see it.

   I found a reasonable tree and laid the pack down on the ground to use it as a back/head rest
while I sat on the ground. If there was enough shade, I found it useful at these times to take of my floppy hat and "spread" it on the ground to sit on. It kept my shorts a bit cleaner and protected my soft bottom from stones (and perhaps double-Gs).

   I needed to settle down to have lunch (a drink of water) and send off a sat phone email to Bill giving my noon position of latitude and longitude. I had been doing this daily by mobile phone SMS.

ALL OK  NOON POSITION 31:49.019S 138:28.817E

   As it turned out, that wasn't too bad. I had a bit of trouble working out how to get the colon (:) character, but the book told me what hoop to jump through.

   I was only back on the road for 30 minutes when I heard a car coming up from behind beginning to slow. I turned and looked to see a small(ish) sedan loosing speed but staying on the bitumen. I stepped back to the centre of the road and when it pulled up alongside I was surprised and delighted to see that it was Beatrice and Florian. When the car stopped I got a loverly smile from Beatrice and Florian jumped out of the passengers side and ran around the front and propped in front of me with his arms held up. I picked him up, holding him under the armpits and was rewarded with a great hug. Well, me and my backpack got a great hug. He was beaming and chattering, and smiles too from the car to see him so happy to see me. I guess his mum had explained that we would not meet again and suddenly there I was.

   Finally lowering Florian to the ground I said hi to Beatrice and she had goodies on offer to see me on my way. I accepted an apple but knocked back the rest. I didn't really need it and I know they were traveling on a low budget. Beatrice took several pictures of me ("I have to get a picture of THAT face") and of Florian and I grinning. When asked for my contact details I remembered the problems in the past when I had trouble replying to this request from "officialdom". I gave her Bill's email address and told her I looked forward to hearing from her some time in the future so I could give her better contact details. They departed after we exchanged as tender a kiss as we could manage with me leaning in through the window and being held back by my backpack. It would have made an interesting photo.

  The scenery along this stretch of road was spectacular. Arkaba Creek followed the road (or did the road follow the creek) only 500 meters off to my left. The line of trees on the creek stood out against the surrounding land that was either cleared or sparse and sheep were grazing. The land beyond the creek immediately started to rise, forming the foothills to this section of the Flinders Rangers. As I say, spectacular.

   I stopped to have look around the historic Arkaba woolshed which had been restored or kept in reasonable order but the obligatory stone ruins were there to remind me of the toughness and endurance of our early settlers. There was a modern Arkaba homestead but it was several kilometers further on. It is renowned for its exclusive bush camping and a superb 'drive yourself' 4WD track that takes three and a half hours to traverse. Accommodation for up to six persons is also available in a well presented "cottage".

   After a full day of 25kms I found a nice picnic table alongside the road with a large tree overhanging it. This looks like the spot to set up camp and the tree will also be good to "fling" my new antenna and do some communicating. It even has a name on the map. It is "Eating House Creek" but the menu is a bit sparse for this traveler.

       


   After drizzle overnight, I arrive back in civilisation