Yepppoon Info

Recently my dad wrote to the Department of Main Roads to find out whether they were going to relocate the access to our paddock in the upcoming roadworks. He also asked for the old road to be left alone so that the paddock can be accessed easily. In reply we received a letter which included a design of the changes to the roads, creeks and drains near our place. I scanned it in and have published it below for you to have a look at. Just click on the image to load the larger version.

For the past few weeks (Hervey Bay week not included), my dad and I have been converting the floors of two bedrooms from a masonite (I think) floor to a wooden floor. Well actually, we just nailed the wooden floor onto the masonite, so I suppose a more correct term for the process would be overlaying. Anyway, the first step in the process occurred when the truck from our local Mitre 10 came and dropped off the wood for the floor. The whole family pitched in to carry the wood onto the deck, because there was such a lot of it.

With the first step completed, the hardest part was right next. That is, gluing and nailing the wood to the floor. Because the wood and masonite were too hard for the nail to punch through, we had to drill each nail hole first. My dad and I must have broken over 6 drill-bits between us!

After every single piece of wood was subdued and nailed to the floor for life, we had to punch all the nail holes so the head of the nails were all below the surface. This was done so that when it was time to sand, the nails wouldn’t rip the sanding strips to pieces. Once all the nails were punched, the puttying started. This made sure that any holes wouldn’t be visible when the floor was complete.

Once the punching and puttying was finished, dad had to go into town to hire the sanders. Two sanders are needed to sand a floor: a bigger one for general sanding and a smaller one which is used to sand the edges. The biggest one can be operated standing up, but the smallest one requires the operator to kneel as it is fairly low. Sanding completed, it is possible to shuffle over the floor without getting splinters. See the photos below.

The next step is polishing, but as yet we aren’t quite up to that. When the rooms are finished I’ll probably post some more photos so you can see how they look.

[tags]applying, wood, floor, wooden floor, bedroom, masonite, nailed, Mitre 10, family, gluing, nailing, drill, drilling, punch, nail punch, putty, puttying, hire, sanders, splinters, polish, polishing[/tags]

First I better say that I wasn’t the one doing the working, my mum was. Anyway, from Saturday 23rd June to the Monday 2nd July we’ve been down in Hervey Bay keeping ourselves busy. I took my GPS down too, and I found about 8 geocaches (see the geocaching website for more details on geocaching). Unfortunately a geocache called “Whale of a Time” had been vandalized by someone, so I had to pick up all the stuff that was lying around and put it back in the container. The fact that a few inches of rain had fallen didn’t help matters.

Maryborough

On Thursday 28th June, Maryborough was our destination. We had heard of a river cruise boat that took people for cruises on the Mary River, so as soon as we arrived at Maryborough we went to the tourist information office to find out about it. When that was done, off we drove to the Maryborough Sailing Club to await the boat. Once on the boat, the captain (see the picture below) started telling us about the Mary River’s history. An enjoyable hour passed before we were dropped off again. Lunch was next: for that we walked over to the Botanical Gardens opposite the boat club. Although the gardens didn’t have any taps (what was the council thinking), it was still very nice. After lunch, we drove up to the library where we stayed until it was time to go back to Hervey Bay. Below are the two photos.

Fraser Island

On Saturday 30th June, we went on a trip across to Kingfisher Bay Resort on Fraser Island. Adults and children were half price, so we got a good deal that included morning and afternoon Tea, lunch, tours and lectures plus the boat trips there and back. We didn’t see any dingoes, although we came very close to seeing one as some people who were walking behind us were surprised when a Dingo walked out in front of them. On the boat trip back, they showed us the photos that they took. Below are some photos of Fraser Island.

[tags]Holiday, Hervey Bay, GPS, Geocaching, Maryborough, Botanical Gardens, Mary River, Fraser Island, Kingfisher Bay Resort, Dingo[/tags]

I listening to ABC Local Radio (837 AM) on June 20th, and Steve Austin was talking to Jim Dowling, who is a peace protestor. To my surprise, Steve mentioned that several people had supposedly entered Shoalwater Bay (a military training base north of Yeppoon). The next time I was on the internet, I searched on Technorati for Shoalwater Bay. Below are a few results that I found.

• http://thetension.blogspot.com/ : Has quite a lot of photographs of Talisman Saber 2007 (a joint military exercise between the US and Australia. Expect more of an ‘official’ view of things.
• http://ablekaneadventures.blogspot.com/ : A blog written by some sort of photographer for the US Army. I like this blog as Joe (the author) writes about his experiences around this area. Nowhere near as official as the previous blog.
• http://www.peaceconvergence.com/ : This website presents the other point of view, that Talisman Saber shouldn’t be taking place at all. Lots of news about issues concerning the enviroment and protestors.
• http://simonreeves.blogspot.com/ : This blog is written by a peace protestor, and I thought it especially interesting because this man was in a group of five who were arrested after they entered Shoalwater Bay and walked to a base.

Anyway, hope the above will keep you interested for a while!