For the last week of our holiday, we decided to get away from the South Australian heat and head down to the Victorian coast.

On our way we checked out some nice spots, like Robe, where we had a very refreshing swim in the Southern Ocean, and spent the night camped not 10 metres from the sea.

We also spent a day driving the western end of the Great Ocean Road from Warnambool to Apollo Bay, and seeing all the sights like the 8? remaining apostles, the Grotto and London Bridge.

However we were very glad to leave the car behind and take our bikes on the stretch from Apollo Bay to Lorne. We appreciated the spectacular coastline so much more by riding it. Along the way, we stayed at a beautiful spot called Cumberland River, which is surrounded by sheer cliffs, before moving on to spend a few days in Lorne. There, we stayed in an awesome hostel in the treetops and spent time at the beach and going for short rides, including one to Erskine Falls – a cool 500m vertical climb from sea level.

Of course our time was up far too quickly and we headed home, stopping by Lake Hume for one last spectacular sunset of the trip.

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Part of the reason for visiting South Oz was to catch up with my rellies, especially my absolutely delightful grandparents, Don and Pam. We spent a few days either side of our Barossa ride hanging out with them at their beautiful house and garden in Balhannah in the Adelaide Hills.

We also managed a day trip down to Adelaide to show Michael all the the things that he’d missed out on by never making it to Adelaide on all those family holidays… the home ground of Stephen Kernahan and Adelaide Oval.

As always, Don and Pam were incredibly hospitable, looking after us very very well and making us both feel at home. It was beautiful to spend such a relaxing time with my very loving grandparents and to have them get to know Michael better. We’re already looking forward to our next visit to see their new house!

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So … way back in November ’07 Mike and I both took three weeks off work and decided to see some of the country… at least partly by bike! Yay! We headed off to South Oz to visit some of my lovely rellies, and to spend five days riding our bikes through the Adelaide Hills and the Barossa Valley.

We saw so much beautiful and varied scenery and both loved taking the time to really appreciate it at a nice cruisy riding pace. There are too many great things we did to mention them all, but sunset at Mengler’s Hill is spectacular… the best view in the Barossa, Maggie Beer has an amazing property to check out, oh, and Nuriootpa municipal pool comes highly recommended if the temperature soars above 30.

(guest post by Meg)

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.. is surely the only reasonable thing to charge this violent idiot with. He gets held up for two seconds by a few cyclists on the way to get his dole cheque, so he trys to kill them. Do not pass GO, do not collect $200.

And don’t get me started on the decrepit state of the NSW Labor party, but let’s just say this is true to form. The minister says it’s “not helpful” to ride in “peak-hour” traffic – so if 6:45am is peak hour when should they be cycling, 3am? Perhaps he should try telling the car drivers it’s “not helpful” to drive in peak-hour.

Nice to see GetUp haven’t burnt out and faded away after the election.

They’re running a petition right now calling for action from the govenment on climate change, with the warning that the big polluters have invaded Canberra with lobbyists. To be honest I haven’t spotted any of the lobbyists – apparently their hands drip with oil – but still it’s worthwhile signing to be sure.

If you’re wondering what all this subprime business is about, don’t miss the subprime primer. Probably not safe for work .. if you work at a bank or a finance company anyway.

If you haven’t seen it already, check out this amazing graphic of U.S inflation.

You can see what all the little sections are by hovering your mouse, or you can zoom right in.

It has lots of interesting little comparisons, although they’re all about the “average” person so I guess they might be lies, dam lies and statistics.

For example the average spending on new and used vehicles is 4.6% + 1.8% = 6.4%, whereas spending on car running costs, maintenance etc. is ~9%. For some reason I would have thought new cars would be a greater share of spending, but I guess running costs add up, and a lot of people drive old cars.

It just struck me that the download pages for Linux & Solaris might reveal a certain something about the projects they promote. Or maybe not, just a thought .. really I’m not trying to start a flame war.

From kernel.org:

“The latest stable version of the Linux kernel is:  2.6.25.1“

And www.opensolaris.com/get:

Code without compromise
Our fully functional desktop environment promises extreme data integrity, so you can code on the edge and never compromise your work.

…

Download, burn, boot, and launch.
From dorm room to boardroom. OpenSolaris has everything you need to take your brilliant idea, build a prototype, test it, deploy it, and run it on production servers—out of a loft, or across your enterprise.  …  OpenSolaris is industrial strength and built to scale from the get go. … OpenSolaris is the OS of choice for those who prefer to live on the cutting edge of innovation. Naturally fast, free and easy to download …