Tuesday, Mar 06, 2007 at 20:48
Hi there Oldplodder.
My habits:
Drive with the windows down - yeah, I know... it is probably worse for economy than having the aircon on, but that is just me.
Wind them up and put on the air con when it is hot hot or when the phone rings (too often in the most unusual of
places) or when you want to listen or contribute to the mindless drivel on the UHF - usually to point out the magpies on the road, or the quality of the photography gear set up on the side of the road, but sometimes just to tell some bored trucky what all the graffiti on your car is about - what do for a living, or to tell him and his mates to slow down so you can make a decent photograph of them in convoy ;-)
Unless you like the road-side cuisine ... just stop for good coffee - you get to know most of the good
places, and bemoan the habit of country town cafes of closing at 2PM, although you might stop at McCafes for coffee too.
Drink a lot of water (1 litre per hour on hot days) and usually stop to water the horse every couple of hours.
Other than that try not to stop. Try to minimise fuel stops even, and keep yourself entertained by trying to guess what my mileage and range will be based on the terrain, the load, whether the aircon is on, and how fast you're going.
Have a fridge and carry food and drink with you. It's much more interesting and cheaper to - smoked salmon, cream cheese, onion (if it wasn't pinched at the border) and capers with cracked pepper on a lovely fresh roll for the price of a hot dog, washed down with Mango Juice or Iced Coffee or Iced Tea.
Listen to the radio, and when anything interesting is out of range, put on loud music - not heavy metal, but all sorts of other stuff from Beethoven to Bat out of hell.
You might find that a 20 minute snooze is as good as a 30 minute ... put the phone alarm on so you don't oversleep - don't want to be late for work.
One time on the way back from Alice on a hot hot hot day I parked in a creek bed under the shade of a coolabah tree and whilst I was dreaming of jumbucks my phone alarm when off and vibrated it's off button against the console ... I woke up an hour later rather surprised, because I had ants all over me ... they had climbed up the tires and into the vehicle and the road
home was a very itchy bitey one.
Why sleep in Portagutta when you can sleep in
Adelaide or at Mambray Creek in Mt Remarkable National Park?
Cheers
Andrew.
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