Neat Quick Project - Stubbie Cooler Holder

As any good Aussie knows, the only thing more important than a nice cold beer is have a stubbie cooler handy, such that aforementioned cold beer stays that way, even in the middle of a tropical summer's day.

By using $20 worth of assorted plumbing supplies scored at the local Bunnings, plus a bit of paint left over from the Camaro Fridge project, we have ourselves a nifty stubbie cooler storage-and-dispenser device:

That's it to the right of the fridge, in case you were still looking for the marvellous item.

It's really very simple. It has to be, since you only really use it when you're drinking.

Stubbie coolers can be pulled out of the bottom of the tube, like so:


When you're finished, re-deposit your stubbie cooler in the top, like so:


The holder tube always contains an ample supply of fresh stubbie coolers ready to be quickly grabbed out of the bottom slot.


By locating it right next to the fridge, you knock out the time-consuming step of having to walk a couple of metres to grab a cooler from under the bar (possibly having to open a door on the way - that's a worst case scenario though - don't panic too much). Such an improvement in drinking efficiency is truly legendary.

The Stubbie Cooler Holder is colour-coded to the fridge (the left over anti-rust fence paint - $free), and currently sports the requisite ARAI motorcycle helmet logo sticker. Hey - you pay that much for a helmet, you'd BETTER get a couple of free stickers.

All in all, I've tested it extensively (note to self - pick up another carton of Mids this week), and it's passed with flying colours. And before you ask - I DID consider painting GT stripes on it as well (EVERYTHING'S better with GT stripes!), but declined in favour of black spray-painted saddle clamps. I'm going for the subtle look, you see.

Anyway, I've got to go and give it another test right now! Catch ya later!

---

(In case you're still scratching your head - yes - it's a bit of PVC downpipe screwed to a wall, with a hole cut out of one end and a cap glued on with silicon. Don't forget the anti-rust paint, which really has no business being on plastic. Don't question it - just do it. Don't look too closely at the photos - the camera's battery was dying, and it has trouble focussing even with full power available.)

Camping at the Lions Den Hotel

This weekend just gone (Friday 23rd May - Sunday 25th May), Jess and I took the Friday off for a DIY long weekend, and headed up the coast. Our target was a place called the Lions Den Hotel, which is just south of Cooktown. (More info here : LINK - Lions Den Hotel) It also gave us another good excuse to head up through the Daintree rainforest via the coast road. Seems like we've been up that way every week lately!

We were a little concerned as it started raining here in Cairns on Thursday afternoon, and rained consistently throughout the night. This could mean that the creek crossings on the Bloomfield track could be up, which might bring us unstuck. The only other option is to go "the long way round", via the inland route. This way is probably actually a little quicker, since it's bitumen road the whole way, but it's no fun compared to the coast road.

We decided to head as far as Cape Trib and make our decision there. Stopping off for a cup of coffee at the Discovery Centre, we had a chat to the staff and found out that it had only just started raining up that way that morning, and had been fairly light. We decided to push on and give it a go anyway.

We stopped just before the gravel road starts and dropped the tyre pressures down to 20psi all round. We haven't bothered with this in the past, but figured with the slippery track we could possibly use the extra traction. Plus I was keen to experiment and see what a difference the lower pressures made to the ride of the car over the later, rocky sections of the track. It was a good excuse to use my brand new ARB Ezi-Deflator, and what a wonderful piece of equipment that is. I'll be going looking for excuses to use it now.

Pushing north past the 4WD Vehicles Only sign, we were pleasantly surprised with the conditions we found. Whilst it was still raining where we were, we had the feeling that we were simply following the leading edge of the rain up the coast. The creek crossings were all at their normal levels, and there wasn't too much standing water on the road - no more than a couple of hour's worth of rain.

One of the smaller creek crossings - not much water here



A good reminder to be careful around the water. Whilst Jess walked across the Woobadda Creek crossing to take photos of the car crossing, it's a good idea to spend a quick minute surveying the water beforehand, and making sure that it's nice and clear. You're not likely to have a problem with the lizards, but you should never get too complacent of them.



One of the rare non-raining moments of our trip up



A small bridge over a creek


Woobadda Creek Crossing

Woobadda Ck was probably the crossing that I was most concerned about. Emmagen Ck is the first one you encounter as you head north from Cape Trib, and marks the limit of 2WD vehicle access. It's safe to swim in, and is quite a popular spot. It can also be quite deep, but is only around 2/3rds the width of Woobadda. Woobadda is towards the end of the track, and as such doesn't see as much traffic. It's usually fine, but with the rain I was concerned that any moderate increase in depth would see us turning around and backtracking all the way south.

Jess walked across to check the depth as well as to get some "Action Photos!" from the other side. The water height was just below her knees, so we figured that we'd give it a shot. As the Pathfinder currently has standard height suspension and no snorkel, we need to be a little cautious of water. We made it through fine, and the difference that the lower tyre pressures made was amazing. Instead of hunting and skittering across the rocks that make up the riverbed, the car felt flat and stable, and simply walked straight through. Much improved over the last time when we were running full pressures (28psi).

With that out of the way, the remainder of the trip was quite quick and very enjoyable. The wet track made me thankful of the 4-wheel grip, especially on the steeper ascents and descents.









The new road north of Wudjal Wudjal is quite impressive as it hugs the Bloomfield river


Further down the road from Wudjal.

We pulled into the Lions Den at about 2pm - total travel time of around 6 hours. We quickly set up camp, and had a bite of lunch. About 5 minutes after we finished, the rain started again! Here some photos of our camp site, and of the creek that runs along the camp site.



Our camping spot for the weekend


The creek












I decided to try out my fancy new fishing rod ($40 from BCF, including a 100 piece tackle box!!! woo-hoo!), despite not knowing a thing about fishing, or even expecting to catch anything. As it turns out, using bread as bait isn't really a good idea. A beautiful cast out over the water landed about half-way across the creek. And promptly hooked a submerged tree. No amount of tugging from different angles could dislodge the brand new hook, sinker, float and 8m of line. Bummer! By now it had started raining heavier though, so we gave up and retreated back to under the awning.









Speaking of the awning on the side of the car - how good are these??!! It was an absolute lifesaver this weekend, and gave us just enough space to sit under and remain dry throughout the day, as well as cook and eat at night. Definitely very happy with how it's turned out, especially considering how much it cost us. We would have been lost and soggy without it.







Saturday dawned beautifully clear - for about 10 minutes. Then the rain, which had continued throughout the night, picked up where it had left off. Unfortunately Jess was all too aware of the rain through the night, as the tent had developed a leak over her head. This resulted in a drip every two minutes landing on either her forehead or her pillow. She had tried to re-position her mattress away from it, with not much luck. Of course I was completely oblivious to all this, and only found out over breakfast. Needless to say, she was pretty over the whole camping in the rain experience by then.However, after a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs, the mood started to lift.





We were still trapped under our tarp until midday, when the clouds cleared and we were afforded a beautiful afternoon of sitting around and not doing much. That night we headed up to the pub for dinner and a few drinks. A huge pizza to share nicely complemented the rum cans, and the house dogs were happy to line up for ear-scratchings as you sat at the bar.

Unfortunately I didn't think to take any photos of the pub itself, which is a real shame since it's quite impressive. Every single square inch of available wall or ceiling space is taken up with texta writing of who's been there are what dates, where they have come from, where they're doing, and all manner of other scribings. If you ever get a chance to go there be sure to allow a couple of hours to wander around with a drink in hand and read the walls. Just don't count on the ATM to be in any working order (thank goodness for the Eftpos machine at the bar!)

Sunday dawned again to rain, which had started some time during the night. Luckly the canvas hadn't got as soaked as the previous night, so Jess was able to get a night's sleep in without any damp interruptions. We still faced the dilemma though of when to pack up. The prospect of packing up the tent wet and having to load it in the back for the car was not really something we were looking forward to.

Thankfully the clouds parted for a couple of hours, allowing just enough time for the canvas to dry to a reasonable state. We dived in and broke camp as quickly as we could, and just had packed the last things into the car when the rain started again. Good timing!

We now faced the same decision as on Friday morning - do we head back down the coast road and possibly have to deal with raised creeks, or do we give up, and head back the long way round. The creek at the Lions Den was about a foot higher on Saturday morning following the previous day's rain, although it was back to it's Friday-level before we left. As the creeks have to deal with much more water during the wet season, they're generally fairly fast to go back down after some light rain.

Long story short, despite the three days of rain, we chose to head back via the coast. We had no problems at all. There was more water lying about than on Friday, and there had obviously been a good bit of rain in the preceding two days. Despite whatever had happened in the meantime, the main creek crossings were back down to their normal levels when we arrived, which afforded a quick and trouble-free drive back.









We had a decent run back into Cairns, despite it again raining all the way back. Port Douglas was in the middle of their annual Carnival celebrations, so we had to deal with the returning home traffic once we past south of there. This made for some slow going on the windy coastal highway, but we eventually fought our way past all the belligerent motor home drivers who wouldn't pull over.

It's still raining here now (Tuesday), and the car is still filthy and covered in mud. I've not unpacked the tent as I've got no where dry to put it up to air it out. Same goes for the ground sheet, which is still bundled up in it's bag and probably growing all sorts of mould. All good reasons why I need a big shed!

Despite not having the best weather, it was still good to get away for a couple of days and sit around outside for a change. We going away again in a couple of weeks for a long weekend, so will hopefully have a bit better weather then!

All the photos from the weekend can be found here : Picasa WebAlbums - 2008-05-25 - Camping at Lions Den

Tent Troubles

When we spent the weekend camping at Lions Den in the rain, we discovered our tent (a canvas tourer+ style) has a leak. This happened in the most annoying way possible - a constant drip from the top assembly down onto Jess' head and pillow. Of course it started at around 2am, so there was nothing else for it but to try and dodgy something up and more our mattresses out of the way.

I'm pretty cranky about the tent leaking, since it's only a year old, and still basically brand new. When we bought it we made sure to set it up in the backyard, and over the space of three days would soak it completely with the hose and let it dry out. This allows the canvas to shrink and the thread to expand, thus waterproofing the seams.

However, I think the problem that we're having stems from a basic design flaw with the tent. As a canvas tourer-style tent, it has an internal square frame at the top of the tent. The frame is inside the tent, which makes for a very easy and quick setup time. What I believe is happening is that once the canvas gets waterlogged, where the frame touches the external canvas it pulls the water through to the frame, where it then drips down. This is the same as if you put a bag or your feet against the waterlogged canvas - the contact "pulls" the water through the canvas and whatever's touching gets wet.

Dad had old canvas tourer style tents, and they had an external frame at the top. This was a pain in the backside to assemble each time, but they didn't have problems with the water coming through like we're having here. I'm not really sure what to do - I may yet email the manufacturers and see what they say.

Short of that though, I think I'll try some Scotchguard waterproofing spray on the top section. If that doesn't work, I guess the only thing for it is to set up a tarp as a fly over the tent, which kind of defeats the purpose of having a canvas tourer tent in the first place.

Some pictures of the problem areas:

You can see a drip forming on the corner section of the metal frame






If I do get around to emailing the manufacturer, I'll have to remember to ask them about an ongoing issue we have had with the retention of the back section of the tent. As ours is a Tourer+ style, it has the extra area at the rear to provide more space. This is retained by an external U-frame to hold the back out tight. However, the top corners seem to lack any nice way of attaching to the frame.

There's a nice thick webbing loop, but it has nothing to attach to on the frame:




So we end up using the small little ties to secure it to the frame and pull it taught. However, as you can see from the above photo, I don't think that they're designed for that, as they're very small and thus can't be attached too securely to the tent itself.

Because the U-frame is wider than the rear of the tent, one side inevitably ends up pulled further out than the other. You can clearly see here why we can't use the thick webbing straps to secure the back:




I don't think that the U-frame is too big - I think that the thick webbing straps were meant to be twice as long as they are, and would hook over the top of the lugs on the top of the corner sections.

All up, it's not an ideal situation, and may even be contributing to the leaking issue above, since we can't tension the canvas up properly for fear of tearing the thin tie strips completely off. Will have to see if we can come up with a better solution.

Daintree drive - Bloomfield Track

Jamie and Angie came up for a week's holiday from Saturday the 3rd of May to visit their friend Mary who moved to Cairns earlier in the year. Since they were here, we took them of a tour of the Daintree via the Bloomfield track. It was a bit squishy in the Pathfinder, but Jamie didn't seem to complain about being stuck in the back between the two girls. Mary must have enjoyed the trip, as she began making plans on the way home to sell her car and trade up to a 4WD.

We pushed as far north as Wujal Wujal and the Bloomfield Falls, which we hadn't been to before. We had to stop off in town and ask for directions from the local hospital (the police station was closed). We had tried to find it ourselves, but we came across a rather huge, rather new, and very official looking "DO NOT ENTER - Council restricted zone. Tresspassers WILL be prosecuted" sign. We asked the duty Doctor about the sign, and his words were "Oh that - don't worry about that - just go straight past it, and keep going as far as you can - it's about another 5 mins past the sign". Turns out his directions were spot on, and we didn't get jailed.

From there we turned south and headed back down the track again, through Cape Tribulation and back to the ferry over the Daintree river, with a quick stop at the Daintree Icecream farm on the way - luckily just arriving before they closed for the day. Once over the ferry you straight away feel as if you're back to civilisation, and the pioneering feel of the Daintree villages slips away behind you.

Nothing much to report - we've done this trip a few times with people now, and it's always a nice drive. The track itself is in good condition and there's nothing too hard about it. There's a few small creek crossings - Woobadda Ck is probably the deepest and longest, and hence the most fun. But it would be less than 30cm deep at it's deepest, so it's hardly challenging.

We took a bunch of photos on the day, and you can find them all here:
Picasa WebAlbum - 2008-05-04 - Daintree Rainforest

Here's a selection:

Woobadda Ck














A steep section on the track:


Bloomfield River:






Bloomfield Falls:
(With a bunch of lovely photos taken right down at the water's edge, about 30 seconds before Matt remembered that this section of the river is full of crocodiles)





















On the Ferry over the Daintree River, heading back home: