Anyway - enough about all that.
As we found on our Australia trip, mobile coverage is non-existent, and wifi is about the same. Even when it's available, it's either not included in the room cost, or it's hopeless speed, or hopelessly inconvenient. An example was in Gympie, we needed to go to the reception every three hours to have another receipt printed with a key on it.
The summary of that rant, is that we can't rely on any mobile/broadband/wifi infrastructure as we travel on our main trip. Through Europe, it should be OK, but I bet it will go downhill very quickly as soon as we hit Slovakia & Ukraine.
An opportunity has come up to buy a satellite phone & data kit for not very much money, but it's a bit ahead of time. Part of me says to jump on the opportunity, and part of me says 'you don't have a car, what good will a satellite phone be'.
Having a satellite phone won't be the whole answer, the data rate is horribly low, so you need to get clever to use it properly. Some clever people have made some software that resolves all of the inefficiencies of retrieving and sending email on super low bandwidth (20KB/Minute!)
http://www.mailasail.com/Main/Mailasail-In-Detail
All of our blog posts (when not on WiFi) will be done via an email client. It's a convenient way of writing the blog offline, but without the wastage that comes through posting via other means. Considering the best rate I've found is $2/Minute for data calls, getting the best out of this outgoing is going to be a high priority. We totally don't intend to browse the Internet using this system, it's far too slow for that.
Oh, about that not having a car bit. I have a car, but it's fairly worn out. The clutch is worn, suspension, bushes, front shocks, steering box are all rubbish. There is roughly 3" of play in the steering. That becomes very tiring to drive. It has a weird fault where it won't start if it's hot. I'm waiting to read the fault code with Brett's OBD-II (On Board Diagnostics) computer. The tyres are all worn. It has 10 months rego, which is perhaps it's only selling point. But the summary of this, is I don't want any of these problems. I want something that's super easy to drive (more car like)
It seems a bit wasteful to just throw it all away after the effort we've put in... but it's not like that - we've learnt heaps. Everything is saleable or reusable. I've got the car on eBay, and will post a few of the other items such as the drawers, and the fridge frame. I've already sold the navigation system for a cool $500 - this included the fail laptop I complained about so much on our recent trip.We don't intend to sell the fridge, air compressor but I doubt what I've made is going to fit a newer car. I'd say it will actually fetch a pretty penny. Worst case, I'll cut it up and retain all the steel, runners and timber for another system.
Cassie has a new laptop for school which as all the bells and whistles, which will come with us on our trip. It's got plenty of power for making videos, storing photos, modern operating system and a built in GPS &3G.
What we didn't have on our last trip was a table. That was something we certainly thought about, but due to a mis-calculation, the maxtraxx didn't fit where I wanted, and they took the place of the table.
Thinking about it, it would have been hard to get out of the bog on Fraser with a table, so perhaps we made the right call. A table on it's own is nothing, a mosquito proof room would have been awesome. We found at the end of the day when it was still hot, we wanted to unwind, but as soon as nightfall came, bugs made it impossible to be outside the car. So shade and outdoor room would be awesome. Not quite sure how to do that yet, but there is plenty of time for that.
It's been so hot here in Canberra the last few days, and it's finally come across raining now - time to get back to TV.
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