The 2009 Capricorn Resort Half Ironman Triathlon is slowly creeping closer, with a start date of 16th August. The challenge has a new name this year, with the original name being “Rydges Capricorn Half Ironman”. Notice the slight change from Rydges to Capricorn Resort. This is probably part of the suspected resort-wide policy change.

The Triathlon itself starts on the 17th of August at 8am and will go for approximately 4 hours. The first session is a 1.9 km swim, starting on the beach just north of Yeppoon at Rydges. The swimming course has a cut-off time of 1 hour and 15 minutes, meaning any people still in the water after that time will be disqualified.

The 90km bike ride is next, which is comprised of approximately 5 laps from Rydges Resort to Yeppoon (official lap ending point is opposite the Beachside Caravan Park). As with most triathlons drafting will not be allowed. Drafting is the practise of grouping together on a bike ride to benefit from the front rider’s slipstream.

After the bike ride, competitors must then run the the final 21.1km Zoot Run Leg, which is entirely on Rydges grounds. There complete course is made up of 3 laps, and finishes in the swimming pool and recreation area. The Zoot Run Course has actually been named one of the greatest Half Ironman courses in Australia.

The running course finishes the Half Ironman Challenge’s competitive events. A Gala Presentation Dinner will be served to competitors and their friends later on the night of the Triathlon, starting from 5:30pm.

YeppoonInfo.com will keep you updated on the Capricorn Resort Half Ironman Challenge events.

Voting booths were the busiest places in Yeppoon and the Keppel Electorate yesterday as people made their choice in the 2009 Queensland Election. Votes have now been fully counted, with the ALP winning by about 1.5% in the Total Formal First Preference Vote for the whole state, and leading by 15 seats in the Primary Vote statewide.

The Keppel Electorate results are below, with Paul Hoolihan from the ALP retaining his seat.

• Paul Hoolihan from the ALP (Australian Labour Party) party received 52.83% of votes
• Steve McKenna from the LNP (Liberal National Party) received 37.77% of votes
• Paul Bambrick from the Greens received 9.40% of the total counted votes

To view the full Election Results, visit the ECQ website results section. Specific results for the Keppel Electorate are also available.

YeppoonInfo.com is your source for the latest Yeppoon news.

March 12, 2009

Storm surge and wind gusts expected for Capricorn Coast region

The Bureau of Meteorology has announced that residents of the Capricorn Coast may experience
dangerous surf conditions, tidal storm surges and damaging wind gusts over the next 24 hour period.

The announcement was made as ex-Tropical Cyclone Hamish (located 270km northeast of
Gladstone) continues to track northwest at 20 kilometres per hour.

Rockhampton Regional Council will continue to monitor the system and does not wish to alarm
residents, but rather notify them to prepare their homes for severe wet weather activity.

Should residents require assistance in regard to storm damage or flooding they are requested to call
the State Emergency Services (SES) Call Centre on 132 500.

We ask that residents do not call the local offices of the SES as they have limited phone lines, and the
volunteers will be working to capacity providing assistance to the community as assigned to them by
the SES State Call Centre.

Requests for storm damage assistance such as for sandbags or tarps etc. should be directed to the
SES, not Council, on 132 500.

Please ensure your homes are made storm safe by clearing any objects and items that may become
airborne in a storm.

Take extreme caution around fallen trees or limbs as they may be concealing live power lines.

- ENDS -

As of the latest BOM Tracking Map, ex-Tropical Cyclone Hamish has been downgraded to a Tropical Low. Currently the low is moving up the coast again (almost doubling back on its tracks) in a north west direction. Dangerous weather is expected for the Capricorn Coast (RRC Media Release).

Tropical Cyclone Hamish from bom.gov.au.
View a timelapse animation of Cyclone Hamish.

The BOM has stopped issuing track maps.

Rising Creeks by Jylan Wynne

From 9am on Tuesday morning to 9am on Wednesday morning, Yeppoon and surrounding districts had over 80.6mm, or 3.1 inches of rain. This is enough to flush out all the creeks and leave a lot of water lying around on the ground, but so far there has been no major flooding like in February 2008.

The Capricornia district forecast from the Bureau of Meteorology has this to say about Wednesday and the days ahead:

CAPRICORNIA DISTRICT

Outlook for Wednseday: Rain areas. Isolated thunderstorms. Moderate to heavy falls possible. Moderate
NW to NE winds, shifting W to SW inland during the day.

Outlook for Thursday: Scattered coastal showers, more isolated inland.

Outlook for Friday: Scattered coastal showers, isolated inland. Late rain.

YeppoonInfo.com will keep you updated on any weather developments in the area.

If you want to help people who have lost their homes, please visit the Red Cross Victorian Bushfure Appeal 2009 web site to donate money online. To keep up to date with the fires, the ABC’s Bushfire Event section is a good resource.

I’ve attached a live map showing where the fires are their current status:

Yeppoon Rydges Wetlands by Ben Noy

Just recently I had a commenter on my post about the Trespassers Prosecuted signs that Rydges had put up on their beach access. He was asking whether I knew anything about the recent signs that Rydges Resort has been putting up around the wetlands they own behind the resort. I had noticed these signs myself on a recent drive up to Kellie’s Landing, which is a gazetted road (open to the public). The only other gazetted road in the wetlands goes up Fisherman’s Creek. All the other wetlands accesses have been closed off.

Anyway, to find out what the story behind the closure is, I contacted Rydges Capricorn Resort through their contact form last night. Today after I got back from picking Lychees at the farm up the road, I had a detailed reply from the Iwasaki Sangyo Company (owners of the Rydges resort chain). I’ve included it below:

Good Morning Jylan

I am more than happy to explain the situation regarding the closure of our Wetlands area. You may not be aware that Iwasaki Sangyo (Aust.) Pty. Ltd., are the owners of the Wetlands area and have been the owners and protectors since its purchase back in the late 1970’s. For the last 38 years, the local community and visitors have been welcome to have access to this wonderful nature reserve. It is sad to say that in more recent years the problems with irresponsible people are becoming more numerous. The vandalism and damage being done consists of pig hunters accessing our property, cutting fences, enabling our cattle access to the main road, which in turn is causing car accidents through no fault of our own, we have dead and injured cattle, we have young people bringing in their vehicles to the wet areas for the purpose of mud bashing which is having serious consequences to the vulnerable areas. Also we have a problem with arson, we are accused of lighting these fires and these fires are destroying the pristine area, the wattle bush love fires and are increasing in numbers instead of allowing the natural habitat to exist. These incidents are becoming so regular that the police and the stock squad have advised us that if we are serious about fixing the problem we would have no option but to start prosecuting the trespassers’. To do this we need to make it clear that this is private property so the trespassers’ cannot plead ignorance. It is sad to think that it has come to this and would have preferred another option, maybe in the future when the irresponsible members of the community have been educated on how valuable this area is, we may be able to reopen this area. Fishing Creek road is still open to the public as it is a Gazetted road. We are also owners of an area of land between Yeppoon and Bangalee, because this area is so close to town it is now being used as a local dumping ground, we have had to resort to using cameras throughout these areas in the hope of stopping these few people who have spoilt it for everyone else and we hope that the concerned responsible people of the area will support us in what we are trying to achieve so the community can once again enjoy this area.

I hope this answers your questions for you, if you do need any further information please feel free to contact me.

Yours faithfully

Mr. Takeshi (Ted) Mitani

Director

Iwasaki Sangyo Co (Aust) Pty Ltd.

I think this was a very good explanation of the problems they faced, I can understand why they would want to keep people out now. It’s just a pity that some people ruin it for others by lighting fires, cutting fences and the like.

This morning I was looking over the local news for the Yeppoon area and saw this Morning Bulletin article about it.

The man has been the 3rd person to die in the Central Queensland area in the New Year period.

This new site includes a totally different structure, for example along the top just above the random header image display (which showcases panoramas around the Yeppoon region), there is a places menu listing all the localities in this area. Above that menu are the resource links, which currently include the Yeppoon Events, Yeppoon Photo Panoramas and Yeppoon Accommodation pages. Later on as soon as I can code it, I hope to add a Yeppoon News page which people can subscribe to via email or RSS.

If you have any other suggestions of what to add or what I can change, please don’t hesitate to contact me!

Looking out over the Five Rocks Headland & Beach

Recently my family and I did a drive up to the Byfield National Park area, which is located around Five Rocks, Stockyard Point, and Nine Mile Beach. Access is 4WD only, so we took along our new Nissan Patrol. This was the first time we’d ever done sand driving, or proper four wheel driving for that matter, so it was exciting to be testing out the 4WD.

Byfield National Park covers an area of around 15,000 hectares or 37,000 acres, so it’s a huge, fairly unspoilt area. Notable features include the huge sand dunes in the Nine Mile Beach area. For more information about camping spots and facilities in the area, please visit this page on the EPA’s website.

Most people visit the Five Rocks area to four wheel drive, fish, camp or explore. Some do a combination of all these things. One good piece of advice for anyone wishing to go and visit this area is to bring someone in separate vehicle along, as there are plenty of potential for getting bogged in soft sand and the like. Anyway, below are some photos of our day trip up there:

Our convoy on the road to Five Rocks, as you can see the whole track there is sand.

Driving down the hill to the Stockyard Point Lookout. From here you can look north to the Five Rocks Headland or south over Nine Miles Beach.

Our parked cars at the Stockyard Point lookout.

The view to the Five Rocks Headland from Stockyard Point.

Looking down to the start of Nine Mile Beach, jutting up to Stockyard Point.

I took this picture from the top of a small hill, overlooking the end of Nine Mile Beach. It was a beautiful place for swimming.

The Orange Bowl - or so it called by locals. This gigantic pile of orange sand is a great place to rev up the ‘ol 4WD and spin some wheels, but be wary of burning out your motor.

The design is fairly simple, just a two column type using negative margins to line up the sidebar and content sections. Screenshot below:

At the moment the shop pages only have a description of the shop, contact details, and the latest news (taken from the Google News RSS feed). I used the LastRSS PHP class to do the work of pulling in the feed and then I wrote some preg_replace rules to clean it up. I do have some more features planned however, maybe a ratings/comments system on the shop pages.

Hosting was a bit of trouble. I normally use free hosts (paid hosts are just a bit too expensive for me at the moment), and the host which I use for this website, Yeppoon Info and briter:webdesign doesn’t allow the PHP method used to grab the feeds, which I think is fopen. Instead I had to go looking for a free host that supports this method. Eventually I found freehostia.com, which seems to be a very fast host just right for my needs.

Anyway please go over and have a look yourself at the Yeppoon Central website: yeppooncentral.net.au. And yes I am trying to get some nice links for Google :-).

Queenie as a very young cat with unproportionally large ears.

Queenie paying attention to something interesting.

Keeping a watchful eye on the photographer.

Her grave which my sisters made. Rest in peace Queenie, we loved you.

We chose Skymesh as our service provider, mainly because they have very competitive plans and they don’t charge extra if the data allowance has been used up. Instead they do something called shaping which limits the speed of the connection to 64kpbs, which is about twice as fast as the dialup I’d been using.

Another two very useful features are data blocks, which allows you to buy extra data for the month, and the ability to upgrade to a higher priced plan, whenever you want at no extra cost (except for the difference between the two plan’s prices of course).

My modem and computer

Probably the only major difference between Skymesh satellite broadband and normal ADSL broadband is something called the ping speed or latency. This occurs because when I request a webpage, the request travels something like this: computer to satellite dish, 36,000 kilometres to the satellite, 36,000 km to a base station, base station requests webpage and transmits 36,000 km to satellite, then another 36,000 back to my computer.

That is about 144,000 km all up, not counting the route the webpage travels from a server to the base station. Add the time taken for the data to be processed properly, and you’ll be looking at over 1sec response rates. This might not seem like much but imagine that you’re playing an online game. Someone’s about to kill you so you defend yourself, but by the time your signal has traveled 72,000 km or so you’re dead.

This wouldn’t happen on normal broadband because there are no nasty 144,000 km stretches for the signal to travel. You can find out more about IPSTAR satellites here (Skymesh uses Ipstar satellites to provide service).

The satellite installer putting the dish up

When I click the more details link I have the option to remove the personalised search results:

This feature is definitely good news for SEOs and web developers who don’t want to have to worry about cookies interfering with web search results. Oh and BTW, don’t go accusing me of lying. Often Google only unveils new features to a small percentage of web users.

The specs are as follows:

• Processor: 1.42Ghz PowerPC G4
• Ram: 512MB
• Optical Drive: DVD Burning Superdrive
• Operating System: Mac OS 10.3.9 (which I’m going to upgrade to 10.5)
• USB: USB 2.0
• Hard Drive: 160GB

Those are the important specs. In contrast, my old emac was only 800Mhz, 384MB or ram, a combo drive, USB 1.1, 40GB hard drive and Mac OS 10.2.8. Big difference between the two!

Anyway, because the eBay buy it now price was so cheap for these type of specs in an eMac, I decided to buy it right then instead of bidding and potentially losing the auction. You see, I was desparate for a computer because my old one was totally out of disk space and I had a about 10GB of unbacked-up photos stored on the hard drive.

After I’d ordered the computer it took about 10 days or so to arrive from a suburb near Perth, in Western Australia. The seller, assorted-it-stuff, was very helpful and prompt to reply to my emails.

I can’t really think of anything else to tell you about it. It’s running really well, the speed is just such an improvement, and so are the superdrive and fast USB connection (essential for downloading photos).

The good thing is that I’ve actually been getting more visitors than I thought, and that’s enough to make anyone happy :-).

Please tell me if you’ve ever done something like this so I’m not alone in my embarrasment!

We chose the area down near the house pad back fence, which has a sort of round shape with bamboo and lots of thick grass in it. First of all Dad put the metal wire support poles up, then we unravelled the wire that we were going to use. Some of it was so tangled up with grass that I had to use the ride-on mower to pull it out!

The first side of the pen that we put up was running parallel with the house pad fence, and that was easy because we just lent the wire against the existing barb wire and wrapped a few pieces of wire around it so that it didn’t fall.

On the left is the house pad fence which is the back of the temporary chookpen.

After that we got out the higher wire and started from the northern side of the pen (behind the photo above) and wrapped it around the metal posts in an arc shape. That wire went nearly all the way around, but stopped just right of the above photo so that an entrance could be made.

The third and last wire that was put up went from where the 2nd wire stopped, and stopped in the middle of the above photo. There it joined up with the first wire that we placed.

The chookpen was finished! Now they have somewhere to scratch away the day. The main chookpen is only 20m away, so we don’t have very far to carry them :-).

A happy chook.

The bamboo and grass area. The chooks love sitting in there to hide.

Anyway you’ll soon be reading more about this over on Jylanization :D.