Julian Yates kindly ran a bushwalking course for Scouts Australia over the last five days, which covered walking in Uncontrolled Terrain (the definition in the Australian VET scheme for the most difficult bushwalking — significant off track navigation in areas where emergency response will be hard to get). I helped with some of the instruction,…
A nerd snipe, in which I learn to read gerber files
So, I had the realisation last night that the biggest sunk cost with getting a PCB made in China is the shipping. The boards are about 50 cents each, and then its $25 for shipping (US dollars of course). I should therefore be packing as many boards into a single order as possible to reduce…
Gangscan 0.6 boards
So I’ve been pottering away for a while working on getting the next version of the gang scan boards working. These ones are much nicer: thicker tracks for signals, better labelling, support for a lipo battery charge circuit, a prototype audio circuit, and some LEDs to indicate status. I had them fabbed at the same…
Trigs map
A while ago I had a map of all the trig points in the ACT and links to the posts I’d written during my visits. That had atrophied over time. I’ve just spent some time fixing it up again, and its now at https://www.madebymikal.com/trigs_map.html — I hope its useful to someone else.
Trail run: Tuggeranong Stone Wall loop
The Tuggeranong Stone wall is a 140 year old boundary between to former stations. Its also a nice downhill start to a trail run. This loop involves starting at the Hyperdome, following the wall down, and the continuing along to Pine Island before returning. Partially shaded, and with facilities at the Hyperdome and Pine Island….
Trail run: Lake Tuggeranong to Kambah Pool (return)
This wasn’t the run I’d planned for this day, but here we are. This runs along the Centenary Trail between Kambah Pool and Lake Tuggeranong. Partially shaded, but also on the quite side of the ridge line where you can’t tell that you’re near the city. Don’t take the tempting river ford, there is a…
Trail run: Barnes and ridgeline
A first attempt at running to Barnes and Brett trigs, this didn’t work out quite as well as I’d expected (I ran out of time before I’d hit Brett trig). The area wasn’t as steep as I’d expected, being mostly rolling grazing land with fire trails. Lots of gates and now facilities, but stunning views…
Trail run: Pine Island South to Point Hut with a Hill
This one is probably a little bit less useful to others, as the loop includes a bit more of the suburb than is normal. That said, you could turn this into a suburb avoiding loop quite easily. A nice 11.88km run with a hill climb at the end. A total ascent of 119 metres. There…
Trail running guide: Tuggeranong
I’ve been running on trails more recently (I’m super bored with roads and bike paths), but running on trails makes load management harder — often I’m looking for a run of approximately XX length with no more than YY vertical ascent. So I was thinking, maybe I should just write the runs that I do…
Trail run: Cooleman Ridge
This run includes Cooleman and Arawang trig points. Not a lot of shade, but a pleasant run. 9.86km and 264m of vertical ascent.