Summary of events

Did not post for a long time. That had several reasons. I did not get to many updates on Heinz's location. Unfortunately. Especially I am still missing pictures, so far I do not have any. Cannot change that, maybe downloading from flickr, but that would not be the same. We just have to wait.

I updated the google earth map. The green line is the possible tour Heinz did. Might went a different way. Nevertheless, we know that there were some trouble in Alice Spring, but all we know is that the tour continued from there. So, assuming that all sorted out and the planned tour could be continued. The last reported position is (24th of August 2008)

14°55'25.60"S
133° 8'1.60"E

somewhere thermal springs. He reported that these are the sources for the Roper River at Mataranka. He enjoyed the time there as he went several time swimming, even before setting up the camp. It is warm, clear sky and a calm wind. (And and report that this is the opposite of the Kalgoorlie weather as I witnessed this on the weekend). The night before, he stayed at a cabin at Threeways 25 km north of Tennant Creek.

Yesterday, the trip ended in Cooinda in the Kakadoo National Park. Camping. Here, he got into some serious problems as a tire was ripped. While crossing a creek with crocodiles (crocks, as he writes, but not sure what the is) everywhere around. We received the message, so he must have survived this.

Today, he is supposed to be in Darwin. THe official plan is about meeting with the rest of the team ..... (More to come ...)

Google Earth Integration

It is just fantastic how easy the integration of google earth into the blog was. Will describe it on my blog later (http://treiners.blogspot.com). It is more a hack and copied code from the google examples but it worked with 30 minutes. Just great. This is how it looks. And you can freely navigate in it.


Anyway, it is currently only available if you are using Windows and have the PlugIn installed. Download it here and have fun ......

Otherwise, no further information.

Some information of Heinz, who is dry and calm

First information from Heinz (actually a little older, but did not look into my mail before). Carl where sending them to me. Here are the original messages:

18 July 2008: Camp 3 at 25deg. 36 min. 33.4sec south; 127deg. 13min. 27.2sec east. Dry calm. 8.20pm Heinz.

Camp 4 at Yulara N.T. 25Deg. 14min. 6.1sec. South, 130deg. 59min. 19.6sec East. Dry Calm 3am Heinz

A screenshot and the file for Google Earth will follow tonight. Could not get that from the MAC (yes, I do not know how to operate that machine, but I am learning). Google has a plugin for Google Earth, but only for Windows. So, if you are interested in that, I will try to set this up in the next days. Must be cool to just have this on a website.

First message from Heinz arrived

They are a little bit behind the schedule. They called today. They were close to Leonora around noon, so half a day late. Unfortunately, nothing else that I could write. Could make up a nice story about the long drive through the bush, seeing endless miles of road. But I never went in that direction so have to stick with: We inform you asap

Where is Heinz?

We do not know? But must be somewhere. Hope that everything is okay. He told me to call him on his satelite phone if I do not get a message after 72 hours. So that will be soon... Lets cross our finger ....

The Desert-Ship disembarked from the CarPort

Actually, we are not sure. They were supposed to leave around 7am, just when the sun got out. But did not get any feedback or GPS-coordinates. So, nothing to report but to present the planned route through Australia. First stop won't be Kalgoorlie (which would be a very long drive). He planned 9 hours, so that there would be still some light on arrival near Leonora.

We, that is Torsten (the german ghostwriter) and Naomi (his daughter), do not believe that he will make it. Sorry Heinz, but we assume a delay of one hour in the morning and some breaks to enjoy the view (and go to the bush dunny). Lets wait for the first message, after that I will also start the Google Earth Map. So far, it is just a DOT in Perth.

THE vehicle

The first small update. This is the car that will be used by him to travel all the miles. We have to check the distance of the car floor to the ground in the next picture as it might tell us something about the load. Heard that it will be packed, fueled and extra charged with a second battery. And I would not mind to see a pic of the refridgerator they suppose to have. But Chardonnay and beer must be cold so it is the only way to do it: Bring your own fridge. Guess that there aren't to many wild rivers out there in which you could but the bottles ....