h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Sure, once I got used to what metric looked like, it would be fine.

My parents' generation wouldn't hear of it, though.

We have 2 liter bottles of soft drinks, but even though everything in the grocery store is labeled with both metric and standard measurements, they're based on standard sizes, not on metric sizes. As companies continue to downsize the packages (for the same price as the older, larger packages ), we'll eventually reach metric sizes in everything else.

Some things are the same everywhere! Even here they downsize the package and leave the price the same. As far as I can tell it has nothing to do with changing from imperial to metric measures, only to do with company profits.

They've even done this with our stubbies (bottles)!!

The excuse offered up by the company was that "people" wanted better looking bottles for their and that the new design, while containing *slightly* less , was a lot more aesthetically pleasing.

A survey, done *after* the change in bottle design, discovered that the average drinker couldn't give a rats what the bottle looked like, as long as it had in it.

Travelling twelve and a half thousand kilometres (approximately 7767 miles) in eleven days with two Amercian blokes certainly was an experience! Luckily they agree with me that metric is good and whatever antiquated system they still use at home is complete rubbish.

We managed to cover most of the western side of the country, going from victoria along the great ocean road, up through adelaide (where we spent hours finding anywhere that would let us email our final exams back to uni) to port augusta, and then north, right up to Katherine, west to Broome, south to Port Headland (where the car spat the dummy and we were stranded overnight), then all the way south to Kalgoorlie, where we had a short side trip in to town to buy the new Harry Potter, which we read aloud to each other all the way across the nullabor and home!

We paid $1.22 for petrol at one place, and generally over $1.10 (apparantly, if you do all the currency and litres to buckets of american slop conversions, that's about four times the price of fuel in the US), which hurt, saw a lot of roadkill, almost hit an eagle (I swear, it was only the force of the car which gave it enough lift to miss us), almost hit a million roos, met some interesting truckies (who upheld every single stereotype you've ever heard), patted a camel, managed to leave a gps in the middle of the desert and then find it again, showered only three times, and generally had a lot of fun.

Oh, and that original message was sent from just out of Kings Canyon, almost smack bang in the middle, where petrol was $1.19 and internet access $6 per 20 minutes. Both you can find anywhere, but the prices will show you that it's pretty damn remote!

You would've missed more than you saw travelling at that rate!

Talk about a whirlwind tour!

I don't understand. How could $1.19 AU for petrol cost more than our gasoline in the US? I just filled my 13 gallon tank at the rate of $1~49.9 cents a gallon. I thought US dollars exchanged higher than AU dollars. It sounds like you're paying a lot *less* for gas than we do, Cafram.

Glad you're back safe and sound. Get a shower!

Oh wait! Doh! You must buy petrol by the liter.

Silly Australians.

Just for a bit of perspective: I filled my car up tonight here at 80.9 cents per litre. Kings Canyon is in Central Australia where they can pretty much charge whatever they want for petrol (and anything else).

You're still paying somewhere in the neighborhood of 2.5 to 3 times as much as we're paying for gas. Ours has been running about $1.399/gal here lately.... maybe they're charging extra for the fancy name "petrol" in Australia?

petroleum...gasoline...yep, it must be the extra syllable that does it!

Yep, 'twas very much the whirlwind tour, but that's all the time we had! Doing it again we would probably take another week...but really, there's not all that much to see!

my wonderful american boy has flown off home only five months until I can go over and see him

Darn Americans.



Has anyone ever suggested to you that it's probably a really really really really really ten-thousand-mile-bad idea to date an American when you live in Australia ... or vice versa?

I suppose it's too late, though ... you're smitten. Ack.

Cafram

I understand the time constraints, but you can't be serious when you say that there's "not all that much to see", Cafram.

On the way up, how much time did you spend in and around Ayers Rock and The Olgas? There's a week in itself. Alice Springs?? There's another week gone!

A friend of mine and his (now) wife spent 4 months travelling from Katherine to Perth and they still want to go back and see more. They go on for hours about some of the things I supposedly *have* to go and see. The main thing they tell me is that you need get off the main highway.

I spent six or seven days exploring the coast between Geraldton and Carnarvon (a distance of about 500 km), when I was supposed to be driving up to Port Headland to visit a friend. Eventually my friend decided that the only way we were going to catch up with each other was if she drove down to Carnarvon to meet me.

The area south of Perth is worth a week or two of exploring, except perhaps for Albany which was as boring as bat when I was there.

But there's nothing to see on the Nullabor Plain................ Except you can stop and do a tour through some of the Nullabor caves and if you head south to the coast from Cocklebiddy you can park yourself overnight on a pristine beach, visit the bird sanctuary, or wander a bit further east and see cliffs towering about 200 feet straight up. If you're really keen (and have a 4WD) you can drive along the coast from Cocklebiddy to Israelite Bay and back into Esperance.

Anyway, that's enough of a rant from me. So I beg you, Cafram, take more time and stop and smell the s next time you plan such a trip.

s

Ok, I know there's heaps more we could have seen, but we really only had two weeks (well, eleven days), and we only just made it back as it was! We did get to Uluru for sunrise, and we walked around Kings Canyon, and we found some fantastic mineral springs up north somewhere, as well as swimming at cable beach in broome...if we'd had more time we'd have taken it, but we didn't, so a whirlwind tour it had to be!

AW, I'm well aware of how nasty it is to be in love with someone on the other side of the world - I've barely stopped crying since he's left!

But, no regrets - as much as it hurts I'd do it all again...you meet someone who's that *right* for you...how can you not make the most of what you have? And he's *only* in America, and it's *only* four or five months until I can see him again...it's not *that* bad...

For what it's worth ... I know how you must feel, Cafram. I barely stopped crying for more than a year over someone I never met, nor will I. And yes, I'd do it again ... though not over him this time. Most people think love is around every corner, that you can find it under the rocks just about anywhere, but the truth is, it's the rarest commodity in this world. Someone may come along and offer to truly love you once or twice in a lifetime. If you find that love in someone you care for, it certainly is worth the effort of travelling any distance.

My best wishes to you for a lifetime of and every happiness.

I also suspect that on this particular trip, the least of your concerns was looking at the sights.

Romantic ramblings aside, though ... remember that it's going to be very difficult for you to get to know this guy very well in the short times you'll be able to be together. He may not be what you think he is. Give it time. Give it lots of time before you make any decisions that will impact your future. Okay?

*My* advice is to start a countdown thread - people love 'em Oh, and by all means feel free to keep on crying for a while And to ramble romantically and be irrational Oh, and I hear is good, as is smiling and breathing. While eating chocolate and crying. Got all that? Good