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November 10, 2012
And another journey begins. Fly to LA, Fly to Sydney, AU, and fly to Cairns. About 20 hours just in airtime. Ugh.
November 12, 2012
Blog We arrived in Sydney on the 13th. Not sure what happed to the 12th. Must be that crossing the international date-line thing? Anyways, here I am sitting in the airport in Sydney eagerly waiting for our last flight.

We made to Cairns (pronounced Caans), found our hotel, got some food, and called it a day.

November 13, 2012
We got up bright and early to setup, do some testing, and determine if we could see the eclipse from our balcony. So far (it's still early in the morning as I write this), we have determined that the Internet sucks, but the view may be OK. Stay tuned...

Blog PS Here's the view from our hotel balcony. They are expecting 6000 people to gather on the beach to watch the eclipse!

Blog We did get some of the network issues solved with the help of our hotel (Beachfront at Trinity Beach). I helped them install a new network ADSL modem and they showed me how to get a little extra bandwidth. It really helps to have friendly and helpful staff. Once that was completed, we ventured out for lunch. I had Laska (a spicy soup) and a "bug", which, to me, tasted like a cross between a lobster and a crab (see picture). Ugly little buggers though, I can see why they call them bugs (at least I hope that is why).

Blog We asked about swimming on the beach in front of our hotel, but I guess the sign says it all. Pool, here we come!

We tried to update the firmware on the telescope mount, because it was working properly. Not only did our initial attempts fail, but we also were sure that we "bricked" the device. We searched the Internet and everyone you experienced the same failure also appeared to have "bricked" their devices and were forced to get new ones. Since it was pretty obvious that we would not be able to get another one in time, we decided to take it apart and found a reset button hidden inside. With another shot at downloading the drivers and holding the hidden reset button, we were able to re-flash the firmware and we have a working mount again. Wew!

Apparently, the stores that were selling solar glasses have ran out and there is a rumor going around town (we were told) that some guys at our hotel (grin) have some for sale.

The End