Birds Eye View

This is the view the birdies see when they fly over Wombat Hollow!!  My blip buddy gemaxphoto came out to Wombat Hollow about three years ago and took a very similar image with his new Drone.  Ever since then I have been hankering to have a Drone myself.  It has been a steep learning curve, but I'm delighted to say I'm actually getting the "hang of it".  The Drone I have is a very sophisticated machine and I marvel at the fact that I just have to press the "return to home" button and even if its 150 metres away and 100 metres in the air it just turns on its tail and heads for home and lands within inches of where it took off from.  Quite amazing but thrilling at the same time.  There are many areas in Australia where Drones are not allowed to be flown but I'm hoping on my next epic adventure with Mauzee we will be able to develop our skills and showcase Australia from another perspective where they are allowed.

Mauzee has just posted an image of the map of Australia which shows a footprint of where we have travelled over the past 66 days.  I know a lot of blippers jumped on board and were following our journey through the app.  That's the fun side of the Gen3 Spot GPS Tracker but it does have a very serious side.  If we found ourselves in an emergency situation we could press the SOS button and it would send a signal to the base in the USA and they would then alert the appropriate Australian authority.  They would be able to give them our precise location and send help.  I'm happy to say we have not had to use that feature during our trip.  

A few weeks ago I alluded to the fact that we had a near miss while driving from Norseman to Esperance in WA.  I was driving and Mauzee was examining the map on her iPad.  We were on an excellent road and I was driving at the regulation speed of 110kmh.  I noticed to my horror a car heading towards us had crossed onto our side of the road and was heading straight for us.  The driver had obviously been distracted or nodded off.  I'm thankful that my old squash reflexes kicked in and I was able to drive off onto the gravel shoulder and avoid a head on collision.  I'm not sure the GEN3 would have been of much help if we had not avoided that catastrophic situation.  I relate this story now because we are home safe and sound but it was a very sobering event for both of us.  It really shook us both up at the time.  I have always driven with the intention of monitoring the oncoming traffic and felt that is where our greatest threat lies when driving such long distances and at fairly high speeds.    

We're off to the Blackheath Photo Group tomorrow and it will be wonderful to catch up with our buddies again after such a long break.  Travel Safe my friends.