15. September 2000 11:05
by Rene Pallesen
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In September 2000, just after I returned from my trip to Borneo, I had to buy this new car because my girlfriend had written off my car whilst I was away! *smile*
I did not look forward to hunting around for a new car, but I found a good buy locally. This car is a 1997 Ford Futura, with 4.0 litre, 6-cylinder, 220-horsepower, power-steering, central locking and electronic windows (I think I am starting to sound like a car advertisement...)
It is pretty much the same colour as my old car, and it feels so nice to drive!
As you can see, pretty similar, but I also really miss my old car! It had a lot of computerised features - from a digital odometer, to adjusting the internal temperature of the car. It was a pretty cool car and wished I could have kept it for another few more years.
A huge contrast to my first car!
It is a red hatchback that I bought early 1998, a few months after I arrived in Australia. But someone wrote it off a few months after I bought it. It was a pretty bad accident, but luckily I was alright. I was only covered by Third Party insurance, and to go through a lot of paperwork just to get reimbursement for the car!
15. August 2000 10:43
by Rene Pallesen
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Ecochallenge ( Sabah 2000 )
Away from Headquarters . . .I managed to explore the villages at Silam.
The people here wore this white stuff on their faces - I guess their form of sunscreen.
These people were refugees from the Philippines.
The kids were fighting to fit into the photo!
The kids here were really cute.
These kids here, had caught a monkey and was trying to sell it at the camp for 5 ringgit (AUD$2.50).
No-one wanted to buy it because they knew if they bought it, and set it loose, the kids would just catch it again, and try to sell it.
In general, there were lots of great photos at Silam village.
One of the helicopter pilots was driving through the jungle roads, took a corner too fast, and had a minor mishap.
We headed into Lahad Datu to get some seafood!
An escape from camp food. Camp food was disgusting. There were live worms in the vegetables (yes, after cooked). Most of the food was not fresh, and was pretty boring. The seafood was fantastic here. Whenever we had the chance, we ate lots of seafood.
Yum... Paul did not get to eat all of the crabs - all of us had a portion of it.
Yummm... they were huge, but we did not eat them. They were too big for us to eat, pretty impressive though. They were the biggest lobsters I have seen in my life. We saw these at the same place we ate our seafood and frogs (below).
We had this frog for dinner about 2 min after I took the photo.
This was actually when I went out with Glen in Kota Kinabalu - he asked me to pick some food and to surprise him.
I did not tell him till a year later that he ate frog meat. He asked me what it was, because he reckoned it tasted funny, but I did not tell him at the time.
I think he will only eat it again. Only if he really had to.
Petronis Towers - the tallest twin towers in the world.
Actually, they are the tallest buildings in the world, followed by the Sears Towers in Chicago.
The towers are joined by some sort pedestrian platform.
These towers are located in Kuala Lumpur.
I went to Kuala Lumpur to pick up my Permanent Residency for Australia.
Woohoo!!! After 2 years of lots of paperwork, and correspondence back and forth with Berlin, I finally managed to get it!
The inconvenience of it all, was that I actually had to leave Australia ie collect my PR before re-entering Australia.
Below, is the only photo I have of the Lateral Linking Team that I worked with during the race.
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Created: 7 Dec 2001
15. August 2000 10:42
by Rene Pallesen
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Ecochallenge ( Sabah 2000 )Helicopters . . .The radio communications team had to arrive a few days before that because we had to hand out over 2,000 pieces of radio equipment. We had problems getting the necessary approvals for helicopters so they were grounded! I ended having to hand out most of the equipment as Glen and Paul had to sort out our use of the helicopters.
We had to fly all the equipment to Silam before the start of the race, and our team managed to fly to Silam the day before the race started.
Do you believe that Paul managed to take a photo of me whilst I was flying the chopper? He was standing to the side of me, and took the photo at night time, with the door open ...
Just kidding.
A couple of days before the race started, I was at the airport most of the day. We had some problems with the radios in the helicopters... I must have been in and out of those helicopters at least 200 times.
I did manage to get someone to take some photos of me in a helicopter, looking very much like the pilot!
I had hoped that I had the time to explore Kota Kinabalue, but we were so busy, it had to wait.
Here is the 212 or "Huey" - a twin-turbine Vietnam helicopter taking off. It is a hell a lot more powerful than some of the other helicopters we were using, which were 206s.
Here are the medical guys practising abseiling out of the helicopters (Aussie style)!
At the start of the race, I was sitting there listening to the first rescue on the radio.
3 hours after the start, four boats had capsized... helicopters and boats were very busy!
The competitors were due to arrive at Silam (another checkpoint) the next day (21st Aug).
For the first few days after the race started, I had to help organise to get the fuel to the top of the mountain.
After that the helicopter came in useful. It brought up 100 litres of fuel on the 4th day so I did not have to ferry fuel anymore!
At the end of the race, we had to sling-load the repeaters, to get them off the mountain. That means we had to strap them onto the helicopters, and pull them off the mountains that way - quite effective really.
Repeater station finally airborne!
You can see a pole in the right photo.
My girlfriend asked me what it was for - it helps balance the load so that it does not keep swinging whilst airborne.
Below, you will see some pretty good photos from the chopper.
Towards the end of the race, we had to scan the rivers for the last competitors coming in - to make sure they had completed this section of the race course. It was low-altitude flying of the river-bed.
The photo on the left shows the chopper approaching Silam Village. This village was located just outside of Silam HQ.
Glen liked wanted to have a photo of the back of my head - and I ruined the photo by turning my head as he took it...
Here's a sunset shot of the helicopters flying around.
I had to put in this fantastic photo - the lighting gives a really nice feel to the photo.
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Created: 7 Dec 2001