Cann River - May 27, 5:06 PM

Every time I find myself driving after the sun goes down, I'm surprised by how cold it gets.

Anyway. I'm in Cann River. This place is a true forest town - small, single hotel, two gas stations, a country shop.

I was hoping to make it to New South Wales today, but the sun would just be setting when I arrived - feeling cold, I parked by the hotel and sat at the bar inside.

I watch the fire in the pub's furnace. Every few seconds, there's the characteristic "pop" of a sap bubble exploding, a nostalgic and kind sound, a sound which brings memories of childhood joys to the surface.

I think I may stick around for a light dinner, then drive to a nearby camping spot.

Later

The fish and chips at Cann River Hotel are cracked.

Merinbula, NSW - May 28, 12:51 PM

Made it to New South Wales!

I am officially closer to Sydney than I am to Melbourne; also, I've passed my first odometer landmark - arriving in Cann River marked 24001 km on the odometer.

I'm excited. Stylo performed great on the drive - no issues for the past ~400 km. I've been checking my setup over each morning and some gas station stops - checking the status of bolts, tire pressure, wear and tear, etc. and things are looking good.

Which is great.

It leaves me a lot more headspace to focus on reading, writing and work, as well as considering the future.

... speaking of the future. I'm officially on my last $100 for the next four days. Which is actually going to be a very interesting experiment.

I'm going to keep a log of my expenditures for the next few days. The goal of this experiment will be to spend as little as possible, with the constraints of:

1. I'd like to try continuing to live semi-comfortably, with one full meal (or the equivalent in calories) per day and a small allowance for coffee or other cheap luxuries.
2. I make Sydney or Sydney-proximity within two or three days, which means paying for fuel.

Now, for the equivalent in calories, let's just work out the number of calories we need. The Harvard med school guide to caloric intake recommends, for a moderately active individual to maintain weight, to multiply your current body weight in lbs by 15 to get your daily calories.

For me, at 155 lbs, this would be $15*155=2325$ calories.

For reference,

• A medium-sized cheese pizza is about $1510$ calories,
• A medium mocha around $320$ calories,
• A full package of Tim Tam's cookies is about $950$ calories.

Now. Fuel. I've been recording my odometer reading at each gas station, as well as the liters filled. Distance driven divided by fuel consumption will give us our fuel efficiency. For four separate measurements,

$$ \frac{23477-23260}{8.06} = 26.92\ \text{km/L} = 63.32\ \text{mpg} $$ $$ \frac{23639-23466}{8.14} = 19.90\ \text{km/L} = 46.81\ \text{mpg} $$ $$ \frac{23837-23639}{10.12} = 19.56\ \text{km/L} = 46.00\ \text{mpg} $$ $$ \frac{24001-23837}{10.12} = 19.71\ \text{km/L} = 46.36\ \text{mpg} $$

You'll notice the sharp change in fuel economy from the first measurement to the later three. And this is actually super cool - 23477 was the last time I refilled with a broken carb. Fixing the carb meant cleaning out the jets, so more fuel could get through. For the change in fuel economy, in order of how significant I think they're affecting it,

1. The increased (cleaned) diameter of the main carb jet - I'm no longer restricted to 1/2 throttle
2. Hilly and mountainous terrain for the previous couple hundred kilometers
3. I'm driving with a full cargo load

Once I arrive in Sydney, I'm going to offload my gear in a hostel, and try testing out the highway without a load. I don't expect to go more than 200 kilometers around the city, but even a small odometer difference will tell us fuel economy, just with less data to work with.

Regardless - I've got 454 km to go until Sydney. If we assume about 19.6 km/L, I'll need 23.16 L - and, at a rough cost of 1.74 AUD per liter, predicted $40.3 AUD for gas.

Let's see how well reality agrees :)