In about a 100 hours, I’ll be home, err, I mean standing in Perth Airport, getting my rental car that is.

And the backpack is full! Just seems like I overpacked but I went through everything and it’s all quite essential. There’s barely three changes of clothes in there but there’s also the tripod, sleeping bag, Tevas, toiletries and all. Been looking for a new pack and what do you think about the Arc’teryx Bora 95? Looks big, well designed and I’ll take the inkspot please!

For some strange reason I thought of using medical ice-packs to cool drinks after long expeditions and hikes. I googled around and found that ammonium nitrate (one ingredient of gunpowder) can be used too since it does absorb quite a bit (my estimate is about 26kJ) of energy when dissolved in water. Might be enough to cool a few beers. Wonder where I can get some medical ice-packs in Malaysia?

Looks like my Nikon Coolscan III or LS-30 film scanner finally bites the dust! After two months in the service center, I get back a cryptic report saying they fixed the problem, cleaned up the sensors and all but it breaks again after the fifth frame I was trying to scan. I called up the center’s number and get the real explaination: “There is no fix!” Oh heck.

Well, here’s more to the list: Clothes (lots of Nike’s dri-fit) go into Deuter Packsacks, my PalmOne Zire 71, Eastgear BP-511 batteries for my 300D, Maha MH-C401FS fast charger for all my Sanyo AA batteries, masking tape, carabiner-style rings for attaching stuff to packs, Banana Boat sunblock, and more later…