The road less travelled

I'm going to take three days to drive to Mount Isa, around 700-750kms a day.

This is the way I'm gonna go:


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I'm leaving Newcastle on the 10th of January, and aiming to make it to St George, hometown of Barnaby Joyce, on the first night. That'll be 750kms.

The second night I'm going to aim for Barcaldine (I'm not sure how to pronounce this town, can anyone help?), which will be 723kms.

The last day will be 742 kms, and take me all the way to Mount Isa.

That's a total of 2215kms over three days! A long, long way...

Email feed

I've worked out (I think) how to get an email feed for this blog. There's a box on the right, if you type in your email address and hit subscribe, you'll get an email every time I post a blog entry!

I mean, I know it's unlikely many people care enough about my blog, but Rah (and maybe Mum and Dad) I hope you'll find it useful!

And Blogger also offers a RSS feed for those of you who use that.

Getting the band back together

I've decided to fire up the ole' blog because I'm moving to Mount Isa in Outback Queensland!

I've accepted a cadetship at the North West Star which is a Monday to Friday daily paper. There are three other journalists in the newsroom, so I'll definitely be thrown in the deep end. This is a good thing, though! It means I will have to cover a wide range of stuff, and I will get opportunities that I wouldn't get in a well resourced metro newsroom.

So, where is Mount Isa, I here you ask? In the middle of no where, as this map will show you!


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It's roughly the same latitude as Townsville, but something like a 10 hour drive inland. To put it another way, it take two hours to fly to Brisbane in a 737.

So right now I'm packing up my stuff in Carrington. I'm only taking one car load of stuff, so everything that doesn't fit is being sold, given away, thrown out or stored in Mum and Dad's shed in Moss Vale.

It's a pretty big change, and I'm both excited and nervous.

I'll try to update this once a week or so. I've worked out how to post from my mobile phone, so I might even try to post something from the road (if there's service!).

More TV news stories

I recently completed an internship at NBN News in Newcastle. It was good fun and I learned a lot. I also got to interview British billionaire Sir Richard Branson!

I didn't get any packages put to air, which is when the anchor introduces a story, and then a journalist starts narrating the story. I was mainly doing what are known as VOs and VSs. A VO is when the newsreader keeps reading the story while footage is shown, and a VS is the same thing but with a grab (a quote) in the story somewhere.

Anyway, I got a couple of packages cut by the media production intern who was also there. These didn't go to air, but are very useful in terms of applying for jobs. I've put them up on YouTube so potential employers can see them, but I've also embedded them here.

I've put the last one I did first, and the first one I did last (it's a bit biblical, isn't it?), and you can hear the changes in my voice as I got more comfortable with the equipment and listened to what the other journos were doing. I'm still not sure if I'm completley happy with my voice, but I think it was a big improvement.

tv news assignment

This is a TV news story that I produced for a uni assignment. There has been some (unkind) comments that I come across as more a Ray Martin than a Tony Jones... 

Anyway, let me know what you think. I've got another story that I will put up soon.

news stories for uni assignment

I've had a uni assignment to produce two TV news stories (from different angles). Here's my effort.

new website

I've built a website for my dad, he's a psychologist in Moss Vale, in the Southern Highlands. It's my first attempt at a website, and it's pretty basic, but seems to do the job. 

At the moment I'm trying to get it found easily by search engines - this is not as easy as one might think. Any advice gratefully received.

Let me know what you think.

www.peopleskills.net.au