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Gong Gong Reservoir park reserve ballarat public BBQ & bushwalks + address GPS location

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Gong GongWP_20170826_15_32_12_Pro reservoir park is located less than 10 kilometers outside of Ballarat, along the Daylesford-Ballarat road, just past the brewery tap road turnoff.

Technically, the address to tap into your GPS is:

255 Daylesford Rd, Gong Gong VIC 3352

The public recreational park in Ballarat is operated and maintained by Central Highlands water.

Tours and community educational activities are run by CHW on a regular basis on the site

Call CHW on 1800-061-513 for more information.

http://www.chw.net.au/community/gong-gong-reservoir-parkWP_20170826_14_57_36_ProWP_20170826_16_26_54_Pro

The reserve contains large open grassy areas among european style gardens, gas BBQ facilites, and outdoor numerous sites featuring  smoky woodfire BBQ and site heating pits, picnic facilities including tables & chairs, drinking water fountains, public toilets and sufficient car parking for your family and friends.

If you have a fishing license, you can even fish for trout in the gong gong reservoir, but you cannot use any burly to attract the fish, as this will contaminate the drinking water supply.of Ballarat.WP_20170826_16_16_05_Pro

Gong Gong park Ballarat is a favorite venue in Ballarat to host wedding ceremonies, receptions and other family   functions, and includes paved, flowering vine draped pergolas positioned against beautiful natural bushland backdrops, perfect for wedding ceremonies.

You have to book if you have a party of more than 30 people planned,, and there is a no confetti, and take home rubbish policy to adhere to however.

Your friendly pooch however, is not welcome, due to the population of native animals in the park, some of which are rare or threatened species and for the quiet enjoyment of the facilities by other patrons who would not appreciate misbehaving dogs rampaging noisily though their picnic, or blatantly stealing sausages.

Attached to, or within the Gong Gong park are a number of great bushwalks-

  • Yarrowee river Catchment Habitat and Water Trail
  • Waterwatch Wetlands Trail
  • Native Nesting Box trail

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All walks are leisurely walk along and over the river, or through bush land with regular interpretation panels at intervals explaining and highlighting the diverse and wonderful native flora and fauna that the river and park supports.WP_20170826_15_27_15_Pro

Inexplicably thought however, access has been limited to many parts of Gong Gong reservoir for an unstated reason with walks fenced off, and signs proclaiming “no public access” in areas where ballarattians were free to venture. Why parts of Gong Gong reservoir has been closed is a bit of mystery.

The Gong Gong reservoir itself is one of the oldest elements of the Ballarat water supply infrastructure, and was built in 1877 has a capacity of 1902 megalitres, (1902ML) and is up to 22 meters deep.

Gong gong reservoir forms one of the largest dams of the white swan system.

The reservoir was named after the Chinese water god Gong Gong, who is considered to be responsible for enormous floods- this naming highlights the importance of the Chinese community’s influence and contribution in ballarat during the gold rush years.

http://www.chw.net.au/interactive-maps/water-storage/gong-gong-reservoir#zoom=9&lat=-37.33963&lon=143.87698&layers=00BT

The new upgraded spillway, pictured below was built  by Engineer-in Chief for the Ballarat Water Commissioners 1945-1970, A.E. Stohr

More details on the infrastructure can be found in the book

The Ballarat Water Commissioners report concerning water supply to Ballarat and district with special reference to the White Swan Reservoir Project / by A. E. Stohr.

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Nokia Lumia Windows Device recovery tool Microsoft official download location

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If your Nokia Lumia phone, including Nokia 830 and 930 have stopped working properly after a windows 10 mobile update, you will need the Windows Device recover tool from Microsoft to roll back the operating windows 10 mobile operating system back to windows 8.1.

In Australia, on the Nokia 930 the Telstra branded update can break, resulting in microsoft edge not being installed, and you being unable to sign into your microsoft account login.

The store will also be broken, because without being able to log in, you cannot install edge again, but on a cruel catch 22, you cannot log in witout installing the correct app… which require a successful Microsoft account login.

Anyhow, the official Microsoft download link to the Microsoft device recovery tool for Nokia Lumia phones can be found below:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/12379/windows-10-mobile-device-recovery-tool-faq

The link is just to a package installer, of 2.3Mb. An obnoxious and convoluted download process may begin after installation of the initial installer from Microsoft.

windows_recovery_tool_nokia_lumia_working_screen

 

annnnnd.. an error 0x00000067 (thor2NotResponding) is thrown on my Nokia Lumia 930

windows_recovery_tool_nokia_lumia_error0x00000067(Thor2NotResponding)

eventually, after some trial and error, and at the prompt, hitting power + volume down till the phone vibrated the following screen pops up, offering a download of a suitable windows mobile OS version from the server.

windows_recovery_tool_nokia_lumia_reinstall OS

Upon clicking “install software, Microsoft asks you why you are ditching windows 10- performance issues, apps nor working as expected etc etc.. I basically clicked EVERYTHING! and moved on!

windows_recovery_tool_nokia_lumia_survey_screen

 

The file size for the OS flash of windows 10 / 8.1 mobile is a whopping 1.78BG in size. Quite a chew on my data allocation for the month!

windows_recovery_tool_nokia_lumia_windows_10_81_file_size_GB

After about half an hour chewing my expensive mobile data, the download finally finished.

The only nice thing about this is that it stores away these installer files on your C: root drive for later use if you need them, or if the download fails halfway though, saving you time, instead of restarting the whole process again.

When complete,the program switches over to trying to get the windows Nokia Lumia phone to switch to flashing mode so the new OS or reinstall will be accepted.

windows_recovery_tool_nokia_lumia_switching_to_flashing_mode

After spinning away for aeons, my first attempt to reinstall windows mobile on my nokia lumia ended in utter failure, and the program crashed badly not long afterwards, requiring the task manager to put it out of its misery.

On research on the net, a lot of people have problems with a nokia lumia phone switching into flashing mode and it just hangs. In my case, I think the problem was that the phone was running, with its OS active at the time, as indicated by its start screen covering the screen. I think it needs to be in an early boot mode to switch successfully.

windows_recovery_tool_nokia_lumia_operation_ended-with_failure

On a second attempt however, I rebooted the phone with the power+downvolume hold technique, THEN, quickly plugged in the phone immediately when when the screen showed the NOKIA logo, on a black background.

This met with significantly more success, and the windows mobile flashing operation on the Nokia Lumia phone began working.

windows_recovery_tool_nokia_lumia_software_package_installation

On the phone side, the Nokia lumia 930 phone screen turned a disturbing BLOOD red colour, with a progress bar that mirrored what was going on on the computer.

windows_recovery_tool_nokia_lumia_operations_successfully_completed

As the progress bar came to the end, the Nokia Lumia Microsoft windows device recovery tool displayed a successful flash had been executed.!

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Burger Brothers & chookas charcoal chicken Howitt street wendouree ballarat + gellato

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I droppWP_20170824_14_20_27_Proed into burger brothers & chookas charcoal chicken at Howitt street wendouree for a quick, and hopefully good value lunchtime feed.  The food I ordered was competent, fresh, and tasty enough, but I wasn’t blown away- for the price I expected a bit more- Sadly, the “big brother” burger turned out to be more like a bland accountant or conservative public servant type, not a bad boy that plays in a band, rides motorbikes, and hoons about in his terminally unregistered commodore, outrunning police on a regular basis.

The shop is a tidy looking place, but to be honest, the decor needs some creative flair- with a bit of effort, it could be made to look a bot more interesting than what appears to be a bog standard retail shop with a few counters, tables and a kitchen plonked in round the back- sadly, its got a a bit of a sterile, generic aWP_20170824_14_20_30_Prond impersonal feel.

The owners & staff appear to be Mediterranean, probably Greek, with what looks like multiple generations of the family working the counters and kitchens, and milling in and out of the shop at various points. A few more family photos of years gone by and other more personal touches would go a long way in brightening the place up and  giving it some soul. – You see that sort of thing in ethnic foodshops almost universally around Australia, and it gives a homely air to the establishment.

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The “big brother” burger I ordered came out quickly, was tasty, with a nice big bun, and decent salad, fresh tomato… perfect bacon & egg… overall a very competent burger, but it wasn’t mindblowingly awesome, or unique in any real way.- for the price of $11, plus extra for the chips, I kind of expected a bit more than boring. Maybe some special sauce to zing it up a bit at least?

WP_20170824_14_29_33_ProThe big let down was the fact that the meat pattie was bland as cardboard- typical Aussie or maccas american style, when at other Greek shops, they usually do something interesting with it, adding spices, bacon, onions or other vegetables to make it juicier and more interesting, similar to my own burger recipe , which I unashamedly nicked the core of from Nshry in port melbourne.

Possibly my fault for choosing the menu item at the very top, but I did expect that it would be a flagship burger that would have some sort of wow factor.

Other favourite places in town, such as I lover burgers & kebabs and round the way really have the formula down pat- instant MMMMM! factor, and they both offer something a bit uniquely different.

Burger Brothers & chooks’s charcoal chicken also stocks famous Triano’s Gelato- I’m yet to give it a go, but it certainly looks pretty good! The charcoal chicken offering or other burgers on the menu may also be worth a raz.

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