I've processed the first two days of the trip's GPS traces. 1200 km (750 miles) heading west from Armidale to Tibooburra via Tamworth, Coonabarabran, Macquarie Marshes, Coolabah, Bourke, and Wanaaring.

Much of that route had already been covered but I added some back roads and replaced some Landsat traces with GPS traces (being more accurate and correcting sections where road realignment had occurred).

Centres of population are few and far between. Tibooburra's population, for example, is around 160 people. My vehicle, on the right hand side of the photograph (link below), has two 90 litre fuel tanks as standard (giving a 1300 km range) to cope with scarce fuel stops.

An example of the type of country being covered can be seen at:
http://las.new-england.net.au/2009/06/20/outback-2009-the-journey-begins/

I've just returned from a trip into the Outback. I now have 8400 km (5200 miles) of GPS traces for desert and remote tracks starting with:
Bourke, Tibooburra, Noccundra, Innamincka, Strzelecki Track, Lyndhurst, Maree,
William Creek, Oodnadatta, Marla, Coober Pedy, Woomera, Quorn, Broken Hill.

I also spent a couple of weeks bushwalking in the Flinders Ranges (South Australia) where I collected GPS logs of various tracks around Wilpena Pound and Arkaroola.

It's going to take quite some time to process and mark-up these logs!

Since completing the Armidale City map some months ago I've been picking off unclassified rural roads since then.

Last Sunday I collected 600 km of tracks north-west of Armidale. Much of this was new roads and the remainder was used to replace Landsat generated roads. The latter was inaccurate in many places as road re-alignment has since taken place.

The route was Armidale, Booloolong, Longford, Baldersleigh, Bundarra, Bingara, Terry Hie Hie, Moree, Warialda, Delungra, Inverell, Tingha, Guyra, Armidale.

Well, that's it. I've completed the vehicle-centric map of the Cathedral City of Armidale. No foot- or bike-paths as yet so let's just declare it to be Phase 1 completed.

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/WikiProject_Australia#NSW.2FNorthern_Tablelands

I think I can say that I've completed the vehicular roads (ut not cycle or foot paths) for all of Armidale township that's north and east of the railway line. There are still some of the southern and south-western edges that I need to survey. These parts of town are not commonly visited by me so I need to make a special trip(s) to complete them.

I'm getting there!

[There are still some internal roads to map on the University of New England campus but that can wait until the current road-works there have been completed].

Slowly but surely the out-of-the-way lanes and back streets are being mapped. I'd say that the "top" two-thirds of Armidale is complete. The "bottom" third probably has about two or three hours work GPS surveying left to do - though I don't know when those few hours will happen.

I spent Friday lunchtime driving around a new (to me) part of Armidale. I've had no reason to visit this part of town before - the north-east corner - it's not on a route to anywhere.

It's interesting to note the difference in the street layout in this newer part of town compared to older parts. The older parts of town are laid out in a traditional grid pattern - roads are straight and run parallel to one another. In the new parts of town the roads are curved and wavy, with lots of cul-de-sacs.

Added a few more lanes but, more importantly, I voluntarily gave myself squinty eyes and traced Dumaresq Creek from a blurry Landsat low-resolution image. Armidale now has its creek bisecting the town, flowing north-west to south-east. (Osmarender only at this stage).

I not sure how to tag the waterway, though. It's bigger than a waterway=stream, and not as grand as a waterway=river. In Australian parlance, it's a creek. It doesn't have permanent flow.

Anyway, for the time being, "stream" will be fine.

I'm discovering some little laneways and twisty little passages of Armidale township that I've not explored before. The map is coming along nicely but I need a couple of larger chunks of time to map the northest and southwest corners of town where there are some still-to-be-mapped residential areas.

At some stage I need to map the creek that flows (sometimes) through town - the Landsat image isn't high resolution but I'll see if I can make do.

Added over 100 km of rural roads north-east and north-west of Armidale.

I've added several hundred kilometres of highways aroud Armidale.

I added a couple of roads west to Bundara, Barraba and Manilla.
I added the coast road east of Armidale to the Pacific Highway.

The north and south portions of the New England Highway had been manually traced from Landsat via potlach. I replaced the section north to Glen Innes and south to Tamworth with GPS-derived tracks as the latter were more accurate and showed more recent road realignments.

I've added some more residential roads in Armidale. I don't have any strategy in place to systematicaly cover the area but, rather, given that my work place is north-west of town and I live out of town on the eastern side, I've just been zigging and zagging and taking alternative routes as I head to or from work, or head into town to run errands.

This has worked well so far but now I need to do some small residential streets than resemble a maze of little twisty passages or even a twisting maze of little passages. I guess I need to enter such a maze and use the left-hand rule for traversing mazes - and see what happens.

I've added some more town roads in Armidale (NSW) - it's beginning to look like the beginnings of a town map now.

I've finished the 200km or so of road joining Armidale to the coast, some roads west to Barraba, and the road south from Uralla to Walcha. I've replaced the landsat-based New England highway north and south of Armidale with GPS-derived tracks as they were more up to date (the satellite images must have been a little out of date?).

I added the road from the New England Highway to Black Mountain (near Guyra).

[Nothing in mapnik yet; some in osmarender; other still to be rendered].

I think I'm getting the hang of JOSM now. I've tidied up all my untagged roads and fixed up all the outstanding cross-overs. I think I'm beginning to understand where I should differentiate between highway=unclassified and =residential and =service.

Having done a few rural roads I've now moved on to Armidale city roads. I drive aroud collecting some GPS tracks then used that as my first attempt at mapping city streets. I need some practice doing road junctions :-)

Mapped another 20km east of Armidale along the Grafton Road, then down the Kempsey Road. Turned right off the Kempsey Road onto Raspberry Road, a State Forest road. Then right again down Halls Peak trail - a fire trail down to the Chandler River in Oxley Wild Rivers National Park. The latter is for four-wheel-drive vehicles (or walkers) *only*.

Being somebody who learns best by doing, I've uploaded some GPS traces to OSM and converted/reduced them to an OSM layer. I've added the Grafton Road from Armidale to 20 km east, plus a loop back into town using some back tracks.