It’s hard to see this bill board from 1915 being used today. Where’s the pictures, the slogan…..

Photo courtesy of DeadFred.com

Have a Pleasant Sunday Afternoon

It was a sunny day about 40C. A lovely drive for work to a neighbouring community.

But then I had a feeling it might all change soon. And it did.

Click on the pictures to get a bigger image. Have a Pleasant Sunday Afternoon.

A while ago a friend asked me to provide a list of reading of the some of the explorers that came through the region I now call home. A small amount of research which involved me walking to my bookshelf provided a concise list. And a little more research showed these titles are out of copyright and available on the web for free!

Project Gutenberg is the place to go with the books available in a variety of formats (except there are no audio books listed for the following titles). This site has over 33,000 titles to download.

It is worthwhile to take a look at an Australian version which lists only Australian titles. It has a list of some of the Australian Explorers and their journals which are available online. It also links to a brief biography of the explorer.

Below are three of the books on my book shelf. The biographies are from Project Gutenberg Australia. To download the book click on the book title and a range of formats will be offered to you

David Wynford Carnegie – Spinifex and Sand

Carnegie was the fourth son of the Earl of Suffolk, England. After education as an engineer, David Carnegie worked on tea plantations in Ceylon, but joined the rush to Coolgardie when gold was discovered in Western Australia in 1892. Over a period of five years he prospected, and led several important exploring expeditions into some of Australia’s most arid areas. After leaving Australia, Canegie was appointed Assistant Resident in Nigeria where, at the age of twenty-nine, he died as a result of a wound inflicted by a poison arrow. At the time he was involved in attempting to stop a native uprising.

Ernest Giles – Australia Twice Traversed

Born in England in 1835, and educated in London, where he received a classical and literary education, Giles emigrated when he was 15 years old and joined his family in Adelaide. They had come to Australia the previous year. He spent some time working on cattle and sheep stations along the upper Darling River during which time he became a competent bushman.

Between 1872 and 1876 he led 5 expeditions into Australia’s unknown western interior, the last 2 on camels. He was driven by a desire to be the first to penetrate the area and set out without official support. He was never given material reward for his exploration work, but was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society.

During his travels he discovered Mount Olga, named the Gibson Desert and crossed the continent from east to west and later went back again by a different route. Despite initial setbacks and seemingly impenetrable wilderness, Giles never weakened in his purpose or his love of exploration. At one point in his travels, he sent his companion, Gibson, on to fetch help, riding their last horse, then struggled along on foot. Gibson was never heard of again. Giles ate the last of his horse meat and rapidly became weaker. Hunger drove him to eat, whilst still alive, a small dying wallaby, whose mother had evidently thrown it from her pouch. He was so hungry he wished he had its mother and father to “serve in the same way.”

In 1897 he died after contracting pneumonia whilst working as a clerk in the Coolgardie gold fields. Giles styled himself as “the last of the Australian explorers.”

John McDouall Stuart – Explorations in Australia

John McDouall Stuart already had an established reputation as an explorer when, in 1859, the South Australian Government offered £2,000 reward for the first man to cross Australia from south to north.

Setting out from Adelaide in 1860, he eventually reached the centre of Australia-the first man to do so. The hill named Central Mount Stuart commemorates this achievement.

On both this and a later attempt, he was forced to turn back, and it was not until 1862, with his third expedition, that he met with success, reaching the north coast near Darwin on 24th July.

Returning to Adelaide, Stuart was able to report that good pasture land was to be had to the north, and as a result of this expedition, South Australia accepted temporary control of Northern Territory. The Overland Telegraph, completed in 1872, follows very closely the route taken by Stuart.

Have a Pleasant Sunday Afternoon.

We all get attached to our pets. My current dog a once wild dingo cross I wouldn’t give away for the world.

In 2004 Balzac my blue heeler died. He was an extraordinary dog. People rang up crying when they got the news. I recently had reason to find the email that I sent to friends and family back then. And even though it is self indulgent I decided to post it here. After all, it is my blog.

Have a Pleasant Sunday Afternoon

Everybody has a best mate. I guess over the last thirteen and a bit years mine has been Balzac.

From a pup on my spray deck paddling through the gravel rapids in the Yarra to swimming through them himself. Continually charging the back fence in Mount Waverley until it fell over, to get in the park and visit the neighbours. Then repeating it with three metres of chain attached to his collar after breaking the weakest link.

He’s been brought home in a police divvy van after getting caught in peak hour traffic, flattening himself against the road as two vehicles drove over him, the third, a Police divvy van pulling up in time.

He’s jumped out of the car window while doing 30-40 km/hr because he saw something interesting on the other side. Once, with the windows wound up and wanting to get out he charged the rear window of the station wagon exploding it outwards before calmly jumping out. Going for a drive was his favourite thing. Especially in the troopie where he can lie on a trunk behind my head and have a great view of the road ahead. He can never get enough.

With my mates he has something that I call the wow factor.

“Wow, can he fart” was usually the comment.

After a weekend of us blokes exercising in the mountains, living off wholegrain and other healthy products, perhaps with Steve throwing in a bit of buckwheat, add on exercise and we could fart. On arriving home Balzac could put us all to shame just from being excited to see us. This impressed everyone so much that a yellow Mambo musical farting dog sticker was put on my car.

He’s dragged some of my nephews and nieces behind him in a box with a chain pulled through it and attached to his collar – but forced to stop after several roll-overs on bends. He’s disturbed four thieves I know of. One time in Alphington he leaped from his couch on to the crook, and in Echuca I walked out to see him hanging a foot off the ground, his mouth around an ankle belonging to a lad who in turn was hanging off a high corrugated iron fence.

To try and tame him and stop him from thinking himself top dog, I took him to Mal’s parents farm to have a tough farm dog sort him out. Poor Tex had to slink around the fences of his own farm. Mal wet himself when I threw the frisbee, Balzac spun around, accelerated to full pace all the while watching the frisbee – and ran into the fence. He still has that pink spot on his nose where the skin was ripped off.

He enjoyed showing off his skill with cattle.

Imagine a strike in a ten pin bowling lane.

He has learnt not to play with geese and the fun you can have charging oncoming rams with a metal muzzle on. His best mate ever was a magpie called Henry and they went everywhere and did everything together.

As a young dog he enjoyed swimming with me. Swimming around me in circles until I grabbed his tail and he pulled me in. At the age of nine he swam half way across the Murray to do the same thing when he noticed I wasn’t swimming so good after popping my shoulder. Going to the beach there was no better fun than running for miles snapping at oncoming waves until you swallow so much seawater you throw up in front of swimmers. He has jumped in an out of planes and jumping platforms with me as I practised skydiving.

He has bitten my ankle until I have responded to him and he has shown me a smoke filled room and then willingly followed me in as I went to find out why. He never trusts me out of his sight. I still remember proving that to my sister in law when I hid from him and he ran up and down searching for me. He would charge my solid back door until the 60 year old metal latch bent and the door popped so he could get in.

He never just accepted a pat. He gave as good as he got. usually with his tongue.

As I started travelling, no matter what the weather, rain, cold or hot, no matter if his bed was protected from the elements, I could always put my arm out of the swag and know he was lying next to me. if he was not there, he would be standing between me and the place from whence came the noise that woke us. He has willingly followed me everywhere from into the air to under the ground to running over hot desert sands from bush to bush, collapsing on his side and from that position resting on his thick coat scooping the sand away so he could stand on something cooler ready for his sprint to the next bush.

A couple of weeks ago Balzac looked like he had broken his leg. He had spinal arthritis. A large dose of cortisone eased the pain but he could not recover the use of his right leg, and his left leg was also affected. After a great Sunday where he chased the ball and loved a drive his condition worsened and he was suffering a lot of pain and unable to support himself. But he still repaid each pat, each time I held or carried him, with a lick. he was far from an ordinary dog, as loyal as you can get and I will miss him.

I had Balzac put down earlier today.

He is buried overlooking the sea near Balgowan where only a few weeks ago he was enthusiastically trying to find his way down a sheer ten metre drop to the beach so he could chase the waves.

I see Malcom Turnbull has a post today on his blog in remembrance of his red heeler who died over two years ago

Nearly twelve months ago I got a new work Troopie.

The old one was tough. If the metal dash was rattling you tightened up a few of the hexagonal screw heads sticking out of the dash. Now it’s a lot more difficult.

You want a UHF radio? Where would you like it? And just screw it into the metal dash in the correct position.

And she would go and go and go and go. You can see how she handled compared to a Patrol in this post

The new one is nice.

And plastic.

It also handled like a dog until the suspension and track were sorted out.

It doesn’t have the bits that make this feel like it can take the punishment the old girl could. And there are a few things missing. In the picture above you can see next to the steering column a dirty little knob that was the hand throttle. In the rough you take your foot off the accelerator and use the hand throttle allowing for consistent power delivery over rough terrain rather than your foot bouncing on and off the the throttle. The new one only has a switch for a fast idle when starting it in the cold.

The panic bar has also gone in the new vehicle. As part of the softening up of the vehicle and to meet mining company OH&S requirements there are air bags. A panic handle on the outside of an air bag doesn’t work well. Out bush I don’t really want an air bag. But I would like my passenger to be able to be firm in their seat over rough terrain. The panic bar was also of great assistance for elderly patients to grab and pull themselves up into the high vehicle.

Eleven months on I am still more worried when I need to take it through the mud or sand and I am worried about the mechanicals (no way can I even begin to sort out the V8 turbo diesel should it die) it make up for it in comfort, ride and performance.

But I still have the old girl in the shed.

Driving along the other day passing rocky country and then sand dune after sand dune there was one that stood out.

It was purple.

The dune’s slopes were covered in Parakeelya. And they don’t seem to be the common form of Parakeelya, Calandrinia balonensis, but the less common form, Calandrinia reticulata (formerly remota) which has the rounded cylindrical type leaves.

In amongst the purple there was also a variant. There was one plant with a white flower.

The leaves hold a lot of moisture and can be eaten raw. The whole plant including the roots can be eaten and is usually steamed. The taste isn’t that bad but I can understand it being a food of last resort. Apparently the seeds also used to be harvested and ground to a paste. I have yet to see them in seed but I can imagine a dune covered in flowers would provide a lot of seed.

Further information on these and other plants used in central Australia by Aboriginal people can be found in Bushfires & Bushtucker Aboriginal Plant Use in Central Australia by Peter Latz.

I hope you enjoy the pictures. Clicking on the pictures as always takes you to a larger version.

Have a Pleasant Sunday Afternoon.

About ten years ago when I started working in locum and “fixit” jobs around Australia, not always in pharmacy I wondered what sort of branding or business name I should use. One night a German tourist who became a good mate and myself brainstormed a few ideas and “Bite The Dust” was born. A trip to a great graphic designer at Three Little Words who didn’t “do bush stuff” but then got stuck into it with a vengeance le to the logo and business cards and a name I have used for ten years.

I have recently taken it one step further and BiteTheDust has become intellectual property having obtained a trademark in Class: 44 Provision of health care services.

You can find the trademark by doing a search here.

Have a Pleasant Sunday Afternoon.

In my travels through rural and remote Australia I see quite a few big trucks. A scan of my photos shows I take few pictures of them. Welcome to the start of an occasional series.

These ore dump trucks were being transported westward on the Kalgoorlie Laverton Road. First comes the transport escort with a big sign and amber flashing lights. With the trucks still out of sight you call on the UHF radio and ask the size.

SEVEN metres wide.

You start slowing down and the next escort vehicle is the police escort four wheel drive. Despite them hearing your conversation on the radio and you slowing down and slowly moving off the road they drive directly at you headlights and red and blues flashing.

And then the trucks arrive. (click on the images for a much larger view)

Have a Pleasant Sunday Afternoon

In remote Australia in our clear, clear skies you can see for miles. As can our birds of prey. Bob Gosford has a terrific post “All six Australian Falcons in one day” in finding them all round Alice Springs in a single day (He also has plenty of other birding posts).

Living out bush as I do we see them every day. But nothing can match the following video that I first saw on Media Cafe.

Cameras mounted on the back of a goshawk in the forest and a Peregrine Falcon in full flight. Enjoy the ride.

Have a Pleasant Sunday Afternoon

Five years ago this dingo cross adopted me from out of the wild. She seems to have taken to civilisation quite well.

Have a Pleasant Sunday Afternoon.

Have a pleasant Sunday afternoon

Earlier this week while the rest of the world was wondering if updating their iPhone to OS4 would delete their data I was in a state of great excitement.

I had returned home and saw there was a new 44 gallon drum out the front for me to burn my rubbish in. It even caused envy. Friends visited and noticed I had a new drum and they didn’t. Theirs is starting to collapse so the camp dogs and dingos can get in underneath the cover and go through the rubbish if it isn’t burnt.

I know you want to see it……

Sorry iPhone? Operating system what?

Have a Pleasant Sunday Afternoon

A few notes before reading the email sent to me in 2003, a year after the incident occurred.

November 2002.
I am driving up the Strzelecki Track from Lyndhurst where I had just watched the total eclipse of the sun heading back “home” to Innamincka.

The track is graded into the ground so the edge of the dirt road has a lip of about a foot where you step up to the normal ground level. Going around a bend I see the lip on the outside disturbed and imprints of a vehicle in the desert dust where it has landed on its side then been rolled back onto its wheels and wheel tracks heading back onto the track.

A roll over where the car has drifted (not enough concentration) or not been able to steer through the corner (too much speed, skidded, not experienced not in 4wd) hit the lip and did a slow roll onto its side. A few kilometres down the road we find the car that had the rollover.

Feeling a little perverse (It wasn’t the first roll over I’d come across in the most recent few thousand kilometes of desert driving) I ignored his, and my snatch strap and did use my heavy chain. After getting their car started I hit the road to Innamincka leaving them to “come along behind”. But hey, I promised I’d come back for them.

Innamincka is a small remote community 522kms NE of Leigh Creek South whose post code it uses. Leigh Creek is on the bitumen and rail line. Everyone checks the post code “yeah, we can get stuff to you” and then have to be told to get a map and bloddy well look at it. The next response is “How do we get stuff up/from there?”

Dogga is an ex-shearer, running a motel in Thargomindah at the time. He is larger than life and he did promise me he would look after them. I did try to ignore the grin he gave me as he said it.

This letter was emailed to me a year after their trip and takes up from just before I came across them in the desert.

You helped my brother and I a year ago after I rolled my car on the Strzelecki Track. I thought I’d say thanks and in case you were wondering let you know what happened after that.

As you know after the crash we set out heading North up the track and everything was fine(ish) for about an hour. We pulled over and to our horror the car stalled. As you have probably guessed it wouldn’t start again either the key had absolutely no effect. After a quick inspection we saw that there was a hole in the battery. Luckily, at this point a car came down the track, so we hailed him and he nicely gave us a roll start.

The next time this happened we were just as lucky. We somehow managed to roll start the car on level ground. Remember the doors were jammed shut so only one of us could push. I don’t think we could repeat this if we attempted it a hundred tries. This was painfully demonstrated a couple of hours later when it happened again and we exhausted ourselves trying.

Having given up on roll starting the car we decided to conserve/regain our energy, so we grabbed a water bottle each and trudged about hundred metres or so into the dessert to sit under a (not very) shady tree. It was very quiet and would have been very relaxing if not for our situation. About half an hour later, just as I was considering the advantages of cannibalism, we heard a car.

Of course we hailed it and got a roll start. But this was no ordinary roll start. He wanted to use a steel chain opposed to our snatch strap. This was fine until he flawed (sic) it and almost whip lashed my head off (in response this I imagine he would say that I was a city fella). He was a good bloke and we were very happy for the assistance.

We found out that our whip lash friend was the bush Pharmacist called Andrew. He said that he was staying at Innamincka (the next town, some 5 hours away) and that if we hadn’t reached there by late afternoon he?d get a trailer, come back and get us. An offer we couldn’t refuse! We weren’t aware at that stage but Andrew’s extreme generosity was going to give us quite a lot of help in getting home.

We arrived at Innamincka and let Andrew know. I contacted the Insurance Company and they just could not understand that the closest accredited mechanic was too far away. Anyway, they decided that we were to leave the car and find another method of getting home. I know it is not the most remote place in Australia but is has got to be bloody close.

It took a day to work out how to get home. I thought we’d just hitch a lift with a Truckie but due to Public Liability Insurance they’d been told not to pick any one up. After numerous options were canvassed we decided our best bet was to wait a day for Andrew and get a lift with him to Thargomindah. From there we’d catch one of the mining company’s planes to Brisbane.

Dxxx and I spent the next day in Innamincka with the family at the home stay. They actually had us shoveling sand into their garden. They were fantastic people and if you are ever out that way again I recommend staying with them. We left with Andrew and completed the 6 hour trip to Thargomindah where we had to wait two days for the next plane. We stayed at a hotel run by an amazing bloke called Dogga – he was truly larger than life.

We caught the plan back to Brisbane luckily without incident and only a few days late.

Thanks again for your help!
Wxxx and Dxxx

Have a Pleasant (and safe) Sunday Afternoon.

Aborigines when volunteering to serve for this country had to sign a document to deny their aboriginality

That line was from a news article on Bigpond News titled “Indigenous Anzacs seek closure“. I ask you to go and read the article and watch to the embedded video.

Indigenous Australians have been in Australia’s Armed forces since the Boer War. Indigenous Australians weren’t even counted in the census until 1967 yet still denied their birthright as they volunteered for the Armed Forces.

As it’s Anzac Day I’d thought that this Sunday afternoon I’d point you towards a few interesting links about our Indigenous Australians who signed up at a time they were excluded from most of society.

The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies has a site titled Indigenous Australians at War. In a number of short articles they talk of the difference in being accepted in the Armed Forces to how they were treated when brought home. Excluded from Soldier Settlement blocks as an example, and of course not being able to be served drinks at the same bar in the pub. There is a list of all Indigenous Prisoners of War through the years and a very interesting Bibliography.

It is estimated that 500-800 Aboriginal Australians served in the First World War. The Australian War memorial has a short piece on the search for the five Aboriginal Servicemen graves thought to be at Gallipoli as well as descriptions and pictures of all the exhibits containing information about Aboriginal servicemen through the years including personal records, art, photographs, manuscripts sound and film.

And lastly head over to Creative Spirits for a large number of posts covering Indigenous Australian involvement in our past wars.

Have a Pleasant (Anzac Day) Sunday afternoon

Australia has had a bit of rain lately, Floods in Queensland which for the first time in many years will produce good flows down the Murray-Darling system. Lake Eyre will have some water in it for the second time in two years. And the Todd River has flown several times in Alice Springs with heavy rains in the area. Even Perth has had rain (and hail).

We haven’t had that much rain out here but we should still get a good crop off the rubber trees.

Have a Pleasant Sunday Afternoon everyone

I have a previous story titiled A Drive in The Country which the Stumblers loved.

I have recently placed a night time drive post and I have my old favourite about the dangers of my peak hour traffic.

And don’t let me get started on the footage of driving through the mud and de-bogging (?!) our food truck

Have I placed enough links there?

This is part of my everyday and the track slightly better than normal. Look to the end for my faithfull travelling companion. The music was at random from my iPod.

Have a Pleasant Sunday Afternoon

Out bush we have a lot of unexpected things confront us day by day that we need to be ready for and adapt to.

Even our road signs allow for the unexpected.

Something is going to happen…. but what?

Have a Pleasant Sunday Afternoon

Samson and Delilah’s world is small- an isolated community in the Central Australian desert. When tragedy strikes they turn their backs on home and embark on a journey of survival. Lost, unwanted and alone the discover that life isn’t always fair, but love never judges. www.imdb.com

Samson and Delilah is going to be on the tele. This critically acclaimed film, winner of the Caméra d’Or at Cannes Film Festival this year and is Australia’s entry in the Foreign Film section of this year’s Academy Awards will be on ABC1 TV at 8:30pm on Tuesday 24th November.

On the following Thursday, 26th November a documentary on the making of the film will be shown on ABC1 at 9:30pm.

For those wanting a little more information go to the Samson and Delilah website to watch the trailer and listen to the music. ‘At The Movies‘ has an interview with director Warwick Thornton and producer Kath Shelper.

I know where I’ll be on the 24th. Have a pleasant Sunday afternoon

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Over the last little while there has been a political storm over the signs being placed at schools which have funding under the stimulus package to build something.

The signs are too expensive, too big, need to be moved away from entrances to comply with electoral act and on it goes.

I have already put up my “Road to Recovery” road sign from the middle of nowhere.

Here’s another one:

This sign is 1000 kilometres from the nearest sizeable town and would have been trucked out from Perth 1400kms away, along with the cement needed for the posts. Labour costs are also quite expensive out bush and the time would have been better spent on the power station.

This sign is 12ft high, has the aboriginal name of the community spelt incorrectly and is on a private road to the airstrip on an aboriginal community where there are no passer bys. An exploration crew goes past it weekly for fly in and fly out workers and the community has a plane flight a week.

Why is it needed?

Have a pleasant Sunday afternoon everyone

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Over at Papalankutja Artists is a small profile on artist Narelle Holland.

Narelle has painted country where the emu was hunted. The men would go to the rock hole to spear the emu, using stillness as their weapon. The first layer of paint marks the country and its landmarks, the second layer, a delicate layering of lush cream and white dotting depict the spinifex which camouflages the country. The men have been painted with the raw brush strokes contained in the first layer and the second laying of spinifex and dotting cloaks the men, keeping them hidden from the viewer and the Emu they hunt.

I watched her paint part of this picture:

The story is painted then overlaid with dots.

It is quite different to her previous style.

This picture of Narelle’s (above) I like. It is a ‘whitefella’ map of the Lands. The orange lines are the roads leading to orange circles around white dots. Each of these represents a community. All the other rings don’t have any significance.

I like that I can tell this story to my indigenous guests as they look at it with some puzzlement trying to identify the story.

Click on the pictures to obtain a larger view. The last two are from my small collection.

Have a pleasant Sunday afternoon.

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