Robert Onfray – Page 4

The Cricket bat – a journey from the backyard to Test matches

31 January 2025 / 4 Comments

Nostalgic beginnings

Growing up in Australia in the 1970s, I spent countless hours playing backyard cricket during those balmy summer evenings. Despite my love for the game, I never excelled, oscillating between dreams of being a superb bowler or a top-order batsman, yet failing to master either. My lack of skills was evident as I was always the 11th-picked player on our school cricket team, batting last and rarely bowling.

Australia’s Engineering Marvel

17 January 2025 / 4 Comments

After the Snowy, she was a nation.

Nelson Lemmon

Thank God we had visionary leaders and the world’s best engineers in Australia 75 years ago. Without their efforts, the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric scheme – one of the seven engineering wonders of the world – might never have come to fruition.

This monumental project blended innovative thinking, engineering brilliance, and the dedication of a diverse workforce.

Debunking false claims about bushfire risk and native forest logging in Australia

17 January 2025 / 21 Comments

Recently, a troubling narrative has emerged that native forest logging in Australia contributes significantly to increased bushfire risk. Some academics championed this idea, purporting to follow the scientific method, but often their work lacks scientific rigour. These claims have misled the public, skewing the debate around forest management, fire prevention, and the ecological role of logging.

Tragedy on the Derwent: Remembering the 1975 Tasman Bridge Disaster, 50 Years Later

3 January 2025 / 3 Comments

Between 1967-75, Hobart endured a series of catastrophic events. It all started with the Black Tuesday fires in February 1967 that claimed 62 lives. Several other tragedies followed that to Hobartians, seemed like they would never end. August 1969 saw the disappearance of Lucille Butterworth, October 1973 the Blythe Star was wrecked off southern Tasmanian waters with three men drowning and seven survivors spending eight days adrift in a lifeboat, and the Mt St Canice boiler explosion in September 1974 that took eight lives.

A Year of Woke Observance: One Man’s Struggle with the Liturgical Calendar of the Politically Correct

31 December 2024 / 1 Comment

I kicked off the year with Play Outside Day—simple enough, right? But by the 9th, I struggled with the No Pants Subway Ride. Living in a regional community, I could only imagine those feeling the sting of a chilly New York breeze.

It all started innocently enough. On New Year’s Eve last year, I made the fatal decision to embrace the “woke” New Year’s resolution to observe as many single commemorative days this year.

The year Santa never made it to Darwin

20 December 2024 / 1 Comment

It began as a deep distant rumbling, like the stirring of some gargantuan subterranean beast.

It was unsettling at first, ominous, something you felt in your guts more than you heard with your ears, an eerie subsonic vibration that seemed to rise from the bowels of Hades.

As the she-devil crept closer, the wailing began.

A wooden pipeline that carries more than water – it carries a lot of history

6 December 2024 / 9 Comments

It all started in November 1883. Payable gold was found on a high ridge separating the magical Linda Valley from the Queen River valley, some 18 kilometres inland from the isolated west coast Tasmanian town of Strahan. This discovery led to mining leases that supported rich copper mines. These mines eventually merged in 1903 to form Mount Lyell’s, and indeed the world’s, largest copper mining operations.

Logging on the edge

29 November 2024 / 10 Comments

In the heart of the Bellinger Valley, the Glennifer-Promised Land area is framed by a dramatic escarpment. This formidable landscape is defined by ancient, erosion-resistant rocks exposed from the Moonbil sedimentary beds, consisting of fine-grained siltstones, slate and chert. The escarpment forms a natural boundary, with the land dropping a staggering 970 metres from the plateau to the valley floor.

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50 years of hydroelectric power

15 November 2024 / 4 Comments

To generate hydropower you needs lots of water and steep hills – both things Tasmania has in abundance.

In the heart of Tasmania’s rugged southwest, a region once almost uninhabited since settlement and defined by its natural lakes, impenetrable forests, and fierce winds, a remarkable story of human ingenuity unfolded. This remote area, receiving four meters of rainfall annually, seemed an unlikely place for grand engineering feats.

Another flood, another poor response

1 November 2024 / 10 Comments

Eugowra station was established in 1834, and the town took its name from the station when a village popped up in the 1860s on the station about 35 kilometres east of Forbes.

The town is most famous for a gold robbery in 1862 when Frank Gardiner and his gang of bushrangers pulled off the biggest gold robbery at Escort Rock just outside of town.

Author name: Robert Onfray

Nostalgic beginnings