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.
The year Santa never made it to Darwin Read More »
It seems that the people who came up with the plan to return all Western Australia’s and Victoria’s public land to a cycle of lockup and incinerate wilderness management know as much about forest management and timber supply timelines as an average kindergarten pupil. – Quote from South East Timber Association
When I started as a young forester in the late 1980s, I yearned for the opportunity to work in our native forests.
“The fundamentals of science are you do not tamper with the original evidence. That has happened with our temperature record, where the past has been cooled and it makes it look as if we’re warming. That is fraud.” Ian Plimer
“BOM are right often enough to be considered, but wrong often enough not to be relied upon.
Fudging the figures Read More »
“I’ll put a girdle ‘round the earth in forty minutes”
William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream
While travelling around the country, I came across yet another little-known wartime story which again highlights the heroics of Australians. This time it involves midget submarines and divers cutting underwater telegraph cables to thwart the Japanese communication efforts towards the end of World War II.… Read more
Introduction
The first telegraph message in the world was sent on 24 May 1844, using Morse code, a system of dots and dashes representing letters of the alphabet. The system was invented by Samuel Morse, inspired by the fact that when his wife died in 1825, he did not hear of the event until days after her funeral due to the slowness of communications at the time.… Read more
Connecting Western Australia to the rest of the world Read More »
Introduction
The South Australian portion of the Nullarbor Plain was part of New South Wales. The reason can be explained by examining the stories behind the development of each of the state borders since colonisation. This blog will initially focus on the creation of the Western Australian, South Australian and Northern Territory border, which is now on the 129 Degrees East longitude (1290E) but was initially further east.… Read more
The pitfalls of having a border follow a celestial line Read More »
On the south-western shores of Australia when the storm clouds of winter has passed
The sun rises high in a clear assure sky and summer is with us at last
You can fry an egg on the pavement or burn your feet on the sand
So we’ll wait for the breeze, the stiff summer breeze to cool the old city again
“The Fremantle Doctor” Words Patrick O’Leary, music Carmel Charlton from her 1993 Songs of the West Album
No matter where you are, you will experience strong winds.… Read more
Doctors and a beasterly easterly Read More »
Introduction
Sandalwood is a highly aromatic timber that has been harvested in Asia over centuries for many uses. The main one has been burning powder from the tree in joss sticks as incense and forms a significant part of religious ceremonies. In Australia, Aborigines had many cultural uses for sandalwood. Some species can be carved into delicate products such as inlaid boxes, ornaments and incense holders.… Read more
The discovery of gold in Western Australia’s eastern interior in the 1890s was telegraphed around the world. People flocked to the new fields in the arid interior of the colony. While the focus was on making a fortune from the gold, there was hardly any precious, clean water, and very soon, many people were more interested in water than gold to survive.… Read more
Liquid gold and the Goldfields Pipeline Read More »
My previous war story blog provided details of the bombing of Darwin and the subsequent battles against the Japanese in the Coral Sea and Papua New Guinea.
After the bombing of Darwin on 19 February 1942, the Japanese carried out further air-borne attacks across northern Australia. In total, between March 1942 and November 1943, the Japanese flew 64 bombing/strafing raids on Darwin alone and 33 bombing/strafing raids on other targets in Northern Australia.… Read more
Even more war stories – how Australia came under attack from air raids during WWII Read More »
