"oh where oh where have the saddlers, ironworkers and adzemen gone... why they have gone to be by the sea to sip chilled tea and gum down on sweet brown cookies, dear me" [apols to ol' mate Banjo (Paterson)]
A tad disappointing there, George, to not read you chippin' Larry for his "Oz" reference... bugger. "Watch the pennies".. and all that yer know, like n' that :-/
jftr There aint no "yellow brick road", "Down Under". Nor no heartless - brainless - gutless "dudes", as icons of the population (Ok.. we got Tony Abbot)... and our "fair dinkum shielas" do not even _wear_ shoes! "Down Under" is not "Oz" guys.. nor Afghanistan!
Know the feeling, and was fortunate to see a lot of it. When I lived there in the early sixties there were only 11 million people in the entire country and outside the few big cities it was akin to going back in time to the mid 1800s in the US, what with the crocodile hunters, pearl divers, cane cutters and soldiers of fortune floating about. Stored up great memories and experiences in the country, from a stint buffalo hunting on horseback in the Cape York peninsula, to surviving a plane crash just outside of Mount Ida, to picking up beer and rent money bare knuckle fist fighting in North Queensland, for starters ... a great place for a young man to knock about in those days.
That said, think I'll go listen to a little Slim Dusty and Bushlanders ... ;)
That would have been hard, back then, crashing in the Isa, like
Indeed so, and not appreciated by many from elsewhere in Australia, believe it or not. Being just a kid my five tonne a day (cut and load) was considered a good days yakka. The experience stood me in good stead in later years as I supplemented meagre apprenticeship wages in "cutting plant" on a Saturday. I could earn in one day what the Trade paid me for a week!
I saw the light, eventually .. and got me some of that "edu-mah-ka-chun". /chuckle
Catch up with John Williamson, Paul Kelly and Kevin Carmody while you are "in the mood"
He starts those rumors as a strategy to get more money. They didn't blink in Montreal, they told him to screw himself. He's just a greedy little bastard... what a creep. I used to go to quite a few F1 races in Montreal, but at $ 650 for a gold seat, $ 6000 for a hospitality pass. Are they nuts? The Australian F1 for 2012 has been sold out already, maybe we'll go to another oner one.
I was going to give him the benefit of the doubt and take it that he meant Mount Isa, and he may suffer from FFS But, seeing there is a Mount Ida as well, maybe he did mean Mount Ida as he didn't say when he was there and Mount Ida closed about 3 or 4 years ago
Well there ya go..having not heard of that operation I assumed it was a keystroke error.. "D" n' "S" being neighbours, like. Could well be FFS, though. Pretty prevalent amongst "terrista", n' that like :-)
Ida has had a colourful history.. to say the least, eh? Supposed to reopen last year under yet another new banner. Still, a light plane crash out in the Nullarbor is likely comparable to coming down around the Isa, even today. Not ideal country for a wander, that is. So either way the guy gets creds.. in my book :-) Dying to know how you hunt buffalo on horseback, especially up in the Cape! The Gulf country one might just handle a ride but you would want a good arse hold in the saddle around them creeks up around the Cape!! Mr. Three.0.Three would be my choice as a 'buddy'... and a looooooooong shot, in 1960-?
"Mt Ida" ... no typo. Hitchhiked a ride on a DC3 mail plane heading for Perth that lost all hydraulics en route, and "crash" is an apt way to describe the resultant reuniting with mother earth on a deserted airstrip close to the "town", and I use the term loosely, of Mt Ida. Although no one was seriously injured, we spend three days there before being able to get out on another plane. Smallest "town" I've ever seen ...
Was in Oz for approx three years, from 63 to 65 and for a while (six months or so) worked for a Greek exporter who exported feral water buffalo beef/meat to the US for use in pet food manufacturing.
He had abattoir's in Darwin, Normonton (sp?), and, for a while also operated out of Cooktown.
The crew I was on consisted of four or five Land Rovers, equipped with metal containers and trailers, that ferried the meat from where it was shot, skinned, and quartered to strategically placed mobile refrigeration units (as close to the action as they could get, but generally at least two or more days drive by LR) and then taken to the abattoirs for processing; half a dozen Aborigine skinners; up to two dozen horses; one of his sons (one of the worst cooks in the world, whose "specialty du jour" was curry, ad infinitum, containing fresh buffalo liver (among other bits) washed down with liberal amounts of Ouzo/water ... can you spell HEARTBURN?), and me ... hired because I could both shoot a rifle, and being raised on a horse farm, could ride, shoe/trim, and handle horses.
As much of the shooting (with a British 303 Enfield) as possible was done from one of the LR's, but often had to be done off horseback (you do NOT approach a wild herd of water buffalo on foot, for a number of reasons!). I would venture to say that during that period I traveled/rode well over 1500 miles through Arnhem Land and portions of the Cape York Peninsula.
Fair dinkum, mate ... and you may not have been born yet. ;)
I have boxes upon boxes of color slides from this period ... if they are still viewable I'll see if I can get some prints and post them to the web.
BTW ... I was in Cooktown the night Aborigines got the right to vote (or maybe it was to drink legally?) in Queensland. A wilder night at the pubs I've never seen.
ah yes:-) Still holds (the creds given), though.. hard country that Nullabor.
/chipped
The Norman (Normanton) Gilbert Rivers and up to Staaten Park reserve is all my stamping ground, know it well:-)
Maybe the forerunner to Game Produce of Australia, a company my company built a number of "kill boxes" for back in the 80's. A rough mob (business wise) they were bankrupt inside two years despite having a ready market in Germany for pig meat, and selected offal (the kidney etc) tied to the backbone of cleaned hung carcasses. Story is they didn't pay their bills. I got my money, before delivery:->
A Greek patriot doing a curry (of anything) and dallying with fresh liver? It's wonder you survived! The Ouzo was used to drown the churned guts, I take it?
Likely you have seen more of it than I! And contrary to what that Crocodile Dundee character would have folks believe, anywhere on foot near buffalo isn't at all clever. Every home (on a property) must have had a brace of 303 Enfields as "war surplus". I had a rechambered "sports", firing a 270cal rimless. Nice weapon if a tad slow (reload) and lacking punch compared to the 30/30 Winchester. However all our pig hunting was done with just dogs and a knife, as we used to hobble the "gooduns" to get them penned later. Plenty of "war stories" from those days
heh.. '63 I was blowing tree stumps with "greasy" Gelly and powder fuses. Just kids, but between my two younger brothers and myself - with Dad doing the c'saw work behind the dozer - we cleared 53 acres of virgin rainforest in just two years. Something you don't tell folks today
Something of the Abo crew (working) would be good for something I am working on web wise.. but do not sweat it. I do thank you for the offer, though.. and your full response on your take of your time in Aussie. What I have done is knocked you up a gift. You will need a crafty lady(?) friend to get the product but it is gratis with no obligation implied or inferred. If the name needs changing, jes holler like. Maybe you can find a golf bag, cap or a toolbag to wear it:-) Look for: From: George Watson Newsgroups: alt.binaries.pictures.woodworking Subject: 0t---cue __with an adze... I... - SpringMAN_xPortGift_mar2011.rar (1/1) Date: Mon, 04 Apr 2011 23:48:50 +1000 Message-ID:
The files are archived in rAr format for posting.
Had to look it up meself, n' that
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man has the right to their own destiny, in my book. However some do have an excess of vertical climbs placed in their path. We (.au - the white mob) should have had "self determination" in place _before_ "assimilation". Doing it the other way there was 20 years of drinking, drugs and substance abuse before indigenous Aussies finally got the right to run their own show. Total fuckup.. IMHO.
For myself the two milestones were the referendum:
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the events preceding "Land Rights" which (really) was initiated by Lingari, for which I gave you the link to the song. I was not to know at the time, although quite transfixed by the whole saga, that the spinoff from Wadi Creek was to carry great influence in my life, later on, much later on:-)
And yes, the pubs..?..I grew up in mostly rural precincts of the regional centres in NQ where you never saw a blackfella, yet it was "bush", and their spiritual lands! heh... don't get me started on that topic:-/ My partner never even saw a blackfella until her highschool years, when at last they were allowed into "Town". Yet it was still many many years after that we could actually interact without having "social dispersions" cast our way from the protestant type Anglo-Saxon mob
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