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I still get the shudders when I think of the WLA Harleys that got away. It was around late 1971 or early 1972 when I heard the story of a pile of war surplus Harleys on a farm about a half hour drive from where I lived. I heard about it from the local bike shop mechanic who said he'd seen them but didn't remember exact directions. I knew the approximate area so rode out there on my AJS. At one stage I saw a farmer riding an ex-army WLA with an open box side car around his paddock so I pulled up and walked over to the fence. When he came over, I quizzed him about the bikes and as it turned out, it wasn't him who had them but a neighbour down the road a bit further. When I rode in the driveway and pulled up, I saw a solo restored registed WLA parked there. As it turned out, it belonged to a farm hand who had bought it from the property owner. The owner was an absentee type who lived in Central Queensland and had a manager running the farm. I had a yarn to the manager and he showed me around. As we wakled over to a shed, I spotted a WLA with box sidecar in the long grass beside the shed. It was oxidised from the weather but you could tell from the lack of seat wear and lack of dents and scratches that it had been hardly used. Lying all round the place in long grass were lots of Harley engines, gearboxes and bits, along with old Willys jeep stuff. We went around into the shed and there was another WLA with sidecar and three solos stacked there. At that stage, I thought there were the three solo bikes and two outfits plus a heap of bits and pieces in total. Unfortunately I was a bit young and naive and didn't push hard enough. The owner in Central Queensland for some reason had no phone contact, so the manager said he would be down to the property around a certain date. In hindsight, I should have got his address and rode up there to make him an offer in person as the manager said he would probably want to sell them. Anyway, I rode back out there on the date he was supposed to be at the farm and ended up walking right into one of those 'you should have been here yesterday' scenarios. The manager told me the owner had come down a bit earlier than expected and a bloke who was stationed at the Oakey Air Base had bought all the bike stuff from him only a matter of days before. I was told he took away a semi trailer full of Harleys and parts. The owner sold the lot for $200, about five weeks wages back then. At a later date, the mechanic who gave me the original lead asked me if I'd looked in the other shed which I hadn't. He said there was a heap more Harleys in there along with a pile of new old stock parts. That fitted in with the managers description of the size of the truck load compared with what I'd seen. In those days there were a lot of farms with old stuff lying around in sheds, but nothing like this one. I was only 17 at the time and not real savvy so missed the mother lode. It's funny when you look back and how we took that old stuff for granted back then when it was plentiful. Around the same time, I followed another lead on a so called barn find, a Panther 600cc Sloper. All it needed was a new clutch otherwise it was in really good condition. The farmer wanted $20 for it but I passed it over thinking it was not worth that price.

The ONLY Mining I've done is OPALS at Lightning Ridge. . Nev

Mine had a front Brake, Thru stud front engine Mount and a Tapered tank and different Handlebars and headlight .That's a 24 or 25. I'd say with Beaded edge tyres. Looks to be a very NICE bike and all correct. Nev

My first was Honda Elsinore 350- the first 4 valve single enduro bike, a 73? Model. I was a small 13 year old and it had huge compression and no decompressor lever, as such a absolute bastard to start, a renowned ankle breaker from backfires. My first legal was a Yamaha RX 125 smoker then a RZ350R ex Swann race series. Then at 21 a BMW R100CS.

Was it one of these Nev, with the 750 motor.

Likewise, congratulations Peter; I'm looking forward to reading the book. My very limited gold experience was all in 1986. I worked for a time for a Brisbane based drilling company and we did five weeks of diamond drilling on an old abandoned historic gold mine near Inglewood. We were tracking a quartz reef that was about 4' deep and only about 6" wide. 60 degree angle drilling if my memory is correct. The boss made a lot of money on that rig. It was an old ex New Guinea Mindrill that he picked up for $4,000. 35 days drilling, 12 hour days, it would have paid for itself in no time. It was mounted on a 4 wheel trailer and towed behind a truck. Made in Melbourne I think and basically just a glorified lathe. Had a 5 cylinder Lombardini main motor and a little 2 cylinder mud pump. The old mine shafts were those old scary narrow ones. It was one of those mines that closed in WW1 due to lack of manpower and never restarted again. Not long after that job I left the company and went over to Halls Creek and did some subcontracting for Freeport, basically just constructing access and pads for gold test rigs. After that I worked for a while for an alluvial miner at the Old Halls Creek area. The creeks had been picked out in the 1800's and there were only a few odd exploratory trenches dug out from the creek banks. I'd strip and stockpile the bank area top until we found some gravel that indicated where the ancient creek bed was. Then it was a matter of very slowly shaving off a couple of inches at a time so the miner and his partner could go over the exposed gravel bed with detectors. That thin removed layer was stockpiled and they would run a detector over the heap after the wet season had washed it. If they fell on hard times, they would get the dry blower going and put the stockpile through it. Hot, dusty, hard work and the least desirable option compared to detecting and picking up nuggets. I saw my first decent sized nugget on that job.

The Red rubber framed Postie Bike would be the Most dangerous. I rode along Bush tracks thru Creeks and alongside railway lines for years On a 1927 Model 101 INDIAN that needed absolutely NOTHING to be done to it other than ME Making a replacement Rotor for the Splitdorf Magneto. That was a very Popular Model. I Paid 5 Quid for it with sidebox. I'd had about 5 bikes before that one. No one in my family was Mechanical OR liked Motorbikes. Nev

The old outback stations all had a room with broombush (brush-wood) walls, an iron-roof, and with water sprays trickling water down the walls from a tank mounted up high. In essence, a big evaporative cooler or Coolgardie safe. People retreated to the coolroom on days that were blisteringly hot, usually over about 42 degrees. Naturally, you needed a good water supply, which most outback stations had, via bores and windmills.

You have a point there Jerry about the risks of 18 year old motorbiking. At least in my case, 18 was the year of most risky behaviour and I was lucky to survive it and almost didn't. Things were different back then. No such thing as learner approved motorcycles. We didn't even have learner permits then; once you turned 17 you could get an open bike license and go out and buy and ride the biggest, fastest motorcycle you could afford. As far as risky behaviour was concerned, you could get away with a lot. Police numbers were very small and policing was reactive and rarely proactive. There was no random breath testing (not until the end of 1988), no hidden speed guns (they hadn't been invented at that stage), no random roadworthy pull-overs, no roadworthy certificates; I could sit here for an hour and add to this list. We did have police speed radars but they were very rare and very obvious. It wasn't hard to spot a copper sitting on a chair under a tree with a big radar set perched on top of a small table. We didn't do cafe racing, more like pub racing, high speed pub crawls on bikes. In this district now, the police number in the high hundreds, whereas back in the seventies there was probably only about fifteen or twenty at most and usually only two to patrol the whole district after hours. Riding a bike back then was a bit like the wild west. I bought my first bike at age 14, a BSA Bantam 175cc, although I'd been riding the neighbours Francis Barnett for some time before that. At around 15 I graduated to a 250 Honda Dream for a paddock basher around the farm. On turning 17 I got my driver's license. No written test from memory. In those days we had separate license categories for car, body truck, semi trailer (one category to cover any number of trailers, no separate road train category like now), motorbike, and category G which was tractors, harvestors, graders and all sorts of general machinery. I got them all in one go and the only driving test was to drive our old AA160 International truck down the road and do a handbrake start on a sloping rail crossing. I had a neighbour's little Commer semi trailer lined up for a test, but the copper asked me if I'd driven it and was satisfied with my word that I had (8 miles down a straight, flat road). He also said he wanted to see me riding my first legal road bike, a 1957 AJS 500 single, before issuing a license. He knew I'd been riding it without a license but just wanted to check I could handle it ok. I drove the truck home, got on the bike and rode back to town,. As I pulled up in front of the police station, he was standing there with my license in hand, which he handed to me and said see you later. I never even got off the bike. The joys of a country copper back in the day. These days the bike license is the only separate category you have to have. All the others are covered by the highest level category. For example I have mototcycle and heavy combination (semi trailer). HC covers all those under it like car, body trucks, tractors and machinery. If I had a road train license (multi combination), my license would be only two categories, MC and motorcycle which would cover anything you can drive on the road. Around the time I had the AJS at age 17, I also had a 741 Indian unregistered for a restoration project that never happened before I sold it. After that came the Norton Commando and the 18 year old dangerous period. Other bikes I had over the years were a Yamaha SR500, a Suzuki 50 stepthrough and Honda postie bike. I'm not sure if you'd call the last two bikes, more like toys.

Those buildings have been there for e LOOOooong time. Nev

You can MAKE a crude evaporative system with wet bags and some fans. You can't take that Level of temperature. a PROPER EVAPORATIVE SYSTEM uses quite a Bit of water and you regulate it by Opening window s to let the cooled Air Pass through the space you. want to cool. They don't work well in high Humidity but should be good where you are. I had a BIG one on the roof at Lake BOGA (near Swan Hill) at the Vinyard. (and a refrigerated COOL ROOM IF it got too Bad). Nev

Yesterday it got to 46C inside my place. All I could do was sit on the lounge and read a book with the evaporative cooler blowing cold air in my direction. I went to the kitchen to rinse a glass and nearly burned my hand on the tap. In the afternoon cloud started to build up. Later that evening I watched the lightning in the clouds downwind. When I woke up this morning, my bedsheets and pillow were drenched with sweat. I looked outside and the sky was clouded over, but the clouds were too high to suggest rain coming soon. So I threw my bedding into the washing machine, figuring that in the heat and low humidity it would dry before any rain came. Now it's midday and the cloud has moved downwind. At least my bedding is dry so I can remake my bed for another sweaty night. All week the temperature has been in the high 30s, rising to 40+ by late afternoon. I woke up this morning with no energy. I don't know if that's because it has been too hot to make me feel like eating, or if I've lost electrolytes. It's getting close to midday and the temperature is 36C. After what I have endured this week, 36C feel cool. Luckily I'll be going into see Mum this afternoon. She's got air conditioning.

With such a shortage of housing, the Victorian Government has decided to demolish seven public housing towers designed for the elderly, to be redeveloped. In the meantime, where are these residents meant to go, and what will that do to the waiting list for accommodation? https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-06/public-housing-demolition-residents-relocated-private-homes/105619934

It has been raining here for about three weeks. At least the Brit humour shines through on the sign in this article: https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2026/jan/31/climate-crisis-flood-risk-britain

We have Houses to burn in Australia. Everyone wants to live near the coast, but you can't drink or safely swim in the water there, and they have WATER shortages and some of the Worlds biggest Houses in a country where it's good to get outside. Nev

You can arrange threesome with her and the Mother Nev

Wooden Bridges with the Planks laid along them are a BIG challenge especially when wet or frosted.. OLD ones get big gaps and splinters between the cracks. Nev

If you're not happy with the location and there are no buyers for it, check in on areas you may like to see if any sellers are willing to do a property swap to your area and cash out the difference either way. You will have to cover stamp duty at the valuer general's valuation, but a good lawyer can minimise it and while they will charge you to do it, it could still save you thousands. I couldn't find a site that handles property swaps, except for vacations, but an uncle of mine did it twice in the good ol' daze.

Nev, that's what a mate of mine did. He had a Triumph he'd been riding for a lot of years but gave away riding at age 70. He just didn't feel confident with all the traffic these days and health issues from a couple of heart attacks. I don't know how I'd go on the road these days. I haven't ridden a bike on the road for thirty years and it's a totally different ball game here now with the big population and car increases. A mate of mine is 67 and has just taken it up again after a lot of years. He's just recently bought a new Bonneville Speedmaster. One thing on his side, he lives north of here in a slightly quieter area with less traffic, and he rides with his son and his son's mates (all Harley riders) and they are all very protective of him and keep a good eye on him. The Speedmaster is a good old bloke's bike - nice low, very comfortable seating position, good for touring. His only issue with the Bonnie is that it sounds like a sewing machine with the stock pipes so he's ordered a set of straight through drag pipes from that mob in Tasmania that make after market pipe systems for a lot of bike brands.

Regarding the bridge, the local mill stopped running locos some time before the mill shut down and relied on road transport during that interim period. As a consequence, it fell into disrepair and was eventually dismantled due to public risk with people using it for fishing and jumping off it into the water. Eventually the company who owned the mill (Bundaberg Sugar I think it was at the time) came to the decision that their assets had more real estate value than they could make from crushing sugar so the sold it all up so developers could grow houses instead. Sad really to see one of the district's biggest industries vanish after being part of the place since the 1800's. The area had a lot of character when the cane industry was still solid. I live up on a hill and the old tram track used to go past the bottom of my property. Lots of good memories sitting on the verandah at night, listening to the locos rattling past and watching the cane fires out on the floodplain. Burning was not a very sustainable practice but it was very visual. For five to six months of the year it was like having cracker night every night. Over the years they ended up breeding varieties that produced less dead leaf trash and most burning went out of practice. What trash produced was left in the paddock to act as mulch in a way. Obvious benefits like more moisture holding ability, less weeds etc., but they had to develop machinery to be able to work it. There's not much cane grown here these days as it needs to be a high price to break even on trucking it some hours north of here to the nearest working mill. The only time they burn now is if they are harvesting what they call standover cane which is cane that has been left over to the next season or even longer. The more years it grows, the thicker the stalks get and the more trash and leaf growth there is, so it has to be burnt so the harvester can handle it. The sugar content drops as well with old cane. I miss the cane; these days instead of looking down over nice green cane fields, all I see is thousands of acres of weeds. It puts a lot of people out of work when a whole industry collapses. Farmers aside, a lot of the mill workers were multi-generational in their history there. I used to work occasional cane seasons harvesting cane and a lot of mates are local cane farmers or ex mill workers so I have a personal connection to it. I was born and bred in cattle, sheep and grain country so the cane was a big novelty to me when I first moved down here to the coast. Also here there's plenty of salt air to create rusty bits for making rat bikes (just to stay on topic).

It was. It's gone now for quite a few years.

Genuine question - why is that? I have ridden both faired and naked bikes and I can't discern the difference in awareness. I started late with motorbikes - first learned in Vic when I was 27.. It was fun, but didn't grab me. Next time I took to a bike, learned all over again at 40 - yes 40. It wasn't a mid life crisis thing. I had returned from 2.5 years in Aus. I was working only two doors from the company I left in the UK to return to Aus. That was in Watford and I was in Richmond and there was no easy and safe public transport between them. The car journey was an hour each way (with the odd delay), but after I moved to Aus, the EU expanded to include a lot of Eastern European nations. They preferred to live in the Acton, Ealing, Wembley and surroindign areas right in the middle of my route. The congestion charge came in roughly at the same time causing tradies and the like to take circuitous routes, and my one hour drive became a 2 hour drive each way. It was more of a necessity than a desire at the time. But since, I wish I had taken it up earlier.. maybe not at 18 a I may not be here to tell the tale. I won't bother with wheelies, burnouts, and the like (such as this young woman), but I feel approaching biking at a more mature but fit enough age brough survival instincts further to the front of my mind, anyway: (sorry for the thread drift)

What is that? A cane railway drawbridge?

Congratulations. Whether it makes the Best Seller lists or not, you must be pround of your achievement. At least you have created something that will last into the future. You nver know. Maybe at some time in the future your work will be included in the bibliography of a doctorial paper on the history of mineral exploitation in Australia.