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I have finally finished my book with the title Hidden Rivers of Gold which covers the origins of Deep Lead Mining, the technology and challenges, and the final years of mining in the Carisbrook-Moolort area of Victoria which led to huge financial losses and very little gold. Characters involved included the State Premier and a future president of the USA. This was all around the turn of the 20th Century. The book can be purchased through online booksellers including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Fishpond, Booktopia and Angus and Robertson. Prices vary a lot, and some are in US$ so check carefully. The book is published by Echo Books.

Might be a good idea to postpone any flying until your bad vehicle patch has passed.

The world needs more Mark Carneys. Luckily he's taken over from Trudeau, who wouldn't have the intestinal fortitude to tell Trump to shove his trade and allies policies where the sun doesn't shine.

It's been a while since anything positive was posted in this thread - so to counter the negativity, here's some party photos! SWMBO and I went to a friends party (Christie, and she was 50) on Sat 17th. It was held at a local bowling club and we all had a good time - despite the fact I rarely go to parties now. Christie is a senior ER nurse, she's got a lovely nature. She laid on some great finger food, she had a DJ with some great 80's music, and there was dancing and good general fun. One of the most amusing parts of the evening was, Christie hired a portable photo booth for the evening and it came with a pile of props, and everyone had a ball with it! Christie is the girl in the blue, off-the-shoulder dress, and her daughter Molly (20) is in the white dress with the black images on it. Her younger brother Sam is in all black, and hubby Gary is wearing the check shirt. The images start at the bottom, where setup and testing the day before, produced some interesting "test" imagery, mostly involving Gary and Molly. See if you can spot OT and SWMBO, we're halfway down the images, posing with Christie, and I've got my best Elton John shades on. https://gallery.glowbooth.com.au/view/e85ec5e4-2f3e-4634-a126-076cff8346cd?

If lightning hits a dead tree, it will still travel down the tree to the ground (on the outside of the trunk), but it likely won't make the tree explode because of an inadequate level of sap in it. The reason trees explode when struck by lightning, is because the sap is superheated to steam instantaneously. The normal level of volatile eucalyptus oil naturally in the air, is at too low a level to be ignited by lightning. However, in a fire, heated trees close to the fire front can release large amounts of volatile oils that further exacerbates the fire strength. There is a known feature of bushfires, termed "a crown fire". A crown fire occurs in front of the main fire front, and is driven by strong winds, which send the fire front through the treetops, aided by the high level of volatile oils at the treetop level.

Nev, Spread the word far and wide, boats are a terrible waste of money, endless days can be wasted on the water seeing birds, dolphins, whales, lots of fish and watching sharks feed on dumb tourists. It's a horrible life and no one should suffer such deprivations. The number of times I have been almost blinded by bikini babes is astounding. Tell the world to stop been silly and never come to Port Stephens, it's horrible- like a frozen gulag. So bad in fact , I am restoring a half cabin 15 ft Cruise Craft, a mere 50 years old. My tortured life continues...

Who remembers George, the talking clock on the phone? "On the third stroke, it will be five pm and twenty seconds. Ping Ping Ping." You can still hear it online at 1194online.com

Trumps middle of the night rant attacking and threatening Bruce Springsteen for speaking up against him is a good reason for another song remake by the Boss. "Not born in the USA", it could be about Trumps wives.

Jerry, one bright spot that's turned the current position better - SWMBO came back from the operation very pleased, because the Doc had avoided a skin graft with a "flap" surgical removal process. This process is used quite commonly now, and many Docs are skilled at it. They make an incision and lift the skin back, then remove the cancerous bit, then pull the flap back and stitch it in place over the area of tumour removal. Done properly, it looks very good when healed. I had the flap procedure done on my face a few years ago, when I had to have a weeping cyst removed from one cheek. It's nearly impossible to see the scars and stitching on my face, so no-one can call me "Scarface"!. SWMBO is home now and resting, no bending over for three days, a need to keep her wound covered in the shower, and back to get the stitches taken out in a week. She's much happier than when she went in this morning.

Talking of tractors, we went on a bicycle tour a couple of days ago, the local guide was very informative. Apparently here the water buffalo were traditionally used to work the rice paddles. Now however there's a communal tractor in each area. The locals refer to them as "Chinese buffalo".

I think they missed a few letters in the title. The full word is "Megalomania"

When I mentioned to SWMBO that a woman invented the windscreen wiper, she retorted - "That'd be right! Always doing the cleaning!!" 😄

And that is what is driving the US administration. Our problem is more about keeping a safe distance from the unravelling disaster. Please, Albo, keep your head down, below the crazy americans view. Please ditch AUKUS. They are more a liability than a trustworthy ally.

Good luck with your recovery.

Here's another photo of the arrest, clearly showing camera in his right hand, the other held high empty. Murder pure and simple. Click to enlarge.

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)

Having your OWN Place is good You can fiddle with it a bit to get More comfortable depending on how Over Bearing the Local Council is. Owing money is like Having Cancer. On your Mind all the time. Nev

I don't care if nobody gets the connection. Just listen to the words. Arlo Guthrie is surely missed in these achangin times I might have just consumed a little of Wolfie but I like this.....

Back in the 1990s we set up a company and mined 55,000 tonnes at 1 oz/tonne. Gold price was $350-400/oz and we lost money. It was called Reef Mining at Tarnagulla in Victoria.

If you go into the reply box, click on the emoticon button in the toolbar and type Groan in the search box, you will get this -

My Gripe of the day.... Our Social Australia Forum does NOT have a "Groan" emoticon. There are times.....

It's ONLY a "Fill In" Job till a better one comes along. Nev

Apparently only 250 tickets have been sold in the whole of Australia. Quote of the day comes from Justin Smith on Sunrise this morning - I'd rather French kiss a cheese grater than watch that movie.

I was part owner of the Fairplay Gold Mine at Higginsville, W.A. from 1972 to 1990, when the mine was sold to a large gold mining company. The brother, his wife and I mined and produced around 600 ozs of gold in that period, utilising the Norseman State Battery (a 10 head stamp mill, owned by the W.A. Govt). Gold was ignored and only worth around $35 oz when we purchased the mine from two old Slav prospectors. But U.S. President Richard Nixon had taken America off the Gold Standard in August 1971, in a staggering display of non-consultative, "executive" Presidential power. It was called the "Nixon shock", and it rattled the worlds financial markets - and led to a rapid rise in the price of gold, now the gold price was no longer controlled by the U.S. We knew this would happen, and purchased the gold mine accordingly. By 1975 the gold price was $160 oz and by 1980, it was over $800 oz, and there was another gold rush on. At that point, our strategy of utilising an under-utilised and cheap source of ore crushing went to hell in a handbasket, as scores of prospectors turned up at the State Battery to crush parcels of ore. A queueing system for crushing was initiated - but even worse - the Govt imposed a very sharp increase in crushing costs to reduce the State Batteries ever-increasing losses (the State Batteries were always subsidised to encourage local employment, bring in gold revenue, and to assist in prospecting work that might deliver new and profitable mines). At that point, we turned to the large (200,000 tonne) tailings dump on our mine, which still held an average of around 2 grams/tonne of tailings. We took on 3 business partners who had experience in heap leaching and cyanidation of tailings, and between all of us, we developed an improved design of tailings leach vats, which proved very effective and very profitable. The benefit of treating tailings was the ore was already crushed very fine, it just had to be set up with the correct pH levels, be able to contain a cyanide leach solution, and to have a simple circulatory pumping system. The addition of activated carbon in stainless steel tanks finished off the treatment process, and it was a very simple job to set up a small, single-cylinder Lister diesel pump to circulate the solution until the activated carbon was full of gold! Then the tanks would be taken into Kalgoorlie to be stripped of the gold, using a caustic solution, by professional carbon tank strippers. The final product, gold "dore" bars were taken into the Perth Mint, which refined the gold to the Internationally-accepted gold bar standard of 99.999 (%) fine gold. After we had re-treated all our gold tailings on the Fairplay lease, we re-treated many more tens of thousands of tonnes of tailings, from numerous other tailings dumps we had pegged. It was a very profitable period for us in the 1980's. Then, after we ran out of tailings dumps of our own to re-treat, we went on to build tailings vats on contract for other operators that needed to re-treat their tailings. We re-treated tailings and built leach vats for well over 2M tonnes of tailings in the 1980's, from as far East as Ejudina, 150kms E of Kalgoorlie, to Burtville, SE of Laverton, W.A. - right through the W.A. Goldfields, to even Marble Bar! It was a very interesting period, and one that was highly profitable, and not a period I'm likely to see again! The sheer pleasure of holding a large gold bar that you've produced and poured, is something that few people experience.

They had him down on the ground and under control, and his gun removed. There was no need to put 10 bullets into him after that. I can't go back into my viewing history to pull up a source video, but I did see one that mentioned what had happened previously. However, since I didn't watch the video I can't confirm for which side of the argument it was produced. But what is said to have happened back then did not happen on the day he died. Further, were those ICE agents involved in his death the same ones who were involved in the earlier incident? I would suggest that those associated with the events of his death are not likely to have positively identified him since over that period they no doubt swa and interacted with very many other persons. This back and forth can only be stopped by a full and impartial investigation of the incident. Unfortunately, in present day USA finding an impartial examiner seems like finding a unicorn horn in a pile of rocking horse manure.

The latest on Alex Pretti, the Vet Nurse shot by ICE, is that the bullet was not the cause of death, according to the autopsy. He had serious internal injuries, including broken ribs, which may have caused the death when they pounced on him. He had a run-in with ICE a week or so earlier. I saw the video where he charged the ICE agents, shouting and cursing them, kicked their car breaking the tail light, and spat on the car. This could have caused the agents to attack him when he returned. The story goes that he resigned from his nursing position a month or so ago, jooint some protest group or other, and have been acting erratically. These details, including the autopsy report were supplied by him widow according to the report.

US debt is around US$38 trillion & most of it is owned internally. About US$8 trillion is owned by foreign countries. Japan, China & UK are the biggest external owners of US debt. When the value of the US$ drops so does the value of the debt. Investors are slowly moving away from the US as a safe investment & this is being reflected to a degree in the loss of value of the US$ as well. Trumps dumb and erratic policies will probably see interest rates rise to try to stem the outflow of investment in the US. He's only been there a year & the rot is setting in already.

Marty, I used to be able to pull wheelstands on that Suzuki 50 stepthrough before I put the sidecar on it. It didn't have it's own power to do it, so you had to stand up on the pegs and start bouncing the weight over the bars a couple of times and on the right bounce, heave back on the handlebars while you gave it a handful. Once up on the back wheel, it was all balance.

Very adaptable people. It's quite a sight in Indonesia and Malaysia to see the Muslim female pillion passengers riding sidesaddle on the back of a bike. Amazing sense of balance when you see them swaying back and forth as hubby weaves in and out of the traffic. They've been doing it since they were kids so I guess it comes natural after a while. I've seen a family of five on a bike; hubby riding with a toddler on the tank, wife behind holding a baby and a little kid hanging on behind her, but I've heard stories of bigger numbers on bikes over there.

You should see what they do with a scooter here in Vietnam. Not unusual to see 2 blokes on a tiny ancient single cylinder rustbucket, with the guy on the back holding on to a homemade trailer with a load of bricks or 6m lengths of steel. Lucky it's so flat. I don't think they'd make it up a hill.

I believe Albo has invited Carney to address the parliament in March. That won't go down well with Trump. Canada is a lot like us in many ways, and Trump will probably see the invitation as Albo undermining the US.

In 1906, this chatty little handbook was released. It was called "The Woman and the Car". In the book, advice was given to women who chose to drive a car (gasp!), to .... 1. Carry a revolver, carry a small mirror for seeing behind them, for summoning help, and to also carry some chocolate (yes!) 2. The book also advised bringing hairpins, a pair of clean gloves, an extra handkerchief, a clean veil, and a powder puff for neatening up at the destination! I notice that there was no advice to wear goggles, which were pretty necessary for driving in 1906 due to a lack of proper windscreens, and very dusty unsealed roads. In incidental motoring news, a woman actually invented the first windscreen wiper!

Clinton & Obama have weighed in on this describing it as "a moment that will shape history" urging Trump to "reconsider his approach saying “Over the course of a lifetime, we face only a few moments where the decisions we make and the actions we take will shape our history for years to come. This is one of them. If we give our freedoms away after 250 years, we might never get them back.” Prominent republicans & some of the original MAGA influencers, the most prominent Being Joe Rogan, have also been critical of Trump, Noem & ICE. Some commentators are likening ICE to the Gestapo in WW2. This has caused Trump to refuse to defend the ICE agent when asked & now say that the administration is "reviewing everything" about the incident. There will be no apology, ICE will get away with a review & a few sackings & the murderers will get off lightly. Trump will blame those he sacks as always though.

Arrrgh! Sounds nearly as bad as TasMANIA. Anyone would have to be crazy to go near these aweful places!

The problem with time lapse is that in order to give the impression it is just sped up, the shutter speed is effective slowed down and it chops out bits. The bike came to a full stop and I leaned to the left, inadvertently moving the bike to the right. Foot down to hold it, onto loose stones in the wet and over it went. I tried to stop it falling. I guess I was thinking soft tissue injury will heal for free v. fixing damage on the bike. The front types are about 18 months old and have 1/2 life tread left in them - maybe a touch less. They handle and grip well in the wet - apart from my own stupidity in this case, I have yet to have an oh-ship moment and I have ridden the bike in all but warm conditions so far - including some fairly torrential rainfall. With any luck I will be back on it this week, as the leg is healing quite nicely. I tried a lean on my right foot while sitting on the bike with the foce expected that would slightly exceed normal loads for city riding and I felt no pain. Of course, if my right leg is called for materially more strength/stretch, it will not yet end well.

Exercising his Right of Assembly, Right to Freedom of Movement. Right to Express an Opinion.

IT’S OFFICIAL: VICTA IS BACK IN AUSTRALIAN HANDS 🇦🇺 This one matters. After years overseas, Victa lawn mowers an iconic Australian brand is back in Australian ownership.

Going to see some of Scotland next year, even booked a Loch Ness boat ride, going to find Nessie if I can.

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.

It's not hard to lose money on gold mining pursuits - especially if hard rock and underground mining is involved. I've never been deeply involved in underground mining, but I've certainly seen a lot of mining companies come and go, and seen vast sums of money lost. I think I've seen figures that reported only around 30% of mines are profitable. When we were at Higginsville, the old Slav prospector who remained there - Mick Urlich - living in his old prospectors humpy, was a constant source of stories about the exploits of would-be miners in the area. Mick told me he came across a couple of blokes digging a big hole in pure white quartz, on the track between Higginsville and Eundynie, sometime in the 1930's. These blokes had a nice stockpile of broken quartz, which Mick looked at in puzzlement, as it contained no visible gold - nor any signs of the quartz even showing indications of being gold-bearing. It was just pure white, clean quartz. He went over to them and asked if they were onto anything of value. The two prospectors, very obviously greenhorns, stated that they were onto some good gold, as shown by the quartz! Mick went on - "But have you crushed or panned any of the quartz to see if there's actually any gold in it?" The prospectors looked a bit blank. "But it's quartz, it must have gold in it!", one stated. Mick replied, "No, just because it's quartz, doesn't mean it actually has gold in it! Quartz is a good indicator of gold-bearing lodes, but it usually has to have banded iron in it, or even visible gold, which is called specimen stone!" "You can have quartz that is totally barren of any gold, you have to crush a small sample and pan it off, to see if there's any gold in it! This stuff you're digging out here is just barren, pure white quartz!" At that, the pair of greenhorn prospectors developed downcast expressions. "But we got told, all we had to do, was find quartz, and we've found gold!" one replied, now looking in despair at their stockpile of barren quartz. Mick said it rapidly become obvious the pair had exactly zero knowledge of gold prospecting, and had not even studied up on the basics - but they were fully equipped, and full of enthusiasm, and possessed a gung-ho approach to gold prospecting, thinking that gold was everywhere, and you just had to dig a hole to be rewarded. He remarked how often, other prospectors were misled by "old-timers diggings" - with many modern prospectors stating with confidence, "the old timers dug holes and shafts and drives here, there must be gold here!" Mick said that if more of the modern prospectors had any idea of how little, a lot of the "old timers" knew about gold and prospecting, and had just dug holes in enthusiasm, with little gold prospecting knowledge, then those modern prospectors would be sorely disappointed with their confidence that the "old timers" actually knew what they were looking for!

Doesn't Trump like taking other people's trophies?

American crude oil is sweet (contains less than 1% sulphur), but their refineries set up years ago were designed for sour crude (>1% sulphur), which is why they need foreign crude. https://www.fuelstreamservices.com/why-the-u-s-cant-use-the-oil-it-produces/

Combined with those high narrow handlebars it would be very interesting.

Head cracking was an Issue with Them. Nev

It's true that a First World society is in a position to use more energy than othr societies, but I get a bit sick, as a membr of a 27 million strong society, of being accused of being an environmental vandal when in fact most of the energy used in this world is being used by the billions living north of the Equator.

Tis guy knows a bit about Donald- Trump is such your stereotypical bully. China pushed back - Trump backs down. Canada pushed back - Trump backs down. Europe pushed back - Trump backs down. Minnesota pushes back - Trump backs down. Denmark pushed back - Trump backs down. New York pushed back - Trump backs down. He is the absolute poster boy for every single character defect that makes somebody so insecure and spineless that they need to create an illusion of toughness. But look harder and a little closer and you see Trump for the weak pathetic little insecure man he has been his whole sad loveless miserable life. Trump is a man with real "Daddy issues" who knew his own father had no respect for him. A father who detested the stupidity and weakness he saw in his son. As Trump's own niece said. Fred knew his son was a habitual liar! Fred knew his son was weak! Fred knew his son's character was pathetically flawed. And Fred knew! That Trump knew! That he knew, and what really hurt young Donald was that Fred didn't care that his son knew how much he despised Donalds weakness of character. It was said that Fred (who himself was a loveless cruel husk of a man) wanted Trump to actually do his "military service" to toughen him up and install some fiber and backbone in him. But Trump begged and pleaded with his mother to speak to Fred on his behalf to help him dodge the draft. Trump was scared to death of even the thought he may go near any sort of fight. A Dr who was a personal friend of Fred Trump and even lived in one of Fred's buildings, diagnosed "bone spurs" as a deferment for Donald to dodge the draft. It was said that Fred paid for that diagnosis and Trump has no medical record before or since of EVER being treated for "bone spurs." Trump is only tough when you allow him to be tough. When you pander to him and massage his ego and let him feel like he is intimidating you. That is why Trump lies about everything and anything. Trump literally cannot complete a sentence without lying, because Trump fears that truth and reality exposes him for what he is. So he has to make everything bigger and better and the greatest that anyone has ever seen! and the more he does this the more pathetic he actually looks to normal minded folks who are not buying into his non stop bullshit. Like all of history's really weak men Trump will run from anyone or anything that can stand its ground and has the power to hit back. That is why so many of his victims are women or old men battling cancer or they are actually already dead or they are countries that can only throw rocks back as he bombs them. That is why he wont stand up to Putin and craves recognition from other authoritarian leaders. Trump will only ever pick fights with people or things he feels he can dominate and push around. But the first time they make a stand and push back he whimpers off to find another new less threatening victim. Trump is that kid that used to call you names! But as soon as you took your jacket off and raised your fists. He would be telling you he was "only joking" as he is running down the road. Trump is a gobshite bully who writes big cheques with his mouth that his arse can't cash and the world is slowly waking up to the fact they need to give him a bloody nose every now and then when he goes off on one of his threat sprees and runs his mouth. Being a billionaire is the only thing that has saved Trump from being punched in the face every single day of his life and twice on a Sunday.... The only thing.