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1.6b would be worth it. Staying in will result in orders of magnitude more loss and still nothing to show for it. The USA is simply not a trustworthy military ally.

I've got it, it was a bit hard to work it out and it took me a while but I finally figured it out. The line in the middle of the road is continious saying you can't overtake but it is obvious and clear enough that you can...Phew, that was a hard one

Some anti fascist people are already working to identify and make public the identity of ICE officers, especially those proven to have used excessive force. It's exactly like the nazi brown shirts. You shouldn't expect to remain anonymous while following unlawful and inhumane orders.

We may have burned that bridge. I'd like us to learn the lessons from Ukraine and give up on manned subs altogether. Remotely operated seems far better in every respect.

Not only do you admit, but you show it with what you think is fake news from the ABC. If renewables are the reason for price rises, why is NSW, SA, and SE QLD getting free electricity because of solar? The reason for electricity price rises globally is the massive increase in gas price increases due to peak in demand of electricity post pandemic, severe supply chain issues, and the Russian invasion. I still don't know why, but that drove up coal prices, and guess what? John Howrards criminally short sighted policies of selling gas to the Chinese at even then knock-down prices and hold them for god knows how long at that price without indexation (must have been a very big brown paper bag involved somewhere) and successive governments allowing coal being liberalised to be traded on the open global market wthout reserving necessary supply domestically at cost of extraction plus decent profit margin (admittedly, when the price of coal is down, that would work against the consumer - but at least there would be certainty of what you have to pay), and - voilla! There you have your increasing electricity prices.. As with any new technology, there is a short term capital investment recovery built into the price, but in a fully competitive or well regulated market where structural impediments of entry and exit exist (take your pick), once that is recovered, the prices tend to stabilise near the cost of production + a margin for ongoing returns. We are starting to see it in solar. Renewables are cheaper longer term than any other form of generation. Remeber the price of colour TVs when they came out. More expesnive in absolute terms than you can buy them now. Imagine the real cost difference? Yeah, ABC don't get it right all the time and they do sometimes show bias, especially on one issue - in my opinion. But I have found when you dig into the facts, more often than not, they are far closer to objectivity than the others, willing to admit they make mistakes better than the others, and even on the area I think they are biased, they are no more so than most of the others (whether it fits my agenda or doesn't).

Not about Viet Nam, but still relevant. Back in 2000, I encountered a civvie who was working in the Australian Army compound in Dili (East Timor). He mentioned the following:- The Australians regularly patrolled the border (No, it wasn't Viet type thick jungle). They were concerned by Indos following and taking pot shots to harrass. I believe no casualties, just harrassment. So one day, the SAS followed a safe distance behind our patrol. The problem was removed. SAS still knew how to be invisible. The problem never reocurred. The incident was never reported. Aside from Youtoob BS, there are believable reports by American vets, to support those Vietnam stories. Mainly they highlight the arrogance & poor training of the US military.

I've just got back to Australia after visiting Vietnam, sitting in Sydney airport waiting for the Hobart flight. They call it the American war over there. I don't know why we went, or what the Yanks thought they'd achieve. Every Vietnamese person I talked to (apart from the hucksters trying to sell you stuff) was polite, friendly and with a great sense of humour. An interesting fact is that they burn cardboard shaped into shoes, clothes etc for their dead ancestors. They even burn fake money so the spirits can buy stuff in the afterlife. Now this next bit shows how lovely these people are. The fake money they burn is obviously Vietnamese dong. They then started worrying about the American and European dead in their country, not recognising the currency and going without. So now they also burn fake US dollars and Euros as well, so the foreign spirits are looked after. (Probably the more entrepreneurial Vietnamese spirits also grab the foreign currency because of the exchange rate!) But just think - regardless of how nonsensical the whole thing may be, they are concerned about the welfare of the dead soldiers who invaded their country.

My sister found this negative in a packet of old family photos and had it reversed on one of those online sites. I can only do 35mm with the attachment on my scanner whereas these old photos are are much bigger size negative. Among all the old photos there's a few like this one that have no corresponding prints. It would have been taken by my great uncle, but have no idea who the bloke on the horse is. It looks like the beach at Gaza in the background, which is one place they were in 1917.

Sorry.. couldn't resist. A later model flying Merkel: (Ignore the message)

Modern reverse cycle air conditioners, more correctly called heat pumps are very efficient and most are inverters so they can reduce the power consumption once they get the temperature down (or up in the Winter). I installed a Mitsubishi Electric split system in my last house that cooled most of the house. It produced 7.2 kW of cooling and 8 kW of heat with a maximum current draw on 2.2kW. Once the house was down to about 25 degrees it drew only about 800 watts to maintain the temperature. Our new property came with a similar sized Daikin split system which is a bit older and not as efficient as the Mitsubishi but still only draws about 1 kW once it gets the house down to temperature. It is academic now though as all the power comes from solar during the day and stored solar in my home battery at night.

Still riding after more than 40 years and still never had a bike accident on road and only a few falls offroad- worst bent a clutch lever. That includes racetrack fun and even been a Monkey on a ballistic racing LCR sidecar. Current beasty is a 167hp BMW k1200R, only 121,000 km so well run in. For it's 21st birthday it's getting a diff rebuild as a O ring was leaking, plus new rubber and rear disc. I got through the early silly years by always having a mature attitude to my skills development and knowing every car is probably trying to kill you. I always use the Piano principle- "unless a piano falls from the sky and hits you in the back of the head - I should have seen it coming". No amount of skill overcomes a poor attitude.

We will need fossil fuels for quite some time but the planet desperately needs to reduce its reliance on these if we are going to survive long term. Trump will be gone in 3 years and hopefully the pragmatists in the US will see that renewables and nuclear energy (though the waste is an issue) are the ONLY way forward. The problem is that it is dis-United with so many MAGA nutters and an education system that does not consider facts that are not American or anything that happens outside of America. Hollywood has distorted facts and American war movies always show how Americans won everything. Most believe WW2 started with Pearl Harbour. The fact that if the battle of Britain had not been won there would have been no place to create an invasion force. The Battle of the Bulge was only successful due to Montgomery sending 30 Corps South to stop the German Armour from crossing the Muse & taking Antwerp. US generals were scathing of British meticulous planning, engineering expertise and total concern at reducing casualties through innovation etc and Bletchley park with cracking the Enigma code has never really been acknowledged as most Americans believe they did it. The Poms just sucked it all up as by 1945 they were bankrupt & needed the US so did not complain. Now Trump has changed everything with his team of ignorant rampant neo colonialists and world dominance through absolute power. Things are changing though with the UK & Europe finally beginning the re-arm & get rid of the US dependence. Putin plays Trump like a chap violin & Xi just watches it all while seeing his dominance continue to expand. China out produces everyone especially in new technology with EVs, robots, machinery, solar and wind power and everything else. It is the worlds new high tech factory and no-one can get close now. Those of us in our 70s & more have seen the best of times. We will all be gone in a few years so hopefully human resourcefulness and decency will eventually prevail.

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.

Roger Moore (sounds like a porn star name) was the least "action hero" type of any Bond. I think the best was the last, Daniel Craig. Some of the fight scenes, especially in the first of his, were excellent.

Keep the beautiful heritage sites for public use not seel cheap and make billions for untaxed private profit . Start taxing properly and it would not be a problem.

Like so many stories on Facebook, you get half (or less) of what looks like a good story, then it says "Continued in comments". This usually means that there is a link in the first comment to the rest of the story, but often the link is missing, or links to an entirely different story. In this case, the link was missing. However, here is what was displayed. Five American soldiers walked into the jungle alongside four Australians. 4 days later, the Americans walked out, changed men. Their afteraction report contained a single phrase that would echo through Mayv headquarters for months. We are not ready for this. Wait, not ready. These were Rangers from the 101st Airborne. Men who had survived firefights that would break most soldiers. And yet, after 96 hours moving through Vietnamese jungle with Australian SAS operators, they filed a report that read, "Less like a military assessment and more like a confession of inadequacy." Oh, this story gets so much stranger than you think because what those American soldiers witnessed in those four days. The methods, the silence, the way those Australians moved through triple canopy jungle like they owned every shadow was so fundamentally different from everything they had been trained to believe about warfare that some of them requested never to patrol with the Aussies again. One lieutenant came back and told his commanding officer three words that got immediately classified. They're not human. You're about to discover why the most powerful military on Earth started sending its elite soldiers to learn from 120 men from a country most Americans knew only for kangaroos and beer. And trust me, by the end of this video, you'll understand why the Vietkong stopped referring to them as soldiers at all. They called them something else. Maang, the jungle ghosts. Stay with me. Natrang, September 1966. The May TV Recondo School had just opened its doors to train American long- range reconnaissance patrol personnel in the dark arts of jungle warfare. The facility sprawled across a compound near the massive naval air base, its training schedule designed to push soldiers to the absolute limits of endurance and skill. three weeks, 260 hours of classroom and field instruction culminating in an actual combat patrol through enemy controlled territory. The school's commonant, Major AJ Baker, had assembled what he believed to be the finest reconnaissance instructors in the American military. Green Berets who had run operations from the demilitarized zone to the Meong Delta. Veterans of Project Delta, men who had earned their reputations tracking communist forces through some of the most hostile terrain in Southeast Asia. But Baker knew something that troubled him deeply, something he would not speak about publicly, but that kept him awake on humid Vietnamese nights. His instructors, skilled as they were, were teaching methods developed for a different kind of war. And there was one group operating in country who had already solved the puzzle that American forces were still trying to figure out. The Australians had arrived in Puaktoy province in April of 1966 with a mandate that differed fundamentally from American doctrine. While US forces measured success in body counts and territory seized, the Australians had been given a single objective. Pacify the province using whatever methods necessary. The key phrase was whatever methods. Within the Australian task force operated a unit so small it barely registered on American organizational charts. The Special Air Service Regiment. three squadrons rotating through Vietnam, never more than 120 men in country at any given time. Their official designation was reconnaissance. Their actual function was something far more primal, something that would force American military doctrine to confront uncomfortable truths about the nature of jungle warfare. The first American personnel to observe Australian SAS operations did so almost by accident. In May of 1967, a squad of US Longrange Reconnaissance Patrol soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division had been attached to one squadron SAS for what was supposed to be a routine exchange program. The Americans arrived at Nuiidat, the Australian base, expecting to find familiar patterns. Professional soldiers conducting professional operations with perhaps a few tactical variations that came from operating in a different area of operations. What they found instead would fundamentally challenge everything they understood about warfare in Vietnam. Sergeant Michael Patterson had served two tours in Vietnam before his assignment to the Australian Exchange Program. He had run patrols through the Iron Triangle, conducted search and destroy operations in the Central Highlands, and survived firefights that had earned him two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star. He was not, by any measure, a novice to jungle combat. His first morning at New Dat Patterson watched an Australian SAS patrol prepare for insertion. Five men, each carrying approximately 80 lb of equipment. M16 rifles with modified flash suppressors. Enough ammunition to simulate the firepower of a force three times their size. Rations for 5 days. No air support pre-positioned. No artillery fire plan. No quick reaction force on standby, just five men who would walk into enemy controlled territory and not make contact with base for 72 hours. What struck Patterson immediately was the silence. American patrols buzzed with lastminute activity before insertion. Radio checks, weapons checks, final coordination with helicopter crews. ooooooooOOOOOOOOoooooooo This is where the link should have been. Some of the replies, apparently from American members, commented on how great the Special Forces soldiers were and how undertrained they made the Yanks look. Unfortunately when you leave a Facebook page to do something like create this post, then go back for more, the screen refreshes and you lose it. There were a couple of replies I would like to have copied.

It was well known amongst "ordinary" Australian soldiers, that the SAS were called "super-grunts", and they considered all other ordinary soldiers, as far below them in skills. Just the psychological effects of SAS training were severe, and huge numbers of SAS applicants fell out of the SAS courses, because they failed to make the grade. Their training is brutal.

That was interesting. At the end of the video they make the point that as effective as they Australian’s methods were in the field, they resulted in high levels of PTSD and long term difficulties adjusting to civilian life after the war.

True, we'll never see that money again. Whether we actually get the hoped for subs or not. Further, I question the wisdom of continuing the massive money drain, purely in the hopes of getting some outdated weaponry sometime in the distant future. What new war toys might our military wish to buy in 2040 (or later, when you allow for expected late delivery) for all those taxpayer dollars? Probably not those old-before-new subs. And what manufacturing capability & quality can we expect from the New America? Their industrial abilities are not what they used to be.

There's plenty who whinge more than you Jerry, and not even in England.

I know the military and the department of defence are always reviewing their property portfolio to optimise it for modern day use. A war machine costs money and requires modern amenities. However, I can't help but think there are brown paper bags passing about in the halls of our decision makers. Not for sall of the properties. But Victoria Barracks in both Melbourne and Sydney, for example, are historically significant and an essential part of the fabric of their area; they are architecurally and environmentally a part of the culture and provide a welcome relief from the many bland building around them. Of course, they and the land they are upon are a developer's nirvana. And developers have little regard for the quality of the environment of what they develop to the communities they affect. Yes, they will be expensive to maintain. But sometimes things are important enought to warrant the cost. Otherwise we end up with bland, faceless streetscapes with no acknowledgment of our past, nor the variety and space that can bring enjoyment to dull days.

Holy thread resurrection! I see it was started and up until today finished a day before I joined the forums! You fellas are into your 10th year suffering my rants and raves - more rants.. England has that effect on one.. Am I now a whinging pom?

This bike build project will have to progress in tandem to the shed renovation project. Until the 6x6 metre workshop space is properly sorted not much mechanical work can go on. There's a fair bit of structural alterations needed in there. A few more steel diagonal braces will have their brackets relocated so shelving and benches will sit against the wall better. One set of braces will be removed and the timber frame wall between the steel upright shed poles will be upgraded to a bracing wall to compensate for the loss of the diagonal braces. That section already has a timber wall frame attached to the poles, which also serves as a wall for an attached 3x3 metre room, so it's just a matter of fitting some more tie down and adding bracing ply. If I put bracing ply on both sides of the wall, the kN of bracing should exceed the original diagonals. In the short term, I've been clearing out the attached 3x3 metre room to put some shelving in to hold components for the bike project. As per the attached photo, the inside wall is unlined, so I'll insulate that and cover it with bracing ply, paint the wall, then put the shelves in. Before the shelving goes in, the adjoining wall at right angles to it (the one mentioned above) will have the corrugated iron cladding removed and be replaced with bracing ply (it's the rear side of the wall where the steel diagonals will be removed). In a fit of madness years ago, I fastened that corrugated iron internal cladding with roofing nails instead of roofing screws, so that's added a lot of extra work to removing it.

That colourised photo definitely shows water in the background. It would either be the coast near Gaza or possibly the Sea of Galilee where they stationed after the fighting to rest and reorganise. This photo is one of the ones at the Sea of Galilee, also called Lake Tiberias. The horses look like they could do with a rest to fatten those ribs up a bit.

If the ABC said anything that could be construed by the rabid right as even slightly left of centre, regardless of how factual it is, they get hounded by the Murdoch press and face political pressure. There is no comparison with Sky. If you think that the ABC is reporting factually incorrect news, provide examples.

Isn't there already a gold statue of him?

How much gilt do you want?

The Yanks sent a group of their soldiers to Jungle Training Centre, Canungra, so they could go through the Jungle warfare course that all Aussie soldiers had to pass, before being sent overseas to combat zones. None of them could complete it. They packed it in and went home. It was a bastard of a course, all designed to get Aussie soldiers used to real jungle warfare conditions. The worst part was slithering through deep mud on your back to get under a huge mat of barbed wired, with barely enough room to slide under it - all the while you were under live fire (just above your head, of course) and enduring constant but irregular detonations of explosives, just to simulate mines and artillery shells and grenades going off. Then you had to scramble up obstructions to reach the top of a 10 metre tower - then jump off the tower into a river that was about 50 metres wide - which you had to cross, of course. There was a rope dangling in the river which you could use to help yourself. Naturally, you also had to be carrying a fully-equipped backpack containing around 15 kgs, and your rifle - which you had to try and keep dry. After you made it to the other side, there was slippery, muddy, mountainous terrain to climb - and I mean it was that steep, you were on your hands and knees. Then there was the M60 machine gun that also had to be carried up that mountain. When one bloke peaked out with carrying the M60, someone else had to take it. After you made to the plateau at the top, you had to make camp for the night - wet or not. Of course, you had to post sentries al night, because this was the Jungle, and enemy were always probing your defences. So sleep was pretty patchy. Next day you had to walk a jungle trail with an F1 SMG - and shoot at targets that suddenly and unexpectedly popped up each side of the trail. These were enemy soldiers, taking potshots at you. You had to set up enemy ambushes, hide yourself completely - then endure many hours of waiting and waiting and waiting, for enemy to appear. In the hot sun, in the rain, in the cold. There was no respite, you dare not move. The enemy always appeared after a very long wait of course - and when you least expected them. If you messed up the ambush, you got to do it again. The obstacle courses were endless and made you exert yourself to the max. Climbing over huge walls, jumping through courses laid with tyres - all in mud of course. Scrambling up 10 metre ropes to cross other obstacles. I can only remember a few of them, possibly because my memory doesn't want to recall the rest. They were all designed to make you exert yourself to your limits. And you always carried your rifle with you, at all times. The course took 10 days out of your life, and at the end of it you were pretty buggered - but if you passed the course, you got your ticket to go to a real war zone, which was often far more different again to Canungra. American soldiers could never go anywhere in a group without making a lot of noise, giving off a lot of smells (cannabis and aftershave and scented soaps), and they were so trigger-happy, they were dangerous to be around. The SAS took especial pains to ensure they gave off no smell, never followed any kind of track or trail, were silent to an unbelievable level (hand signals were refined to the nth degree), and they often followed enemy and determined their likely path - then moved ahead of them, and waited silently and in hiding, for the enemy to pass. Then they'd step out behind the last of the enemy and dispatch them with as little sound as possible - then drag their body off the trail. The enemy would be totally unnerved at how their "tail end Charlies" could just vanish without a sound or a trace. It was psychological war at its finest.

There's plenty of videos on uTube in the same vein as that article, generally saying how the Australian SAS soldiers far outclassed the elite American troops in the jungle. I'm not sure how much is true and how much is hype. Here's a typical one.

Musk IS spreading his genes pretty well. He might have to move to MARS to escape the Alimony. Nev

That's the billionaires, that hold 90% of world wealth. You should know that, Nev.

Trumps new appointee to head the Federal Reserve, Kevin Warsh is seen as a "hawk" on U.S. interest rates, with a desire to keep them up until inflation in the U.S. is tamed. Trump wants the interest rates dropped NOW, and that made all the investors flee to gold and silver for fear of Trump getting his way, and causing more inflation. They feared that any Trump appointee to the Federal Reserve would just be a loyal Trump stooge, doing exactly what he wants. However, once all the investors learned that Warsh was being appointed, they dropped all their gold and silver investments (it's called "profit-taking" anyway), and put their money back into treasury bonds and other financial instruments. It seems obvious their fears about Trump ruling the interest rate levels and destroying the U.S. economy with his lack of economic knowledge has evaporated with the appointment of Warsh, and Warsh might have some backbone to resist Trumps demands and abuse. Jerome Powell certainly knows what it's like to be on the receiving end of Trump abuse, lawsuits and outrageous demands. It's critical that the Federal Reserve remains independent of any external political pressure - everyone in the U.S. knows that.

A couple more https://www.backstreetheroes.com/2023/07/14/project-hercules-2-75l-single-brag-your-bike/ and

I never managed to get lost when finding my way around. Braille always worked for me. A good guide might help you if you get lost. This is a mature one, you can tell by the wrinkles.

The closest I have to anything like that is this Continental R-670 pot. It has around 1500cc displacement and is in good nick despite the outside appearance. Has valves, rockers, pushrod tubes and exhaust header. It's got a coating of protective gunk inside covering what looks like a chrome bore. Unfortunately I don't have the machining skills of Al Hackel or the equipment to make a motor out of it. If I was mad enough I'd give it a crack. I doubt my little mill would have the accuracy for a job like that.

You mean to tell us? - that an image of Trump wasn't in the first results?? 😄

My life would have Been totally different IF i hadn't ridden and Mucked around with Motorbikes. Even on old motorbikes I've been to Places I would NEVER otherwise have gone to otherwise and Met a few Long life friends Done a Lot of OFF road Motorcycling Built a lot of Old Bikes and Made a lot of Parts for them. ALL MY Kids Have bikes My wite was a good off road rider and rode Big Harley Outfits well. Much Better than Most Blokes. Gotta go for tea and watch the tennis Finals. Hoo Roo . Nev

Trump insists even now that he won the 2020 election and has been doing his best to re-write history ever since. I think the best way to resolve this would be just to tell him he was right all along and declare him the winner. Then declare the 2024 election invalid because he can't have a third term.

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

Look UP " The FLYING MERKEL" . I once had a 1912 Model,. Sprung rear wheel. Ball race Big end. USA BUILT, The AMERICANS made the Most Innovative Bikes back then Nev

Never even been a passenger on a bike let alone ridden one.