onetrack

I believe a vast amount of Chinese businesses and sales are supported with Govt largesse, it's all about dominating the manufacturing industry. Just look at their car production, the word is the Chinese Govt spent $350B in automotive manufacturer subsidies to ensure that Chinese cars become dominant around the globe. In most cases, the Chinese purchases are a no-brainer. I wanted a new radiator for my little Cat traxcavator, the genuine Cat radiator was around $7000. It took me ages to find a local radiator repairer who would recondition my radiator - they wanted $5,500 to do the job, and it would take weeks. I got a new radiator off a Chinese supplier, it was $2000 landed at my door. It's a properly made radiator - copper fins, brass tubes, and a stainless steel heat exchanger for transmission oil cooling, located in the bottom tank. It's not an exact copy of the original, the Chinese modified and improved the design.

That's a classic photo of Australian rural mailboxes, Octave. You must have been living "out beyond the Black Stump"? 😄

I don't know if anyone else has much dealings with Amazon, but I don't deal with them much, and now I think I know why. I cancelled my account with them a few years ago due to their scammy behaviour, signing me up to Amazon Prime without asking. So then I started an account with them again in 2023, after I sighted an item that was good value (a Chinese Greenworks 24V Li-ion electric drill - which I bought, and which has been good). Then, earlier in Dec 2025, I wanted a couple of sets of Whitco window friction slides. The Big Green Shed wanted $34 for them, but the seller was offering them on Amazon for $14 - so I bought 2 sets. Paid for them, and received them in late December, and I'm quite happy with them - genuine product, exactly as described. Then today, I get an email from Amazon saying the sale has been cancelled by the seller, and I wasn't charged for it! WTF?? I've got the slides and the money is recorded as being paid? I don't know what's going on here, maybe the seller suddenly realised that price was 5 years old, and they never changed it to keep up with the current price? - so now they're trying to can the deal?? I can't make head nor tail of this. The order record has disappeared from my Amazon account.

Oh, incidentally, the Chinese Year in 2026 is the Year of the Fire Horse - also known as the Year of the Golden Horse! I hope that means galloping wealth gain! 😄

Letter delivery services in most civilised countries were obliged to deliver letters at low cost when they started up. It was called the USO - Universal Service Obligation. This started with Britains Penny Post in 1840 and the system developed along similar lines in many other countries. When letter-writing ruled supreme and all documents were on paper, the system worked well. But when the electronic messaging system started to take over from the start of this century, and letter deliveries started dropping in sizeable volumes, the costs of keeping up the USO became unsustainable. The USPS incurred horrendous debts with continuing losses over many years, and they had to up their charges and revamp their delivery system. The problem is the number of older people in particular who can't accept the demise of letters and who aren't computer literate. My 94 yr old neighbour checks his letterbox about 5 times a day, a habit he can't break. He reckons computers are evil, the people with them have all the power, just like the Catholic Church did when he was a child! He said, if you didn't keep in with the priest when he was young, you didn't get a job! So now he reckon computers have taken over from the Catholic Church, because all the information is now held secret from you, on computers! Maybe he's right! 😄

Here's wishing everyone a great year in 2026. I had a good year in 2025, but it ended with a rash of bad news from friends. The wife of a good mate and former employee, has been found to have major breast cancer, and is going to undergo a double mastectomy and breast reconstruction at the end of January. She's about 64 I think, and mate is 67. If that wasn't enough, his sister had a 30 yr old son killed in a car crash on Dec 9th. She had 4 boys. The sad part is, the 30 yr old was getting driven home by a workmate, a 25 yr old woman. The woman must have gone a bit crazy at the wheel, she sped up like a mad thing down a suburban street in Kalgoorlie, lost control on a slight bend and hit a solid tree, tearing her little Honda into 3 pieces. The crash killed them both. Oddly enough, mates sister was always terrified this son was going to kill himself on a big bike, he had two very large and powerful Jap bikes - but he was simply taken out by another idiot driver. Then, I got news another long time former employees wife had a heart attack at 60. So it was a month of bad news, hopefully 2026 will start off a bit brighter. The good news is, myself and SWMBO are doing just fine, and looking forward to a great year.

Good God, that song is absolutely antique! I'd never heard of it before now.

There goes all my Danish penfriends!! 😄

That bolt has already been cracked from overload stress, for an extended period. Plus, the bolt shank corrosion is severe. So, it was bound to break. I have had to deal with more broken bolts and studs, than I've had hot breakfasts. They certainly test you.

A local crop-duster and farmer by the name of Gerald Repacholi pulled that stunt here in W.A. and had his pilots licence suspended. He took off from a moving trailer at Jandakot with a floatplane, after seeing it done in the U.S. Repacholi then became the subject of a CASA programme designed to force him out of the industry, and his fights with CASA are legendary. He went to jail for a couple of years for perjury. He managed to keep flying and crop dusting, but ended up having a serious crash that effectively ended his flying career. He also went bankrupt with his farming operations, expanding in a period, where several bad seasons occurred. See "the evidence of Gerald Repacholi" heading, in the court case in the link below. https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/AATA/2006/578.html?context=1;query=Repacholi;mask_path= https://thewest.com.au/news/wa/wa-pilot-survives-air-crash-and-blaze-ng-ya-336974 Gerald Repacholi died in 2017 at age 70, but his "cowboy" record in aviation still lingers on. I'm fairly sure he died from cancer, possibly initiated by numerous factors in his rough and tumble life. https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/name/gerald-repacholi-obituary?pid=187224835

The HQ Holdens had the fuel filler right in the centre of the back bumper, under the hinged number plate! - so you could pull in anywhere and the hose would reach! I seem to recall some American cars had the fuel filler hidden behind a taillight that swung out.

Multiple hundreds of artesian bores are still uncapped. But the Qld Govt has introduced the Great Artesian Basin and Other Regional Aquifers (GABORA) Water Plan 2017, which requires all artesian stock and domestic bores to have watertight delivery systems by 2032. I cannot believe the mindlessness of so many, so-called intelligent rural people, in leaving thousands of artesian bores uncapped, and wasting billions of litres of precious water, annually. Even more so, I cannot believe that someone hasn't harnessed the massive available heat from the artesian bore water, to produce energy.

Every crow I see is checking out the rubbish! - especially the wrappers around humans food! 😄 But I've yet to see one drop stuff in a bin - the converse is the case, they'll empty bins every chance they get!

I had to laugh in the Costco service station a few weeks back. Costco have signs saying something along the lines of, "pull in anywhere, the hoses will reach across your vehicle". I do this regularly. However, you do have to apply a bit of effort to pull the hose right out, to get it across your vehicle. There was a lady behind me who had parked with her filler on the far side from the bowser - and she'd called the attendant in a fit of annoyance, claiming "the hose won't reach, it's not long enough!" Naturally, she hadn't pulled the hose right out, only relying on the loose hose length available. The attendant pulled on the hose to extend it to her filler, and she was greatly embarrassed.

It always staggers me to see the number of bike riders who either ride with their feet down, or who hang their feet out well prior to stopping, or who hang their feet out, long after taking off. Seems to me that a lot of bike riders have either had bugger-all training, or they had dodgy instructors. Riding trail bikes around farms and bush soon educates you about keeping your feet on the pegs at all times, except when you're stopped. Seen more than one bike rider with a broken ankle, thanks to poor riding skills.

Headlights on at all times is the go. I do it, even in my car, utes and truck. Anything that advances your visibility is a plus for crash avoidance. Even the W.A. Police advise keeping your headlights on at all times. I get thoroughly sick of people in dark grey cars driving in gloomy weather and after sunset, with no lighting. I started to pull into a roundabout that runs around an unlit underpass several months ago, it was at least an hour after dark. As I started to move, a black car with not single light on it anywhere, flashed an indicator as it swapped lanes in the roundabout, just 30M to my right. Then he turned his headlights on. I don't know how he could even see where he was going prior to switching his lights on - and if that indicator hadn't flashed, I would've pulled straight into his path, as there was no indication of any kind that there was a vehicle there. Idiot!

Didn't know where to put this, a magpie on CCTV imitating the neigh of a horse. I've known they were reputed as clever call imitators, but I've never heard one do this. https://www.facebook.com/reel/2286842478814689

You don't have to! It crawls up by itself!

You meant LAMS? LAPD is L.A. Police Dept.

Yes, the amount of salt lakes in the W.A. wheatbelt is amazing from the air, you don't get the "whole picture" from the ground. The drainage systems in W.A. are very flat and the lakes existed when the Europeans arrived, but extensive clearing and the transition to wide agricultural use increased the level of surface salt accumulation - and where many of those lakes were originally just brackish, and sometimes even fresh water, they have now all turned much saltier over time. Extensive efforts to drain the accumulated salts from the agricultural areas have led to mixed results and it will probably be another 200-300 years before we see any more major changes to the salt levels. Possibly somewhat surprisingly to what you might think, very wet years don't flush out the salt immediately, they make the salt levels worse (due to slow drainage), and in dry years, the salt levels decrease, as the water tables go down.

It's an unfortunate part of the climate and the country we live in, that extended very dry periods are part and parcel of that climate. A read of Dorothea MacKellars, "My Country" is recommended.

The new BOM site wants to be part of social media, that seems to be the main problem. You can still access all of the old BOM site at - https://reg.bom.gov.au/

I just remembered that 2025 is the 50th anniversary of the year I started school - at Wanneroo Primary School. There was no kindy or preschool in those far-off days, and I can clearly remember bawling my eyes out all day, because it was the first time I'd ever spent a whole day away from my Mother. A major shock to my comfort system. I can recall she gave me a packet of Arnotts Arrowroot biscuits to snack on for the day. But I made a few friends that day, and in the following days, and by the end of the year I had plenty of girlfriends. That's more than I can say about the rest of my adult life, where girlfriends became very hard to find, in rural and remote and all-male environments.

Yes, the 22A prefix D8H's were built in the U.K., from 1959. They were the early "low HP" D8H's, rated at 235 engine HP, later on the mid-60's they were upgraded to 270 engine HP.

Incidentally, the brother has only recently found this D6C, the very first Cat, and the first new bulldozer we ever bought (out of about a dozen dozers in total), and it belongs to an old prospector in the W.A. Goldfields, and it's still fully operational! It's probably done around 50,000 or 60,000 hours by now. We bought this tractor new in November 1966, and sold it in 1972 (traded on a new D7F), and it had done over 13,000 hrs, back in 1972.