onetrack

Gee, couldn't you imagine giving a public machinery demonstration of farm equipment today, standing unrestrained, on the drawbar of a moving disc plough! The Worksafe inspectors would have kittens, and you'd be fined thousands!! One slip off that drawbar, and you'd be mincemeat in seconds. The farmer I rented a farmhouse off when I first started in agricultural contracting in 1964, had 5 dogs of various mongrel history, and they were always fighting amongst themselves. One day he was out ploughing with his trusty old Inter tractor and disc plough, with the dogs all running around the tractor and plough, as they always did. A couple of dogs started fighting, and one fell under the plough, as he tried to get away from the other dog! He came out the back of the plough, sliced up like pieces of ham! The farmer was a little bit upset, but he seemed to think most dogs were disposable, anyway. He was possibly upset because it meant more work for him rounding up sheep, next time he did it.

Nev, the cooling system is in quite satisfactory condition, and yes - that area is one of the first things I look at, it can be a very expensive repair trying to fix major cooling system damage. Copper/soldered radiators are priced like gold plate today, and you're struggling to find anyone to repair them, the Workplace Health authorities have deemed soldering to be a major workplace health risk. Yes, Chamberlains started off with their own 2 cylinder horizontally-opposed kerosine engine, then they converted the design to diesel, and it wasn't reliable, due to regular engine failures. So Chamberlain then decided to employ outside engine manufacturers. They went over to GM 2 stroke diesels, which were a roaring success, but GM diesels became expensive to buy in AU dollars, so Chamberlain then went to Meadows, an English engine manufacturer. The Meadows engines were just O.K., but their performance was lacking, and the engines had various problems. So Chamberlain then went over to Perkins and never looked back. Perkins engines were so popular and reliable and produced in large numbers, so Caterpillar decided to buy the company, which they did in 1997, and it has been owned by Cat ever since, and Cat-Perkins engines power a lot of the smaller Caterpillar equipment.

I just bought another tractor to add to my collection of restoration projects. A Chamberlain C6100, complete with a Gason cab and front end loader - and all for $1100. I'm positive it will make my retirement even busier. Oh, it does have a buggered engine, the venerable old Perkins 6-354, so that's not such a positive thing. The previous idiot owner/s left it out in the weather for years, and rainwater rotted out the muffler, and water ran through it into the engine, and it's locked up. However, at $1100, one has to expect a few downsides. Another downside appears to be the number of empty Aerostart cans I found on the floor when I was cleaning out the 40 or 50 years of accumulated dirt, general trash, rags, dog bones, etc. I guess this is an indicator that the engine wasn't in too good a shape, prior to it being abandoned. Poor old girl, these were great tractors, but some people should never be allowed to own machinery.

When I got my bike licence, the local copper came up to my workshop yard, asked me to do a few figure-eights on my 250cc Honda CM250, and after watching me for about 30 seconds, he said, "Come up to the station, and I'll write out your endorsement"! That was 1982, and I got a totally unlimited motorcycle licence from that! So I rode bikes up to 1100cc with that licence all through the 1980's, then I gave up bike riding when I met SWMBO in 1990, because she hated them, and had been previously told by some psychic, that someone close to her would be badly injured in a motorbike crash. However, the psychic was wrong - at least for the last 40 years. Then, sometime in the late 90's or early 2000's, the local licencing authority split bike licences into under 250cc and over 250cc (with a need for intensive testing for a bigger cc licence), and my licence was downgraded! - despite the fact I rode bigger bikes for years! Some bureaucrat obviously decided I was still a learner, and I'd have to sit the big bike course and testing!! I haven't bothered to, I'm well past my "motorbike stage" of life. They are bloody dangerous things, and the greatest risk is from car and truck drivers who treat you like a second-class road user. And animals on the loose are a real threat to you on a bike. I hit a 'roo at about 80 kays on the Honda, but I managed to stay upright, while I cartwheeled the 'roo!

I think it's pretty important that you understand your capabilities and limitations as you age, and make sure you take that into account, when carrying out strenuous and risky trips. And a lot of unfit people don't seem to realise their limitations in those respects, too. The number of people having to be rescued from hikes and adventures, seems to be increasing recently.

My sense of self-preservation far exceeds any desire to carry out a dangerous "nerve test". It's a policy that has served me well in more than 76 years. Just travelling on public highways today with the rest of the ill-trained and undisciplined road users, is enough of a regular "nerve test" for me.

It never ceases to amaze me that tourists get within a metre of huge cliffs without anything to stop them being blown off the edge - yet if you worked anywhere within 20 metres of that drop, Worksafe would make you wear a hardhat, safety specs, a safety harness, and they'd also require another person to be on standby watching for you potentially making a mistake. I can recall a woman falling off the edge at one of the clifftop whale-watching areas along the Bight in Western S.A. and Eastern W.A. in recent years. Those Bight cliff edges are particularly dangerous, and only a few spots have railings. A gust of wind can come out of nowhere, and send you straight over the edge.

It's sorted. We're gonna organise a Social Australia Forum, all-members meetup, at Port Stephens Marina next month. Just have to set the day, and have Litespeed let us know the name of his boat, so we can all meet up on his deck. 😄

I could never envisage calling 6°C or 7°C warm!! To me, those kind of temperatures are bloody freezing!! It's currently a very pleasant 34°C here, and a mild week ahead with temperatures drifting down, and the chance of some thunderstormy showers. https://www.farmonlineweather.com.au/place/wa/perth/6000/forecast Interestingly, since it's warmed up here (from the start of the month roughly), I've seen a lot more bikers out and about. The Harleys rule on the highways, what they lack in ride comfort, they make up for in noise. 😄

We've nearly got to that point now, with the Liberals and Nationals and other minor parties all just becoming "also-rans", and providing no viable opposition to the ruling Labor Party. When I was a youngster, the Opposition was strong and constantly hammering the party in power over their gaffes and missteps and poor decisions. Now, we get some feeble attempts by Opposition parties at trying to score a hit on Labor errors, while these minor parties spend a huge amount of time infighting, swapping members, having standing members depart at a whim, and generally being bloody useless. Bring back some political Statesmanship (or Stateswomanship). We have hundreds of useless politicians and hardly a Statesman or a Stateswoman amongst them. What's the difference between a politician and a Statesman or a Stateswoman? The first makes decisions only on what's good for their Party, their Lobbyists, or their own personal gain - a Statesman or a Stateswoman makes decisions, and produces future plans, based on what is good for the Nation in the long-term.

The problem is, so many sleazy disinformation and fake sites don't trip a lot of AV programmes, because they don't contain malware or phishing links, they just peddle crap to get clicks and views, and suck in advertisers, so they can make money.

Where do you get this political news rubbish, Peter?? It's more FAKE, than Trump himself!!

That's the shonkiest AI video I've seen in ages. The thief doesn't even grab the package like anyone would, he only places his hand on top of it. The hook for the net only appears after the net flies out - and the "thief" makes no attempt to struggle out of the net. Plus, a net springing out like, that wouldn't make someone do a complete backwards somersault.

I'd really like to know how many bikes haven't been dropped, as so many adverts claim. I'll wager it's only a tiny percentage that haven't gone down at some stage of their lives. I can recall driving N out of Kalgoorlie one evening on the Kalgoorlie Menzies Rd (the Goldfields Highway today). About 10 kays out of Kalgoorlie, in the deep dusk, I spotted a big motorbike lying on its side, on the edge of the (gravel) shoulder, on the opposite side of the road. I pulled up rapidly from my normal 120kmh, fearing that someone had come off. As I stopped and wound down my drivers window, I could see someone who appeared to be lying down behind the bike. Even worse, I could hear grunting and groaning noises coming from the body! I called out, "Are you O.K., mate?", whilst getting ready to get out of the ute. A strained voice came back, "No! I stopped for a piss, and the bloody bike fell over, and now I can't stand it up again!!" 😄 Of course, what had happened was, the bike had actually ended up lying somewhat downhill as it fell over the shoulder, and was partly lying on the drop-off, away from the road shoulder! And of course, the rider was struggling to get any footing on the slippery slope below the bike - what with it being covered in pea-gravel rocks, and being about a 1-in-3 slope! I got out and went over to him, and with both of us under the bike, we managed to get it upright again. It was a big bike, and bloody heavy, too! I don't recall what it was now, just a big Jap bike and certainly around 1000cc or more. He was extremely grateful for the assistance, and he soon had it cranked up and ready to go again, so I left him with it. But I'll wager he'd also learnt a good lesson about being careful where you park your big heavy bike, on country road shoulders!

I've never forgotten a hapless scooter rider many years ago (over 20), when I was waiting at an angled T-junction to turn right in my Holden ute, which was my transport back then. The angled T-junction had sharper angle to my left, and a lesser angle to my right. As I waited for a gap in the traffic to pull out, a scooter rider came belting along on my right, and indicated a left turn into the road I was waiting on. He zipped around the modest-angle intersection, leaning over in great style. Unfortunately, he hadn't read the road. Trucks had been hauling sand over that intersection, and a nice coating of sand covered the bitumen. I looked left as he was cornering, then as I looked back again, I was startled to see the scooter rider part company with his now-nearly horizontal scooter, as it skated sideways - and both scooter and the hapless rider were now skating along the intersection join, flat on the road, making straight for the front of my ute!! Fortunately, the scooter shot past the front of the ute, and ended up by the side of the road to my left - and the scooter rider ended up sliding unceremoniously to a stop, right in front of the ute bumper!! The rider sprang up off the road in front of me, with an alacrity that would do credit to a 100M sprinter getting out of the starting blocks!! I'm sure he was convinced he was going to get run over! But I wasn't going anywhere, as looked on in amazement at the performance! I was getting ready to get out to see if he was O.K., but it became obviously pretty much immediately, that he wasn't too badly hurt, just shook up and possibly a bit bruised. He hurried over to pick up his errant scooter very promptly, so I took off and left him to sort out the damage and injuries! But I'll wager he learnt a valuable lesson that day! It could've ended up a whole lot more serious if I'd been moving, and he went under my ute - which has no doubt, happened elsewhere.

Oh, the black ice is going to be fun, for this coming Honda riding! And watch out for the oil spills on the roads! My ideas around travelling in severely inclement weather, involves being cosy inside a warm, waterproof steel cage! But I'm old and soft, and my motorbike riding days are long gone.

I fear the day the criminals start using AI to advance their criminal activities.

I used to work in a lab with an incredibly ambitious bloke who was obsessed with collecting skulls. Just obsessed!! Like, he would do anything to get ahead.

My doctor said I only had ten weeks to live - but when I couldn’t pay the bill, he gave me another six months.

I've been in this house for 35 years and I never ever dreamed I'd still be here after all this time. Previously, the longest I stayed in any one place was 13 years.

The description was "AC-DC" when I was young - and I'm not referring to the rock band, either.

Who is Nathos? Some type of Greek mathematician? Was he likely to be a good leader??

Ballarat has to take the cake for the coldest town in Vic. A horrible place to live, followed by Bathurst and Lithgow. I've seen -7°C in the Wheatbelt of W.A. on a bitterly cold July morning. The ground was solid white for kilometres. -3°C in the W.A. Goldfields and thick sheets of ice still in bowls of water outside at 10:00AM. I think those temps would kill me now. Didn't bother me as much, when I was young.

I reckon I've seen the future of electric motoring in the article below. There are multiple complaints and reservations about inbuilt battery life, range limits, costs, and even how inbuilt batteries in military equipment would see them stranded in combat, waiting for a recharge. The battery-swap principle fixes all those problems. The car only costs $22,000, because you don't have to buy an inbuilt battery with it, you can select the battery size you need for your trip, or for the day. The battery lease cost is 49,900 yuan (AU$10,725), and there's a monthly battery lease fee of 399 yuan (AU$85), which obviously covers the cost of fully recharged batteries and the swap stations infrastructure costs. https://thedriven.io/2025/11/10/new-a22000-ev-takes-88-seconds-to-have-a-fully-charged-battery/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42hNpYr-vKs

I live in the best place in Australia, Nev, and I have no desire to live in any of the Eastern States. I have lived in Sydney for 7 mths (in the Army) and 3 mths at Puckapunyal. Nothing makes me want to return to either of those places to live. Give me warmth over cold any day. And I like our wide open spaces, and the finest, uncongested beaches in Australia.