onetrack

I missed my chance for a great bit of birdwatching video this afternoon. We have quite a number of Red Wattlebirds here, and I love 'em. As well as being the mainlands biggest honeyeater, they're absolute tigers on bugs and spiders, they get right into the bushes and trees, and search out every nook and cranny, even looking at the underside of leaves for food items. They hang off the fence capping, and look under it for spiders, and pounce on them, the instant they see them. We've got a sizeable native Hibiscus just outside our rear patio, which patio extends about 4M out from the back of the house. There was a Red Wattlebird that flew down from the big Jacaranda that graces our backyard, and into the native Hibiscus, just as I stepped outside the back door (without my phone, of course!). I watched him for about 3 mins as he jumped and hopped from branch to branch inside the Hibiscus, grabbing a few bugs, and spending a lot of time searching all the leaves and branches intensely. I'd hate to be a bug when they're around, it would mean a short lifespan! What amused me was, he would regularly stop searching, and let out this loud and raucous "RARRKK!!" noise, possibly trying to frighten bugs or spiders out of their hideyholes. I had a great view of him as he did this, and I'd have loved to get it on video. But as always, I ducked back inside, grabbed my phone, and just as I got to the back door again - he flew off! They're absolutely fearless and ferocious at defending their territory - especially against bigger birds and the baddies - such as Crows, AND Kookaburras! I watched one attack a Kookaburra that was sitting on a TV antenna on the house behind our neighbours place, a few days ago. The Kooka was just sitting there minding his own business, possibly looking to spot a rat or a lizard, when "BAM!", this Red Wattlebird came out of nowhere, and attacked him! Then he came back for another good peck, but the Kooka was waiting, and took a big snap at the Wattlebird on the way past! Of course, the Kooka missed, the Wattlebird was too fast and agile. But about then, the Kooka decided it was time to vacate this unfriendly territory, so he took off! When I was up at my block in the Wheatbelt last week, I watched a Red Wattlebird divebomb a crow - it was amazing to watch. He flew up behind the (departing) crow, then gained altitude, and banked, and went straight down on the crow, like a Spitfire doing a strafing run on an Fw-190! The crow ducked and swerved, and snapped back, and went into a dive, but the Red Wattlebird kept up the attack, and didn't ease off until the crow was low to the ground! https://ebird.org/species/redwat1

An old bloke who had a local car wrecking business here in the 1960's, had a gantry on the tray of his ute for picking up car engines. It comprised a couple of inverted U frames (along the lines of the tradie rack bars below - but heavier material), and he'd slung a length of light RSJ girder ("I-beam") down the tray centreline, attached to the frames, and the RSJ hung over the end of the tray by about half a metre. He had a girder trolley attached to the RSJ and a chain block attached to the trolley. He'd back up to a wrecked car, unbolt the engine, hook the chain block onto it, and lift the engine out, then roll it into the tray, via the girder trolley. He had that rig for years and years, until he died, I think.

The coal mines will never be missed. The cemeteries of every area where the coal mines are, are full of coal miners who died young - gassed, drowned, killed in rockfalls or gas explosions, killed when winders failed, or who died of "black lung disease". My Scottish grandad lost his leg in a rockfall, and his only son, a mine manager, was gassed at age 44, leaving a young family. Only those who have never been in a coal mine still want them. They incurred massive levels of deaths and injuries, and many of the victims were little more than children. Even when they didn't go down the mines, they were killed by mining machinery. http://scottishmining.co.uk/5.html

Build a gantry that fits in the back of the trailer and mount the winch on that. You could just bolt the gantry in place and remove it when you weren't snigging logs.

That's an interesting point. I noted two articles pertaining to the U.S. Presidential election, that point out, rarely-thought-of events, that affect Presidential elections. 1. Virtually every second election of a former President has turned out to be an unmitigated disaster, as the second time around, vast amounts of poor decision-making seemed to reign. 2. Natural disasters have played a big part in U.S. Presidential election events. Every time there's a sizeable natural disaster affecting the continental U.S. (massive storms or floods) resulting in severe financial and personal losses, the Republican vote has tanked. This is reportedly because the Democrats are more inclined to indulge in social welfare and help programmes to mollify the damage and losses, whereas the Republicans do only minimal amounts of Govt help, and tell people they now just need to work harder to pick up the losses. I note that two large storms have now impacted the Southern U.S. States, with losses running into the billions. I feel these two events will be a boon for the Democrats.

Yeah, but just think about the size of the nipples! 😄

I saw where Tassie is on its way to have a nudist beach. I couldn't imagine any Tasmanian day being suitable for being unclad.

Musk has stooped to a new low, paying voters in swing States to sign a petition supporting the 1st and 2nd Amendments to the Constitution. It's effectively a vote-buying drive for his best buddy, Trump. The best line I've seen all week? The name, Elon Musk, is an anagram for Leon Skum! 😄 https://www.the-express.com/news/politics/150872/elon-musk-offering-money-gun-rights-petition https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/07/us/politics/elon-musk-47-dollars-petition.html

The only way the Ukraine war will end is when Putin is either overthrown in an internal coup, assassinated, or dies from natural causes or a disease. The two first reasons are more likely, simply because Putin has few real friends in his inner circle, and plenty who only see idiocy and the destruction of Russia in his plans. The longer Putin lasts, the more paranoiac he'll become. Mad dictators start to see enemies at every turn - already Putin is constantly sh*****g himself about being taken out by a suicide drone - and it may not be a Ukrainian one, either.

I like around 20° to 35°. When it gets into single digits in the overnight figures, I'm ready to head North. And when it gets over 40 degrees, I'm looking to turn the A/C on. The worst part about Perth is when we get a Summertime heat trough form down the coastline, from about Bunbury to well up past Geraldton. This results in humid, still conditions, until the trough moves Eastward and inland, when we return to strong afternoon cooling sea breezes, or steady SE and E winds.

You can guarantee those Australian-Lebanese drug dealers will be out of Lebanon on the first plane to Australia. Rats bale out of a sinking ship first.

It appears Jerry isn't so hard done by, on the Tim-Tams front, anyway - he gets them cheaper than us! The downside is, the manufacturers shrink the packet size for the U.K.! https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/oct/05/aussie-classics-vegemite-and-tim-tams-cheaper-in-uk-supermarkets-than-australia

Well, we had a beautiful start to Spring with the cessation of regular rains, and then lovely clear days with 20° to 28° days, from the 8th to the 26th Sept. Then Winter returned again on the 27/09. It rained every day from the 27/09 to the 05/10, with a total of another 44mm in that period. The BOM says we've had a Winter period (officially, 01/06 to 01/09) that was 5% wetter than normal. I guess the wet Winter was overdue, after the 7 month drought we had in Spring, Summer and Autumn. But the last 3 days have been very pleasant, 22° to 25° and mostly sunny. However, it's warming up, and Thursday and Friday are predicted to hit 28° and 30°, before it cools down again to the mid-20's. The W.A. crops went back somewhat with the dry September period, the experts downgraded the total State tonnage by about 3% on Sept 19th, but most of the State got the good, late Sept/early Oct rains that I mentioned above, so I think the crop yields may spring back a bit yet. https://www.graincentral.com/news/giwa-trims-3pc-from-tonnage-forecast-now-below-17mt/#:~:text=THE Grain Industry Association of,17.438Mt forecast last month.

It was the bloody French who first mandated driving on the RHS of the road, in the late 1700's - but it was Henry Ford who insisted that motor cars should be LHD, with the introduction of the Model T in 1908. A lot of American-built vehicles stayed RHD up to about 1913 - even though they were driving on the RHS of the road.

In W.A., the Kings Birthday was on 23rd Sept 2024, and Labor Day is on the 1st Monday in March, which was 4th March this year.

Yeah, I've been there and done that, plenty of times. When the mud starts coming over the floorplate and the fan starts to pick up the mud and fling it into the radiator, you're really in trouble! We used to keep cut lengths of 1/2" steel wire rope on hand, about 3.5-4M long, for de-bogging, using a log tied to the tracks. Once you were down to the makers name, you'd cut a big log from a suitable nearby tree (about 300mm diameter and about 4M long), take it to the rear of the dozer, dig out enough dirt behind each track to enable you to thread the wire rope through the track chain - and then wrap it around the log and tie a reef knot in it (not so easy to do with 1/2" SWR!) You'd then climb on the tractor and gently engage reverse, and spin the tracks until the cable knots tightened fully (it was necessary to have a helper when doing this - they made sure the knots didn't unravel as you pulled them tight!). Once the wire rope was fully tightened, a few more revs would pull the log under the tracks, and the machine would climb out of the bog! Only in the very worst of bogs would you need two logs. In that case, you then had to have an axe or big sledgehammer handy to cut the SWR on the first log, as it re-appeared at the front of the tractor!

Yes, the countryside around the smelter was often full of choking smelter smoke, like a bushfire, when the weather conditions were just right - with little wind and a temperature inversion.

Aaah, but you also have your EV listening, watching and recording everything you do in it! Then, when the Chinese want to get nasty, they'll blow it up on you! 😄

My Dad brought a sundial back from one of his holiday trips to the U.K. (where he was born). But I think he failed to realise a Northern Hemisphere sundial is useless in the Southern Hemisphere. I wondered why it was amongst his collection of possessions after he died, and not being used. But when I set it up, I realised why that was the case.

It's the end of an era for the Kalgoorlie region, as the Kalgoorlie Nickel Smelter, containing one of the biggest nickel smelting, flash furnaces in the world, shuts down, due to an onslaught of cheap Asian nickel. Only last year, an expansion of the KNS was planned as demand for nickel from EV's and lithium batteries was thought to be increasing - along with good prices for nickel. In that short space of time, China and Indonesia have flooded the market with cheap nickel, nickel prices have tanked, and these factors combined, have delivered a body blow to the KNS, putting it out of business in record time. I have fond memories of the KNS, I can remember it opening, and spent many years driving past it constantly, although I never worked there. It was a major feature of the W.A. Goldfields for over 50 years, and I made money working as a contractor on numerous nickel mines and leases in the W.A. Goldfields in the 1970's. However, nothing lasts forever, and the nickel landscape has changed dramatically. Luckily for the W.A. Goldfields, there's plenty of mining alternatives, with gold going gangbusters, price-wise, and plenty of gold still being found. Lithium and rare-earth metals mining have also come into prominence in the region, so there are still employment choices and stability for the W.A. Goldfields. The EV and battery development world is turning a lot of established industries on their head. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-06/closure-of-bhp-kalgoorlie-nickel-smelter-after-51-years/104307662

"Thermal power" is a bit misleading. I was thinking geothermal power, but the definition "Thermal power" largely refers to gas-powered power plants, although coal is also called "Thermal". Large areas of Asia, including Taiwan, are highly dependent on Australian LNG and coal, and will be, for a long time yet.

I don't know about that. In my neck of the woods, a country drive often turns into a snarl as you run into a major oversize movement going on. And when a big load comes to a bridge or overpass, all the traffic is stopped, as the road engineers instructions are that no more than the one oversize/overmass load is allowed on the bridge or overpass at the one time, and the heavy load has to transit the bridge/overpass at no more than 10-15kmh. This instruction is to prevent bridge/overpass pylon displacement, which can happen if a heavy load transits a bridge/overpass at speed. The load pressure is transferred in a longitudinal manner to the bridge/overpass structure with high speed, and this can make the bridge/overpass structure move longitudinally, and displace it on its pylons. I went to the country yesterday, up the Gt Northern Hwy, and it's a route constantly full of oversize/overmass equipment being moved to and from the North of W.A. I ran up behind 3 of the biggest (new) dump trucks I've seen in recent weeks, heading North to the Iron ore country, and got slowed to a crawl as they went over an overpass. But at the next overpass, I managed to get past them by exiting left before the overpass, and then rejoining the highway from the road under the overpass, while they were crawling over the overpass. Then, I got about another 20kms up the highway and crested the hill just before the Chittering Roadhouse, and sighted another two massive dump trucks preparing to pull out of the roadhouse! The road was full of pilot and escort cars, but I managed to squeak through as the last vehicle in a line, and all the escorts blocked the highway as the trucks pulled out behind me! It would have been a slow trip for people stuck behind them, the loads are anywhere between 8 and 10 metres wide and the cover more than two full lanes - and even when there's a passing lane, you're often still blocked from overtaking by pilot vehicles. It's a PIA, and it really slows up your trip time.

I was reading about the Violet Town rail disaster last month, it must have been terrifying for the freight train driver watching the Southern Aurora barrelling towards him at full speed. https://mx-schroeder.medium.com/dead-man-driving-the-1969-violet-town-australia-train-collision-b7e5e25ea437

Back to the EV subject. It appears the long-held belief that EV's are virtually free to run, is taking a good hit to the nuts. The cost of recharging at privately-owned recharging stations is rocketing and becoming a constant cost burden. In places such as the U.K., it can cost more to recharge an EV than to refuel an IC car! Australian charging rates are rocketing at unreasonable levels, and of course, the charging companies can always someone to blame, in the form of the energy generators. Naturally, the EV aficionados point out that you always recharge at home, so the cost is much lower. However, that's not always something you can do - if you're moving around quite a bit, this means you have to plan all your driving around your home location being readily within reach. https://www.news.com.au/technology/motoring/motoring-news/public-ev-charging-costs-rise-to-rival-petrol/news-story/f1767b47bd8013fb66ed0511ebd50173 Meantimes, the EV sales are showing some curious features. One, is the staggering (and unsustainable) number of EV brands and models on offer. This can only end in tears as many of them disappear, leaving owners of the defunct models out on a limb. The second interesting feature is the staggering discrepancy in month to month sales figures. Sales were slow but gradually increasing in the early part of the year, then there was a massive jump in May and June sales. I would expect this was due to the ending of some EV concessions, but I'll wager a lot of if was driven by end-of-year tax breaks. But the sales then slumped badly in July and August, and only show signs of minor recovery in September, despite the fact that many EV manufacturers reduced prices by substantial amounts last month. I saw an article that outlined how the majority of EV buyers were in families that had at least $200K of combined household income. This indicates to me that tax breaks and novated leases for the wealthy, have been driving the "EV boom", and it's a false boom. Only when families of modest income start buying EV's, will there be a total and final turn in the EV market against IC-engine vehicles. In another article, I saw where there has been a 17% increase in diesel-fuelled vehicle purchases, as the desire to stay with diesel, continues to be a market driver for many. https://thedriven.io/2024/10/04/australian-electric-vehicle-sales-by-month-and-by-model-in-2024/

What is it about rail networks that makes them the fertile breeding ground for graffiti vandals? I detest riding Eastern States trains simply because of the graffiti eyesores one is assailed with on a constant basis when travelling on them. Furthermore, I am absolutely puzzled by the track locations in the video? I always thought Australian trains ran on the left - but the Victorian train network is obviously run by the Asians, where you just drive anywhere there's a gap! I see the train in the video bouncing from driving on the right, to driving on the left, then in to the centre, and all over the place in general? This must be pretty unnerving for train drivers?