Photography.

[willedoo]

14 hours ago, onetrack said:

Willie, they are great photos of the interior. I had no idea the country N of Innamincka was that beautiful. Stepdaughter works for Beach Energy and spent a lot of time in the Cooper Basin, managing OH&S for Beach's gas operations.

To get to that Juniper area where the photos were taken, you turn right at the airstrip north of Innamincka, travel north east for a while, then turn left toward the west. There's a big slab of stony country just north of Innamincka, then confused sand dune country up toward Cordillo Downs before it gives way to stony country again to the north up around Haddon Downs. Lots of mesas. Some of the hilly country immediately north east of Innaminca looks like pieces of a jig saw puzzle when you zoom in on Google Maps satellite view.

 

That's interesting that your stepdaughter works for Beach. I did a lot of work for them over the years as a subcontractor and always found them good to work for. Nice, friendly people with a far better corporate culture than Santos. Maybe some of that stems from being a smaller company, and possibly a lot of the Reg Spriggs attitude has carried through. I highly recommend the biography on Reg Sprigg, Rock Star: The Story of Reg Sprigg - an Outback Legend by Kristin Weidenbach. The last time I worked on a Beach job was 2011 when they had a hot rocks project near the Beverly uranium mine on the east side of the Flinders ranges. I think from memory the project had been stalled for a while and we were building a large earth tank there as they were going to try to make a go of the project. I don't know what eventually happened to it.

[willedoo]

Brush Tailed Wallaby in the front yard.

 

[Bruce Tuncks]

I too love the stony desert parts. So much so, that I reckon they made a terrible mistake with the ghan timetable. You hang around all day in Alice Springs and miss out much of the landscape during the night. My supposition is that some townie executives reckoned the tourists would get bored watching the landscape as it slowly changed. I reckon they were dead wrong.

Last time , years ago, in Alice Springs I found that I had sold a house there too cheaply. It cost $61,000 to buy a fire-damaged house and $35,000 to fix it. we only asked for $155,000 which seems like a good profit but don't forget this took 2 people 3 month's work.

Anyway, the couple we sold it to had a divorce and it was sold for $300,000 !

And here was me saying how Alice Springs would be stuffed when it became a whistle-stop instead of a terminus! My advice is to NOT take any real-estate advice from me!

[onetrack]

We called them the Black-gloved Brush over here on the left coast. Cute little buggers, the SIL raised one from a joey and used to carry him around with her, and everyone loved him.

Of course, you can't do that today, you need a truckload of permits, registration, training, and a pile of other bureaucratic BS to be able to pick up a wild animal and feed it today.

He used to hang the house on the farm, then he found some local mates, and eventually didn't come back.

 

Edited August 13, 2023 by onetrack

[willedoo]

It's unfortunate that a lot of old photos are in poor condition. Flyspots, silverfish and fading is always a problem and a lot of amateur photos probably had some rough and ready developing. Reprints from scratched negatives is another one. It takes a long time with an image editor clone tool to repair spots and damage, so hopefully as AI progresses, that job will become easier.

 

This one was taken by my grandfather's brother when he served with the 5th. Light Horse Regiment in the Middle East from 1916 to 1919. I don't know when or where it was taken as it was not labelled. It shows three of his mates having lunch and a beer; I can see four bottles of Coopers and what looks like a watermelon. The rest of it is probably the usual bully beef and biscuits. I'm assuming the blokes are his fellow section members and it makes sense that a four man section would mess together and bunk together. If they stick close, it would be a lot easier to form up a company in quick time. The other blokes in the background appear to be in similar sized groups.

 

I think I've posted this photo before somewhere. It's probably buried in some deep ancient corner of the forum.

 

[onetrack]

Willie, the 5th Light Horse Regiment was Billy Sings regiment! Doing research is a little confusing as there was a 5th Light Horse Brigade (much bigger unit) as well as a 5th Light Horse Regiment.

 

https://vwma.org.au/explore/units/150

[onetrack]

Willie, have you done any research on your grandfathers brother? This book is useful for research on WW1 soldiers.

 

"Digging for diggers : a guide to researching an Australian soldier of the Great War, 1914-1918 / Graeme Hosken."

 

I don't know if you realise there's now a vast amount of digitised information on the National Archives, as well?

 

https://www.naa.gov.au/

 

Click on "Record Search", when the Search page appears, click on "Name Search" in the blue menu bar, then type in surname and christian name, select "World War I", and if you have his Service Number, put that in, too. When the search results appear, go the "View digital record" on the RHS of the blue bar that lists "Item details".

 

Clicking on "View digital record" produces copies of all current digitised records relating to service. It will not be complete, the records are largely joining attestation records, health records, and sometimes there are service records listing transfers, charges, promotions or demotions, and injury events.

 

If you open the digital record in a new tab, you can enlarge the digitised copy to closely examine the fine print. Trying to decipher handwriting is the biggest bugbear, some of the peoples handwriting is nothing short of bloody awful. Then you have to figure out the military abbreviations, such as "m/out" (moved out), "RRD" (Recruit Reception Depot) "GDD" (General Details Depot), etc., etc. A GDD was a depot where soldiers were processed for discharge.

 

Edited August 15, 2023 by onetrack

[willedoo]

9 minutes ago, onetrack said:

Willie, have you done any research on your grandfathers brother? This book is useful for research on WW1 soldiers.

 

"Digging for diggers : a guide to researching an Australian soldier of the Great War, 1914-1918 / Graeme Hosken."

 

I don't know if you realise there's now a vast amount of digitised information on the National Archives, as well?

 

https://www.naa.gov.au/

 

Click on "Record Search", when the Search page appears, click on "Name Search" in the blue menu bar, then type in surname and christian name, select "World War I", and if you have his Service Number, put that in, too. When the search results appear, go the "View digital record" on the RHS of the blue bar that lists "Item details".

 

Clicking on "View digital record" produces copies of all current digitised records relating to service. It will not be complete, the records are largely joining attestation records, health records, and sometimes there are service records listing transfers, charges, promotions or demotions, and injury events.

 

If you open the digital record in a new tab, you can enlarge the digitised copy to closely examine the fine print. Trying to decipher handwriting is the biggest bugbear, some of the peoples handwriting is nothing short of bloody awful. Then you have to figure out the military abbreviations, such as "m/out" (moved out), "RRD" (Recruit Reception Depot) "GDD" (General Details Depot), etc., etc. A GDD was a depot where soldiers were processed for discharge.

 

Thanks onetrack, I'm fairly seasoned at the researching and have so far done my father's WW2 records, my great uncle in the Light Horse, and my grandmother's brother who died at the Somme. Having said that, there's always something new to learn. That book by Graeme Hosken sounds like it would be worth reading.

 

We're fairly lucky in the case of my Light Horse great uncle's history as he was a life long bachelor and never left home apart from his service in WW1. He lived out his life on the family farm living under the same roof as my grandparents. As a result, all war related personal effects are still held by the family. At present, my older brother is the keeper of most of it. Mainly just his medals, army kit bag, war diary, letters and postcards written to family back home, plus the usual local souvenirs like Turkish coins and banknotes, a confiscated Turkish Star medal and other stuff. He was also a life long photography enthusiast and brought back about 400 photos from the war; about 3/4 of which he took himself.

 

It just happened that way that he remained a close knit member of the family all his life. He was living with my grandparents when he died, so all his personal effects were kept by my grandfather. When my grandfather died, my father went back to live there, and when he died, my great uncle's personal effects were still in the house more than forty years after his death. I come from a long line of hoarders; not much gets thrown away.

 

The diary is not extensive. It's a very small French made leather bound diary and it only contains some machine gun maintenance notes and the time periods around a couple of major battles, Beersheba in 1917 and another one in 1918, the name of which escapes me at the moment. Entries were brief, but were also limited by space. The attached photo shows his entry for 31 October 1917, the main day of the Battle of Beersheba. The entry reads: 'Came round the back of Beersheba, pushed the Turks back, came under shrapnel and machine gun fire in the afternoon'. From memory, the 5th. LH Regiment fought on the east side of Beersheba to block the Turks from escaping via the road to Jerusalem. The language of the day was amusing. Part of the previously day's entry reads ' left for the scrap at 5.30 PM', the 'scrap' being the battle. In other entries an action or skirmish is referred to as a stunt.

 

 

 

[willedoo]

1 hour ago, onetrack said:

Trying to decipher handwriting is the biggest bugbear, some of the peoples handwriting is nothing short of bloody awful. Then you have to figure out the military abbreviations, such as "m/out" (moved out), "RRD" (Recruit Reception Depot) "GDD" (General Details Depot), etc., etc. A GDD was a depot where soldiers were processed for discharge.

This list is handy, but there's a more extensive one somewhere if I can find it again.

 

https://www.naa.gov.au/explore-collection/defence-and-war-service-records/researching-war-service/abbreviations-used-world-war-i-and-world-war-ii-service-records

[onetrack]

Yes, I already found that military abbreviations page, but it's far from comprehensive. I was looking up a friends fathers records, she hardly knew her father, he died at age 29 in 1948, from TB.

 

But I found his records were quite comprehensive, even though he never left Australia. He appears to have served in the cadets at school, then joined the CMF in 1936, putting his age up a year to join. He stated he was 18, but he was only 17. Then he joined the AMF when the War started, but was posted to an Infantry Recruit Training Battalion.

 

He appears to have been sick a lot with gastric ulcers and URTI and was in and out of hospital. I had trouble trying to find the hospitals mentioned, and I'm sure the handwritten records are scratchy in places. He was discharged in 1943 as MU (Medically Unfit).

 

I was quite surprised to find his 1948 death was recorded in pencil across the margin of one of his Army files. They must have been keeping tabs on him after the War, maybe it was because he was in and out of Repat Hospitals from 1943 to 1948.

 

https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5601086

[willedoo]

I can understand the $40 fee for a previously unscanned set of records to be scanned and released, but I think the NAA fees for video are a bit steep. They've already digitalised them previously, so all they have to do for the money is provide you with a link for downloading. I wouldn't mind if it was a fee similar to the scanning of records, but a very short video can be twice that and more. There's a video on the archives I wouldn't mind having. It's of my father's battalion heading across the bay in Alligators from Balikpapan to Panajam, although the chances of spotting him in the video would be very slim. Having said that, I found a photo of him as part of a group photo in Borneo; from memory it was a War Memorial photo. A bit like finding a needle in a haystack.

[onetrack]

Willie - Isn't there a big range of wartime videos (transferred across from film) on the AWM site? I know you have to pay to get a copy, but you can watch them online.

 

I was pretty pissed off when I found a Christmas message video from our Construction Squadron blokes in Vietnam in 1970. I didn't get in on it, probably because I was out in the tiger country working somewhere, and I didn't even know they were doing a Christmas wishes film for families! Yet, here are all my workmates and troop associates getting interviewed, and passing on their family wishes!!

 

I was there at the unloading of the Jeparit, pushing those knackered old Noggie trucks up the hill into our yard, with a Case W7 loader, because they couldn't climb the steep pinch into the yard by themselves without a push! But I didn't see any film crew! At least they gave us a nod for the upgrade of Route 23! - although they never showed anyone the best parts we upgraded!

 

https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/F04702

 

N.S.W. Christmas messages 1970 - https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/F04703

 

Qld. Christmas messages 1970 - https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/F04704

 

S.A. Christmas messages 1970 - https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/F04705

 

Tas. Christmas messages 1970 - https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/F04704

 

Vic. Christmas messages 1970 - https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/F04707

 

W.A. Christmas messages 1970 - https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/F04708

 

 

 

[facthunter]

There's those that do the heavy work and those that can sense the Photo Ops.  Nev

[Old Koreelah]

2 hours ago, facthunter said:

There's those that do the heavy work and those that can sense the Photo Ops.  Nev

That’s been a theme of my life, Nev.

Not complaining too hard though; who’d want to be rich or famous? 
 

[facthunter]

Yeah I'd rather be in the middle. Not noticed for being good and not noticed for being inept. If someone's up there on a perch there's always plenty prepared to knock them off it.  Nev

[onetrack]

Old Japanese proverb - "The nail that sticks out gets hammered down".

 

Edited August 17, 2023 by onetrack

[willedoo]

I found these photos from when I did a job in the Simpson in 2010. It was about as good as that country ever gets after extended good rains. The interdune corridors were covered in a blanket of herbage and light grasses. It was in the south west sector of the desert, east of Andado.

 

Not far from where the photos were taken, I stumbled across Reg Sprigg's base camp No.1 from when he did the first vehicle crossing in 1962. When I first spotted the star picket marker I thought it was just one of the usual seismic survey permanent markers, so I wandered over to have a look at the tag to check the company, date etc.. I got a real surprise when I read the stamped aluminium tag which read Geosurveys Base Camp 1. and the date checked out as well. There was some old rusty stuff lying about in the grass, things like bits of chain, empty food cans and wire. Some of the cans were still sealed and rattled when you shook them. Obviously shrivelled up baked beans. On the company survey maps we had, you could see the Geosurveys exploration line that Reg did, but no base camp positions were marked on our maps. Unfortunately I didn't have a camera on me at the time to take some photos of the base camp.

 

It's nice to see it green like that. We flew over the Simpson in a Cherokee Six in 1982, a bad drought year, and there wasn't a speck of vegetation; just red sand as far as the eye could see.

 

[pmccarthy]

I have a one hour recording on reel to reel tape of Reg talking about oil exploration. It is the only copy.

[willedoo]

Just now, pmccarthy said:

I have a one hour recording on reel to reel tape of Reg talking about oil exploration. It is the only copy.

pm, is it just audio?

[pmccarthy]

Yes, audio. I think I posted the whole thing on line once, wil check and post it here if I did.

[pmccarthy]

This might work. Accidentally added my Harry Evans tape too, that is a bonus!

 

[willedoo]

That would be a good piece of history to have. Reg Sprigg probably doesn't mean much to the average Australian, but in the fields of geology and the oil and gas industry he's a pioneering legend.

Edited August 17, 2023 by willedoo

[pmccarthy]

I had a good chat with his son Doug about two months ago. Doug is the full bottle on everything Arkaroola and outback aviation too.

[willedoo]

1 minute ago, pmccarthy said:

I had a good chat with his son Doug about two months ago. Doug is the full bottle on everything Arkaroola and outback aviation too.

I've never met Doug. Have seen him fly overhead a few times; he used to fly the government environmental people over our prospects to inspect the work.

[red750]