Day 24 We are now back on the original Holland Track. The walking is okay but the corrugations are as hard to negotiate walking as they are driving. The vegetation changes every day. We are now back in the woodlands, with hills and rocky outcrops. We didn’t walk as far in the afternoon. I think […]
Hiking The Holland Track for Brain Cancer. Pt.4
The hike continues……Day 18 The camp was cold but no rain! We were on the road by 8am and walking well. The day was cool and overcast but no rain all day. The buckshot gravel has dried out and the traffic looks much safer today. Today is also Dad’s birthday. Not much fuss but we did […]
Hiking The Holland Track for Brain Cancer. Pt.3
The hike continues……Day 12 We got a good early start the next morning. Just after our first 7km stint the rain started in earnest and did not let up. Rodger sent the back-up team ahead with a request to get a fire going and some tarps up. What a relief to walk into lunch camp. […]
Hiking The Holland Track for Brain Cancer. Pt.2
The hike begins Tues. Sept 12. 2017. Official Day one. The coffee/wine shop in Broomehill is a must see, if just for the eclectic collection of bric a brac, memorabilia and artefacts. Stayed at the Broomehill caravan park. Very tidy and neat. $30 site fee but the use of washing machine, dryer and bbq free. […]
Hiking The Holland Track for Brain Cancer. Pt.1
600kms is a long way to hike on the Holland Track Why the Holland Track exists Back in the 1890s Victoria was in the grip of serious drought and a banking crisis had brought severe economic depression to the state. The discovery of gold by Arthur Bayley and William Ford, in September 1892, resulted in […]
Unsung Heroes – John Waldie.
Information from Australia’s Pearl Harbour by Douglas Lockwood. John Waldie, was a twenty-five year old coxswain employed by the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) on its flying boat facilities near the Darwin wharf. Waldie was working on the engine of launch C.A.22 near steps used by flying boat passengers. Above the noise of the engine […]
The Yellow Peril – Yarns from days.
We said goodbye to the Yellow Peril at the Lions Club Annual Sale, November 1986. I didn’t know the new owner and, looking back, feel that the decent thing to have done would’ve been to light a candle for him. Mind you, Caveat Emptor applied with a vengeance. The Lions Club, eager to benefit their […]
Worlds End
We recently stayed at a delightful camping area known as Worlds End near Burra in South Australia. A place with a name like that deserves more investigation. Originally this area would have been named World’s End Reserve, then some years ago the government decided that all apostrophes were to be dropped from place names. A […]
German Place Names on Australian Maps
German Place Names on Central Australian Maps – Baron Ferdinand v. Műller by Dr Raoul F Middelmann. 7th April 2018 In Australia, from 1838 onwards, German place names had spread wherever German-speakers with rural backgrounds had settled. The topic of my talk results from a discussion with David Hewitt. It is based on Ernest Giles’ […]
Ussing Christmas – A challenging road trip
There are many reasons we don’t usually do a road trip anywhere at Christmas; it’s always hot, too much traffic, no one wants to take the chance of Santa not finding them, it’s hard to relax and play with your toys if you are in someone else’s home. Also Bev ‘does’ Christmas. And by that, I mean […]