My favourite is the Queensland or Silver Wattle. It is a pretty tree and has a strong perfume. The two I have at home have almost finished flowering now.
Golden wattle images.
Showing posts with label Australiana. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Australiana. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Wattle Day
It's the centenary of Wattle Day - September 1, first day of our spring.
My favourite is the Queensland or Silver Wattle. It is a pretty tree and has a strong perfume. The two I have at home have almost finished flowering now.
Golden wattle images.
My favourite is the Queensland or Silver Wattle. It is a pretty tree and has a strong perfume. The two I have at home have almost finished flowering now.
Golden wattle images.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Sunday, May 31, 2009
What's a dunnart?
My question when speaking with one of the students in the school I'm now in.
Apparently dunnarts are quite cute, marsupial mice, with the personality of a Tasmanian devil. She assured me that if they were larger there'd be no humans in Australia!
Dunnarts are endangered.
I hear that there's a study about to begin on bandicoots. They might be coming to my place to catch them. They've discovered a lot about bandicoots reproductive habits from the last lot which was studied for a student's PhD.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Australian aviation mystery solved?
Smitty found?
To the untrained eye the sonar images are a little blurry.A little more information here.
But Sydney filmmaker Damien Lay says he is 100 per cent certain he has found the final resting place of Australian aviation pioneer Sir Charles Kingsford Smith off the coast of Burma.
If so, he will have solved one of aviation's greatest mysteries.
Friday, February 13, 2009
From the Telegraph, Bushfire stuff.
Volunteer firefighters in Taggerty, Victoria. (Photos by Stephen Henderson a volunteer in the CFA - see Telegraph Gallery)
The Red Cross has $85M in the bank for the bushfire fund, this excludes Government and Corporate donations. It's expected that the fund will exceed $100M.
The Red Cross has $85M in the bank for the bushfire fund, this excludes Government and Corporate donations. It's expected that the fund will exceed $100M.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Rain on the Victorian bushfires
Fine rain and mist have helped ease the fires in Victoria.
More photos here.
RAIN and cooler weather have helped Victorian firefighters keep two large bushfires from merging to create a super fire.More Australian articles here.
Cooler conditions overnight gave firefighters some respite as they continued to battle 21 fires still burning in the state.
Fears have now eased that two major fires, Gippsland's Bunyip Ridge blaze and the Yea-Murrindindi fires to the north, would join with any northerly winds.
More photos here.
Gary Hughes, The Aus, who was lucky to escape the fire with his life
WHITE ash a few centimetres deep spread surprisingly evenly over a concrete floor slab.Hughes' earlier piece on how he, his wife and ward escaped the fire.
That's what your life - everything you and your family owns, everything that makes you what you are, every memory and every treasured possession - becomes after you turn a blast furnace loose on it.
We share the joy of being alive.More faces of those we've lost*.
We also hear the names of others who didn't make it and those still missing. It is a long list.
(*if you just click on the edge of the picture to the right of the one in the middle of the screen it doesn't jump all over the place.)
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Bushifres: $45.4M in donations - and some video
Some video of the fires:
181 confirmed dead, 80 missing.
181 confirmed dead, 80 missing.
Why don’t they....
Many people wonder why there were so many people killed in the terrible fires of February 2009. There are things to remember if you find yourself facing a bushfire. Saving your house is very hard work, and you may not be able to save it. Is it worth your life?
Please read this account of a family who nearly perished. They were well prepared for the fire, with a pump for water, hoses, buckets of water around the yard to save the house. They stayed. This is their story.
There are reasons why they don’t. Here are a few:
• Why don’t they get helicopters to evacuate people from the fires?
Convection currents in the air caused by the fire create very strong up and down drafts and it’s not uncommon for huge gusts of wind to be generated by the fires. When flying over/around fires or dumping water on them pilots must stay a certain distance away and keep a very wary eye on where the smoke and flames are going.
• Why don’t they evacuate?
If there is danger people are directed to evacuate, usually with plenty of time to get out and stay away until the fire has passed. Sometimes fires are too fast and there is no time for evacuation as people would be trapped on smoky roads and we can see from the latest conflagration the danger in smoke blinded driving.
• Why don’t they get the Army in to evacuate people?
It is not the job of the Army to evacuate people. The logistics would be impossible. Usually evacuation is a few hours before the fire comes – or much sooner, when it’s safe to be on the roads, with no escape routes barred. Calling in the Army to evacuate people would just clog up the roads, and they couldn’t be where they were needed in good time. This is why people are encouraged to pack up their family, their precious possessions, their pets, and leave in their own vehicles.
• Why don’t they get the Army in to fight the fires, to save the houses?
It’s not the job of the Army to fight fires and save houses, they are not trained for it. They can only help in the clean up later, or with provision of accommodation/tents, food, etc., note that the Army cannot mobilise quickly enough to be available to fight fires.
• The trees aren’t burnt, there wasn’t a fire storm, those houses could have been saved!
Have you actually been in a bushfire? You can’t breathe for the smoke. You can’t see for the smoke and the tears running out of your eyes. Your nose runs. You feel like your lungs are going to burst because you can’t get air. And this isn’t breathing the superheated air which can kill you. This is just smoke. Please read the article above and concentrate on the part about the ember storm.
Unnecessarily entering a bushfire area endangers lives, roads need to be kept free for emergency vehicles and firefighters – the main aim of any volunteers is saving lives, fighting the fires, and saving homes which can be saved – some homes cannot be saved.
In a bushfire people who die usually succumb to the radiated heat from the fire.
Radiant heat kills. Superheated air kills.
Remember when you hear the stories of miraculous escapes that there are 181 stories you will not hear except from the coroner.
Faces of those no longer with us. SMH.
Apart from ensuring that the fuel in the bushland is burnt off and that there is no flammable material near your home all measures must be taken to ensure that this loss of life never happens again.
I read a suggestion (Andrew Bolt's blog) yesterday for a notification similar to the one used to alert people to IRA bombs, apparently it’s based on mobile phone towers and each tower will send messages to every phone in a certain area. This may prove to be a viable bushfire safety measure. However, we must remember that the latest tragic fires travelled very fast over kilometres and there wasn’t much warning, and that no system will be foolproof and we mustn’t be complacent.
I suggest along with a warning system that there be a stipulation. If you want to stay and fight to save your house you must have a fire bunker in place, constructed, inspected and approved by the council which must comply with regulations set down by an authority which knows what is required to protect people in fires. These inspections should not incur cost to the constructor of the bunker. I would sincerely hope that the bunkers would never need to be used.
SMH fire photo gallery.
Please read this account of a family who nearly perished. They were well prepared for the fire, with a pump for water, hoses, buckets of water around the yard to save the house. They stayed. This is their story.
There are reasons why they don’t. Here are a few:
• Why don’t they get helicopters to evacuate people from the fires?
Convection currents in the air caused by the fire create very strong up and down drafts and it’s not uncommon for huge gusts of wind to be generated by the fires. When flying over/around fires or dumping water on them pilots must stay a certain distance away and keep a very wary eye on where the smoke and flames are going.
• Why don’t they evacuate?
If there is danger people are directed to evacuate, usually with plenty of time to get out and stay away until the fire has passed. Sometimes fires are too fast and there is no time for evacuation as people would be trapped on smoky roads and we can see from the latest conflagration the danger in smoke blinded driving.
• Why don’t they get the Army in to evacuate people?
It is not the job of the Army to evacuate people. The logistics would be impossible. Usually evacuation is a few hours before the fire comes – or much sooner, when it’s safe to be on the roads, with no escape routes barred. Calling in the Army to evacuate people would just clog up the roads, and they couldn’t be where they were needed in good time. This is why people are encouraged to pack up their family, their precious possessions, their pets, and leave in their own vehicles.
• Why don’t they get the Army in to fight the fires, to save the houses?
It’s not the job of the Army to fight fires and save houses, they are not trained for it. They can only help in the clean up later, or with provision of accommodation/tents, food, etc., note that the Army cannot mobilise quickly enough to be available to fight fires.
• The trees aren’t burnt, there wasn’t a fire storm, those houses could have been saved!
Have you actually been in a bushfire? You can’t breathe for the smoke. You can’t see for the smoke and the tears running out of your eyes. Your nose runs. You feel like your lungs are going to burst because you can’t get air. And this isn’t breathing the superheated air which can kill you. This is just smoke. Please read the article above and concentrate on the part about the ember storm.
Unnecessarily entering a bushfire area endangers lives, roads need to be kept free for emergency vehicles and firefighters – the main aim of any volunteers is saving lives, fighting the fires, and saving homes which can be saved – some homes cannot be saved.
In a bushfire people who die usually succumb to the radiated heat from the fire.
Radiant heat kills. Superheated air kills.
Remember when you hear the stories of miraculous escapes that there are 181 stories you will not hear except from the coroner.
Faces of those no longer with us. SMH.
Apart from ensuring that the fuel in the bushland is burnt off and that there is no flammable material near your home all measures must be taken to ensure that this loss of life never happens again.
I read a suggestion (Andrew Bolt's blog) yesterday for a notification similar to the one used to alert people to IRA bombs, apparently it’s based on mobile phone towers and each tower will send messages to every phone in a certain area. This may prove to be a viable bushfire safety measure. However, we must remember that the latest tragic fires travelled very fast over kilometres and there wasn’t much warning, and that no system will be foolproof and we mustn’t be complacent.
I suggest along with a warning system that there be a stipulation. If you want to stay and fight to save your house you must have a fire bunker in place, constructed, inspected and approved by the council which must comply with regulations set down by an authority which knows what is required to protect people in fires. These inspections should not incur cost to the constructor of the bunker. I would sincerely hope that the bunkers would never need to be used.
SMH fire photo gallery.
Famous Koala
Link lifted from Bolt's blog. Includes this amazing video of the koala drinking from a CFA firefighter's water bottle.
Nancy-Bird Walton - how remiss of me!
Minicapt was unaware of our Nancy-bird, female pioneering aviator of Australia. Up there with Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith, and many others.
Nancy-Bird Walton, Australian aviation pioneer.
Nancy-Bird Walton, who died in Sydney on January 13 aged 93, learned to fly as a 17-year-old when there were no jobs for pilots in Australia, particularly if they were female.More of the UK Telegraph obit.
Setting off with a co-pilot, Peg McKillop, in a fourth-hand Gipsy Moth with two open cockpits and a cruising speed of 80mph, she barnstormed throughout New South Wales, offering joyrides at fairs, occasionally carrying aerial advertising and taking part in air pageants. They navigated over the featureless western plains by wristwatch, compass and road map, sometimes landing in rough paddocks and claypits to ask the way. At night they often had to tie the Moth to a fence for the night to ensure it was not blown away by storms and hope that cattle had not chewed through the fabric by next morning.
After becoming, at 19, the youngest woman in the Empire to obtain a commercial licence, she used money from her father and an aunt to buy a Leopard Moth, which could carry two passengers.
Nancy-Bird Walton, Australian aviation pioneer.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Millions Over $50 More than $31 Million raised to help bushfire victims
Aside from millions donated already ($14M I heard thismorning), another $1.908M was raised today with a radio hook-up between MMM & 2DAYFM, using their Australia wide networks.
I hate these radio programmes, and would rather bust my ear drums than listen to them under normal circumstances, but the cricket was on... and I'm getting tired of the CD in the car.
Good on them for their efforts. They also had television celebrities guesting on their shows. It worked, now the money will roll in for Red Cross.
Again, good on them. (Even though they did go naked for money!)
Update:
Today I heard that the amount was over $31M this is to the Red Cross, which is not the only group collecting, I think the Salvos are collecting, too.
I hate these radio programmes, and would rather bust my ear drums than listen to them under normal circumstances, but the cricket was on... and I'm getting tired of the CD in the car.
Good on them for their efforts. They also had television celebrities guesting on their shows. It worked, now the money will roll in for Red Cross.
Again, good on them. (Even though they did go naked for money!)
Update:
Today I heard that the amount was over $31M this is to the Red Cross, which is not the only group collecting, I think the Salvos are collecting, too.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Sunday, October 26, 2008
New movie saviour of the Long Paddock?
I doubt it.
Reading this article there's a lot of guff out there about "the Long Paddock".
Firstly, the author says she's in Sydney. Fine. Someone should tell her that Australian farms are called properties, and if they're big they're called stations. Not ranches. Their owners are usually referred to as graziers (livestock properties), not ranchers.
The long paddock was used to drive (herd) the cattle to market (by drovers) and in times of drought they were also used to feed the livestock which were kept on the move, or agisted. The most economical way to move the cattle was to drive them on foot, this also gave the benefit of grazing along the way.
In years gone by drovers moved cattle from far reaching properties to the nearest railhead and/or market stockyards.
Perhaps the article was written for the US market (in a UK paper?), but the correct Aussie terminology should be used.
Basically it's flogging Baz's new movie.
Reading this article there's a lot of guff out there about "the Long Paddock".
Firstly, the author says she's in Sydney. Fine. Someone should tell her that Australian farms are called properties, and if they're big they're called stations. Not ranches. Their owners are usually referred to as graziers (livestock properties), not ranchers.
The long paddock was used to drive (herd) the cattle to market (by drovers) and in times of drought they were also used to feed the livestock which were kept on the move, or agisted. The most economical way to move the cattle was to drive them on foot, this also gave the benefit of grazing along the way.
In years gone by drovers moved cattle from far reaching properties to the nearest railhead and/or market stockyards.
Perhaps the article was written for the US market (in a UK paper?), but the correct Aussie terminology should be used.
Basically it's flogging Baz's new movie.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Livesavers change uniforms, no more dicktogs?
Lifesavers swap budgie smugglers for boardies
read more
"The feedback was that they wanted some more comfortable boardshorts, so now we've given them the option," he said.
An official from one Gold Coast club, who asked not to be named, said he had been trying to introduce a new uniform for years, but was met with resistance by club hierachy.
"The surf carnivals are a perfect example," he said.
"Kids hang around the beach all day in their boardshorts and they only take them off at the last possible second for a race and as soon as the race is over they put them back on," he said.
"Bright red and yellow caps and club uniform speedos or those other daggy red shorts are not a good look for a kid who would probably rather be wearing a pair of Quiksilver or Rip Curl boardies."
read more
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
September 3, Australian National Flag Day
In 1996 then Governor-General Sir William Deane officially proclaimed that "to commemorate the day in 1901 on which the Australian national flag was first flown, 3 September in each year shall be observed as 'Australian National Flag Day' throughout Australia and in the external Territories of Australia."
History of the Australian Flag.
Flag image from 3DFlags.com
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