Why is this so you ask? ‘Don’t ask me mate’. If I said that I’d just be perpetuating the myths that swirl around the place like mists in the dead of winter.
The answer is simple really. Just take your pick. (1) It’s just a matter of supply and demand. (2) basic economics or (3) gross mismanagement.
I’m going to tell you it’s a mixture of (1) and (2). You see, Miners Hill was once the richest source of tungsten in the world. In fact, the mob that ran the place thought they could monopolise world supply, set any prices they liked and sit pretty forever.
Mismanagement alright. China had Tungsten too plus cheap labour and no unions.
Result, a worldwide Tungsten glut, prices plunged, Miners Hill was forced into liquidation.
Everyone left town.
The end.(150 words)
Barbara Beacham is the kind hostess of this challenge, Mondays Finish the Story. She provides us with a photo prompt and the first sentence and we have to finish the story in 150 words. This is my response to the challenge. If you would like to participate in the fun just click on this link, MFtS.
Yesterday as I began this five day exercise, I uploaded a photo of my Harley Davidson Heritage Softail Classic with some of the Flinders Ranges in the background.
The Flinders Ranges are a prized tourist destination in South Australia and Wilpena Pound, contained within the ranges is somewhat of a mecca for visitors.
‘The Pound’ as we call it is located about 430kms or 267 miles roughly north west of the State’s capital, Adelaide. It is accessible by sealed roads from Adelaide and is a perfect long distance destination for riders of cruiser style motor cycle like my Harley.
From where I live to the Pound, is about 1,600 kms or roughly 1,000 miles each way. That’s taking the shortest route via Broken Hill, a big mining town in the far west of New South Wales.
After leaving ‘The Hill’ you know when you are getting near ‘The Pound’ when you come to the South Ausie town of Hawker.
HAWKER – THE KEY TO THE FLINDERS RANGES.
As you can see from the size of the town’s population, Hawker is not exactly large in size. However it makes up for that by its friendliness, facilities, great food and that important ingredient for combustion engines, fuel.
From Hawker it’s only about 30k’s let’s say 20 miles further on to ‘The Pound’.
At ‘The Pound’, visitors have multiple accommodation choices, ranging from luxury to tent sites. Or, you can pitch your tent in relative isolation yet remain in comfortable walking distance from the facilities. On this occasion, isolation suited me down to the ground and I pitched my little tent in a great spot.
MY CAMP SITE IN WILPENA POUND.
I’d only just finished pitching my tent and covering the Harley when a massive camper van parked itself in nearby clearing and discharged an army of occupants who immediately set up camp tables chairs and that evil of all evils, a boom box of some sort. Paradise gained,Paradise lost.
It was early afternoon and I was too tired to pack up and find somewhere else so I decided to stay put. It was a wise move because just after 6am the next morning they were packed up and gone. My prayers had been answered.
The purple flowers you can see in the photograph are the signature of a noxious weed we call Patterson’s Curse. It is a genuine curse for graziers although in some parts of Australia it has a more benign name,’Riverina Bluebell’. It’s a tough little bugger, hard to kill and once it takes hold, words like bugger can’t adequately describe how we feel about it. One positive though, bees adore it.
As the monster camper van and it occupants were preparing to leave, I was getting ready for my walk up into the hills surrounding ‘The Pound’. Depending upon the route you take it can be extremely difficult or relative easy. I took the middle track, I refuse point blank to call it a trail. Although I’m reasonably fit, I still found the going hard in some spots. On reflection I know the reason why.
Once on the high ground though, the effort is rewarded by the splendid views. Here are a few of them:
PART OF THE CLIFFS SURROUNDING ‘THE POUND’. THE FOLLOWING IMAGE IS A GENERAL VIEW OF THE FLINDER’S RANGES TAKEN FROM THE SAME SPOT.
LOOKING DOWN INTO’ THE POUND’
In this photo you can see the extent of the purple coloured Patterson’s curse.
This walk took me about 7 hours from start to finish and I was pleased to get back to camp. I’d really loaded myself up for the day’s photographic activity, tripod, Nikon F5 film camera, Nikon D200 digital camera and of course, a range of lenses, not to mention various speed Kodak Tmax film, filters and all the other photographic paraphernalia we think we will need but never do.
Added to that were two water bottles, food, map, compass and park guide book. No wonder the few people I encountered during the day looked at me as if I was a madman.
As I sat in the Resort’s great restaurant, showered and relaxed, I reflected on my day’s activities, I concluded that the people I saw up in the hills were absolutely right, I was not only mad but stupid. I’ve been a bush walker and photographer for years and today I had broken one of my most important rules. Always travel light in the bush. This has always been my mantra. Today I’d loaded myself up like a pack horse. Stupid old goat I thought to myself. As I never use the word never, I can’t assure myself that I’ll never make the same mistake again.
Back in my tent, the air mattress felt like a bed of nails, my sleeping bag was too tight and the torch batteries had gone missing. I thanked my lucky stars that I only had another 10 days or so of camping on this trip. Another positive was no mobile phone signal.
The Flinders Ranges have much to offer visually and for the adventurous there are many more dimension to explore. My Harley and I don’t care much for travelling on the dirt unless it is absolutely necessary so I didn’t see everything the Flinders have to offer on this ride.
Next time I’ll come in the Landrover and bring every bit of gear I can get my hands on.
Annepm2015 has nominated me to enter the Five Photos-Five Stories challenge and I’ve accepted her nomination.
Over time, a number of bloggers have graciously nominated me for various challenges but unfortunately I’ve been unable to take up any of the nominations for a variety of reasons.
Things are now looking up at Cassa Creakingbones and when Annepm2015 mentioned Harley Davidsons in her invitation to me, how could I resist? So here we go, five photos and five stories over five days.
MY HARLEY HERITAGE SOFTAIL CLASSIC WITH A SOUTH AUSTRALIAN FLINDERS RANGES BACKDROP.
I’ve always loved motorcycles. I can still vividly remember my first ride on a real motorcycle when I was about 14 years old. A mate of mine in the surf club had a Vincent Black Prince motor bike, one of the first mass produced motorcycles that could easily exceed 100 MPH. His name was Jim and he was probably about 10 years older than I.
Anyway, one day I rode pillion as Jim took me for a ride through a large National Park near where I lived. No traffic, no helmets, no leather jackets, no protective clothing, no Highway Patrol, just the open road, very hight speeds and excitement by the bucket full. I was absolutely amazed that anything could give such an adrenalin rush. I was hooked and I loved the raucous exhaust sound.
When I got home and told my father he nearly had a fit. As a young bloke in the 1920’s he rode a Rudge, another fast English motor cycle. His motorcycling career ended abruptly when he hit a stationary train at a country level crossing. He survived but his love of motor cycles didn’t.
My father demanded that I abstain from riding anything on two wheels that was powered by anything other than two legs. I reluctantly agreed.
However, when I was 22 years old, doesn’t seem like over 50 years ago, my then employer decided I would make a good high speed Special Traffic Patrol ( now known as the Highway Patrol) cop.
It seemed like a dream come true when I lined up with eight or nine others to commence the training program. We were issued with khaki cotton boiler suits, leather gauntlets, crash helmets that looked like Nazi storm trooper replicas and the most idiotic sunglass type eye protectors imaginable. Of course we had no visible insignia so that if we created mayhem on the public street, no one would know who we really were.
After a five minute lecture on the technical issues, gears, brakes, kick start, spark, advance and retard, choke, clutch and throttle, we started our bikes and followed the instructor straight out onto a busy Sydney road. I’m not sure who was worried the most, bus drivers, truck drivers, taxi drivers, car drivers, pedestrians, pedal cyclists and the occasional dog, not to mention me.
Our instructor was definitely oblivious to everything as he weaved in and out of the traffic with our little group following blindly behind. After what seemed to be an eternity we arrived unscathed at Centennial Park, a large public area with a number of sealed roads, some hills, a few lakes and dirt tracks.
After a short stop where we were congratulated for not being involved in any accidents our training really commenced, with the added information that if we dropped our bike for any reason, we had to pick it up ourselves, get back on and keep going.
My issue bike was a Norton, I think a Feather Bed. It was a feather bed on the bitumen but on the dirt tracks it was more like a bucking broncho. I can’t remember how often I fell off but I know that by lunch time I was totally stuffed. I wasn’t the only one to feel that way and that made me feel much better.
After three days of hurtling around Centennial Park, both on and off the bitumen, we were taken out onto the open road and followed our lead instructor and his helpers down through the Royal National Park where I’d pillioned with Jim all those years ago.
We didn’t reach warp speed on the training run but it was rapid enough to get the heart beat well raised and bring a smile from ear to ear.
Back at Centennial Park for our final debrief and endorsement as high speed riders, disaster overtook me. I overestimated my ability when negotiating the only hairpin bend in the park, dropped the bike mid corner, slid with it off the road, hit a tree and guess what, no more Norton. It was a write off.
The issue khaki boiler suit I was wearing got ripped to bits. I did’t get a scratch, not even a bruise, but was immediately scratched out of the High Speed Motor Cycle Course. Totally unsuitable for the STP.
As a consolation prize I was authorised to be what was known as a Divisional Rider, picking up and delivering the mail, running messages, getting the Sergeant’s lunches and other equally vital and important jobs. What a let down.
Fortunately for me, I was shortly afterwards,’ In the Interests of the Service’ transferred 300 miles away to an inland country town where ‘Divisional Riders’ did not exist. For the next six years I enjoyed my country General Duties.
My interest in and love of motorcycles didn’t diminish and I snuck in the occasional ride on a bike a mate generously lent me.
As the years went by, I had occasional love affairs with BMWs, Hondas, Suzukis and Triumphs
Then I came to my senses with the realisation that there was only one bike that made you look absolutely fabulous and terrific when you caught a glimpse of yourself in a shop window as you rode by. That bike was and is an Harley Davidson. It has to be black of course.
Yesterday I was searching through some of my scrap books looking for a newspaper article about my old motorcycling mate who is having a few health problems at the moment. Eventually I located the article, dated March 28, 2003, copied same and posted it to him this morning.
As I dropped the envelope into to the Post Box I thought it would be a nice trip down memory lane to search further and see what else I could find.
Being a good record keeper and an egotist, I’ve got photographs together with newspaper and magazine clippings about my friends and myself going back to the 1940’s.
As I ploughed through early stuff I thought how boring it would be for others if they had to read about my successes in Surf Life Saving competitions, general swimming competitions and school military cadets, not to mention ploughing through the monotonus mochrome images made by my doting parents of me as a toddler in the usual compromising and embarrassing positions.
Fast forward through the clippings and photographs to April 21st, 1968.
After a quick look at the news clips and photos of the day I was reminded that April 21, 1968 was a Sunday and I was working in Sydney’s Domain Park where speakers got on soap boxes and exercised their democratic rights to rant and rave about their favourite subjects to the curious listening crowds.
My offsider and I knew that there could be fireworks in the Domain that day as members of the then Australian National Socialist Party (Nazi) Party were allegedly coming down to spruik their venom about Sydney’s Jewish community.
Sure enough, not too long after lunch time, seven members of the ANSP arrived wearing their brown shirt uniforms complete with swastika emblems.
To quote from Everybody’s Magazine of May 1, 1968,’ The crown jeered and threatened but did nothing. Then, onto the scene strutted Party Leader………….. guarded by four “stormtroopers” in full regalia of brown shirts, peaked caps, leather and swastikas. It was too much for the crowd ‘.
The article goes on to say how the mob surged forward and attacked the brown shirts as the police ran forward to break up the melee and separate the warring parties.
That was when the fun started for my mate and I. It took over thirty minutes to break up the brawling and half a dozen or so were arrested. Only two were injured and taken to hospital. I was one of them. Luckily my injuries were relatively minor although the sight in my right eye was damaged and that eye no longer registers 6/6 when tested.
Later on the offenders were all convicted of various offences. No one was sentenced to imprisonment and I was glad about that as I thought at the time there was severe provocation and the violent outcome was inevitable.
I recall that one of the individuals who assaulted me told me later that he thought I was a Nazi because of my short hair . He told me that when he saw me move towards the Nazis, a cloud of red descended across his eyes, he could only think of the holocaust and that was why he attacked me. I recall that at the time he was in an highly emotional state and I could understand his angst.
Apart from some short term facial scaring and the eye problem, the worst part of it all was that I had to get a new suit as dry cleaning couldn’t get rid of the stains and one of the pockets had been ripped off. On the positive side the organisation paid for the new one, so, I purchased a suit of better quality and cut. I thought I deserved it.
I had to laugh to myself this morning when I looked at one of the newspaper cuttings. My mother had written on it, ‘Our poor little Pie Crust’. What a terrible pet name to give a strapping young detective.
Anyway, here are some images taken on the day and a small news cutting.
POOR OLD CREAKINGBONES
POOR LITTLE PIE CRUST
Over the next few years I had my nose broken three times, had black eyes, often suffered cuts and abrasions, damaged both knees during chases on foot, lost the top of a finger on my right hand, and to quote Maxwell Smart, ‘ and loving it’.
Friends ask me,’ Would you do it all again?’ My answer, ‘Yes’. Then they invariably ask, ‘Did you shoot anybody’. Fortunately I am able to answer ‘ No’.
It was a great life, I worked for short times with the NYPD, LAPD, RCMP, New Scotland Yard, The French Surety National and was able to visit the National Police HQ in Jerusalem, and a number of policing establishments in Turkey and Syria.
Those thirty five years have passed in a flash. Many, many memories, not all of them pleasant but the good ones far outweigh the bad.
By the way, I’ve deleted my name, to protect the innocent as they say and promise not to seek out any more stories from my scrap books and memorabilia.
Since my last effort to get to this keyboard, my poor old Landrover has clocked up more than 3,000 k’s so to say things have been a little hectic would be a gross understatement.
For example, last Sunday I drove over 200 k’s to go to lunch with friends. It was an important luncheon because it had been organised by a mutual motorcycling mate who is in his mid eighties and has been in poor health for the last twelve months or so.
It was unsettling to see him so frail, uncomfortable and should I say it, yes, miserable.
He was accompanied by his daughter who had come from out of State to give him a morale boost as his wife has popped over to Europe to attend, wait for it, seventeen operas. I kid you not.
This was the first time in our over 30 year friendship that he has actually organised any of our joint activities so as I said, it was an important engagement of all of us.
Lunch was served and we all noticed that our old mate had barely touched his meal. Then his posture began to sag and it was obvious to us all that he wasn’t at all comfortable. Suddenly, he sat upright and said to his daughter,’Come on, it’s time to go’.
With that he rose from the table, bid us all farewell, shook hands all round, kissed the ladies and accompanied by his daughter left for his long trip home to Sydney.
A feeling of gloom descended on our table and although not expressed aloud, I’m certain that we all felt our old mate was completing his ‘bucket list’.
Anyway, apart from that doom and gloom episode, Casa Creakingbones has been an hive of activity with appointments, meetings, problem solving, pet management, appliance renewal together with all of the other ‘must do’ chores necessary to keep our little piece of paradise ship shape.
Accordingly, I’ve decided to have a break from everything for a week or so in order to recharge my batteries.
The only routine I intend to retain while the battery charger is connected will be to read your blogs.
What a difference a day makes. Or should I say night.
Last night I was the judge at our local camera club. Evaluating images is always tiring and that feeling is often increased when the images I evaluate are made by people I know.
Over time you come to recognise particular works as belonging to this one or that one because the treatment they give their photographs always remains the same,i.e., sometimes under exposed, sometimes over exposed, sometimes oversaturated, sometimes too contrasty, sometime just not in focus and sometimes, just really poorly executed, both in camera and during post processing.
So, as you can understand I approached last night’s proceedings with some trepidation. As it turned out, my apprehension was totally unnecessary.
The images for evaluation were all of excellent quality, well composed, well thought out and most importantly, well executed.
For once, my work was most enjoyable, the members were genuinely interested in my comments about the images and seemed to agree with my decisions when it came to making awards.
In the post judging discussion no prompting from me was required at all. Everyone joined in with their comments and what surprised me was the fact that all criticism was constructive. It seems that the club members have jointly turned a corner and just want to get on with the photography learning process.
It was great therapy for me and by the time I arrived home at Cassa Creakingbones not long after 11pm I felt refreshed and the problems of the last week or so had receded far into the background.
No doubt about photography, it’s a great pastime and mood breaker.
Now I can’t wait for my next judging assignment.
Oh and by the way, no one gave me a flogging over the three images I snuck in. No one uttered a word about them either so if that was a sign of something, I know not what and frankly, couldn’t care less.
Some light relief is on the cards for me tonight. Why? I’m off to judge the images at my local camera club. The title of tonight’s competition, ‘A walk in nature’. Our little club interprets this as anything that moves, grows, or did at one time or another.
There are two categories, prints or digital projections.
Although I’m tonight’s judge, I’m going to throw in three prints of my own. Of course I won’t be allocating any awards ( Distinctions for great images and Credits for images not quite up to the great standard) to my own work but it gives the ‘mob’ an opportunity to vent their spleen by giving my images a total rubbish if they feel so inclined.
Just between us, I don’t take my best work along when I’m the judge. A simple tactic I picked up years ago. That way the ‘mob’ can say what they dislike about my images and they are probably right and I can agree with their criticism in all honesty. Makers them feel good.
Here are the three I’m going to take along tonight:
This is an Australian Eastern Blue Tongue lizard, the largest member of the Skink family. They are likeable, harmless reptiles and are always welcome in our garden where they devour as many slugs, snails and other unwanted guests they can find. We saw our first one in the garden about 40 years ago and called him ‘Albert’. Now we call every blue tongue that comes and stays,’ Son of Albert’.
‘Son of Albert’ hung around in my garage a couple of weeks just long enough for me to whack the 105 Micro on the camera and grab this image. You can see why they are called blue tongues.
BLUE TONGUE LIZARD
Second on my list is this common pigeon, one of many that flock to our yard when we feed the native birds. I used a 600mm lens to capture this blighter as it glided down from power lines some distance away.
COMMON PIGEON
My third offering for tonight is this image of an Australian Perentie Goanna, the largest member of the monitor lizards found in the Land of Oz. They can run at great speed, climb trees with ease and grow up to about 2,5 metres long. They run from humans but when they feel threatened can give a quite nasty bite and scratch with their sharp claws. This one is a juvenile out hunting for food. For some reason the image the image appears here to be quite blurry whilst the original isn’t. I’m sure you will get a good idea anyway of how they look in the wild.
I grabbed this image with a 50mm f1.4 lens.
I’m really looking forward to some fun tonight, there should be about 50-60 prints and a similar number of projected images to judge. Some of the members will be disappointed that they didn’t get an award but I’ll make sure that my comments are all positive and encouraging.
Well that’s it for me, off to the meeting in a few minutes to enjoy pre judging coffee, bickies( cookies for some of you) and a beer or two after it’s all over.
Further to my previous rant about dramas for Casa Creakingbones, there has been some progress.
Last Friday our local Council granted me an extension until close of business next Tuesday 12th May, 2015 to lodge objections to the proposed development of a vast commercial zone adjacent to my little bit of paradise.
Armed with that little bit of good news I put all other activity on hold and proceeded to develop a cohesive submission to Council outlining the objections to the proposed development.
Not including attachments and photographs where appropriate, the submission runs to 14 close typed A4 pages.
The submission covers issues such as a proposed supermarket, main road realignment, drainage, road noise and travel times, visual pollution, parking, general noise pollution, economic impact on our town’s CBD, commercial lighting, anti social behaviour and street crime, alterations to the streetscape and finally, the impact of odours from proposed fast food outlets.
Tomorrow I’ll deliver the document to the Council, a day early. No extra marks will be awarded for my deadline beater.
The next step may be an invitation from Council to address a meeting of the Council in the presence of the development proponents to voice my objections.
I hope I am granted that opportunity.
In any event, the outcome is in the hands of the local administration.
All I can do now is await their determination.
Should the outcome be in my favour, then no doubt the developer will change the nature of the proposal and resubmit it.
It is a war of attrition with no live rounds fired. Much like being on a perpetual roundabout.
So, its hoo roo for now and stand by for the next exciting instalment.
Well the last ten days are ten days we could have done without at Casa Creakingbones.
Without prioritising in any order of importance we have experienced:
The death of a close family member and attending the funeral involving a 1700klm/1000mile interstate drive, there and back in two days; 500 klm return drive to the city last Friday, 250klms return drive to Canberra, our Nation’s Capital and on Sunday a 200 klm return drive to Yass, a nearby town.
In all, just a little over 2,650 klms or about 1,647 miles in six days. No wonder a bloke is tired.
On top of that we have had to fit in doctors appointments, visits to specialists and some medical procedures.
Then to add insult to injury, a large scale residential/commercial development has been announced to begin construction just across the way from our little bit of paradise. This means paradise lost, not just for Casa Creakingbones but for all the other families who have built on small acerages just out of town.
Today is the closing date for lodgement of objections to the development. So, I’m off to our local council to seek an extension of time to lodge one. Will permission be granted? Who knows.
Then last night, due to carelessness or stupidity on my part, I destroyed most of the incoming emails on my iPhone which resulted in every other device including this computer getting rid of the lot with no recovery possible. Fortunately our Telco restored usage but the emails can’t be recovered.
On the positive side, if that’s all I’ve got to whinge about, I’m a very, very lucky old bloke.
So now it’s off to the local council, big smile on my face, the epitome of politeness to seek an extension on the lodgement date for objections to the nearby development.
Write of a family heirloom, childhood memories, lead us through the history of an object that bears special meaning to you.
A FAMILY TRREASURE.
I am fortunate to possess a number of family heirlooms that I number as treasures.
One of those heirlooms is the Henry Wilkinson sword pictured below. It holds special significance for me.
SWORD BELONGING TO COLONEL CHARLES WYNDHAM SOMERSET, CB, CMG,MVO.
The sword was the property of my Great Uncle from my Mother’s side of the House of Beaufort, Colonel Charles Wyndham Somerset, CB, CMG, MVO. The family lineage dates back to the early 1400’s. The family motto is ‘Mutare vel timere spurn’, which roughly translated means,’ I scorn to change or fear’.
The Colonel was born in England in 1862 and like many members of the British aristocracy, followed the military tradition and joined the army where he was commissioned as a Lieutenant. At graduation he was presented with the sword shown above. In common with many young British Officers of the time, he elected to be transferred to the British Indian Army where there was a greater opportunity for action. The sword accompanied him throughout his active military service and bears the scars of action.
He first saw combat throughout the 3rd Burma War, 1886 to 1889, then fought in the Battle of Chitral in 1895. From 1897 to 1898 he saw action on the North West Frontier and whilst there participated in the battle for Tirah.
At the outbreak of World War One in 1914, he was part of the Indian Army’s contribution to the war effort and was in active service throughout the war until its conclusion in 1918.
In 1911 he was made a Member of the Royal Victorian Order for his active service with the Indian Army. In 1917, he was made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George for his actions in WW1 and this was followed at the cessation of hostilities when he was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath. Then, in 1919 he was made an Honorary Brigadier General in the Indian Army. He died at home in England in 1938.
Twenty one hears later, In November,1959 when I was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the Australian Citizens Military Forces (CMF) my Grandmother presented the Colonel’s sword to me.
I have treasured it ever since and it holds pride of place in a special display here in my home.
When I withdraw the sword from its scabbard, it makes a soothing sound, totally at odds with its traditional purpose. As I clean the blade, the hilt with its hand guaard, as I regularly do, I wonder what it must have been like for the Colonel when going into battle with lethal intent, mounted on his war horse, the sword swinging by his side.
My thoughts and imagination have been strongly influenced by the recent ANZAC day remembrance services I’ve attended here, both before and after the 25th April, 2015. 2015 is particularly significant as it is the 100th Anniversary of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) landing at Gallipoli.
Many towns and cities through Australia have developed exhibitions to acknowledge the sacrifices made by veterans of international conflicts, with particular emphasis on that of the ANZACS.
Here in my home town an exhibition called, ‘A SAUTE-Aussie Soldier from 1915 meets Young Turk in 2015’.
The exhibition contains many family treasures from World War1, the so called War to End All Wars.
Included are letters and postcards from the front, photographs, lockets containing the hair of a loved one, orders and decorations together with examples of the work of the women at home in the form of hand knitted socks, balaclavas and the like.
Also on display is the Colonel’s sword.
I have great pride in my antecedents, both paternal and maternal.
So far in my 75 years I’ve been able to abide by the family motto. i uphold the family traditions, where, inter alia, strength of character and a need to do what’s right are paramount.
Each time I unsheath and hold the family sword, those obligations and feelings are reinforced.
CREAKINGBONES 