For those that fear coming to Australia!

[Ozexpatriate]

35 minutes ago, John ks said:

350m north is a 2.1m clearance bridge & 700m south is a 2.8m clearance

Yes. Burke St (one lane) and Pine St.

 

Ironically it is Pine Street that has the most accidents with vehicles that don't fit.

 

35 minutes ago, John ks said:

... they built the new bridge on temporary piers next to the old (timber trestle) bridge & in a weekend, demolished the old bridge & slid the new bridge into place

You can find the construction documented here. The first image shows the old trestle.

 

[SRman]

3 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

This spot was notorious in the 'bad old days'. You'll note there's a creek on the left. It's still influenced by tides at this point and the combination of high tides and heavy rain would inevitably make it flood.

 

Locally called the 'duck bridge' (photo from the Courier Mail), the area has been extensively reengineered since my formative days.

 

In the old days, the bridge was a timber trestle and if memory serves the clearance was lower and the road narrower and less well drained.

 

There were quite a few low bridges along that line in days past. Remember the low timber bridge along Wynnum Road in Morningside? Or the similar bridges over Deshon Street, The 'Gabba, and Ipswich Road, Buranda? Those were all replaced with higher bridges but the one in Ipswich Road still claimed a few victims because the warning signs were wrong - the road had been resurfaced several times after the signs went up!

There was another very low timber bridge on the Beenleigh Line (now the Gold Coast Line), over Compton Road in Woodridge. Anything taller than a normal family car had to use a dirt side track and ford a creek to pass under the bridge with more clearance.

Edited December 23, 2021 by SRman

[SRman]

Changing subject: As I got out of bed this morning, I felt a tickling on the back of my leg. I lightly brushed off whatever it was, to see, and hear, a small huntsman land with a plop on the carpet, right in front of Hattie. She pursued it and lost it behind our bedroom door.

I had my shower and came back, to see her still trying to find the spider around the door, while the spider itself had popped up at ceiling level. Hattie hopped up on the TV unit for a few nose kisses with me, unaware that her prey was right above her!

[Ozexpatriate]

13 minutes ago, SRman said:

Remember the low timber bridge along Wynnum Road in Morningside?

I remember it well along with construction of the replacement during the pre-electrification upgrades. It was originally a trestle viaduct. The new bridge had a slightly different alignment with a new, extended embankment (and retaining wall) on the down side.

 

My parents bought a brand new Toyota Corona (probably early-mid 1968) at the Toyota dealership on the up side of the bridge.

 

Edited December 23, 2021 by Ozexpatriate

[AyJay]

I did apply to migrate after university, but did not have enough points. Good thing too as it turned out, for relationship reasons. Lemme see now, spiders, snakes, crocodiles, stonefish, sharks. Pretty much everything wants to kill you.

 

[kevinlms]

Not always dangerous or threatening from Australia.

 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-23/bin-day-out-for-mackay-man-and-neighbours-bin/100722498

[SRman]

2 hours ago, AyJay said:

I did apply to migrate after university, but did not have enough points. Good thing too as it turned out, for relationship reasons. Lemme see now, spiders, snakes, crocodiles, stonefish, sharks. Pretty much everything wants to kill you.

 

 

You forgot to mention the jellyfish, irukanji and other related marine stingers, the bluebottle (Portuguese man o' war, which is not a jellyfish), and blue-ringed octopuses. Oh, and don't forget the drop bears (). Also, even the so-called harmless animals such as kangaroos and wallabies can wreak a lot of damage if they jump in front of your car. Kangaroos, emus and cassowaries can kill with their claws.

The huntsman spider looks fearsome, but it is quite harmless.

[kevinlms]

3 minutes ago, SRman said:

The huntsman spider looks fearsome, but it is quite harmless.

The spiders who have put webs across your doorways overnight, are pretty disturbing.

You walk out in the morning and straight into a mouth full of cobweb!!!!

 

You can see cats grinning around the door, because they have trained the spiders, to put their webs where humans will easy find them!

[billbedford]

2 hours ago, SRman said:

 

You forgot to mention the jellyfish, irukanji and other related marine stingers, the bluebottle (Portuguese man o' war, which is not a jellyfish), and blue-ringed octopuses. Oh, and don't forget the drop bears (). Also, even the so-called harmless animals such as kangaroos and wallabies can wreak a lot of damage if they jump in front of your car. Kangaroos, emus and cassowaries can kill with their claws.

 

 

...but the animal that kills the most human in a year is the horse. 

[St Enodoc]

1 minute ago, billbedford said:

 

...but the animal that kills the most human in a year is the horse. 

Other humans?

[SRman]

2 hours ago, kevinlms said:

The spiders who have put webs across your doorways overnight, are pretty disturbing.

You walk out in the morning and straight into a mouth full of cobweb!!!!

 

You can see cats grinning around the door, because they have trained the spiders, to put their webs where humans will easy find them!

Yes. When we lived in Bulimba (Brisbane), there was an orb spider that would build its web across between the house and the fence every single morning. To get to our cars, we would have to walk down that side of the house: my wife would walk straight under the web, but I always got the lot wrapped around my face. Being half asleep didn't help my memory! 

[SRman]

59 minutes ago, billbedford said:

 

...but the animal that kills the most human in a year is the horse. 

 

True. Horses first, cows second and dogs third.

I believe camels are a menace in the Northern Territory but I don't have any statistics to hand for those.

[monkeysarefun]

1 hour ago, billbedford said:

 

...but the animal that kills the most human in a year is the horse. 

We do have the world's most venomous horses.

[monkeysarefun]

3 hours ago, SRman said:

 

You forgot to mention the jellyfish, irukanji and other related marine stingers, the bluebottle (Portuguese man o' war, which is not a jellyfish), and blue-ringed octopuses. Oh, and don't forget the drop bears (). Also, even the so-called harmless animals such as kangaroos and wallabies can wreak a lot of damage if they jump in front of your car. Kangaroos, emus and cassowaries can kill with their claws.

The huntsman spider looks fearsome, but it is quite harmless.

Don't stop at the animals, what about the Gympie Gympie tree:

 

"Like being burned with acid while being electrocuted"  Apparently the only antidote is suicide!

 

https://www.zmescience.com/science/what-is-gympie-gympie/

 

 

 

[John ks]

10 hours ago, SRman said:

Remember the low timber bridge along Wynnum Road in Morningside?

When I was a kid I remember playing on/under that bridge. I lived a couple hundred meters from that bridge . I seem to recall seeing trucks stuck under that bridge  & am sure it flooded there. The creek that went under that bridge is now in pipes under car parks for a shopping centre & the Colmslie hotel.

Only 60 years ago, how time flies when your having fun

John

 

[monkeysarefun]

Speaking of bridges and floods I've been scanning old family slides and came across some pics  of the damage done to the local bridge during the 1975 flood when the sheer power of the fast moving flood waters pushed the deck of the bridge off its piers.

 

Somehow in that pre social media world word got around early in the morning that "the bridge is gone!" and dad and mum chucked me and my brother  into the back of his new Toyota Crown that they'd just traded the wolesley in for and drove down  to check it out. Dozens of rubber neckers from babes in arms  through to probable WW1 vets were already climbing all over it, undaunted by the still fast flowing water visible through the gaps and missing bits that had to be navigated to get onto it.

 

Because hi-viz had not been invented then there was a total lack of blokes dressed in it keeping us off it  like there would be these days so it was a free for all.

 

Eventually a   council truck turned up and a couple of blokes put up some yellow barriers across the road presumably to stop drivers mistaking the wreckage for a functioning (if a little up and downy) bridge and trying to drive across it.

 

I recall 10 year old me and every other kid in town  spending the next couple of days using the curved up bit of the deck as a launch ramp to ride our dragster bikes down,  and riding along the sloping bit of the deck in the middle photo, seeing how close we could get to the edge without falling in  the water until the local copper showed up and yelled at us.

 

They sure were different times back then.

Edited December 23, 2021 by monkeysarefun

[Gwiwer]

It must be time for this .....

 

 

[Ozexpatriate]

10 hours ago, SRman said:

When we lived in Bulimba (Brisbane), there was an orb spider that would build its web across between the house and the fence every single morning.

For some months (years?) the house next door to mum and dad had a colony of undisturbed golden orb spiders. Their web along the side of the house was as high as the house and about half the distance from the front to the back.

[SRman]

15 hours ago, John ks said:

When I was a kid I remember playing on/under that bridge. I lived a couple hundred meters from that bridge . I seem to recall seeing trucks stuck under that bridge  & am sure it flooded there. The creek that went under that bridge is now in pipes under car parks for a shopping centre & the Colmslie hotel.

Only 60 years ago, how time flies when your having fun

John

 

Interesting. You may have met my wife and her family at some point. Her parents' house was where the Toyota dealership was built. 

We have had a few good meals at the Colmslie in the past.

[J. S. Bach]

18 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

It must be time for this .....

 

 

Well, that was three minutes well worth spending!

[J. S. Bach]

17 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

For some months (years?) the house next door to mum and dad had a colony of undisturbed golden orb spiders. Their web along the side of the house was as high as the house and about half the distance from the front to the back.

That reminds me of this CIA spy antenna that was built on my property:

 

 

Oddly, it had disappeared by late in the day. I decided not to mess with it and waited until later to access the shed.

 

[Gwiwer]

 

[manna]

G'Day Folks

 

 

[Gwiwer]

It's midnight in Melbourne.  OK it's about 00.35 now but hey.  A friend who is employed by the suburban Metro Trains operator there and who is on night shift reports that it is still around 25C in the city which is busy busy.  As many people are apparently wearing swimwear or micro-costumes of some sort as those dressed in what might be called a more conservative style to see in the new year.  

[Classsix T]

4 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

 As many people are apparently wearing swimwear or micro-costumes of some sort

Now there's something to be fearful of!

 

(Unless it's someone like Jessica Nigri. And I'm only the messenger on that one, your subsequent divorce because of your failure to delete your search history is all on you sunshine. I only know of Ms. Nigri from [cough] "research") C6T.