For those that fear coming to Australia!

[Gwiwer]

3 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

 

The ones I am used to are generally flatter and less appetising looking, well done. (that last bit is  a statement of congratulations, not a comment on the cooking level). 

 

Usual Serving suggestion is wrapped in greasy   butchers paper. Also, for added authenticity  I hope that is chicken salt.

 

 

Next time I know to cut the potato slightly thinner and may add a splash of beer to the batter for a bit more "bubble" and crispness.  

Chicken salt?  Dr. SWMBO loves it; I don't.  So we do have a large drum and it gets used most days but not by me.  

[St Enodoc]

16 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

may add a splash of beer to the batter

Any excuse...

[monkeysarefun]

Coober Pedy supermarket, mid 70s, early 80s..

 

Another world...Imagine walking into a shop now and seeing all the cigarettes openly displayed like that!

Edited February 5, 2023 by monkeysarefun

[cctransuk]

5 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

Coober Pedy supermarket, mid 70s, early 80s..

 

Another world...Imagine walking into a shop now and seeing all the cigarettes openly displayed like that!

 

On our last Oz trip - west coast, four years ago - we stopped off at a supermarket which closely resembled this. Floor to ceiling wooden shelving; a single checkout and poor lighting.

 

Fifteen years ago, in the old gold mining town of Croydon, there was a tiny general store that sold everything - including fencing wire, explosives, etc., etc.

 

We are now in Port Macquarie, having driven down today from Brisbane.

 

CJI.

 

[St Enodoc]

2 minutes ago, cctransuk said:

We are now in Port Macquarie

Good job you weren't there on Friday.

 

https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/freak-mini-cyclone-rips-through-port-macquarie-damaging-houses-cars/news-story/f2ce6924c8a15acf39221339d1c00979

[cctransuk]

2 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Good job you weren't there on Friday.

 

https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/freak-mini-cyclone-rips-through-port-macquarie-damaging-houses-cars/news-story/f2ce6924c8a15acf39221339d1c00979

 

Too right !!

 

The Mercure Hotel seems to have survived unscathed, thankfully!

 

CJI.

Edited February 5, 2023 by cctransuk

[Gwiwer]

3 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Good job you weren't there on Friday.

 

https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/freak-mini-cyclone-rips-through-port-macquarie-damaging-houses-cars/news-story/f2ce6924c8a15acf39221339d1c00979

Oh dear. Did someone havr a taco?  There’s enough wind in that microburst ….. 

[kevinlms]

Big delays in new car deliveries to Australia - we don't build cars any more, apart from a few specialist ones.

 

https://www.drive.com.au/news/quarantine-crisis-deepens-thousands-cars-stranded/?utm_campaign=syndication&utm_source=smh.com.au&utm_content=article_4&utm_medium=partner

[monkeysarefun]

6 hours ago, kevinlms said:

Big delays in new car deliveries to Australia - we don't build cars any more, apart from a few specialist ones.

 

https://www.drive.com.au/news/quarantine-crisis-deepens-thousands-cars-stranded/?utm_campaign=syndication&utm_source=smh.com.au&utm_content=article_4&utm_medium=partner

Its sobering these days to see old photos or movies shot  in the 60's , 70's and up to the mid 80's, to be reminded how dominant the local cars were on our street. Even in the 70's when everyone was lamenting the Japanese invasion, the "Big 2" - Holden and Ford  models  dominate almost any picture.

 

Oh and VW Beetles - I can guarantee  that any street  photo or film footage  post-early 1960's  or whenever they arrived,  will ALWAYS have  a Beetle in there somewhere!

 

 

500

 

Edited February 11, 2023 by monkeysarefun

[Ozexpatriate]

1 hour ago, monkeysarefun said:

Its sobering these days to see old photos or movies shot  in the 60's , 70's and up to the mid 80's, to be reminded how dominant the local cars were on our street.

'Gabba Fiveways, Woolloongabba, Brisbane. Olsen and Goodchap and Coupon Furniture stores. (Olympic Tyre and Rubber signage behind.)

 

The cricket ground is across the street-ish.

 

Phoenix class tram 549. The internet is a strange place. Here is the final resting place of 549. You can still make out the Cinzano markings. 548 is alive and well at the Sydney tramway museum.

 

The Phoenix Class 'rose from the ashes' of the fire at the Paddington tram shed / car barn in 1962 which destroyed 65 trams. They were an improvement over the FM class, but there were only eight of them.

 

Edited February 11, 2023 by Ozexpatriate

[Ozexpatriate]

1 hour ago, monkeysarefun said:

Its sobering these days to see old photos or movies shot  in the 60's , 70's and up to the mid 80's, to be reminded how dominant the local cars were on our street.

Brisbane CBD. I get an Adelaide St. vibe from this but I'm not sure. It's before my clear memories of the city.

 

Here's 498 when new.

 

Edited February 11, 2023 by Ozexpatriate

[monkeysarefun]

41 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Brisbane CBD. I get an Adelaide St. vibe from this but I'm not sure. It's before my clear memories of the city.

 

 

 

Well done, original source says its the Adelaide St/George St intersection, looking North in December 1965 . The buildings the other side of the multi-verandah-ed one (opposite the old Brisbane City Hall)  are pretty much all that you can recognise now..

 

https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-27.4699192,153.0231352,3a,75y,64.94h,102.97t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sS7AbXFYcjU2udv1goytq8Q!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en-GB

 

Edited February 11, 2023 by monkeysarefun

[Ozexpatriate]

4 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

Well done, original source says its the Adelaide St/George St intersection, looking North in December 1965.

Exactly where I thought. There's a hint of city hall columns on the left. The gap between buildings on the left would be King George Square, in front of City Hall.

[SRman]

58 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

'Gabba Fiveways, Woolloongabba, Brisbane. Olsen and Goodchap and Coupon Furniture stores. (Olympic Tyre and Rubber signage behind.)

 

The cricket ground is across the street-ish.

 

Phoenix class tram 549. The internet is a strange place. Here is the final resting place of 549. You can still make out the Cinzano markings. 548 is alive and well at the Sydney tramway museum.

 

The Phoenix Class 'rose from the ashes' of the fire at the Paddington tram shed / car barn in 1962 which destroyed 65 trams. They were an improvement over the FM class, but there were only eight of them.

 

 

That brings back a few memories. I bought a few tyres and batteries from Olympic Tyre and Rubber over the years. Going back to earlier times than that, I remember my father visiting Brisbane from Rockhampton and wanting to turn into Logan Road at the Fiveways: he sat waiting for the lights to go green, not realising why everyone else was honking at him ... they were the tram controller lights! The Fiveways didn't have traffic lights at that time.

The old Paddington tram depot became a shopping centre.

[Gwiwer]

SW5 class tram 727 at Swanston and Flinders Sts in Melbourne.  Possibly the most-recognisable and surely the most-photographed intersection in the city.  The more usual view is about 120-degrees to the left and includes the main entrance and dome of the Palace of Attendance, Flinders Street station.  

 

The route 16 tram still goes to St. Kilda Beach though no longer covers the last little bit of Fitzroy Street.  It has been joined to the former 69 (St. Kilda - Kew Cotham Road) and works through the famed beach-side suburb rather than terminating there.  

 

Tram 727 is also a survivor.  It was shipped off with many others of its kind to the former railway workshops in Newport.  The East Block there became a tram graveyard in the early 1990s with many still there, gathering dust, rust and rot.  A few have been removed and donated to "worthy causes" or sold.  Often as not those causes see the trams rotting in the open instead ......... 

 

You have to be very very lucky and know the right person on the right day with a fair wind to get inside East Block.  It's dilapidated, the roof is  suspect and it's full of all sorts of carp.  And guano.  It is also the location where accident-damaged items of railway rolling-stock are stored out of sight.  They need to be kept away fro prying eyes because they may be (or have been) the subject of court cases.  Such as the tragic case of the steam-hauled wedding-special involved in a multiple-fatality level-crossing collision.  It's in there, sheeted over, and is unlikely to ever see the light of day again.  99.9% of gunzels would give an arm, leg and first-born to get inside that shed.  The other 0.1% won't admit they are among the privileged few.  

[Ozexpatriate]

9 minutes ago, SRman said:

The Fiveways didn't have traffic lights at that time.

It did have a flagman (ringing a bell) that had to walk locomotives across the fiveways coming out of the 'Gabba yards across to run alongside Ipswich Road.

 

Photograph here.

 

The caption on the photograph reads:

Quote

Locomotive from the mis-spelled ‘Wooloongabba’ train yard crosses the Woolloongabba Fiveways where Stanley Street meets Main Street, Ipswich Road and Logan Road.

It's not a misspelling. Queensland railways consistently used the spelling "Wooloongabba". The Post Office used "Woolloongabba".

 

Other images of the flagman here.

 

Edited February 11, 2023 by Ozexpatriate

[monkeysarefun]

1 hour ago, Ozexpatriate said:

It did have a flagman (ringing a bell) that had to walk locomotives across the fiveways coming out of the 'Gabba yards across to run alongside Ipswich Road.

 

Photograph here.

 

The caption on the photograph reads:

It's not a misspelling. Queensland railways consistently used the spelling "Wooloongabba". The Post Office used "Woolloongabba".

 

Other images of the flagman here.

 

It's little known that Sydney once had the  largest tram network in the world after London.

Some of the beach side routes must have been among  the most scenic anywhere at the time. (Obligatory VW Beetle in background ..)

 

The P and the  O class trams are the most famous. Introduced in the early 1900s, they had external footboards that  the conductor would dash up and down on collecting fares.

 

Coupled together in double sets like this, crush loading was 180 passengers (The beetle isn't even trying in this one.) They were finally withdrawn from service in the 1950s.

 In the 1930s corridor trams of the R and R1 class were introduced.

 

The  tram bodies pop up everywhere. For instance the local cake shop has one out the back that it uses as a kids birthday party venue.

 

Edited February 12, 2023 by monkeysarefun

[Ozexpatriate]

18 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

It's little known that Sydney once had the  largest tram network in the world after London.

There were a lot of really large tram networks. Some of the 'largest' statistics are a function of whether they were contained within a single municipality or were 'interurbans' as a technicality in a large metropolitan area.

 

At it's peak the Pacific Electric (Red Car)* lines in Los Angles covered more than 1,000 miles. 

Quote

Following these acquisitions, PE was the largest operator of interurban electric railway passenger service in the world, with 2,160 daily trains over 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of track.

* Which people might remember from the movie "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"

 

Portland had a very extensive system as well with more than 200 miles of services in Portland - not counting the electric interurbans that ran south down the valley on the Oregon Electric Railway. I've seen suggestions that Portland had the most trackage per capita for an urban tramway / streetcar system but I'm not sure where I saw that.

[cctransuk]

A quick railway update on our Oz Brisbane - Adelaide coastal jaunt.

 

En route from Sydney to Katoomba, whilst waiting at traffic signals - so I couldn't get a proper look - an eclectic mixture of five locos appeared alongside, comprising an alternating consist of modern and 1960s bonnet types on a long container train; impressive!

 

Yesterday morning we passed through Oberon, and noted what appeared to be a budding heritage railway under reconstruction. We didn't stop to investigate - I try to avoid injecting too much railway content when on holiday!

 

Then, yesterday evening, on leaving an excellent pub opposite Katoomba station, an XPT rake pulled in, paused for a couple of minutes, and then pulled out in that inimitatable, purposeful, HST / XPT fashion; happy memories of Bodmin Parkway station back home - soon to be gone forever!

 

John Isherwood.

 

PS. Totally out of character, I had earlier recited the Stanley Holloway classic "The Lion and Albert", in my best native Lancastrian accent, to a poetry group meeting in the pub. It was received with a standing ovation, to my immense gratification! I doubt that an Ozzie interloper at a similar UK gathering would have received such warm treatment!

 

Two weeks gone - three to go, and a very enjoyable time we are having, too.

 

Having said that, will SOMEONE please tell Googlemaps that, since the new tramway opened, the bottom end of Jamison Street, Sydney has been closed at George Street!

 

Google still thinks that Jamison Street is one-way, and that, consequently, there is no legal way to get to the Amora Hotel!

 

[Barry O]

5 hours ago, cctransuk said:

A quick railway update on our Oz Brisbane - Adelaide coastal jaunt.

 

En route from Sydney to Katoomba, whilst waiting at traffic signals - so I couldn't get a proper look - an eclectic mixture of five locos appeared alongside, comprising an alternating consist of modern and 1960s bonnet types on a long container train; impressive!

 

Yesterday morning we passed through Oberon, and noted what appeared to be a budding heritage railway under reconstruction. We didn't stop to investigate - I try to avoid injecting too much railway content when on holiday!

 

Then, yesterday evening, on leaving an excellent pub opposite Katoomba station, an XPT rake pulled in, paused for a couple of minutes, and then pulled out in that inimitatable, purposeful, HST / XPT fashion; happy memories of Bodmin Parkway station back home - soon to be gone forever!

 

John Isherwood.

 

PS. Totally out of character, I had earlier recited the Stanley Holloway classic "The Lion and Albert", in my best native Lancastrian accent, to a poetry group meeting in the pub. It was received with a standing ovation, to my immense gratification! I doubt that an Ozzie interloper at a similar UK gathering would have received such warm treatment!

 

Two weeks gone - three to go, and a very enjoyable time we are having, too.

 

Having said that, will SOMEONE please tell Googlemaps that, since the new tramway opened, the bottom end of Jamison Street, Sydney has been closed at George Street!

 

Google still thinks that Jamison Street is one-way, and that, consequently, there is no legal way to get to the Amora Hotel!

 

Use WAZE.. an App for your phone. It is kept up to date everywhere.. Australia and New Zealand can defeat Google maps very easily.

 

Baz

Edited February 13, 2023 by Barry O

[monkeysarefun]

4 hours ago, cctransuk said:

Having said that, will SOMEONE please tell Googlemaps that, since the new tramway opened, the bottom end of Jamison Street, Sydney has been closed at George Street!

 

Google still thinks that Jamison Street is one-way, and that, consequently, there is no legal way to get to the Amora Hotel!

I assumed Google maps was acting up for you when you mentioned that  you were in Oberon!

Edited February 13, 2023 by monkeysarefun

[Ozexpatriate]

3 hours ago, Barry O said:

Use WAZE.. an App for your phone.

WAZE is owned by Google. It was an acquisition - originally FreeMap Israel.

[monkeysarefun]

Happy Valentines Day my baby, you're looking better every year!

[monkeysarefun]

OK, a question  for the dummies like me - but what is to stop those who have an interest in doing this from simply going to the nearest road or carpark and just finding a suitable victim, or is EVERYTHING shifting to solely online now, even numberplate fraud??

 

https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/bundaberg/warning-cover-up-your-number-plates/news-story/36e76e9fb5edddd23938b479a0ed6b43

 

(PS: If my ute is accused of crimes in the next couple of days, I'll know its one of you guys!) 

Edited February 13, 2023 by monkeysarefun

[PaulCheffus]

7 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

OK, a question  for the dummies like me - but what is to stop those who have an interest in doing this from simply going to the nearest road or carpark and just finding a suitable victim, or is EVERYTHING shifting to solely online now, even numberplate fraud??

 

https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/bundaberg/warning-cover-up-your-number-plates/news-story/36e76e9fb5edddd23938b479a0ed6b43

 

(PS: If my ute is accused of crimes in the next couple of days, I'll know its one of you guys!) 

Hi

 

More effort required plus they need to find the same model, colour they want to use. The internet is much easier.

 

Cheers

 

Paul