Same pictures... different post

 I have a new photo optimizing program from Ashampoo oddly enough called "Ashampoo Photo Optimizer", I am enjoying tinkering with this program and decided to see if it would bring more life and reality to the photos in my last post.
I think the results speak for themselves but you must remember that I have been in the area depicted and know the colours of the Australian outback have always looked "overdone" to eyes that have not seem them ' in the flesh' so to speak, the red soil and the vivid colour that exist here are probably not repeated anywhere else on earth.
My only disappointment is that the vivid blue of the sky was not reproduced, no doubt it was clouded by the dust created by all those hooves and tyres but also in the strengthening of other  features the blue was weakened.
I will be interested to hear comments from others in the comparison of the photos in these two posts.

Australia Day 2011

Australia is an old land but a very young country the first white settlement was in 1788 by English mariners bringing a precious cargo of convicted felons to settle this vast land, the convicts were of course supported by a few free settlers and the military personnel necessary to control them.

The first fleet brought 778 new settlers to these shores, they landed at Botany Bay and established the colony at what is now Sydney.

Over the next 40 or 50 years they pretty much dispossessed the traditional land owners, the estimated 500,00o aboriginals who had been here for some 40,000 years, so it is very unlikely that their descendants join with us in celebrating Australia Day.

The 60 years after World War 2 saw our population soar from around 10 million to 21 million with immigration from just about every country on earth accounting for a huge proportion of it.
In the 223 years of white settlement we have established 6 States and 2 territories ranging from the huge State of West Australia which occupies almost one third of the continent to the tiny island State of Tasmania and the even tinier Australian Capital Territory which houses our capital city Canberra.

Our Eastern seaboard contains Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland with Melbourne Sydney and Brisbane as their capitals, a little more than two thirds of our population lives along this coastline.

The vast, mainly flat inland of the continent is known as "The Red Centre" it covers some two thirds of the land mass and is virtually uninhabited, with Alice Springs the unofficial "Capital" and the only town of any consequence.

That same deserted Red Centre does have an irresistible magnet for Australians who have any adventure in their souls, it contains pockets of beauty that cannot be found anywhere else on Earth,such places as Uluru, The Olga's, Palm Valley, Kings Canyon, Stanley Chasm, Ormiston Gorge,The Bungle Bungles and The Kimberley, my life is now complete because I have visited and loved these places.

Because I love poetry I am going to include two very different poems in this "Celebration" of Australia Day for 2011.

The first one is almost our anthem, it describes the feelings of our settlers as opposed to the memories of their previous homeland.

My Country

The love of field and coppice,

Of green and shaded lanes,

Of ordered woods and gardens

Is running through your veins.

Strong love of grey-blue distance,

Brown streams and soft, dim skies-

I know but cannot share it,

My love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country,

A land of sweeping plains,

Of ragged mountain ranges,

Of droughts and flooding rains,

I love her far horizons,

I love her jewel-sea,

Her beauty and her terror-

The wide brown land for me.

The stark white ring-barked forests,

All tragic to the moon,

The sapphire-misted mountains,

The hot gold rush of noon,

Green tangle of the brushes

Where lithe Liana's coil

And orchids deck the treetops,

And ferns the warm dark soil.

Core of my heart, my country!

Her pitiless blue sky,

When, sick at heart, around us

We see the cattle die-

But then the grey clouds gather,

And we can bless again

The drumming of an army,

The steady soaking rain.

Core of my heart my country!

Land of the rainbow gold,

For flood and fire and famine

She pays us back threefold.

Over the thirsty paddocks,

Watch, after many days,

The filmy veil of greenness

That thickens as we gaze.

An opal heated country,

A willful, lavish land-

All those who have not loved her,

You will not understand-

Though Earth holds many splendors,

Wherever I may die,

I know to what brown country

My homing thoughts will fly.

Dorothea Mackellar 1885 – 1968.

The second one describes the sheer frustrations of living in "Outback Australia"

Oodna-bloody-datta

The bloody town’s a bloody cuss,
No bloody trams, no bloody bus.
And no-one cares for bloody us
In Oodna-bloody-datta.

Just bloody heat and bloody flies,
The bloody sweat runs in your eyes.
And if it rains, what a surprise
In Oodna-bloody-datta.

No bloody fun, no bloody games,
No bloody sport, no bloody dames.
Won’t even give their bloody names
In Oodna-bloody-datta.

No bloody clouds or bloody rain.
No bloody curbs no bloody drains.
The bloody council’s got no brains
In Oodna-bloody-datta.

The bloody goods are bloody dear’
A bloody buck for a bloody beer.
But is it good, no bloody fear
In Oodna-bloody-datta.

The bloody dances make you smile,
The bloody band is bloody vile,
They only cramp your bloody style
In Oodna-bloody-datta.

The best place is in bloody bed
With bloody ice upon your head,
You might as well be bloody dead
In Oodna-bloody-datta.

Author unknown

There is a slight overuse of the great Australian bloody adjective here to be sure, however we were left in no doubt by Mr. Anonymous as to his feelings, and that epitomizes the Australian way.

Kalgoorlie WA Superpit.

There is a historic town in WA called Kalgoorlie, it rates with the best of them when it comes to gold production and it is still producing at this time unlike some of our other very rich veins which have run out of viable deposits.

An Irish miner by the name of "Paddy Hannan" was the man who discovered gold in Kalgoorlie, the main street in town is named Hannan Street in his honor.

This mine "Poppet Head" takes pride of place at the top end of Hannan Street.

Also located nearby is the "Superpit" the enormous hole that has been carved from the gold bearing reef, this comes complete with roadways used by the giant (150 Tonne payload) trucks that bring the reef as it is shattered by explosive charges up to the surface.

As can be seen these roadways provide a fairly steep climb out of the pit

The Pinnacles WA.

The promised/threatened post about our trip to the Pinnacles!!!

Located 180 km north of Perth near the small township of Cervantes is the fascinating area known as "The Pinnacles" these limestone outcrop vary in size from needle like 2/3 inches to 15 foot high monsters, there are theories aplenty as to what causes them in this one area but as these are only theories I'm not going into them here, suffice to say there are thousands of them spread over about 100 acres.

This is on of the tallest at about 15 feet while the one alongside is about 6 feet tall but much bigger around the base.

They can occur in clusters of similar sized outcrops or as individual specimens.

We traveled in 2 cars as a family group to see the pinnacles and had a very pleasant day out until almost home when Alan's car ceased to function when the regulator on the alternator burned out allowing the battery to overcharge and overheat, while we waited for roadside assistance it got quite cool so rugs and jumpers came from everywhere.
This information is offered as an explanation for the attire in the previous post and it marked the end of a very pleasant family day out.

Colours of Australia

The colours of Australia vary from brilliant to muted shades.

The beach at Port Douglas Qld. offers a blue sky, white clouds, golden sand, turquoise water, blue hills, and green foliage.

Crops that provide every colour from vivid green, brilliant yellow, to golden.

Native flora provides every colour of the rainbow, including the green and gold of these Banksia's.

Ayers Rock, Uluru also can range from blood red to deep purple depending on the light conditions at the time.

The Golden paddocks of ripened wheat have a beauty of their own.

I don't need to tell you how much I love the purple of the jacaranda trees.

The Grey, blue, green of our natural bushland that so frustrated the early English painters who tried to capture it using the greens of England.

The lush green of spring grass, a sight not seen often enough in many parts of Australia

This striking tree is I believe an Illawarra Flame Tree, even if I'm wrong about that its a beautiful tree.

"The wide brown land for me" is a line from one of my favourite poems "My Country".

Not all these images are from my current trip, but they were inspired by the beauty around me.

The Tin Horse Highway

This post, and the "Highway" it depicts are adapted from a Power Point
Presentation complete with soundtrack, which evaded my best efforts to
post as a PPP, in the finish I took screen shots of the photos and
concocted the post that way.
It gives a real insight into Aussie humor especially in the "Outback".

Please click on photos to enbiggen.

This is outback Australia at its very best, very sparsely populated farming land.

OOOPS!!!! As WT pointed out 'a fair way west of Perth would need to be an island on the way to Madagascar as Perth is on the west coast of Australia, Kulin's bad, not mine!!!!

Readin' my playboy, umm playhorse magazine

Planning tactics for the big race day

There is a strong farming theme throughout a lot of the exhibits.

This is real "are we there yet" territory, huge distances are the norm.

Depicting the defense forces. umm horses

Chivalry is alive and well out here!!!!!!

An epic, bigger than Ben Hur!!!!!

It is thirsty country where they take any excuse to have a beer.

A play on the awesome foursome of our Olympic rowing fame.

The steeplechase event provided some interesting results.

Time for another beer!!!!

Spotlight shooting for rabbits and foxes.

A "dead cert" that really looks the part.

Tennis is pretty popular in a lot of the outback towns!!!

As is the local rodeo.

"Rocky" was also very popular... triumph of the little guy.

The horse in the rear of the last two photos has something serious on his mind.

At the end of the day this was probably a common situation.

And so we come to the end of the Tin Horse Highway, hope you enjoyed the trip and
our special brand of humor.

Australia, recent history

Upon reflection it seems that most of my Australian posts have had to do with the past, while this interests me and some of you too it gives no insight into the modern vibrant Australia that I live in today, I will make some effort to correct this situation.

Australia sits proudly among the worlds “developed” countries, which probably means only that we have similar debts, frustrations, crime rates and problems to other “developed” countries.

Our location in the Southern Hemisphere (Down Under) means that our seasons are the reverse of our Northern Hemisphere contemporaries, things happen a day earlier here as far as the clock goes but in fact, due to our relative remoteness and small population we play “catch up” most of the time when it comes to world trends.

Our very large island continent is divided into only 6 states, 1 of which is the tiny island of Tasmania, and 2 territories (please don’t ask why the 2 territories are not states…its completely beyond me) about half of our population live in the capital cities of these states the other half predominately live in other cities and towns which to a very large extent are clustered along our Eastern seaboard, the huge “Red Centre” that we love to fantasize about has only been seen by perhaps 10% of Australians.

Our city’s are modern with “adequate” services and facilities but we suffer; water shortages, power restrictions, road gridlocks, urban sprawl and sundry other modern problems, much like the rest of the world!!!

We have a vast supply of minerals; coal (fast becoming a dirty word), iron ore, bauxite (aluminium), copper, silver, gold, diamonds and even uranium, but having chosen?? To live in the “world society” governed by the “world market” we have an ever decreasing manufacturing industry choosing?? To import a huge percentage of our needs from “developing” countries.

Our climate is diverse as well, it ranges from temperate in the South with 4 distinct seasons to sub-tropical in the North with a Wet and a Dry season, this South to North covers some 2500 miles so there is a gradual change as you travel rather than a sudden change.

In the Southern highlands we have more snow annually than Switzerland but in almost all other regions there is no snowfall at all, the relative humidity of the North, often hovering around 75%, particularly near the coast line (where most of us live) takes visitors by surprise and takes a lot of getting used to.

Rainfall also varies from “a few metres” around the mountains of the North to 30 inches as an average in our best areas to 10 inches in our marginal country, the red centre gets only a small portion of that 10 inch annual rainfall.

Predominately we still live in houses that are located on their own block of ground but there has been a trend over the last 20/30 years toward more communal living, apartments and cluster style housing.

Our Government is based on the British Parliamentary system with an upper and lower house, similar I suppose to the government and senate of the USA, we have basically a two party system; Labor, traditionally blue collar workers, and Liberal, traditionally white collar workers, these lines often get muddied up a bit as times change and minor parties emerge, usually briefly, for their 5 minutes of fame.

Australia is peopled predominantly by Christian white anglo-saxon’s although we have had for many years a substantial immigration program which now means that people from almost every country on earth call Australia home, this has led to many changes in most aspects of life in Australia from religion, to foods and cultures.

To write a post such as this without mentioning Sport would be like going to a Barbie (barbecue) without the snags (sausages) and burgers, Australians are among the most sport oriented people on earth, whether its as participants or as spectators, whether they are male, female, adult or child when it comes to sport we are there!!!!!!

Should any aspect of this post strike your fancy I will be pleased to give you more information on it.

Contest # 2 answers

We have a winner!!!

Karisma will you please email me a postal address

Contest question # 2 answers;

I used the term “generally accepted” on purpose as the claims for these titles are open to a lot of debate.

Hottest;

Way back in 1899 the Queensland town of Cloncurry is credited with a temperature of 53 c, while Birdsville also in Queensland recorded 49 c on Jan 5 2004.
But without doubt in my mind the title belongs to Marble Bar a small town in WA. Where in 1926 the daily maximum temperature exceeded 100 F for 161 days… that’s as hot as Hell in my book.

Wettest;

Cape Tribulation recorded 1.5 metres (that’s 59 inches) of rain in a 36 hour period in 1996… that’s pretty damp!!!!
But for consistency the Queensland town of Tully is the winner, (just scraping home from neighboring town of Babinda) Tully has an average annual rainfall of just over 4 metres but has been known to reach 7.93 metres…. That’s over 25 feet or 300 inches…. Also pretty damp!!!!

Coldest;

This one is the hardest to track down, I discarded Antarctica as its not on the mainland nor are there any “Towns” as such there.
The coldest recorded temperature was taken at Charlottes Pass, in the Snowy Mountains, where it reached a brisk minus 23 c in 1994…. Perisher Valley is the closest town to Charlottes Pass and is certainly a cold spot but it’s a ski resort, with full facilities during winter, but most of these close down for the rest of the year.
The nearby town of Jindabyne qualifies fully and shares with Perisher Valley an average year round minimum temperature of only 8.5 c with a July average minimum of minus 1.6 c Brrrrr.
Collinsvale in Tasmania is perhaps the only town that can beat Jindabyne, here the year round average minimum temperature is only 7.5 c and in July it gets seriously cold too.

So to summarize, in contest order I chose, Marble Bar, Jindabyne, and Tully.
But I have accepted Karisma's answers and we will now move on,

Don't forget to Email those postal address's to me... EMAIL is on the sidebar.

On my sidebar under “Random Thoughts” you will find this;

"A neurotic is a man who builds a castle in the air. A psychotic is the man who lives in it. A psychiatrist is the man who collects the rent." ~Jerome Lawrence.

Contest results

Contest results;

I need the following people to email me a postal address so that I can send them some DVDs.

Walker;

For being the 100,000^th visitor to holtieshouse, I had hoped that it would be a regular reader who made this visit and Walker is one of my most regular commenter’s so I’m very pleased with this result. He also had some interesting ideas for the questions.

Jerry (lz blogger);

For GUESSING that “soldiers” meant cold, if these were video tapes Jerry I would cut half the tape off and send you the abbreviated version!!!!

Christina;

The first one to legitimately answer the “soldiers” question.

Dave;

Because you got the “soldiers” part right and at least had the initiative to google Humpty Doo.

Jamie Dawn;

How could I not award a prize to a lady who described cold so well, chilly or nippy or nipply. Jamie you were also the only one who got close to the “Humpty Doo” part by referring to the agricultural failure.

Instead of google (or your choice of search engine) you should have searched my blog, where you would have found these gems.

http://holtieshouse.blogspot.com/2008/09/australian-as-she-is-spoken-4.html

Where a bit of a search would have unearthed “soldiers bold” = cold in rhyming slang.

http://holtieshouse.blogspot.com/2006/04/kids-say-darndest-things.html

http://holtieshouse.blogspot.com/2006/04/humpty-doo.html

where you would have read of Art Linkletter’s association with Australia.

Now, I am very disappointed in the response to question #2 (I am contemplating a prize to Karisma for her novel answer to the bonus question) I’m going to ask my overseas (yes that’s you too Jerry) if they would join in and tell us the answer to this one too, let me give you a clue though… if you search my blog for “Australian weather” you will get some amazing revelations… but not the answers you seek. As for the bonus questions these are a bit of a side issue.

Happy hunting!!!!