Two out of Two!

When I posted this WIIW I said “I don’t think this is a toughie”

And I didn’t because 3 out of 4 of my test subjects (AKA my family) came up with answers that earned good points.
Then when John G said “bloody hell.... I have no idea”, I wondered if it was a bit harder.

Linda G didn’t have a real guess but said “Whatever it is, it's rusty! (There. I get partial credit for that, don't I?)”

Yes, Linda it is rusty so as your statement is factually correct I suppose you have earned some points. 49% for barrack room lawyer Linda :-)

Marcy was more creative with “is it a speaker of some sort? An old fashioned kind like on a boat? Honestly, I don't know, but I agree with Linda, it looks rusty! Which means metal, right?”
I can see that it does look like it has a shape to keep moisture out, and yes it is metal, so 49% + 10% for a good effort. 59% for Marcy.

Susan said “Oh, pbbbbbbt! You NEVER think your pictures are "toughies". Well, I beg to differ. (It's either that or I'm just plain dumb, and I refuse to accept that possibility.) I have to agree with Linda, though, that whatever it is appears to be rusted and in dire need of cleaning. Beyond that, beats me!”

I am hurt Susan, hurt :-). Actually when I put this up I thought of you Susan (no not because it is old).
You often post about cars and have posted about you and your hubby’s interest in things like Model A Fords, so I guessed you would have seen one of these or could work it out from the background. More on that in a moment, 49% for Susan.

Carolyn V, guessed “The first thought I had was chocolate (I'm a little hungry) and a rusty tractor.”
Definitely not chocolate, but your second guess is exactly what my experimental subjects guessed. A rusty tractor is near enough to earn serious points 60% for Carolyn!

But our star once again is Jennifer (AKA Old Kitty) with her guess: “It's a bit off a very old car!”

It is! 100% for Jennifer!

I found this old car in Steiglitz. Steiglitz is a ghost-town in Victoria dating back to the  Gold-Rush era.
The part in the piccie is the hood on the crank-case vent of this old car. New cars have the vented fumes running back into the inlet manifold to burn off the oil fumes. But in the bad old days those fumes just vented into the atmosphere.

I thought the give-away for anyone who has looked closely at engines would be the Welch plug behind the hood, but maybe I have looked at too many engine blocks in my time :-).

Where has the week gone?

Somehow it is Tuesday, where did the week go?
Because I have WIIW tomorrow I had better provide the answer to last week's tonight.Nobody guessed 100% right.

Once again I can’t mark Linda G wrong.
It is indeed a cylindrical building with windows!
Linda you would make a great barrack room lawyer.
I guess I have to give you 50%.

The most popular guess was lighthouse which is just dead wrong (although I thought that was what people would guess).
Kitty guessed a turret, I can see that.
Kristen M said NOT a lighthouse, so I guess that deserves 50% for not falling into my trap.
But no one was really close.
Here it is:It is a water tower. This structure is part of the Echuca water supply.

As well as being unusually elaborate for a water tank it has some historical significance from an Oz perspective.
Completed in 1915 it was a civil engineering project supervised by John Monash who went on to become Australia’s most senior General in World War One.

For those of you who are interested, Echuca sits at the junction of the Murray River and the Campaspe River on the border between Victoria and NSW. It's on the southern bank of the Murray which means it is in my current home state, Victoria.

By Public Demand

More Piccies of the Twelve Apostles.
Not strictly one of the Apostles, this is one of the popular viewing points. The people on the top give you an idea of the scale of these cliffs.
In the old days the Twelve Apostles were called “the Sow and Piglets”
Then some marketing genius suggested a rename.

After the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge these are probably the third most photographed scenery in Oz (Uluru – Ayers Rock is probably no. 4)

The Apostles lie on the Great Ocean Road only three or four hours drive from Melbourne (depending which way you go) and as you can see very beautiful.

I hate them because they are so busy (by Oz standards).

But I love them because they are so beautiful.

These next three photos show part of why I like them so much.Every five minutes they change colour

Two of them mid afternoon on a sunny day. (I took this Sunday past in a gap in the storms).

This one was taken about five minutes after the one I posted the other day (just before sunset last Saturday).

And this one was taken about 15 minutes later.

Stone, sunlight, wind and cloud all combining to create visual poetry.

By the way I don't think the Apostles are the most stunning part of the coast.

More of the coast next time.

Nga keeat Billimina

In the rugged Grampian ranges.Along rough bush trailsHidden in the high ground around the valleys
Often under shallow overhangs like thisLie special placesNga keeat Billimina
In the language of the people of the land “Welcome to Billimina shelter.”

Billimina is a special place, this shallow overhang which lies behind a cleared dance –floor has a rock face literally covered with thousands of markings.

In fact this is the single largest collection of symbols in one shelter in the whole of Victoria.

Most are like these simple vertical strokes.“Tally marks” early and unimaginative European explorers called them. The archaeologists who explored this site can tell us that it was in use for thousands of years

And that the paintings here were made across a period of at least hundreds of years.

Some are vivid as if painted days rather than decades or centuries agoOthers are faint and faded and slowly being covered by the dark blotches left by the natural weathering of the rock
Some are clearly human-like figures.Maybe representations of the people who were here, maybe of spirits.

The knowledge is lost, or perhaps the descendants of the people wish to keep their secrets.

But do not mistake secrets for hostility most of the people are welcoming.

In the words of a local community elder:
“We have always lived here.
Now you have come,
Respect our culture.
It is now part of your heritage"
And most do.
But I must finish with a sad side of these ancient places

Over 100 are known just in the Grampian Ranges. Only 5 are made public
The rest lie hidden

Because while most respect these places for what they are the few…

Mean that such sites must be protected.In a few days more rock art

Next: Waterfalls in the Grampians

Fort Queenscliff Part II

I started posting about Fort Queenscliff before Christmas. Then of course I got distracted by my 200th post Q&A.

So in the tradition of my (semi-mythical) Uncle Harry I put on my tour guide’s hat and resume with a guided tour of Fort Queenscliff.

The Fort sits on the southern outskirts of Queenscliff guarding “The Rip”. The defences at Queenscliff and around Port Phillip Bay were built through the second half of the 19th century, to protect Melbourne from invasion by hostile foreign powers.
These hostile powers were identified as the French, the Russians and, at one stage during the American Civil War, the United States!

When you approach The Fort from the landward side you see a decidedly unimpressive brick wall that forms the rear defence. Originally there was a dry moat and there are dozens of loopholes for rifle fire from inside. But with my knowledge of military technology I was unimpressed. Yes the fort was built in the Nineteenth Century but it was clear that any force bringing even light artillery to bear on this wall would have quickly overcome these defences.

However, I wasn’t quite ready to write the fort off, it was after all designed to protect the entrance to Port Phillip Bay from the sea.

Inside the fort the tour starts with the interior buildings. One is the Black Lighthouse which I posted about previously. Standing next to this is an old signal tower. Fort Queenscliff was only one of a chain of forts built around the entrance to The Bay.
Any defence of Port Phillip Bay would have been coordinated by signals sent through this tower.

Next you pass this Georgian style building. Before The Fort was built this was the civilian post and telegraph office for the town. When the fort was built it was closed to civilians, the offices were shifted into the town. This building became part of the Fort’s hospital.

Then you approach what was the real business end of the fort. These bunker walls form the back side of a massive earth bank that is the front wall of the fort. Set into the bank are a number of heavy gun emplacements.
This is a Nineteenth Century “disappearing gun”And from below. The concept of the gun was that once it was fired it would drop out of sight so the crew could safely reload it. The massive hydraulic ram would lift it up to be fired again.

This is the latest in 19th century communication technology, a brass speaking tube to pass orders to the original magazines deep beneath the base of the guns.

Down below is a whole network of tunnels to allow communication and troops to move around The Fort while under fire.One feature I liked was the original brass oil lamps set in alcoves in the walls. These were locked behind glass to prevent accidents setting off the tonnes of high explosive that were once stored down here. The modern electric lights make things much easier

Back up top we then saw the emplacements built for twentieth century shore battery guns.Impressive until you realise they are dummies. The shield is the original from gun that was sited here in the 1930s, but the barrel is a fake.
With World War II there was a sudden realisation that Japanese naval air-power could easily target these guns. So they were moved to camouflaged positions near Point Lonsdale. The dummies were placed so enemy aerial reconnaissance or spies would report the guns were still in place and waste effort targeting a ruse.

This final photo is of the command bunker used in WWI and WWII.Allegedly the first angry Allied shots of WWI were ordered from here when a German merchant vessel attempted to make a run for the open ocean.

By the 1880s Port Phillip Bay was the most heavily defended port anywhere in the British Empire. Would anyone care to guess why?

Uncle Harry signing off.

Democracy Rules!

Well the result is in!
Fourteen good people have cast their vote.
The results:
Abstentions = 1
Cockatoos and Parrots = 2
Raging Water = 11.

Well that looks like a landslide waterslide for a post about raging water.

Sorry Cockatoo Lovers, you’ll have to wait for another time.

So here we go, on Sunday Deb and I drove out to the old Maroondah Reservoir, near Healesville in the Yarra Valley.

The reason we went was that with the flood rains we have had recently the lake has filled and for the first time in over a decade water is going over the spillway.

From where we parked the car we strolled through the gardens. Spring has sprung (so to speak) and the Rhododendrons are in full bloom.A close up.Past the blossoms we heard the roar of water.

Here was the cause, an artificial waterfall that shoots the water from the dam’s spillway back to the valley floor.
I could get very close to the bottom section of the cascade.Normally there is a path open across the weir to the base of the larger fall But at the moment it is closed because it is too wet and slippery.

Another angle on the lower cascade.Deb and I began the walk up through the gardens towards the dam wall.
We paused to grab some photos of this port-wine magnolia. Then again to have a seat in this summer house. The view back down the stairs towards the valley floor.Through a window in the garden you get a view of the larger waterfall.We crossed the dam wall, and a bridge over the spillway.This fallen tree trunk trails a finger in the racing water.We climbed the path up to the look out. You get a view down over the falls.I took some shots of wattles flowering in the bush. After Eucalyptus trees, Wattles are perhaps the next most widely spread group of plants in Oz. They range in size from small shrubs to substantial trees.

Most varieties flower in this typical yellow colour. The flowers are tiny, each about the size of a fingernail.

Some species have a white flower.I haven’t got any shots, but in spring whole areas in the bush can be golden yellow with wattle blossom.

As a total by-the-way, Australian wattles (which are Acacias) are called wattles because early European settlers used them in the construction of 'wattle and daub' walls in their first houses.

A final shot of me (courtesy of Deb) at the look out. I think I look tired, not from the walk, but from the hectic week I had at work.
Thank goodness for spaces like this near Melbourne so I can unwind on the weekends.

A Birthday

I thought I should post about a little date of local note.

Today (30 August 2010) is my adoptive city Melbourne’s 175th birthday.

So on this day in 1835 settlers who had sailed from Tasmania (now our smallest state, back then the second British colony in Australia) came ashore from the schooner Enterprize and began clearing for vegetable gardens and buildings.

Since then Melbourne has grown to a city of 4,000,000 souls.

One of Melbourne’s icons is the tram system, featuring modern and not so modern trams.Melbourne is a mix of old buildings and new.

In any area you can see a palimpsest of old and new.
The old is valued for its own sake and there are strict heritage laws to protect buildings of cultural or historical value.Of course sometimes this can cause problems for developers. For example this old factory (a shot tower) was where a developer wanted to build a new shopping centre.But then again, with a little creativity you build around the old (without harming it) and end up with something interesting.