Australian History

[backcreek]

Great story Duck.
Would the lack of pottery and glass tend to indicate that the ship was a working whaler or sealer. It could be an indication of a vessel which was only doing short hops and therefore didn't require cooking utensils etc.
I have been a certified diver for 30 years, don't do much nowadays but to find something like that is the holy grail for a diver.
People spend their lives looking for something like this.
Good on you.

Cheers
Mick

 

[the duck]

I think it is all under 5 feet of silt in all honesty and the wreck will need a dredge on it before anything is found and yes it was a great find kept me busy for a few years of research but still would love it to be resolved

 

[headbut]

What make of pie am I eating ?

Humble?

Kate Lloyd was Ned Kelly's cousin.
Depending on which articles you read, she was "very fond of him" and/or "Ned was in love with her"

Hey guys frigin freezing today at Tuena , no one else there , creek up 1 foot !! & running like a banchee , but the sun shone ....saw quite a few flakes in the sluice, so will see how the cleanup goes later in the week

RR correct , was his lover , going to read Ducks story part 2

 

[headbut]

Yeah awesome stuff there Duck , could only be better when you find the name of it

And all its sunken treasure under it

 

[Sw1fty]

That was a great read Duck, thanks very much.

 

[Ramjet]

Yes awesome story Duck. Thank you.

Sorry I wasn't around last night.
Moving from Australia's amazing animals to the equally fascinating plant life.
Australia really is the most amazingly fecund country. It is thought to contain something on the order of 25,000 species of plants (Britain, for purposes of comparison, has 1,600 species) but thats really only a guess. At least a third of what is out there has never been named or studied.

Question... Why do we have such a huge diversity of plant life?
There are 2 reasons one obvious, one not so much

 

[Pr2cv]

Because of our diversity of climate,soils & terrain.

Our insular position being an island & in the Southern Hemisphere ,where the major land masses are a long way from each other & weather systems are in an opposing direction to the Northern hemisphere .
A completely different evolutionary pattern here. & the oldest continent on earth.

 

[Ramjet]

Well played Pete. I thought that would have been a difficult one.
Your turn

The question that naturally occurs in all this is why Australia, which so often seems singularly hostile to life, has produced such an abundance of it. Paradoxically, half the answer lies in the very poverty of the soil. In the temperate world most plants can prosper in most placesan oak tree can grow as productively in Oregon as it can in Pennsylvaniaand so a relatively few generalist species tend to predominate. In poor soils, on the other hand, plants are driven to specialize. One species will learn to tolerate soils containing, say, high concentrations of nickel, an element that other plants find distasteful. Another will become tolerant of copper. Yet another might learn to tolerate nickel and copper, and perhaps prolonged drought as well. And so it goes. After a few million years, you end up with a landscape filled with a great variety of plants each favoring very specific conditions and each master of a patch of ground that few other plants could abide. Specialized plants lead to specialized insects, and so on up the food chain. The result is a country that seems on the face of it hostile to life but in fact is wonderfully diversified.

The second, more obvious factor in Australias variety is isolation. Fifty million years as an island clearly sheltered indigenous life-forms from a great deal of competition and allowed certain of themeucalypts in the plant world, marsupials in the animal worldto prosper uncommonly. But no less important in terms of species diversity is the isolation that has long existed within Australia.

 

[Pr2cv]

Thanks Rod,

On with the thinking cap.

 

[Pr2cv]

On the east coast there are 3 tunnels,one in Qld close to a copper mining area which is the longest unlined tunnel in Australia now used as a roadway.The other 2 are in NSW that were built as a designated roadway.
Both unlined.

Where are they?

 

[headbut]

Boolboonda, Woy Woy & Blue mountains ?

 

[Pr2cv]

Boonboonda is correct ,near Mt Perry in the Burnett district
Incorrect on the other,sorry

 

[headbut]

Epping tunnel on M2 ?

 

[Pr2cv]

Nope.

 

[headbut]

Grafton - Glenn Innes Road & Jenolan Caves ?

 

[Ramjet]

Tugun bypass?

 

[headbut]

The last 2 should be NSW RR , correct one I got was QLD

 

[Ramjet]

Seems their may be more than 3?
would like to visit road (or rail) tunnels in Australia that are not lined with bricks or concrete.

I have been through a number by motor vehicle including

** In Snowy Mountains in a bus, when in High School, to an underground power station, probably Tumut River (NSW )
** Between Mittagong and Taralga- near Wollondilly River (NSW Southern Tablelands)
** Jenolan Caves Arch (NSW Blue Mountains)
** Sandy Hollow/ Maryvale Railway - Coxes Gap- no longer accessable since railway built in 1981 (NSW Hunter River)
** Newnes Railway - near Glow Worm Tunnel (NSW Blue Mountains)

I know there are more - but have no idea how many there are!

I am aware of Tunnel west of Grafton. I had an idea there is one west of sunshine coast (Queensland)

 

[Ramjet]

The last 2 should be NSW RR , correct one I got was QLD

Tugun near Tweed Heads, still part of NSW I think

 

[headbut]

QLD