Wrattie's World

How Do The Greens Stack Up?

2009-07-10T09:40:00.003+12:00

Fairfacts Media sums up over at No Minister.

"Thus, you see how the Greens want to regulate, control, and more likely ban everything there is. Even for things that might not have connections to what most people consider environmental.
Hence, the Greens are the ultimate nannies, as shown in their promotion of the anti-smacking bill in New Zealand.
This is why they truly are the watermelon Party, green on the outside, red in the middle. They love socialism and marxism for their love of control. Greens seek to tax, regulate, control, not just big business business but people. Scratch a Greenie and you get the ultimate totalitarian. Ban flying, ban cars, ban large families. Ban smoking, but not if it is cannabis."

Read all of it HERE and at The FairFacts Media Show.

Isn't It Time ....

2009-07-08T20:17:00.004+12:00

the sheeple saw the real agenda behind the Global Alarm Fest.

Watch the video.

And read about it here at 'Watts Up With That'.

The 'A' Team

2009-07-08T18:13:00.003+12:00

Meg, Jessie, Ned, Ben, Pip & Gem.

Pip & Gem.

My Turn ...

2009-07-07T19:02:00.005+12:00

When I used to chuck bunnies on the lawn for Jason, one of the locals got to know about it and would regularly cruise over to check what was on offer.

If he spotted Jason's left-overs, he would drop in for a feed.

Harrier Hawk.

Jason

2009-07-06T20:41:00.003+12:00

In the mid '90's a friend of ours rang from Motueka to ask us if we wanted a big ginger cat. He told us that the cat, 'Jason Ginger', had been owned by an old lady up there who had gone into a home and Jason was now residing in a cattery.

The cattery had been trying to find a home for Jason but because of his age at four years, there were no takers; the cattery were thinking of putting him down.

We told Dave that yes, we would like the cat but getting him all the way down to Sheffield would probably pose too much of a problem ... wouldn't it?

Dave said, "If you want to have him, I'll get him down to you".

This was at the time when Ansett Airlines were running their very popular cat ad on TV and Dave being a very enthusiastic kind of chap and full of bright ideas, decided to give Air New Zealand a bell and make a proposition. He told ANZ that if they would fly Jason to Christchurch for nothing, he would get the story in the news papers. They agreed!

Jason duly arrived at Christchurch on a 737 and we brought him home.

The funniest thing I've seen in a long, long time was when we let Jace out of his cage in the kitchen, still drugged up to the eyeballs with his mandatory dose for flying on the airline, and our pet baby wallaby went hopping by. I can still see him sitting there watching the wallaby with a pissed look on his face. I imagined him thinking, "Wow! Look at the size of that mouse!"

Dave, true to his word, not only got the story of Jason's flight to freedom on the front page of the Nelson Mail but in the Press also.

The favourite winter spot.

The greatest excitment was when I shot a rabbit and chucked it out on the lawn.

Jason owned us for the next twelve years.

Unfortunately, for the last three years of his life Jason had diabetes and was on a very strict diet; no more bunnies, and I had to give him two insulin shots a day. At sixteen years old it all got too much for him and we had to put him down.

But I reckon he had a pretty good life, with his own pet humans and a farm to roam around.

Inspired by Gecko With Canon.

Just Thinkin

2009-07-05T09:25:00.004+12:00

Yesterday would have been a good time for Barry to start drafting his 'Declaration Of Dependence'.

Winter '09

2009-07-03T13:07:00.004+12:00

I talked to my brother in Fiji on Skype the other day. He was sitting in his office, dressed in his light, short-sleeved shirt, skiting about how warm it was. 30 deg he said, while we were in the house shivering by the fire with an outside temp of about 3 deg.

Woke up to snow this morning and decided to put some pickies on here to show big bro what it's actually like in the 'real world'!

Looking slightly south of Christchurch. Coalgate centre right.

Through the shoulder of the right hand goat is Springfield ... Torlesse Range behind.

Sou' West toward Whitecliffs.

Animated Knots by Grog

2009-06-30T00:16:00.005+12:00

I am so impressed by this site, Animated Knots by Grog, I've put a permanent link to it on the sidebar.

Be sure to read 'The Grog Story' here.

Update: Found another great site for fishing, rigging and equestrian knots in 'Andy's World of Knots' at Marinews ... down the page a bit.

Horse Quotes

2009-06-27T21:27:00.008+12:00

To err is human, to blame the horse is even more human.

A Horseman should know neither fear, nor anger.

The most wonderful thing about riding, is getting off and knowing you've both enjoyed it.

A stubborn horse walks behind you, an impatient horse walks in front of you, but a noble companion walks beside you.

Care, and not fine stables, makes a good horse.

Never ride faster than your guardian angel can fly!

The horse stopped with a jerk, and the jerk fell off.

When you are on a great horse, you have the best seat you will ever have.

I have seen things so beautiful, they have brought tears to my eyes. Yet, none of them can match the gracefulness and beauty of a horse running free.

The horse you get off is not the same as the horse you got on; it is your job as a rider to ensure that as often as possible the change is for the better.

All horses deserve - at least once in their lives - to be loved by a little girl.

If you take the time it takes, it will take less time.

Horse's need a strong leader, not a rough and tough leader

A poor craftsman blames his tools; A poor horseman blames his horse.

In tug-of-war, the dumber animal always wins.

Ask not what your horse can do for you - Ask what you can do for your horse.

A young trooper should have an old horse.

No one can teach riding so well as a horse.

Prelude du Fornication

2009-06-26T21:41:00.003+12:00

The Bear, The Lion & The Pig

2009-06-22T23:21:00.001+12:00

A bear, a lion and a pig meet.

Bear says: "If I roar in the forest, the entire forest is shivering with fear."

Lion says: "If I roar in the jungle, the entire jungle is afraid of me."

Pig says: "Big deal.... I only have to cough, and the entire planet shits itself."

Country Calender

2009-06-22T00:28:00.005+12:00

When the TV crew rang Dick to ask if they could come on the cattle muster and film it for Country Calender, they asked if they needed to pay for accommodation and food. Dick answered, "No. You bring the beer and we'll bring the tucker!"

And that's what they did!

It was a great muster, enlivened by heaps of raucous hilarity in the huts at night.

It's a real shame they had to edit 8 1/2 hours of video down to 22 minutes for the program.

On the next episode, screening June 20 at 7pm on TV ONE:

While most eight-year-olds pester their parents for a new toy, a trip to the movies or a digital device, Mount White Station's Mark Smith had a different birthday present in mind.

Mark was desperate to take his pony on the Canterbury high country station's annual cattle muster - and when he got his wish, a Country Calendar crew went with him.

According to his dad, station manager Richard Smith, the youngster had been pleading for over a year to join him and the other stockmen on the four-day muster.

Read more and check out the links at the bottom of the page.

See it here.

Spot the WebWrat.

Socialism - Religion Of Peace And Harmony

2009-06-19T09:04:00.005+12:00

A wonderful example of how 'Leftards' will attack your opinion and try to shut you down on Kiwiblog.

WebWrat (253) Vote: 12 3 Says:
June 18th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
How many thousands of words have been posted about this bloody smacking thing? All about the pros and cons of smacking/disciplining kids.

You are all pissing into the wind and as long as your arse points down you will never convince the ‘other side’ of your point of view.

The ’smacking bill’ has got nothing at all to do with the welfare of the nations children. It’s all about OWNERSHIP …. the government wants to OWN all of you people. Both sides of the fence. And the lefty lickspittles with their frontal lobotomies want to help them.

A bill introduced by an MP that was not voted in, working for a socialist people engineering party that got into power with the barest minimum of votes is controlling how a whole nation can raise their OWN children, it is an absolute disgrace.

I just can’t believe how anyone can support this as an acceptable situation.

If John Key wants to treat us as ballot numbers, as the previous disgusting government did, he’s lost my vote.

Be a good poll for you to do DPF …. “How does John’s attutude affect your view of National?” “Good, Bad or Ugly?”
Rebel Heart (247) Vote: 3 9 Says:
June 18th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
WebWrat: If John Key wants to treat us as ballot numbers, as the previous disgusting government did, he’s lost my vote.

He had your vote? You must be as stupid as the person who wrote the letter in David’s OP and didn’t know the difference between voting for Labour and ACT. It’s pathetic how all of a sudden people like you get on your moral high horses and think your vote is something that has any value or worth that you can brag about. Key made the compromise with Clark BEFORE the election, yet you still went ahead and voted for him. Therefore it’s your own fault for being such an idiot in the first place dumbass.
WebWrat (253) Vote: 6 1 Says:
June 18th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
Rebel Heart.

Do me a favour an point out where I said I voted for National.

There’s a good boy.

Now you can wipe the shit off your chin.
Rebel Heart (247) Vote: 0 11 Says:
June 18th, 2009 at 9:35 pm
WebWrat: Rebel Heart. Do me a favour an point out where I said I voted for National. There’s a good boy. Now you can wipe the shit off your chin.

You said he lost your vote, implying that he had it in the first place, dumb fuck. Eat your own shit that you failed to wipe off your own ass fool.
WebWrat (253) Vote: 3 0 Says:
June 18th, 2009 at 9:38 pm
Actually I didn’t vote at all.

Bullshit Baffles Brains

2009-06-19T08:30:00.003+12:00

Graph from NRO .

I hear people are quietly peeling their Obama bumper stickers off while guiltily looking around with a "Who me!" expression on their face.

Winter 2006

2009-06-18T22:20:00.006+12:00

A couple days ago I was over at No Minister and read Fairfacts Media's post on Gorbal Warming.

Seeing the sat shot reminded me of the big dump of Global Warming we had in 2006. In fact I think the sat photo I lifted from Fairfacts is of said dump.

From NIWA:

Two severe winter snowstorms accompanied by bitterly cold conditions, and later heavy frost contributed to a particularly cold June. The national average temperature of 7.3 °C was 1.2 °C below the 1971-2000 normal. This was the coldest June since 1972 which recorded 6.7 °C. The regions with the largest anomalies, more than 2.0 °C below average, were Waikato, King Country, inland Marlborough, South Canterbury, and North Otago. Parts of South Canterbury and North Otago recorded their lowest June mean temperatures in more than 50 years of record. One snowstorm hit Canterbury over 11-12 June, producing snow depths of 15 – 90 cm. The other affected the central North Island over 20-22 June. These were accompanied by bitterly cold conditions, and later heavy frost. There were more days than average in June with air frost over much of New Zealand, especially in the central North Island and the southeast of the South Island. Precipitation was about 200 percent (twice) of normal in South Canterbury. In contrast, June rainfall totals were 50 percent (half) or less of normal in much of Bay of Plenty. June was much sunnier than normal in all western and southern regions, with record high June totals in Northland, Auckland, and Waikato, and coastal Otago. Anticyclones ('highs') were much more frequent than average for June in the Australian Bight with ridges of high pressure extending into the south Tasman Sea. This pattern resulted in frequent cold southerly winds over New Zealand.

It was bad enough here where we had no power, water or phone for about two weeks, but it was far worse down in South Canterbury where the severe frosts prevented the snow from melting for 8 or 9 weeks. For all that time there were dozens of farms without power because of the exceptional number of power poles that were brought down by the snow.

I think Mitre 10 and Bunnings had a boom in selling portable generators!

We were lucky in that we didn't have the severe frosts here and our snow melted in about a week. The down-side was that the hillsides were so wet I had to use the wee dozer and trailer to feed the deer for three weeks.

HELP! How do you change the publish date on a post that has been saved in 'Draft's for a few days?

Posted this on the 20th.

Gem Surveys Her Realm

2009-06-14T20:57:00.003+12:00

Goofy

2009-06-14T18:04:00.007+12:00

Phil-In Goof poses for a photo after the 'Honey Pot' sting he orchestrated, in collusion with a couple of fraudsters, to remove a National MP and smear the PRIME MINISTER of New Zealand.

Happily Murphy stepped in and Mr Goof's corrupt and dishonest intent was exposed by Mr Whaleoil (among others but with absolutely no help [well they wouldn't would they?] from the Lame Steam Media) as being a pathetic and dishonest attempt to use gutter politics to further Labours own agenda.

Wouldn't it be nice if they were actually concerned for the citizens of this country?

Happily (I don't want to over-use this word, but it seems appropriate), Mr Goof was sprung and he was shot down with a ball of his own shit.

Wonderful.

Of course the Lame Stream Media still think the sun shines out of Mr Goofs arse, but they would, wouldn't they?

The Far Side

2009-06-11T12:59:00.003+12:00

Charlie Chaplin - Hitler

2009-06-07T13:27:00.009+12:00

Charlie provokes some thoughts.

Change we can believe in!

Dangerous Demographics

2009-06-07T13:27:00.008+12:00

The Maze

2009-06-06T17:00:00.004+12:00

A wonderful Flash Player game to test your skills.

From the site:

"The Maze Game is an amazing game of skill and patience. Do not touch the walls or you will have to start the game all over. Sound effects will help find your way to the end. Try and finish all 4 levels.

Do you have the hands of a brain surgeon or do you write with crayons? Try not to cheat and use both hands. If you can finish this game, I want you to do my next operation if I need one!"

www.winterrowd.com

De Havilland Mosquito

2009-06-04T18:08:00.015+12:00

Some great old footage of the Mosquito in action.

My father flew Wellington bombers from Sept '39 Jan '42 with No 75 (NZ) Squadron, then in Aug '42 he was posted back to New Zealand to do a tour of flying transport around the Pacific in Lodestars and DC-3 (C-47).

In Nov '43 he was sent back to England where he was offered the job of CO for 75 Squadron, which he turned down because he "Didn't want to miss all the fun!" He transfered to 487 (NZ) Squadron to have a go in the Mosquito.

No 487 (NZ) Squadron R. A. F. Hunsdon Mosquito Squadron ... Popeye 3rd from right.

Some photos I scanned out of our old family albums.

"Intruder" raid on railway work shop, Charleroi, Belgium. 12th April 1944.
11 second delay bomb hitting workshop.
Popeye's 20mm cannon fire has hit building on other side of light coloured paddock.
Tail wheel of Mosquito at top.

Flak burst.

Bomb going off.
With one engine shot out in the flack burst, Popeye climbed to 10,000 feet and cruised the 200 miles home at 180 knots on the other one.

UPDATE:
Here is pure coincidence for you. When I posted this, I hadn't even thought of the significance of the 6th of June. If I'd had my head screwed on I would have saved it a couple of days to post it!

It took KG on Crusader Rabbit to remind me.

Below is a scan of my father's log book showing what he was doing in his Mosquito on 'D' Day.

Click to enlarge.
The red writing signifies night flying and the numbers in brackets are his ops tally.

R. I. P. Pop and all your mates.

The Far Side

2009-06-03T17:48:00.004+12:00

Cains Camp

2009-05-28T00:59:00.004+12:00

Cains Camp, situated on the east side of the Esk River. The only hut on the Station that you can't drive to .... a lovely spot.

About a year ago, Richard, the manager of the Station and I walked up to Cains Camp and spent a day cutting and clearing scrub for an airstrip. Cutting the scrub was only part of the job as the ground was very rough with humps and holes and it needed to be leveled before we could land the Station Auster on it without ripping it's little wheels off. After a year, we hadn't got around to it, though Richard had had an old wheel barrow and shovel dropped off there by a visiting helicopter in preparation for the big job.

Early this year my mate, Muz, from the Coast rang and suggested we go to the Station for a hunt this 'roar'. I said, "That's a bloody good idea, we could go to Cains Camp and you can go hunting and I'll fix the strip."

For five days we had a great time. Muz went for hunts in the mornings and evenings and helped me during the day.

On the morning we were to leave, we woke up to six inches of snow on the ground.

China - Ferry Flight.

2009-05-21T18:35:00.044+12:00

When I was flying for Zurich based ZIMEX Aviation I volunteered to fly for their new contract in China. The contract was to the same oil company, AGIIP, that I flew for in Algeria.

Two companies, Italian AGIIP and American ESSO, had been granted permits by the Chinese Government to do seismic survey for oil in the Tarim Basin, Xinjian Provence and they required one Pilatus Porter aircraft each. The aircraft were required to ferry staff, freight and seismic data the 350 or so miles between the camps and the base town of Korla.

For ZIMEX to operate in China, they had to go into a joint venture with the Southern China Helicopter Co and we had to carry a pilot from that company on all flights. Without my co-pilot I would have had big problems on the radio and the other handy thing was that I never had to file a flight plan, I just did the figures and my young crew mate did all the running around. Great!

To begin my job in China, I first had to pick up my aircraft from the S. C. H. Co airfield at Zhuhai and fly it up to Korla. On August 3rd 1996, I flew from Christchurch to Auckland and on to Hong Kong, arriving at Hong Kong just after dark. What an amazing experience it was to be flying around skyscrapers to join finals at the old airport and looking at people in the kitchens of their apartments from the window of a 747!

I spent the night in Hong Kong and in the morning caught a 1 hour 15 minute ferry across to Zhuhai, where I was met by the ZIMEX pilot who had ferried my plane to China from Switzerland. The ferry flight from Zurich would have been a great experience as well, through the Greek Islands and right across India. It was unfortunate that it happened on my off-duty rotation, otherwise I may have been able to do it myself. Zurich to Zhuhai took 90 flying hours.

After checking into my hotel, I got taken to the airfield to meet the Southern China Helicopter Co troops and begin the week of mucking around until I was allowed to fly out of Zhuhai. The Porter had to have "Southern China Helicopter Co" painted on the sides, flight planning had to be done, approvals obtained to fly through the various provinces and numerous restaurants to be tried out.

Because we (the other ZIMEX pilot and I) couldn't read the menus, it was a bit hit and miss with us consuming goodies like cat, dog, snake, hamster and other strange morsels that the western palate is not tuned to! Having said that though, the food was very good once we learned how to communicate what we wanted to know; such as "What language does that speak, (pointing at an item in the menu) woof, woof?" Or "meow?" The waitress would laugh and knowing that guilos don't like the good tucker, would exclaim, "Bu, bu, bu!". Bu = no. We still got served cat and dog etc on occasion, but learned to recognise stuff we weren't too keen on. The beer was good!

Well the week passed; interesting, being in China; fascinating experiencing a totally different culture; frustrating dealing with a bureaucracy that Helen Clark could only dream of, but over-ridingly, worrying because it was monsoon season and I KNEW I would be flying IFR out of Zhuhai!

IFR = Instrument Flight Rules which means when the weather is IMC, (Instrument Meteorological Conditions) you can't see anything outside the cockpit and you have to fly the aircraft by following all those very confusing dials on the panel!

Now, don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with flying IFR, the airline jocks do it all the time, but I am a VFR (Visual Flight Rules) pilot which means that I am used to flying in weather where you can see out the window and you only look at the panel to make sure you are not not going too fast and rip your wings off.

To fly IFR you have to do what is called an IFR rating, which entails hours of training with a hood on your head so you can't cheat by looking out the window and having to fly the aircraft by instruments only. Well I'd done all that and passed my instrument rating flight test with a Civil Aviation testing officer, but there is a big difference between flying around with your instructor keeping a eye on things and flying in a monsoon in China with no-one to hold your hand! I worried and worried! A week was too long!

During the week I tried to find out what my young co-pilot knew about flying and IFR in the forlorn hope that he may be of some assistance, but he either didn't understand my questions or didn't want to tell me. I couldn't find out what experience he had at all, but at the end of the day it didn't really matter because it was a single pilot aircraft and I was the pilot in command, so I decided that I would just have to grow a pair and get on with it!

Finally we were scheduled to depart at 0930 Aug 9th. On the 8th I got the Porter (HB-FLE) fueled up in readiness. Just the main tanks because the concrete strip at Zhuhai was only about 350 metres long and the first leg of the flight was short anyway. Though I did get some fuel put in the internal tanks for a bit of reserve and to test the pumps and plumbing.

Tanking up at Zhuhai.

Fuel capacity in ferry mode:

Mains - 644 lts
External - 486 lts
Internal - 472 lts
Endurance - 12 hours

Three 44 gallon ferry tanks.

At long last I could stop stewing! Checked out of the hotel, loaded the Porter up with our gear, pre-flight check done, cranked up and taxied to the holding point at the end of the runway by 0925, perfect. Then we waited. And waited. After half an hour I shut down the engine and we continued to wait. I asked Lu (In the interest of privacy I wont name my young friend on here, I will just call him Lu) what the problem was, but apart from the fact we couldn't get a take off clearance, he didn't know. After about an hour of waiting we got told to go home and have another go tomorrow, so back to the hanger we went, topped up the fuel again, put the Porter to bed and away to check back into the hotel and have another wander round town.

I found out during the day that there was some sort of wrangle about our clearance through Lanzhou that needed to be sorted out.

Departing Zhuhai and climbing into the crap!

Aug 10th began with a repeat performance of the previous day and this time, without the waiting, we actually took off! We were away! As I had been expecting, there was an 8/8 cloud cover with a base of about 2000 feet and we were flight planned for a cruising level of 10,000 feet.

Route.* Click to enlarge.

Now that we were airborne my nerves settled down by about 400% and the climb out and getting into the cruise (still in cloud) was pretty 'stock standard' and uneventful with reasonably smooth flying. About an hour into the flight Lu asked, "I fly?" And I replied, "Yeah, why not." I thought, "Now I will find out what he knows!"

Lu flew well for about 50 minutes and maintained track and altitude with ease, which is an achievement since we were 'hand wheeling' the Porter as there was no auto pilot. The other thing we didn't have was weather radar.

Suddenly the shit hit the fan in a big way! We were into severe turbulence and you wouldn't believe the rain, it was absolutely bucketing! The aircraft got chucked all over the sky and when it was at an attitude with about 40 degrees angle of bank and the nose pointing down almost vertical, Lu threw his hands in the air and shouted, "Your control!" And I thought, "Uh huh! Now I know!"

The turbulence didn't bother me that much, it was pretty standard fare where I did most of my flying at Mount Cook back home, but what did bother me was the windscreen was leaking at the bottom, through the seal. There was a river of water cascading down through the radio stack and onto the shelf at the base of the instrument panel. This shelf is one of the very useful features of the Porter. It is about 10 inches wide and runs right across the cockpit at the base of the instrument panel and has a 2 inch sill. This is where you put all your pens, notes, flight log, ash tray and anything else you think might be handy and I now discovered it holds about a gallon and a half of water! Now all our much needed notes and bits and bobs were floating around, soaking wet and every time we hit turbulence the water sloshed out all over our legs.

The moderate turbulence and rain continued for pretty much the rest of the flight, with intermittent bouts of severe turbulence where I guessed we were flying through the odd Cb, but without radar there was no way of knowing where they were or avoiding them. My main worry was the water; I didn't relish the idea of continuing my debut IFR flight with compass and basic instruments only if the water shorted out all my radios and radio navigation gear. But it hung in there. I considered turning back to Zhuhai but for two reasons, decided to plug on. Number one: We were over half way to Guilin. Number two: I didn't want to spend another week at Zhuhai trying to get approval for another flight plan. Six to one, half a dozen the other, we carried on.

We eventually got past all the rough stuff and the rain stopped. On 'letting down' for Guilin, we broke cloud at about 3,000 feet and there was Guilin Airport, through the limestone pinnacles, bang on the nose ten miles away, in sunshine.

I felt a great sense of achievement at having successfully completed my first 'real' IFR flight and remember thinking that the efforts of my instrument instructor, Tom Dick in Christchurch, weren't in vain!

Guilin.
(Stolen off the web - can't remember where from!)

There were two reasons for our stop at Guilin; first, it was only a short leg from Zhuhai which meant we could take off from Zhuhai's short strip with a light fuel load and the other was that Guilin was Lu's home town and our stop-over allowed Lu to catch up with his parents.

Before leaving the airport, Lu and I gassed up the Porter with a full load of fuel, which turned into a bit of a disaster when Lu over-flowed the cabin tanks and about 10 gallons of Jet-A1 sprayed all over our gear and ran down into the fuselage. What a horrible job it was, inside the arse end of the Porter, in 35 degrees and 85% or so humidity, mopping up all that stinking kerosene!

However, after we got that job out of the way, I had a very interesting afternoon after checking into our hotel, wandering around Gulin with Lu showing me the sights. Unbeknownst to me, Lu's parents and uncle were cooking up a very lavish meal for us in their apartment. What a wonderful feed it was too. I love Chinese food and the way they eat; with all their different dishes on a 'lazy Susan', the little bowls and especially the chop sticks that make you pace yourself instead of shoveling the tucker down as we do with a fork. The main dish was stewed Turpin (Turtle), which is very expensive and only cooked for special occasions. I felt very humbled by the effort they went to and the respect they showed me as Lu's friend. There are some very nice people in China.

Basically the highlights of the ferry flight were all on the first day; the instrument flying and meeting Lu's family. The rest of the trip was uneventful with routine flying, except for a couple of hours on instruments out of Guilin the next day and then clear but hazy weather for the rest of the trip. Just long flights and a sore bum!

Day two on 7.8 hour flight. An alert Lu!

Actually I tell a lie. There was one other exciting little incident.

If you look at the map between Jiayquan and Hami, you will see that our flight path is very close to the Mongolian border (white line) .

On this leg we were cruising along with me complacently relying on the GPS and we crossed a range of mountains. Down in a valley in this extremely remote area I saw a group of yurts and some people on horses mustering a mob of sheep. Well, light bulbs flashed and something went ding, ding in my head telling me that things weren't quite as they seemed. I grabbed a chart and discovered that we were about 30 nautical miles into Mongolia!

In fact we'd flown right through the middle of the warning on the chart!

We got out of there "Right smart, oi can tell ye!!"

I assume that when I was dialing all my fixes into the GPS at Zhuhai, that I must have hit a wrong number.

Arrival at Korla on the edge of the Taklamakan Desert.

...................................

* The solid red dots on the route are where we landed and over-nighted. The red dots with yellow centres are towns or GPS way points that we flew over-head.

There are no stops during each days flying.

Zhuhai to Guilin - 314 nm - 2.8 hours.
Guilin to Xi'an - 819 nm - 7.8 hours.
Xi'an to Jaiyquan - 654 nm - 6.0 hours.
Jaiyquan to Korla - 710 nm - 6.9 hours.

Poulter River

2009-05-19T21:49:00.007+12:00

A post inspired by Oswald Bastable's photo of Lake Minchin.

A couple of months ago, Henry and I got sent up the Poulter to spend a night in the Turnbull Biv and then muster cows out the next day.

Looking up the Poulter. Lake Minchin is in the distant valley at left. Turnbull Biv is on top of the terrace on the right.

I see Monica Lewinsky's back.

2009-05-13T22:09:00.002+12:00

An 'axe' to grind.

2008-11-06T20:15:00.004+13:00

This is my old guitar. I bought it second hand in 1968 for $95. And that was a lot of money in those days considering I was working on the station for no salary at the time, my earnings coming from meat shooting in my spare time.

When I got married in 1971 I went on to the princely salary of $28 per week!

The guitar is a 12 string Hofner; a bit tuckered out now and can only handle six strings because with 12 the neck bends and I can't tune it. Never-the-less, with new strings on it it has a great sound and is still my old favourite.

And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda.

2008-11-04T20:11:00.005+13:00

I'm a bit of a closet guitarist and like folk, country, blues and ballardy type songs. Recently I discovered "And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" in a bunch of Joan Baez MP3s I put on my puter. I promptly downloaded the lyrics and proceeded to learn it.

Part of the appeal of this song is that it reminds me of an old guy that came to our high country station at Queenstown in the mid '60s to train a thoroughbred horse for my mother. Roy was his name. Roy must have been a bit of a hard case when he was a kid because he bull-shitted about his age and got himself on troopship bound for Gallipoli and there, amongst the carnage, had his sixteenth birthday!

Click on the image to see the song full size.

Says It All Really

2008-10-03T00:40:00.004+13:00

Click on picture to view full size.

Aussie Chant

2008-09-30T19:56:00.003+13:00

Interesting Shot

2008-09-28T22:48:00.003+13:00

An interesting shot from the fall muster '08. I thought we were going to get a wet arse, but it didn't come to anything.

Emissions Tax Scam - The Cost

2008-09-28T12:12:00.007+13:00

The ETS Bill (with it's 750 amendments) was recently pushed through Parliament under urgency. Why, no one knows except Helen Clark and her minions whose main goal in life appears to be to control the masses, increase taxes by any means possible and bury us in paper work.

Of course, if we hadn't signed up for the Kyoto Suicide Pact in the belief that Owl Gore actually knows something about the environment and pushed the Global Warming bullshit (GAF = Global Alarm Fest), we wouldn't need the ETS.

Homepaddock reports on the cost of the Emissions Tax Scam here.

What to do about it.

"HortNew Zealand say it will cost the sector an extra $40 million a year and Lincoln University says in 2013 it will cost a sheep and beef farmer $36,000 and a dairy farmer $41,000 a year."

The only way I can see myself surviving on my farm, which is already bordering on the negative profit line, is to find a way of minimising the tax as best I can.

In my PhotoShop Genetic Engineering workshop I've come up with this low emission, low carbon footprint deer. To make use of the spare room at the front, I've added the front feet of a wallaby which will be useful for the deer to manipulate things such as a pen. Giving the deer the ability to use a pen will further cut my costs by allowing the animals to fill out their own Carbon Tax Returns, thus reducing the number of staff required on my small farm to keep up with the paper work.

Of course the downside of low carbon footprint farm animals is the loss of meat production. To get around this I have genetically engineered larger fruit and vegetables, as seen with the example of the large Kiwifruit below.

The downside (there is always a downside) especially with the Kiwifruit, is the huge steel structures that will have to be built to support the vines.

A vicious circle.

YeeHaa ... Roll on Nov 8th

2008-09-26T21:49:00.004+12:00

Shearing Muster 2007

2008-09-26T01:06:00.008+12:00