Sick of Trees Falling over Fences

Especially when the trees/branches nearly always belong to one of our neighbours.

This big branch was still attached to the tree and we cut up as much as was safe. 

It was a bit dangerous to remove completely. I didn’t want it rolling on me.

What’s left would have had to stay there until nature decided to take its course.

So I made temporary fence repairs around it.

Within two weeks, however, it detached itself completely from the tree taking two panels of fencing with it.

But now it could easily and safely be cut up and permanent repairs made.

Here’s a few more examples of damage.

To be fair sometimes one of my trees is also a culprit.

Black wattles (Acacia mearnsii) which a fairly prolific around here are a bit of a pain.

They are fast growing and short lived. They have a very shallow root system, no deep tap root and are subject to borer attack.

As a result they are easily susceptible to branch wind damage and uprooting.

Some eucalyptus species shed branches as well, particularly when they are under heat stress. See top picture.

Uprooted Black wattle

Inevitability this means fence repair.

Wires need to be rejoined and strained, intermediate posts reset or replaced and sometimes strainer posts and their stays need to be renewed.

On the upside at least there’s fire wood in some of them.

A New Sydney International Airport

Sydney Airport (SYD), officially named Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport, is an international hub located about 12 kilometres (7miles) south of the Sydney central business district. 

It is the primary airport serving Sydney and its metropolitan area and is the main hub for Qantas, the flag carrier of Australia, as well as Virgin Australia and an operating base for the Qantas low cost subsidiary Jetstar.
Situated on Botany Bay on just over 900ha (2,240 acres) of land with three runways, Sydney Airport is one of the world's longest continuously operated commercial airports, opening in 1920, and is the busiest airport in Australia, handling over 41million passengers and 350,000 aircraft movements in 2024.
From the picture below it’s easy to see how close it is to the city and surrounding suburbs.

As a result a curfew exists between 11pm and 6am because of noise concerns.

Other problems include the international terminal being separate and a considerable distance from the two domestic terminals making transfers inconvenient.

The local, state and federal governments had investigated the viability of building a second major airport in Sydney since the 1940s.
On 15 April 2014, the Federal Government announced that Badgerys Creek would be Sydney's second international airport, to be known as Western Sydney Airport (WSI) or officially Nancy-Bird Walton Airport.

The airport would not be subject to curfews and would open in phases, initially with a single airport runway and terminal.
It was to be linked to Sydney Airport and downtown Sydney by local roads and motorways, and eventually by extensions to the existing suburban rail network.

In May 2017, the Federal Government announced it would build (pay for) the second Sydney Airport.

The new airport started construction in 2018 and was completed in mid 2026.
The first freight plane, a Qantas Airbus A321, landed to the bemused attention of some of the locals a few weeks ago.

Airlines offering commercial flights on sale include:

Jetstar: Starting October 25, 2026, operating flights to Melbourne, Brisbane, and the Gold Coast (flight JQ362 being the first to leave).
Air New Zealand: Starting October 26, 2026, running international flights to Auckland.
Singapore Airlines: Starting November 23, 2026, with flights to Singapore.
QantasLink: Scheduled to begin Embraer E190 services in March 2027.

A New Water Storage Tank

Back in July 2025, I posted about a severe weather event that destroyed one of our (very old) water storage tanks.
After a little procrastination I decided that we needed to replace it.

We did have 30,000L of water storage without the missing tank but with the predictions of increased drought conditions and higher temperatures due to climate change there was a bit of an incentive to increase storage by another 10,000L.
A very dry and warm autumn and winter here plus the situation in the northern hemisphere over their summer so far was further proof that things could get tough.

I decided that we needed a squat tank so that the overflow of our current house tank would run into it.

They have changed the design of the tall tank that we already have so the inlet of similar one next to it would be too high.
Unfortunately the War in Iran had the effect of increasing plastic prices considerably so our original tank budget needed a rethink. Linear Medium Density Polyethylene (LMDPE) is the common material used.

It is food grade quality suitable for safe drinking water storage and is all imported.

But we bit the bullet in June when Bushmans had an end of financial year sale where we could save a few dollars.

Delivery time was 6-8 weeks as each tank is made to order.

This is our fifth tank from this company. One was a replacement for that destroyed by the 2019/20 bushfires.
The tank turned up a few days ago and three of us, the driver, a neighbour and I rolled it off the truck, across the front lawn and onto the old cement pad.

Once the inlet was lined up with the outlet of the old tank, the overflow and outlet valve were fitted.

All took around 45 minutes.
I then started to fill the new tank with enough water, around 1000L, so it would not blow away.
We had been experiencing some pretty windy days leading up to delivery.
The old and new tanks were connected by some simple plumbing 

We just need some substantial rain to fill it. 

The 23rd Commonweath Games

The 23rd Commonwealth Games took place in Glasgow between 23rd July and 2nd August. 

There were 74 Commonwealth Games Associations eligible to compete, all of whom sent athletes to the championships.

There are 56 Commonwealth countries but sovereign states, home nations, and overseas territories compete separately eg. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland each send a team. They don’t compete as the United Kingdom.
The state of Victoria, in Australia, originally won the bid to host the 2026 Games across regional hubs like Geelong, Bendigo, Ballarat, and Gippsland.

The state government cancelled the event after estimates ballooned to over A$6 billion, deeming it financially unsustainable for taxpayers.
The city of Glasgow offered to takeover hosting the games albeit with fewer sports and using established venues and no dedicated accommodations.

Victoria paid $589 million in compensation and termination costs, which included helping fund Glasgow's scaled-down replacement
Medals were available in 215 events, spread across 10 sports.
Six of them included Para sport competition: 3x3 basketball, athletics, bowls, cycling, swimming and weightlifting.

The other four sports were artistic gymnastics, boxing, judo and netball.

Finnie, the game’s mascot 

The streamlined 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow dropped several main disciplines:

- Whole SportsTeam and Ball Sports: Hockey, cricket, rugby sevens, squash, badminton, table tennis, and beach volleyball.
- Combat and Other Sports: Wrestling and triathlon.
- Aquatics and Shooting: Diving (leaving only swimming/para-swimming) and shooting.
- Specific Sub-Disciplines: Road cycling and mountain biking were excluded with cycling restricted only to track cycling.
- Gymnastics: Rhythmic gymnastics were not featured, with gymnastics limited solely to artistic events.
- Athletics Events: Road events like the marathon were missing from the track and field program.

Australia did well, as usual, particularly in the swimming finishing with 37 gold, 16 silver, and 23 bronze medals in that discipline.

Total medal count below.

The 2030 Commonwealth Games, officially known as the XXIV Commonwealth Games and commonly called Amdavad 2030, is scheduled to take place in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India, in October 2030.

What’s a Spurtle?

You would think a person with 50% Scottish blood would know.

I first came across the word when scrolling through the current Netflix documentary selection.

The Golden Spurtle is a film about the World Championship porridge making championship in Carrbridge in the Scottish highlands.

And a Spurtle is what you traditionally stir porridge with. 

It dates back to the 15th century.

It’s a long, slender wooden rod, often decorated with a stylised thistle on the end, designed to be stirred in a continuous circular motion. The smaller surface area prevents oats from congealing into lumps better than a standard spoon.

They are typically made from beech, cherry wood or maple and come in a range of sizes.

Apparently you only stir clockwise with the right hand.

Anticlockwise stirring invites the Devil to your breakfast.

Have beaten porridge for the last 75 years that may answer a few of life’s questions.

My Scottish father, an aficionado of the boiled oaten breakfast, never passed on this information to me.

Spurtles are locally made in Australia and readily available.

But I think at this stage I’ll stick with the spoon but try to remember the stirring rule.

Now to the competition.

People from all over the world come to compete.

How a mix of just oats, water and a little salt can each be so different, I have no idea.
I just use traditional commercial oats and some water, no salt, and cook it in the microwave.
Sacrilege!

But this is serious stuff and the rivalry for the prize, The Golden Spurtle, is intense.

Here’s a YouTube preview of the documentary.
Carrbridge’s other claim to fame is the Carr Packhorse Bridge.
The word "Carr" has nothing to do with motorised transport but is derived from the old Norse word for boggy area.
The bridge, built in 1717, is the oldest stone bridge in the Highlands.
It was severely damaged in the "Muckle Spate" (the great flood in August 1829) which left it in the condition seen today. 

It is now unstable and is recommended only to be viewed from afar.
Jumping off the bridge into the River Dulnain below had long been a popular pastime for younger locals and the more adventurous tourists.
We passed through there after leaving Inverness on our 2006 trip around Scotland but unfortunately, not being aware of any of this, didn’t stop.

Addendum 1:

Inspired by the 2025 documentary about the Golden Spurtle, an annual Scottish porridge-making competition, the Central Coast town of Pearl Beach, NSW, is preparing for its own oat-fest on August 8th 2026

Addendum 2:

The Pearl Beach competition is now completed.

H5N1 (Bird flu) in Australia / 16th September Update

The deadly strain of bird flu, H5N1, has arrived in Australia and threatens a list of 100 native animal species, including birds, land and sea mammals.
Two birds, the brown skua and the giant petrel flew from the sub-Antarctic region to southwest Western Australia, were confirmed to be infected with the deadly virus.

Until the infected skua was found on a remote beach near Esperance, Australia was the only continent free of the deadly virus.

Brown skua

A giant petrel, found several kilometres away, also tested positive for the H5 strain.

Brown skuas and giant petrels are a common sight offshore in southern Australian waters in the winter months, but they will rarely risk venturing on to land.
So when two of these birds were discovered sick on beaches a few kilometres apart it was a sign something might be wrong.
Both birds have since died.

Giant southern petrel

Australia’s unique wildlife, which has evolved in isolation for millions of years, could be particularly vulnerable to H5N1.The list of at-risk animals includes: bird-eating raptors, including white-bellied sea eagles, powerful owls and wedge-tailed eagles; black swans with no defences to the virus; Australian sea lions; rare parrots, including the tiny populations of orange-bellied and swift parrots; and Tasmanian devils as they eat carrion.The risk of an outbreak in farmed birds is also high, with potentially devastating consequences. Australia’s largest chicken meat producer announced on it had locked down access to all its farms in Western Australia, even though they are all north of Perth and more than 700 kilometres from where the infected birds were found.Experts had warned it was inevitable for the virus to make its way to Australia via migratory birds. 

H5N1

Now that it has come from the sub-Antarctic region, governments and experts say a wild outbreak is likely. The Australian government committed $113 million to preparations to deal with an H5N1 incursion, with an emphasis on planning to swiftly identify an outbreak and responding to limit its spread. 

This includes teams to swiftly remove carcasses of infected animals to prevent further spread and stopping farmed poultry from mixing with wild birds.

Stay tuned for updates!

Update:10/07/26

The first case of deadly H5 bird flu in local wildlife, as apposed to migratory, has been recorded in a bird, a greater crested tern, found on the South Australian coast, in what experts said was an escalation of the disease’s arrival in the country.

Greater crested tern

Update: 01/08/26

In its latest updates, the federal Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry confirmed a further 20 birds from Kangaroo Island and the south-east coast of South Australia had tested positive, including a silver gull found at the town of Robe.

Silver gull

Australia’s Chief Veterinary Officer, Dr Beth Cookson, said this was the first detection ever in a silver gull in Australia.

Update: 03/08/26

The mass deaths of greater crested terns were announced in South Australia over the weekend, with 49 dead terns and 35 unwell terns detected by aerial surveillance. Samples from some of those animals were sent to the CSIRO for verification and have come back positive.
This is Australia’s first mass mortality event from the deadly disease. 

Update: 16/09/26

*From 12 August 2026, there are changes of how on H5 bird flu detections are reported.
Reporting will be based on events, rather than individual bird detections, where an event may involve one or more birds. The new number of positive events captures all previously reported individual confirmed detections.

Detailed data can be found here.

A long-nosed fur seal has been announced as the first confirmed death of a mammal by the deadly bird flu virus. Up until now the virus has been found only in birdlife.

A red fox found in suburban Adelaide has been infected with the H5 bird flu.

11/9/2026 and South Australia has recorded the first death of an endangered Australian sea lion from H5 bird flu. Experts say about 12,000 Australian sea lions remain – though a more recent estimate put the figure at less than 10,000. Most of the population are found in South Australia, with the remainder in Western Australia.

There have been no detections in poultry or the wider agriculture industry.

Almost one in five Australian bird and mammal species is at high, very high or extreme risk from the bird flu virus now spreading in Australia.

Five bird species are assessed as being at extreme risk, meaning that they cannot survive where the virus occurs. They include the Christmas Island frigate bird, the Herald petrel, Houtman albatross, imperial shag on Heard Island and imperial shag on Macquarie Island.

The highest-risk marine mammals are the sea lion, fur seal and elephant seal, and the highest risk land mammals are the Tasmanian devil and eastern quoll. Eight species of dolphin are at risk and one, the common dolphin, is at very high risk.

The Australian Fuel Crises

Just over two decades ago eight oil refineries in Australia produced up to 98% of our petroleum.

Today only two remain, one in Brisbane and one in Geelong.

The cull was due purely due to economics.

The infrastructure of the refineries was old. 

Much had been built in the 1940s and 1950s.

It became more cost affective to import refined fuel from the Asia Pacific region.

Now 80-90% comes primarily from Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan and India.

It made sense, given Australia’s high transport and labour costs not to mention stricter environmental laws, to import our fuel requirements from Asia’s large scale oil refineries.

Then in late February in retaliation to USA military strikes, Iran effectively blocked the Strait of Hormuz.

This cut off 20% of the world’s crude oil supply much of which goes to Asian refiners.

Australia held only 44 days of petrol, 33 days of diesel, and 30 days of jet fuel in reserves. 

This included both onshore storage tanks and fuel in transit via shipping and is one of the world’s smallest fuel reserves.

So there was an immediate concern we would have a fuel shortage.

Panic buying and substantial price increases followed.

Rationing raised its ugly head but never eventuated.

Diesel was of the greatest concern where farmers were harvesting their summer crops and preparing for winter sowing. Road transport and the mining industry were also affected.

There were instances of petrol stations running dry, particularly in rural areas.

Before the war I was paying $A1.70/litre for 91octane. It went up to $A2.65/litre.

The government stepped in and managed to secure promises of substantial uninterrupted supplies from our Asian neighbours.

Korea and Japan, as well as Singapore and Taiwan are all locking in crude oil from the Atlantic basin which comes from the USA, Canada and Latin America,

The government also reduced the fuel excise by 50%.

The situation calmed down.

I am back to paying an average of  $A1.70/litre although the fuel excise reduction will finish on 30th June* with a resulting increase, probably to over $A2/litre.

Around 50-80 ships deliver around 3.5 billion litres of fuel every four weeks to Australia.

To secure the nation's energy sovereignty, the Australian Government is expanding critical reserves to 50 days by increasing mandatory stockholding obligations and creating a permanent, government owned one billion litre emergency stockpile.

There is no intention to look at new refinery construction.

In addition to onshore tanks, Australia maintains a separate national crude oil reserve housed in the United States (as part of a strategic buffer agreement) to hedge against extreme global shocks.

But this situation is not over and will not be until the USA/Iran conflict is settled.

And there is no end in sight for that.

Or is there?

The situation changes on a daily basis.

*Update: 21/06/2026

Government has extended the fuel excise rebate for another month albeit at $0.16/lire rather than the original $0.32/litre.

For USA readers : One US gallon ≈ 3.8litres and $A1= $US0.70

For UK readers: $A1 = £0.75

For European readers: $A1 = €0.60

A Surfing Career

I became interested in surfing around the age of ten when we moved from Melbourne to Brisbane and spent a lot of time on the Gold Coast during weekends and most holidays.
At that stage the light short surfboards of today were virtually unknown. In use were extremely heavy hollow long boards and skis.

Surfing was brought to Australia in 1915 by Hawaiian Duke Kahanamoku.

He demonstrated this ancient Hawaiian board riding technique at Freshwater in Sydney, New South Wales.
Kahanamoku's board is now on display in the northeast end of the Freshwater Surf Lifesaving Club.
There is a statue there commemorating the event.

Surfing's massive cultural explosion in Australia took off in 1956, when a team of American lifeguards visited for the Melbourne Olympics and introduced lightweight, manoeuvrable balsa and fibreglass Malibu boards at a carnival in Torquay, Victoria.

I was a junior member of a local Gold Coast surf lifesaving club for a while where body surfing was the main recreational activity.

But then some guys from Sydney brought up their light boards, surfed ‘my’ beach and I was hooked.

Clubies and surfies were a different breed. 

Sitting for hours on a tower during your lifesaver shift watching families splash around in the shore break while beautiful rideable waves rolled in outside the flagged area was very frustrating.

My first board was a second hand fibre glass covered balsa wood ‘log’ just like the one pictured below.

And no leg ropes then. A wipeout usually meant a long swim, not to mention a danger to those paddling out.

But it was all a great learning curve.

My first polyurethane foam and fibre glass board was shaped by Joe Larkin in Kirra in the early 60s.

My third board was made by Ray Woosley in Brisbane in the mid 60s.

It was to be my board for the next 30 years.

Despite replacing it a few times over the following decades I couldn’t get rid of it.

It was beautifully made and covered in heavyweight fibreglass and strengthened with a big central stringer.

Heavy compared with today’s boards but extremely tough and ‘ding’ resistant.

When leg ropes became a thing, I drilled a hole through the fin to attach one.

Sadly it was burnt when we lost property during the 2019/20 bushfires.

Obviously unlicensed, we relied on parents and older friends to drive us to the various surf spots.

But then with our own cars we were ‘free’ and the years of surfaris began.

To Gold Coast beaches and those in northern New South Wales.

Snapper Rocks & Greenmount

Byron Bay

Angourie

To the Sunshine Coast north of Brisbane.

Noosa

Moffat Beach

And one long three week trip down the east coast to iconic Bells Beach in Victoria where I rode some of the biggest and most powerful waves of my life. 

Bells Beach

There was a bit of a hiatus when I moved to Sydney in 1969 to pursue a business career and eventually raise a family but the call of the ocean was strong.

I took up the sport again in 1988 mainly on the beaches of the Sutherland Shire and south to Wollongong.

Cronulla Beaches

Then with my move to the south coast of New South Wales, I enjoyed waves at many of the then deserted beaches all within a few kilometres of home.

Tabourie 

Racecourse Beach

Golfcourse Reef

Unfortunately a shoulder injury in my early 70s ended my surfing career. No amount of physiotherapy could fix it. 

I was content with a bit of boogie boarding for a while but when you know it’s time, it’s time.

Am happy now to watch surfing videos on YouTube and the WSL on television.