Termites



 

Termites are sometimes referred to as ‘white ants’ because of their creamy colouring and ant-like appearance. There are over 350 species of termites in Australia of which some 20 species can damage timber in houses.
Termites avoid light and rarely come out into the open. Often termites are found within timbers where they leave a wafer thin layer to protect themselves from the outside environment. Sometimes they conceal themselves within mud-like tubes or galleries.

In nature termites assist in the recycling of organic matter and nutrients back to the soil.

Exploding Termites

Termites can explode by a contraction of muscles around a large gland that leads to the gland wall breaking. Soldier termites  release a sticky secretion by rupturing a gland near the skin of their neck, producing a tar baby effect in defense against ants. It is a form of suicidal Kamakazi.

Groups of termite whose soldiers have been found to explode, are defending their colonies,this is thought to be one of the most effective forms of defense, that termites possess as the ruptured workers, block the tunnels running into the nest, and it causes a one to one exchange between attackers and defenders, meaning attacks have a high energy cost to predators.

Pig Hunting

Pig hunting tours and safaris, are becoming a great Eco-tourism holiday adventure, for cashed up local, and overseas travellers.

There are now estimated to be over 23 million feral pigs in Australia, concentrated predominantly in NSW, Queensland and across the top of the Northern Territory. In other areas of the country, small isolated populations are present.

The distribution and abundance of feral pigs fluctuates markedly between years based on environmental conditions and availability of food and water.

The Fraser coast council in Queensland paid out $6680 in bounties to 21 people who had killed the destructive animals — and the program has been so successful that another $5000 has been added to its budget.

Ground-based feral pig hunting is considered by many to be good sport. and can be a useful control measure provided the shooting is carried out and supervised by experienced hunters.

Pig hunting is a real challenge, it can be exciting and very risky. As most of us know Pigs are very smart animals, their very cagey, and have excellent hearing and can smell you from a mile away, they also will not hesitate to attack when they are chased and cornered. Their poor eyesight is their only weakness but are still difficult for young and inexperienced hunters to shoot.

Pig hunting tours normally encourage clients to bring their own firearms but firearms can be supplied upon request.

All companies have specialised guides that can cater to shooters, bow hunters and doggers.

Goodhand Outback Experience targets big boars and there is no better place for them on the floodplains of the NT. Boars in excess of 100kg are usually encountered a daily basis. Whether you are experienced or a beginner GOE can cater to your needs.
With good quality comfortable accommodation (not tented camps), Luxury 4x4’s and new Polaris Rangers GOE is one of the best-equipped outfitters in the Territory.

7 Day trip 5 Days Hunting( Inc up to 5 Boars Per person Per day)
Price on Application

Camouflaged Vehicles available

HuntingSafaris
Pig hunting tours to the finest hunting in Northern Queensland - explosive action, big boars, fantastic trophies, wildlife and breathtaking scenery within 2 - 5 hours drive of Townsville airport.

Experience living and hunting amongst picturesque mountains, rivers, bushland, huge river red gums, billabongs, marsh swamps to rocky ravines and gorges where you will have opportunities to shoot at pigs
NO FEES or limits on shooting - Pigs, Boars
Rifles and ammunition can be supplied at $100 each for the duration of the Safari
PIG HUNTING - individual daily rate reduces as the numbers of hunters and days increase,

Pricing at
http://www.huntingsafaris.com.au

These are just two of the excellent Pig hunting tours and safaris available you can find more by Googling 
Pig Hunting Tours and safaris Australia.

Do Australia a favour, Shoot a Pig!

Australian Explorers

For at least 40,000 years before European settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who belonged to one or more of roughly 250 language groups.

French World map 1566

A 16th century maritime map in a Los Angeles library vault proves that Portuguese adventurers, not British or Dutch, were the first Europeans to discover Australia.
The book "Beyond Capricorn" says the map, which accurately marks geographical sites along Australia's east coast in Portuguese, proves that Portuguese seafarer Christopher de Mendonca lead a fleet of four ships into Botany Bay in 1522 -- almost 250 years before Britain's Captain James Cook.

Australian author Peter Trickett said that when he enlarged the small map he could recognize all the headlands and bays in Botany Bay in Sydney -- the site where Cook claimed Australia for Britain in 1770.

"Beyond Capricorn Map"

The presence of the Portuguese in Southeast Asia from the early 16th century, especially their exploration and later colonization of Timor - less than 500 kilometres from the Australian coast - circa 1513-1516.

Various antiquities and unsolved mysteries found on Australian and New Zealand's coastlines, that may relate to early Portuguese voyages to Australia.


After discovery by Dutch explorers in 1606, Australia's eastern half was claimed by Britain in 1770 and initially settled through penal transportation to the colony of New South Wales, formally founded on 7 February 1788(although formal possession of the land had been taken on 26 January 1788).

The population grew steadily in subsequent decades; the continent was explored and an additional five self-governing Crown Colonies were established.
In 1813, Gregory Blaxland, William Lawson and William Wentworth succeeded in crossing the formidable barrier of forested gulleys and shere cliffs presented by the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. At Mount Blaxland they looked out over "enough grass to support the stock of the colony for thirty years", and expansion of the British settlement into the interior could begin.

___  1606 Willem Jansz

___  1606 Luiz Váez de Torres

___  1616 Dirk Hartog

___  1619 Frederick de Houtman

___  1644 Abel Tasman

___  1696 Willem de Vlamingh

___  1699 William Dampier

___  1770 James Cook



___ 1797-1799 George Bass

___  1801-1803 Matthew Flinders

Bugs Bunny and the rabbit plague

Bugs Bunny was introduced from Europe in the 19th century, the effect of rabbits on the ecology of Australia has been devastating. Rabbits are suspected of being the most significant known factor in species loss in Australia. The loss of plant species is unknown at this time. Rabbits often kill young trees in orchards, forests and on properties by ringbarking them.

Within ten years of their introduction in 1859, rabbits had become so prevalent that two million could be shot or trapped annually without having any noticeable effect on the population. It was the fastest spread ever recorded of any mammal anywhere in the world. Today rabbits are entrenched in the southern and central areas of the country, with scattered populations in the northern deserts.

Bugs Bunny has feuded with Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Willoughby the Dog, Marvin the Martian, Beaky Buzzard, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Tasmanian Devil, Cecil Turtle, Charlie Dog, Witch Hazel, Rocky and Mugsy, Wile E. Coyote, the Crusher, Gremlin, Big Bad Wolf, and now he is taking on Australian scientists from the CSIRO.

Releasing rabbit-borne diseases has proven somewhat successful in controlling the population of rabbits in Australia.
Myxomatosis was deliberately released into the rabbit population, causing it to drop from an estimated 600 million to around 100 million. Genetic resistance in the remaining rabbits allowed the population to recover to 200-300 million by 1991.

To combat this trend, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) developed and accidentally released calicivirus (also known as Rabbit Haemorrhagic Disease or RHD) in 1996. The success of the virus was found to be higher in extreme heat and has put a large dent in the current population.

Bugs Bunny will usually try to placate the antagonist and avoid conflict, but when an antagonist pushes him too far, Bugs Bunny may address the audience and invoke his catchphrase "Of course you realize this means war!" before he retaliates, and the retaliation will be devastating.

State of origin 2023

ONCE AGAIN GOOD WIN  WIN OVER EVIL

The 2023 Rugby League State of Origin series will see the continuation of the biggest rivalry in Australian sport.

The New South Wales Blues will  try to stop the Queensland Maroons from striking up another series win.

Queensland will have the advantage this year with two games scheduled in as home games. .

Described as "sport's greatest rivalry",the State of Origin series is one of Australia's and the region's premier sporting events, attracting a huge television audience and selling out the stadiums in which the games are played. Despite the existence of international tournaments and State of Origin being a domestic competition, it is frequently cited as being the highest-level of rugby league played anywhere in the world.

Worlds most dangerous Stinging trees

Even though they don't hunt in packs, the Australian stinging trees are pretty vicious. The sting is delivered through tiny silicon hairs that cover the leaves and the fruit of the plant. You can think of the silicon hairs as tiny fibres of non-transparent glass.  The only way you can handle the leaves safely without getting stung, was to wear incredibly thick and bulky welding gloves. These silicon hairs penetrate your skin, and then break off. They're so tiny, that often the skin will close over the hairs. So sometimes, once you've been stung, you can't remove the stinging hairs.

There are six species of stinging tree in Australia, but only two of them are the tall woody types - the other four are lowish shrubs. They live along the East coast of Australia, from Cape York in the north, to Victoria in the south. They grow only if they get both strong sunlight, and protection from the wind. So you'll see them along tracks, the banks of creeks, and where the rainforest canopy has been broken by a falling branch or tree.

The silicon hairs cause pain, because they carry a neurotoxin. One scientist, Oelrichs, purified the poison and injected himself with it and suffered intense pain. He proved that the toxin, not the silicon hairs, caused the pain. If you have stabbed yourself with the hairs, you can release the neurotoxin from the hairs by heating or cooling your skin, or just touching it. This neurotoxin is very stable. Experiments have been done with hairs that were collected nearly a century ago, and they can still cause pain.

 Hydrochloric Acid treatment was worse than the pain of the dreaded Stinging Tree.

Humans feel something between mild irritation and intense pain and death. The pain comes immediately after touching the plant, and it gradually increases to a peak after about 20-30 minutes. The Dutch Botanist H. J. Winkler made the only official recording of Death By Stinging Tree, for a human. It was in New Guinea, back in the early 1920s. There have been other anecdotal stories from soldiers in WW II suffering intense pain, and of an officer shooting himself because of the unrelenting pain.
But you can suffer even if you don't touch the plant. The plants continuously shed their stinging hairs. Stay close to the stinging trees for more than an hour, and you can get an allergic reaction - intensely painful and continuous bouts of sneezing. You can even get nose bleeds from these silicon hairs floating in the air.
 

 
TREATMENT
The best way to get the hairs out of you, once you've accidentally got stuck on a stinging tree. Is to firstly not to even think about rubbing the affected area with the sap of nearby trees, or the ground-up roots of the tree that stung you. No, it was a student from James Cook University in Cairns who discovered the best way - you can remove these hairs with a hair-removal wax strip. In fact this is now the official recommendation in a Queensland ambulance journal.

Treatment is done by,dressing stings with a hydrochloric acid solution, before waxing the affected area of skin. Maybe this is effective, but it is also one way to cause excruciating pain, and you will never seen so many grown men screaming and crying!

Emily Browning

Emily Browning is an Australian actress, a Hollywood star, and fashion model, she is known for her role as Violet Baudelaire in the 2004 film Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, as Anna Ivers in the 2009 film The Uninvited, and as Baby Doll in the 2011 action film Sucker Punch.

She also plays the lead in aussie Julia Leigh's Australian independent film Sleeping Beauty.

The stunningly beautiful 22 year old Aussie won the 2005 AFI International Award for Best Actress for her role in A Series of Unfortunate Events.

Emily Browning's acting career began at the age of eight, when she was noticed by a classmate's father at a school play and he recommended that she pursue acting as a profession.

Browning won an AFI Young Actor's Award in 2002 and was nominated for the same award in 1999 and 2003. She was also nominated for Broadcast Film Critics Association Critics' Choice Award for Best Young Performer and Young Artist Awards Best Performance in a Feature Film, Leading Young Actress (both 2005).

In Ms. Leigh’s “Sleeping Beauty,” the lead character,  Lucy (Emily Browning) is a young university student who takes a job as a Sleeping Beauty. In the Sleeping Beauty Chamber old men seek an erotic experience that requires Lucy’s absolute submission. This unsettling task starts to bleed into Lucy’s daily life and she develops an increasing need to know what happens to her when she is asleep.



Jane Campion, a Palm d’or winner in 1993 for “The Piano,” was Ms. Leigh’s mentor on “Sleeping Beauty” and helped find production partners.

The last tent boxers

The most famous of Australian tent boxing troupes, are Roy Bell’s, Jimmy Sharman’s and, Fred Brophy’s, which today is the last surviving tent boxing troupe in the world. Fred Brophy, who owns the Cracow Hotel in Queensland, still travels with his troupe across Australia with his wife, Sandi, and son, Fred Brophy Jnr- the world’s only fourth generation tent boxer.

Only Jimmy Sharman’s troupe travelled for longer, starting his famous boxing troupe in Wagga Wagga in 1911 and touring the shows and country towns for six decades.

Tent boxing, an amusement commonly seen at agricultural shows throughout Australia between the 1920s and the 1960s is an old Australian tradition that is barely kept alive today. Born in England, now banned in America, the outback is today the only place such an attraction can survive.

A crowd gathered to watch Jimmy Sharman 's Boxing Troupe at the Ballarat Show

Jimmy Sharman's Boxing Troupe followed the show circuit through four states for six decades of working 11 months a year. In each town and city Sharman snr charged spectators to watch young black boxers teach half-cut local challengers to fight.


"Who'll take a glove?" and "A round or two for a pound or two" were famous Sharman catchcries.

Sharman jnr inherited what was "a bloody good business" a decade before his father died in 1965. He continued touring until 1971, when regulations barring boxers fighting more than once a week knocked the business out. In later years he reminisced about the show life. "They had so many freaks it wasn't funny," Sharman said. "There used to be Zimmy the Legless Wonder … Used to eat bananas under water … Zandau the Quarter Boy, Tam Tam the Leopard Man."

Australian Champion George Bracken's career started at Sharman's tents, he later progressed to professional boxing and went as far as contender for the British Empire Lightweight title.

George peaked his career in boxing when he beat Johnny Van Rensburg Aug 1959 after he had lost the British Empire Welterweight title to Aussie George Barnes in 1958.


Like his father, Sharman had one son, called James. Jim Sharman went into showbusiness but not the boxing tent. The Sydney theatre producer won world acclaim when he co-wrote and directed The Rocky Horror Picture Show in 1975.

Fred Brophy insists he will continue travelling with his tent boxing troupe, until he dies, even though the sport was banned in 1971 by the government, due to health concerns.




 

Bunyips

Australia like most countries, has a monster that we call The Bunyip or Kianpraty, it is a large mythical creature from Aboriginal mythology, said to lurk in swamps, billabongs, creeks, riverbeds, and waterholes. The origin of the word Bunyip has been
traced to the Wemba-Wemba or Wergaia language of Aboriginal people of South-Eastern Australia.
However, the Bunyip appears to have formed part of traditional Aboriginal beliefs and stories throughout Australia, although its name varied according to tribal nomenclature. In his 2001 book, writer Robert Holden identified at least nine regional variations for the creature known as the bunyip, across Aboriginal Australia. Various written accounts of bunyips were made by Europeans in the early and mid-19th century, as settlement spread across Australia.

One witness reported seeing the Bunyip as similar to an Elephant, even down to the trunk. One report states the Bunyip as being similar to a giraffe, with its long necks and tail. Others claim to have spotted the Bunyip as having claws and horns.

In the coastal town of Geelong, Victoria there was a report in July of 1845 of the finding of unfossilised bone on the banks of a small river. Apparently the bone formed part of the knee joint of an enormous animal. It was reported that a local Aboriginal person was shown the paper where he identified it straight away as a Bunyip bone.

He then proceeded to draw a picture of the Bunyip, which is reproduced here.

Another resident of Geelong claimed that his mother had been killed by a Bunyip at Barwon Lakes, just a few miles from Geelong. There are also reports of another local Geelong woman being killed at the Barwon River where the barge crossed to South Geelong.
Yet another local man was said to have shown several deep wounds on his breast which were made by the claws of a Bunyip he came across at the Barwon River.

Bunyip Claw wound

There are several noted disappearances of persons from Lake Modewarre, which many say were the work of the Bunyip.

Black Caviar racehorse

Black Caviar stretched her unbeaten run to 23 by winning the Lightning Stakes, breaking the course record which had stood for 25 years. It was the third time she had won the event.  On 21 February 2013 Black Caviar was inducted into the Australian Racing Hall of Fame. This was only the second time an active competitor has been so honoured.







.

Black Caviar has a Timeform ranking of 136.

The highest timeform ratings achieved by Australian horses are – Tulloch 138, Kingston Town 137 and Manikato 136 . I’m sure you’ve heard of them!

Black Caviar has been responsible for getting people back to the racetrack, and some would say, that will be her greatest achievment once she retires. 

Outback Charleville product  Peter Moody with daughter Breann, champion mare Black Caviar

Black Caviar

Black Caviar was purchased by Peter Moody under Moody Racing for $210,000 at the 2008 Inglis Melbourne Premier Yearling Sale at Oaklands Junction.



Breeding: By Bel Esprit out of Helsinge in 2006 (currently 4 years old).

Owners: (Neil) Wherrett Bloodstock P/L; Gary and Kerry Wilkie; Colin and Jannene Madden; Pam Hawkes; David & Jill Taylor.

Trainer: Peter Moody (age 43). Jockey: Luke Nolen (age 32).

 Earnings $7,104,936

Racing record: 23 wins from 23 starts.

Major wins (13 Group Ones):

CF Orr Stakes 1400 m at  Caulfield

2 X  VRC Patinack Farm (Linlithgow) Stakes 1200m at Flemington.

2x VRC Lightning Stakes 1000m at Flemington.

MVRC William Reid Stakes 1200m at Moonee Valley.

VRC Newmarket Handicap 1200m at Flemington.

AJC/ATC TJ Smith Stakes 1200m at Royal Randwick.

BTC cup 1200m Doomben

Robert Sangster stakes

Goodwood  Handicap

Diamond Jubilee Stakes ( Ascot England)

Black Caviar is an outstanding horse who is racing against very good company. She is currently rated both the best sprinter and the best horse in the world in 2010/11.

Black Caviar's mother was called Helsinge, was a small town in Denmark. Helsinge's mother was Scandinavia, where caviar comes from.
With the name settled, it was time to dream up a set of racing colours. Major part-owner Gary Wilkie put his daughter Shannon on the job and came up with black spots for caviar and pink salmon.

Her sectional splits in the Schillaci were amazing breaking 11 seconds in each 200m segment from the 600m to the 200m, then despite easing down posting the fastest last 200m at 11.55 seconds.