Woodchopping the Sport

Did you know how wood/lumbar chopping commenced in Australia?

The modern sport of woodchopping is said to have had its genesis in 1870 in Ulverstone, Tasmania, Australia, as the result of a $50.00AUD bet between two axeman as to who could first fell a tree.  An alternative origin story comes from the 16th century Basque Country (that would be in Spain), in which a man ran a marathon and chopped ten logs to be allowed to propose to his future wife.

The world's first woodchopping championship was held in 1891, at Bells Parade, Latrobe, Tasmania (a blog post of mine is  here ) This event was celebrated and commemorated with the selction of the site to be home of the Australian Axemen's Hall of Fame and Timberworks which I have not got a photo of.

Woodchopping events in Australia are generally run in conjunction with Agricultural shows.

A link to a great Tasmanian woodchopper, interesting read.

Floods and Storm

Very recently we have had massive storms here in Tasmania, roofs blown off houses, fences falling over, trees as well, power poles fallen, power cut off to so many homes for days along with heavy rain at times. 

Thankfully where we live on top of a flat hill we didn't lose power or have any damage done.  

So off for a drive to view some areas where the roads were not closed due to floods and power lines down to take some photos.

These photos are from different areas here in northern Tasmania which received the storms strongest winds than the southern area of the State.

The last photo of the bridge, usually you can drive further up under it.

Whim Creek, Western Australia Part 2

A few more photos of the Whim Creek area in Western Australia.

Doesn't matter where you go you always come across a flower or two.  The above flowers are called the Sturt Desert Pea, Swainsona formosa and creep along the ground.  The flower below is called the Purple Mulla Mulla, Ptilotus exaltatus though covered in red dust it's not showing it's best.  These two plants were growing near Whim Creek.

This is us settling for the night and the truck below along with a few photos of the sunset in order of the sun going down on that day.

Whim Creek, Western Australia

A place not to be forgotten is Whim Creek in Western Australia it's 4,877km from home, it's a long way from home.

Whim Creek is a very small town in the Pilbara region in Western Australia and once had a Post Office known as 'Whim Well'.  The town is located between Karratha and Port Hedland or two and half days' drive north of Perth.  In 1887, with the discovery of gold and copper, the town was born. In it's day Whim Creek had two hotels, a blacksmith, a general store, stables and horse track, plus many more local businesses.  After nearly a century, mining activity ended in 1986.

On our visits there only one hotel, no houses, no shop, nothing!  The Whim Creek Hotel that is there was closed at one point, reopened in 2015 and that's when we had lunch there and stayed in front of the Hotel sleeping in our caravan, there was only a truck driver who slept in his truck cabin parked well in front of us.

It's a hot dry area, even on this day the temperature in winter is 37 deg C.  It is however prone to cyclones in the season.  The weather there, well it can rain, and rain it did in 1898, 747mm fell in just 24 hours.  In 1924 there was just 4mm for the whole year!

Back in the day the Whim Creek Christmas Tree, a structure being two metres high and one metre wide.  It as made from the rip-top tabs of beer stubbies and was said to be the most expensive Christmas tree ever created.  It was estimated that it took $25,000AUD worth of stubbies to make the tree and it took two years to collect all the tabs.

Another odd thing is there was once a camel who was an alcoholic and it used to steal patrons beers.  The camel was apparently moved south to Wiluna suffering from cirrhosis of the liver,  There was also a large phyton (snake) that used to live in the wooden rafters of the pub.  It's eventual fate, unknown.

In 2011, the pub was shut down indefinitely after it was bought by Venturex Resources, a mining company which had acquired the old Whim Creek originally a copper project.  The Hotel in 2013 was bought by the Ngarluma Aboriginal Corporation and Ngarluma Yindjibarndi Foundation, who plan to restore and re-open the Whim Creek Hotel.  The Hotel has again closed in an arrangement of handing the hotel to the Ngarluma Aboriginal Corporation in 2018.   To this day I have no idea whether the Hotel is open, or not open.

What is a 'Stubby'?

Answer:  A short squat beer bottle, especially one with a capacity of 375ml.  The bottle is stubby (short and thick) in comparison with the tall and slender 750ml beer bottle - in Australia.

We sat here and had a drink, it was rather hot.

The front of the Hotel.

 

Husband's lunch, I didn't take a photo of mine.

The marker on the map is where Whim Creek is. That day we had driven down from Eighty Mile Beach