Go Cowboys.

Our region's team in the National Rugby League (NRL) competition the NQ Cowboys have made the Grand Final this year, hopefully on Sunday they'll have a lovely win rather than another painful loss, it took a decade to recover from their first GF loss.
Jimmy showed his support on our fence today.
In case any foreigners or Victorians read this Rugby League is not Rugby, it's a different game and the main winter sport in NSW and QLD. This is the game Jarryd Hayne played before going to the USA to work hard on being a part of the NFL competition, not Rugby as I've heard some USA commentators allude to.

Flood victim.

This bench grinder looks buggered right now but hopefully after a pair of bearings that I've ordered arrive I'll have it back running again.

Daisy scores another clock.

Daisy's built-in clock is in the instrument cluster so only visible by the driver, and also is quite inaccurate as well as taking a bit of work to adjust, so I bought a new pretty one for her.
Working out how and where to mount it was quite a head scratcher but I settled on drilling a hole and using a plastic rivet style clip to mount a hanging strip for the clock.
I suppose like many owners I've never put a CD in the radio's slot, car makers seem to be always years behind the times but at least daisy has a USB input built in, so I didn't have to rig up a Jimmy device to do it.

Street view comes to Philippines.

I knew it was coming and now Google has started its coverage of Philippines. This is the highest bit of highway they have, and I can guarantee we don't have any roads as high as this, nor any mountains in mainland Australia for that matter. This is nearly as north as their coverage goes so far, it stops just a little further north where it also claims to be the high point but Google's usually accurate altitude favours here.
So far it only goes about 100 km south of Manila, so Olivia and Jimmy are eagerly awaiting shots from Albay.

Never any Cowboys merchandise.

Four cars are left, two are Roosters but that's no surprise as even in their own area they have few supporters, unless you grab stuff in NQ when it's freshly stocked and at top dollar there's never any Cowboys goods for sale.

Nope nothing Cowboys.

Mosaic Yasi.

Quite poignant for those of us here but not a storyteller mosaic.

Getting up to date here with some modern looking gear.

The Lucinda jetty ships our sugar far and wide.

For visitors finding the mosaic is not a simple task. The highway through town follows the green dashes, a detour along the blue dashes will lessen the legwork, be warned though if you decide on the roomy northern car park it has a one-way entry. The magenta line I've drawn on Mercers lane marks the location of the impressive 50 metre collection of mosaics. For those who bank Westpac it's right next door.

Mosaic again.

Mechanisation comes.

Some will no longer have jobs.

Ingham gets a skyscraper and aerial spraying means another farm job contracted out.

Into our time now, showing the show plus a little splash of the end of cutting season festival Maraka that happens in October (before the season ends) and horse racing which is universal to practically every town in Australia, including Betoota which hasn't had any residents for a decade, and only a population of 1 for decades before that, but it does give the girls a chance to dress up.

More mosaic.

The rail line to Lucinda to make transporting the sugar easier.

The war years.

Burning the cane for hand cutting, with children playing in the black snow.

Ingham mosaic.

I returned today to take photos of this 50 metre masterpiece, in a series of panels it tells the tale of our district. The blackbird in this first one has a sinister relationship.

Then moves through Chinamen clearing land, natives displaced, and Kanakas cutting cane.

Early plantation era mills with a pest Mynah bird watching.

Honest immigration came and gave Ingham its Italian heritage.

Singing!

When we saw they wanted to form a singing group in Ingham I was very happy for Olivia to have an outlet but somehow I haven't managed to slink into the background as I'd intended, and just help her along, somehow they got me to sing as well, at least I didn't do it very well.
Today Ingham opened the new town mosaic which is 50 metres long, here we are at the end of it warbling away before the speeches, I must say too that's it's a pretty good effort and a great example of arts funding that isn't an utter waste, the tiles were pretty well all donated by townsfolk and much of them have a long history themselves. Senator Brandis should be congratulated for steering arts funding in more sensible direction.  I'll come back here in a few days when the crowd abates and take some photos of them.

Some of the luminaries who gave speeches, including state MP Andrew Cripps.

Cane cutting time.

They cut the Sugar cane field behind us today, the days of hand cutting are long gone now but somehow the contractors manage to do a fairly efficient job on these fields that are still planted the same way as it was in our grandfathers' day.

 Just like when I mow the grass in our yard and attract birds, mowing the much bigger cane attracts much bigger birds like these ducks, millions of them.

It also seems to have stirred up some albatrosses to soar in the dusty air. I think the background mountain is Mt. Hawkins.
I also confess I'm nowhere near an expert on birds, I may have possibly mistakenly identified them.

Triumph Rocket 3.

This is the first one of these I've had a look at, of course it was too noisy for comfort but still much quieter than those USA carthorses that turn fuel into noise.

 What's odd about it is I couldn't see an oil leak, on British bikes of my younger vintage no leaks would be a sure sign of it needing oil rather badly. Making bikes like this and having the sense to use a shaft drive should give some hope for the future.
I'm rather staggered that final drive chains are still used by most bikes, I would have thought the chain would have been reduced to a niche market method 35 years ago.

Wrong way Olivia.

Olivia poses the wrong way on a leg exerciser, makes sense though as it's much easier this way.

Exercise Jimmy.

A very difficult reach for my pain ridden arms.

What a show off.

Saxomophone.

Saxophones always have a pleasant tone to my ear, this lass was doing a pretty good job too.

One for Al in Lithgow.

A very pristine MK2 Zephyr ute. If it isn't the first one I've ever seen then it must be at least 40 years.

Fishing.

Fishing is semi-compulsory in Lucinda.
The poles on the right mark where the net was attached to allow safe swimming, it was removed from service in recent years for whatever reason, maybe lack of use or maintenance cost, if it saves us ratepayers' money then no complaints from me.
Pelorus Island is in the background.

The sugar jetty.

It's a long-un at 5.76 km, pity the weather wasn't clear but that's life.
Someone should tap the sign maker on the shoulder and advise that kph isn't right, try km/h.
With a 2.0 metre width restriction I would deem it unlikely that the 8 tonne limit would be in danger.

Texas Terror.

Thanks to community events now being listed on Facebook we went out to the markets at Lucinda on Sunday, now markets I've had quite enough of but I knew I could get photos out there and I did want to give Daisy an oil change so I was happy to take Olivia out there.
This is a propeller blade from the Texas Terror, an American WW2 pay plane that flew into Mt Straloch that stands shrouded in cloud behind it.

An active Saturday.

He's Jimmy struggling to plonk a plant in the boot of Daisy. Happily the plant remained upright on the arduous drive home, so no clean-up was needed.
This wore me out enough that I was able to get a lovely rest that day so I'd be fresh and fit to watch the Cowboys quarter final game when it was replayed at 22:00, sadly they went down but they get a 2nd chance next week.

Party time.

On Friday evening we visited Gliecel who was having a birthday.

Jimmy was called into duty to connect the karaoke machine so the girls could partake in their national pastime.

Olivia and Van carried their share of the load, Jimmy would have been happier if he chose the tunes though. It was about the first do I've been to since I was a fresh faced youth that I never had a drink, until recently I wouldn't have thought that possible.

Self checkout comes to Ingham.

A quandary is coming now that we have this, Ingham people won't queue for anything but I sense this option may be a very scary alternative.

Partial fail.

I decided an easy to use hook on the mower to enable it to be lifted was a fair idea. I found a bit of old corroded bar that I could bend into a good enough shape, and I welded in a rough fashion a bolt to it for mounting, some paint prettied it up a bit.

It looked nice and pretty mounted on the bulkhead until,

I used it and lifted the mower, oh dear! but anyway it's seemed to have settled into its new bent position OK so I'm happy enough.

A birthday visit.

It's Rhonda's birthday today and I popped out to check how Grace was going, all good.
I gave my hair a slight trim today so it's looking sharp, I have to keep it close cut these days or I look bald, not that I care much but it's neater this way.

Almost a pointless thing to do.

I consider mower spark plugs to be good for the service life of the engine, but what I worry about is them seizing in the head, so I like to screw them out occasionally. What's silly about my attitude is it doesn't matter if they become stuck in the head if I never intend to change it.

 I did the same with Daisy's plugs the other day, they now look quite used but good. I really am concerned about long life plugs like these being in place for 100k km, so I'll pop them out from time to time.

Daisy's dashcam seemed OK.

It may just seem clearer after removing this protective film over the lens.
I suppose we can file this under signs of getting old.

One of those days.

 The flimsy little screws I used to secure the top of the mounting post for my hoist finally strained themselves into failure so I had to use a stronger replacement.

Pity is that I haven't found truly suitable bolts among my goodies, I'll have to buy something a bit better.

More pain was to come when adjusting the pivot mount when somehow I managed to break this 12 mm bolt.

This rusty replacement seems good though, and it was very nice to find its head fits neatly into where the odd shaped one of the broken bolt fitted.