There are elections on the go, bombs in Turkey and ermm..., other stuff going on around the world. To all of which, like, yawwnnn. Doesn't any of the members of the heathen media have a shred of piousness about them? Doesn't anybody care about the Second Coming of JC? Are you all minions of the anti-Crump? Fuck yez all. May JC fail to show up at a track near you.
I've been waiting for Ranger Tom to get himself settled into his new digs before posting on this topic. Seeing as how Tom is something of a railway tragic, I thought that I would give this little excursion a post of its own. Whilst on tour with the lovely lady, we did the touristy bit in Lithgow and went for a ride on the Zig-zag Railway. You can tell from the first photo why it is called the zig-zag railway. Traveling west to east trains would descend these three levels on the way to Sidderney. The main railway line is on the bottom and is the one used today after the development of tunnels through the mountains.
Speaking of tunnels, there is a tunnel on the descent to this bridge which takes ninety seconds to traverse. Ninety point one seconds after entering the tunnel, the lovely lady and I were busted sucking face. (A romantic expression if I've ever heard one.) In that little valley thingy below this viaduct is a barbecue area where upon request, the railway dudes will stop the train to drop you off and pick you up later in the day.
As we went mid-week, the steam trains were parked up, instead we rode up and down in this railcar of Queensland origin. The only time I can remember seeing one of these was the old Gulflander that used to run though the gulf country (Funnily enough.) Not as romantic-y as a steam train, but it'll do. Incidentally, to get to the zig-zag from Lithgow, you have to travel up the very best (read: windiest) section of Bell's Line of Road. Coming out of Lithgow we were following a queue of about a dozen cars. I slowed right down to let them get about four hundred metres ahead. Three or four kilometres after the start of Bell's I pulled over to wait for all the cars to catch up. The lovely lady was first. It was uphill and the little red car just didn't have the grunt to take advantage of all the gaps. Paying attention to the sign on the right is probably a good idea. This is where the zig turns into a zag. Way back when, the zig-to-zag conversion was done in another spot. There was a mishap which resulted in a spectacular "Only in the movies"- style railway engine hanging over the abyss style photograph (which I can't find online).
Funnily enough, contrary to popular opinion, not everybody who works on the railways sweats it out every day. This is the balcony on a signalman's box. The entire edifice has been relocated and painstakingly restored, with every worn or damaged piece repaired or replaced. Except for the window ledge, which acquired its present shape by dint of one hundred years of signalmen resting their fat arses on it waiting for something to do.
This is an engine used in underground mining. These days it is used to pull a firefighting tanker. The cab isn't original, being from a different engine.
I showed that photo only to provide a reference to this photo, which shows the injector pump on the engine of the engine. Odd looking thing, isn't it? I've never seen an injector pump with this style of tandem construction. Nor have I seen one with these individual bleeder levers on every injector line. Must be a bugger of a system to bleed to need those. I arst the guide dude, but he didn't know anything about it except to say that they haven't had to lay a spanner on the engine since it has been in their possession.
On occasion they do a Harry Potter style weekend. This is the engine they use for the trip. J.K. Rowling, who is totally a philanthropic lover of children who writes solely for the joy she can bring to the masses probably hasn't ok'd these events as the nameplate reads 'Wizards Express' rather than 'Hogwart's Express'. Of course, my tenuous grip on the details of the Harry Potter series may also be more tenuous than I realised.
As well as Harry Potter, they also rip off pay tribute to Thomas the Tank Engine. Guess who this is.
Marion Jones has loudly proclaimed her innocence after testing positive for EPO at the US championships. Big surprise there, huh? When was the last time that somebody got busted and said "It's a fair cop Guv, society is to blame."?
I don't think that there are many international athletic events these days whose outcomes aren't influenced by performance enhancimg drugs. Probably swimming is cleaner than other sports - for two reasons, it is more technique driven than other sports and therefore less likely to be won by pure athleticism. Secondly, I used to do a little bit of swimming coaching so therefore it must be clean because I would have absolutely nothing to do with drugs. Right, Marion? (How is Tim going these days?)
It's got to the stage where they should just let people take whatever the fuck they want and just get on with it. Those people who don't want tiny testicles, sterility or to end up like Flo-Jo can have their own separate 'clean' competitions, just like bodybuilders do.
Then again, using bodybuilders as an example is hardly persuasive, is it? What a bunch of strange cunts.
P.S. Marion is still a hotty, even if she is a drug cheat with a really big butt. At least you can still crack walnuts on her glutes.
In an effort to avoid writing another one of those "What I did on my holidays" posts, I'm going to write one of those "What I did on my holidays" posts - pared down to a few snapshots presented in no particular order. The first one is of the car that the lovely lady I met drives. It's a tiny little thing with an engine that is smaller than the one in my motorcycle. Goes pretty bloody well, though, and sticks to the road like a single mother to an employed boyfriend. It's got an electric fold-down roof too, which means that you can stuff a fair bit into the boot with the roof up. It's a bit like driving a skateboard in that there is nowhere but the pedals to put your feet, your legs are cocked out around the steering wheel, it is about three-quarters of a turn lock-to-lock and I have to duck to see out the windscreen. It's also the most fun to drive of any car that I've ever been in. Nothing goes around corners better than this. Many a time we would be holding up traffic by traveling at the speed limit, then we'd get to a windy bit. After a few minutes this little red car would be the only vehicle in my mirrors. Sunrise from our balcony in Tathra. The lovely lady was beginning to forget that there is a sunrise as well as a sunset, so she made a special effort to be awake for this one (I wake up early anyway.), it was well worth the effort. Considering that we were traveling with absolutely no plan - or at least absolutely no plan that looked like being even remotely adhered to, we were incredibly fortunate in choosing the places where we stayed and the places that we ate. Tathra was probably the dodgiest room, but with a view like this coming through the picture window to greet you in the morning, who cares? Actually, we were incredibly fortunate in most areas of the holiday thing, right down to the bar staff - if you're ever in Miles, make sure you go to the rissole and ask for Mary, the most charming barmaid in world (except for JenJen). Also, stop in Bodalla on the way through and have a glass of champagne with June, the publican(ess). Rat may be interested to know that it took three days to reach Tathra after we saw him. Peter Theoming is the figurehead for a movement called 'slow touring'. I think that the lovely lady and I could teach him a thing or two. The day after we left Rat we travelled 45k in six hours with three stops on the way. Finally, this is the lovely little town of Walhalla. Walhalla used to have one of my favourite pubs in it, but it burned down. Now it has a new, 'period style' pub in it's place. Actually there are now two pubs. The large building opposite the rotunda is the Star Hotel, which wasn't there the last time I came through here. I'm not a fan of fake antiquity. I nearly bought a house here in the eighties - four thousand dollars fully furnished. These days they've got bitumen road access and electricity and houses are going for fifty to one hundred times that much. I never was much of a businessman. As an aside, my mother's ashes are scattered to the left of this photo.
Sometimes a plan comes together and sometimes it doesn't. I had the rough outline of my little holiday all worked out; first up to Gladstone, then down the east coast to visit Dad, then back home. I didn't have a set schedule, but I had all the (windy) roads picked out. I had some of the detail arranged, too, right down to paying for accommodation in Brisbane. Then the first night out, halfway to Gladstone, going a different way to the one that I had planned, I met a girl. And that's all there is to it. We spent almost every minute of the next four weeks together. Apologies to those in Sinny whom I was going to catch up with; although we spent a few days in town we were too busy doing romantic-y things like..., umm, holding hands and..., stuff. That's pretty much all there is to it, although I will flesh it out somewhat in days to come, I'm still to knackered to do it now.
