Fahrenheit, Films Crews, Feral Goats, Flies and Flat tyres......................
Submitted: Saturday, Nov 14, 2009 at 22:25
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Willem
I was out at
Warraweena Station Conservation
Park this week in the
Flinders Ranges to lend a hand looking after things while the Manager attended to 4WD Action Film Crew who were filming a Nissan GU Tricked-up Rig with
Kimberley Kamper in tow.
The last 4 days the Fahrenheit hit 107.6024° or 42°C every day, making things just a little uncomfortable. But the show must go on.
The shoot was successful and took all day just for about 5 minutes of film. The 3lt GU dragged the
Kimberley Kamper to the top of Mt Gill some 940 metres above sea level. And down again without any major dramas. Just once did the Kamper have to be moved manually to get around a tight bend in a
creek, I was told.
Meanwhile I went to knock off a few feral goats which have come down from the hills to any
water source they can get to. The goast were tame or just too hot and did not evenm run away aftwer the first loud noise.
A Vic 4x4 Club came and stayed for two days and by this morning all was quet on the western front and so I was allowed to go home again. Was pretty happy about that as the hot weather has bred the good old Ausssie Bushflies in their billions.
About 20km south of
Hawker on a bend I felt the bus move over to the loose part of the road but corrected the steering in time. Strange? I thought!
Then a short time late on another gentl ebend the same thing. Wiggled the steering with no ill effect. Then a faint noise was emanating from the front of the wagon and I decided to stop to have a look. Yep! Sure enough...a flat tyre. That tyre was pretty hot but when I removed it I could not see any damage. Tough tyres these MRF's! Maybe when I split the whole shebang tomorrow I will see what gives or what gave....lol
Cheers
Reply By: Richard Kovac - Saturday, Nov 14, 2009 at 23:11
Saturday, Nov 14, 2009 at 23:11
How's it going Willem,
You write a hard post to reply to with out being knocked off for chit chat..... LOL
I started to get hot over here the other day all the A/C on today and tonight cooler had to but my jumper on or move inside, easy moved inside to many mozzies... can't win.
anyway must be good to get out..
Cheers
Richard
AnswerID:
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Follow Up By: Richard Kovac - Saturday, Nov 14, 2009 at 23:12
Saturday, Nov 14, 2009 at 23:12
Should prof read.... It started..
But then again, how can I pro read it when I wrote it.. ;-)
FollowupID:
659091
Reply By: Member - Allan B (QLD) - Saturday, Nov 14, 2009 at 23:22
Saturday, Nov 14, 2009 at 23:22
Willem, It's just as you said .........."No need for that crap on my tyres. Get a puncture, replace tube...lol" TPMS?...Bah!
AnswerID:
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Follow Up By: Member - Russnic [NZ] - Sunday, Nov 15, 2009 at 13:30
Sunday, Nov 15, 2009 at 13:30
At least you know it is repaired. Not just a temp patch up job.
FollowupID:
659139
Reply By: Member - Stephen L (Clare SA) - Saturday, Nov 14, 2009 at 23:26
Saturday, Nov 14, 2009 at 23:26
Hi Willem
I have been speaking to a few station people that I know up that way and east of
Burra. The biggest problem they are having apart from no rain and half their country blown away are dingos and feral goats. The goat problem is getting worse, and the dingos are now
well inside of the
dog fence.
One contractor that I know had a contract to cull 500 goats from one station east of
Burra. It must have been like shooting fish in a barrel, as they had 350 culled goats in a chiller van in 2 days, all for human consumption in the Middle East.
If we are going to save the outback, a greater effort must be made to cull the goats, as they do more damage than anything else out bush. I hope you removed a few for the sake of the environment.
Cheers
Stephen
AnswerID:
391232
Follow Up By: get outmore - Sunday, Nov 15, 2009 at 04:33
Sunday, Nov 15, 2009 at 04:33
easier said than done - most stations dont allow shooting goats and there very slack at rounding them up - most stations ive seen are abalutly trashed by goats and there thicker than bush flies
FollowupID:
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Follow Up By: fisho64 - Sunday, Nov 15, 2009 at 10:27
Sunday, Nov 15, 2009 at 10:27
Dont they export goats from SA?
hard pressed to find a station to shoot feral goats in WA as they are worth $30 to $50 odd each for export. Saved many stations over here during drought.
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Follow Up By: Member - Stephen L (Clare SA) - Sunday, Nov 15, 2009 at 11:24
Sunday, Nov 15, 2009 at 11:24
Hi Get outmore and fisho64,
The station people that I know said that the biggest problem is getting responsible shooting parties. I was told that the Sporting Shooters of SA get up there regular and cull as many as possible. The biggest problem now is that some of the stations have de-stocked their properties, as there is no feed and the feral goats are breeding up like rabbits in the hills. The drier weather is now forcing the goats down now for
water, and doing great damage to an environment that is suffering very badly, we all know of those dust storms and how it has ripped millions of tons of soil from the station properties.
As for exporting the goats, yes they do, but dead from the stations that I know. The man that I was talking about above, was contacted to catch and kill the goats. As they are for human consumption, it is a head shot only. After being shot they are gutted only and then put in the chiller. When I asked why they did not skin them, he said that they had to be a complete carcass for religious reasons in the Middle East.
The station people that I know have no objections to responsible shooters, and the way the situation is looking out there, welcome them with open arms, just to get rid a one very bad feral problem.
Cheers
Stephen
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Follow Up By: Member - Russnic [NZ] - Sunday, Nov 15, 2009 at 13:47
Sunday, Nov 15, 2009 at 13:47
Had a yarn to a guy on the road out there somewhere, I made the comment on the number of goats and of course the damage they do. He told me that that value of goat had reached the stage where they were worth harvesting again. When I suggested it would be a bastard of a job to muster them in in this country, he gave a bit of a laugh, reached across on the dash on the Toyota and picked up a remote , when there is enough in looking for
water, push the button, the gates shut, then it is only a matter of estimating how many road trains.
He did say where they went to live export, but I don't recall, it was totally different than where I would have expected.
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Follow Up By: Member - Stephen L (Clare SA) - Sunday, Nov 15, 2009 at 14:21
Sunday, Nov 15, 2009 at 14:21
Hi Russnic
Yes, this is the time of the year when they can yard them by the hundreds. All that the station owners or contractors do is build big yards around the watering areas, then have a
gate set up. Depending on what station owner you talk to, yes some do the culling themselves, while one station owner that I know, is kept too busy just trying to keep alive watering and feeding what stock he has left. When I mentioned about the goats that I saw on his property, he said that he hoped that I either ran them over or shot them, as they are getting way out of hand.
Like most of our feral animals, they may appear quite cute and cuddly as a pet, but set free and they take over our wild habitats and destroy our native wildlife.
Cheers
Stephen
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Follow Up By: Member - Russnic [NZ] - Sunday, Nov 15, 2009 at 15:02
Sunday, Nov 15, 2009 at 15:02
Hi Stephen
By the way this guy spoke they were yarding them in the thousands, I can't remember where it was, a bit North of Hungerfield I think, any way they had already sent a catch away and were building up to to next one. To me still looked to be a heap of goats around.
When I got married the father in law said if you want to take her ,the goats go to, so I inherited some goats along with the mother of my children, my comment was the goats and the kids had to stay under 10 in number, Ha Ha.
When the girls were in their early teens we had a muster, anything that escaped would be shot, when they escaped as they do, I was sitting waiting with the 30.06 and as they run between two clumps of bush I was just busy enough to get the numbers back under 10.
Oh Dear the tears and abuse I got, even worse when I insisted that they help load up for the dead hole.
Next spring the girls were castrating the kids and them selling them off later without any prompt from me.
As you get older one do's stupid things, we still have a frustrated
young Nanny goat for the grand kids.
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Follow Up By: Bob of KAOS - Monday, Nov 16, 2009 at 18:30
Monday, Nov 16, 2009 at 18:30
Goats - in
Canberra we just dress 'em in suits and call them parliamentarians.
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Reply By: Fred G NSW - Sunday, Nov 15, 2009 at 09:27
Sunday, Nov 15, 2009 at 09:27
Interesting facts I found about flies the other day. Came on a tag attached to an FOF net which I got as a freebie at the
Sydney Caravan &
Camping show back in April.
* There are 20 million trillion flies in Australia.
* This means there are 1 trillion flies for every Australian face.
* A pair of flies liasing in April could be progenitors 0f
191,010,000,000,000,000,000 new flies by August.
* Flies can't eat solids, so they vomit where they land to form a liquid,
(adding a few more germs for good measure). Then they suck it back up,
depositing some excrement at the same time.
I was gonna give my FOF net away, but just might hang onto it now after reading that :-((
Also set me right on another question that has been bugging me, FOF actually stands for Free Of Flies, and not what I had assumed :-))
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Follow Up By: guzzi - Sunday, Nov 15, 2009 at 12:13
Sunday, Nov 15, 2009 at 12:13
I'll stick to my original thoughts on FOF, matches my mood when the little blitters start crawling up your nose etc.
I visited Moomba once and the fly to person ratio of yours would be pretty close.
My main question is where do they come from? they need
water and poo/ something dead to breed and there is nothing there but salt bush and camel brown coloured dirt!
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Follow Up By: Member - Michael J (SA) - Sunday, Nov 15, 2009 at 12:30
Sunday, Nov 15, 2009 at 12:30
What I find hard to explain is when you are sitting in the boat, 2 or 3 kms out to sea, nice breeze and have not seen a fly for hours.......then up turn half a dozen or so.
Of course they are the dreaded 'nostril' fly and tend to catch you unaware.
How do they locate you??
Cheers
Michael
FollowupID:
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Follow Up By: Member - Russnic [NZ] - Sunday, Nov 15, 2009 at 13:53
Sunday, Nov 15, 2009 at 13:53
Simmons & Co Fly Repellent
It does work, they still fly round but don't land on the skin.
FollowupID:
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Reply By: Member - Phil G (SA) - Monday, Nov 16, 2009 at 20:30
Monday, Nov 16, 2009 at 20:30
Gday Willem,
Can't imagine you've fixed that tyre yet - it would still be too hot to handle :-))
I travelled through the NT and
Kimberley in April 1993 in a troopie running the Bridgestone All-Steel 757 on splits. It was pretty hot, the troopie was
well loaded (4 kids + gear) and on the highways we had 2 blowouts at 100kph. One happened suddenly - the rear suddenly went down, destroyed the tyre which was too hot to touch and nearly rolled the vehicle. The other was picked up sooner. That was when I said goodbye to splits! Those tyres get too hot and the tubes can't handle it. Whadya think? :-))
Cheers
Phil
AnswerID:
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Follow Up By: Willem - Monday, Nov 16, 2009 at 21:21
Monday, Nov 16, 2009 at 21:21
Hahaha, Phil...yer right...anyway the tyre is slightly out of round so fixing isn't a great priority now.
Having experienced the 'other' type of tyres I will stick to me splits and X-plies
Ofcourse the tyre was hot....I had run it at 90kmh for about 5km. BUT it did not disintegrate and cause a possible accident!!! So from a safety perspective I think the 16plies are pretty cool...er, hot!!
Cheers
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