Date: February 3rd 2012

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Westprint Friday Five February 3^rd 2012  

Notes from the office

School holidays have now finished and today is my first day back at Westprint. Thank you for all your emails, notes and comments. I will start working through them and reply as soon as I can. This year instead of the Friday Five taking a break for January we sent out ‘pre-prepared’ issues. These have been very successful so that is what we will be doing in future. In fact they were so successful I thought about pre-writing a whole year’s worth but then my brain started hurting so I left that and made a cup of tea. Cheers. Jo.  

Next week’s edition will include trip notes for Billy Goat Bluff Track.

 

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Friday Five

1. Two Classic Tales of Australian Exploration. In this remarkable volume Tim Flannery brings together two classic Australian tales of travel and exploration: 1788 by Watkin Tench and Life and Adventures by John Nicol. Watkin Tench was a young marine captain with the First Fleet. With his natural curiosity and genius for storytelling he documented his first indelible impressions of this extraordinary land. John Nicol, experienced maritime globetrotter and steward on the Lady Juliana, arrived in Port Jackson two years later.  On board was Sarah Whitlam, his young convict lover, who had borne their son John during the voyage. Nicol’s record of the savagery and tenderness of a life lived on the high seas in the late eighteenth century is unrivalled. 196 pp. $32.00 Add to Cart

2. Where is Here? Tim Flannery. In this book Flannery charts 350 years of exploration in Australia. A chronological collection of well-known and little-known explorers, from Jan Carstensz in 1623 to Robyn Davidson in 1977. A highly readable account. $22.95 Add to Cart

3. Those Who Remain will Always Remember. Culture and identity, suffering and the triumph of survival thread their way through short stories, poems, legends, song lyrics, essays and commentaries in this remarkable anthology of Aboriginal writing. $22.95 Add to Cart

4. (The) Dig Tree Sarah Murgatroyd. Sarah Murgatroyd reveals new historical and scientific evidence to tell the story of the disaster of Robert O’Hara Burke and William Wills’ expedition with all its heroism and romance, its discoveries, coincidences and lost opportunities. Generously illustrated with photographs, paintings and maps, The Dig Tree is a spell-binding book. $26.95 Add to Cart

5. Big John Kim Lockwood. An excellent book about John McKinlay and his search for Burke & Wills. Well documented and easy to read. $32.90 Add to Cart

 

Products are allocated on a first-come first serve basis. To reserve your copy of any of the following books please email info@westprint.com.au with the title you are interested in. All emails will be answered during the following week, either with details of how to pay, or a ‘sorry, the item has already sold’ email. Where possible, postage on multiple items will be recalculated to offer you the best price.  

Postage Rates. These items will usually not be found on our website. Orders will be supplied on a ‘first come, first serve’ basis. Westprint normal postage rates are now $8.50 for one book, $11.00 for two books, $13.00 for 3 or more books. Free post applies to orders of more than $150.00. Postage rates apply to Australia only. Airmail postage rates apply to overseas orders.

 

Friday Forum

Cheap and Cheerful

We spent the summer holidays relatively close to home this year but still managed to keep busy (or is that just a mother’s perspective?). Some of the low cost activities we found included:

Swimming at Long Beach in Robe. The water was a beautiful turquoise the day we were there contrasting with the whiter than white sand. The beach is not patrolled but the bay is sheltered and usually calm. The bonus of this beach is that you can drive onto it and set up your beach shelter, esky, chairs etc. within arm’s length of your car.

Swimming at Lady Bay in Warrnambool. Cars are not allowed on Victorian beaches so you need to carry your beach goodies. Distance varies according to availability of parking at the Life Saving Club or over the road at Lake Pertobe. This beach does have a patrolled area and the waves are a lot more lively than at Long Beach.

Fishing at Mallacoota. The camping area stretches way along the foreshore with only a short walk for some great fishing (but we didn’t catch anything).

If you have any recommendations for low cost activities please send them in – like Dieter (below). Happy travelling. Jo

 

• If any of your readers are into Museums and such they should not miss the Werrimul Pioneer Village. What an exceptional treat that is, and if you are a serious researcher take photo equipment and plenty of paper and ink. It's a researchers' dream, if you like the Mallee and broad acre wheat on ten inches of rain.

To get there (unless you go with a local); from Melbourne way on the A79 chuck a left into Redcliff-Meringur road C254 and just head on straight until you get there. Do not neglect to have a rib fillet steak at the Pub, miss it and you will regret it for the rest of your life. Then head north on the Meringur North Road to the A20 and hang a left until you come to another left turn that heads to the Murray River and although you are in Victoria you'll need a NSW Inland fishing licence if you want to try and catch a Murray cod - which if you do will ensure that you will say there is Murray cod and there is insipid fish and chips also-rans. If you come from the Adelaide side of course you have to hang a right at Meringur North Road etc. If I sound impressed I was! Dieter

 

Tyre Pressures and Trailers

I almost totally agree with John re tyre pressures over corrugation and did that with both our OKA and later 4.2 litre Nissan Patrol and Tvan. I did not take them quite as low as John suggests - 20 psi with the Nissan and Tvan - but both were very lightly laden as we prefer to travel that way (and about 25 psi with the OKA - on 14 ply 900 by 16s - and also light at 5.2 tonne). But over some 12 plus return trips mostly from Broome via the Tanami to Alice and Oodnadatta & Strzelecki Tracks to the East Coast never once had mechanical or tyre issues - but speed MUST be kept below 60 km/h. We also kept the vehicles in 4WD most of the time on the dirt. That evened out tyre wear - in 2WD the drive tyres wear fast.
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Re Chris's point and trailers on the Canning - our own experience is that it's not a problem if tyres are kept as above. But ONLY with a trailer no heavier than the laden 850 kg of the Tvan - we travelled with it close to empty. Certainly though we saw people struggling and need snatching out in areas we had no major problems with - but the big Nissan was working quite hard in second low at times.
But consider this - when talking with the Kimberley reps  at the 2011 Rose Hill Caravan Show - about their close to 3-tonne monster trailer - they insisted that 'many had taken them over Canning pulled by the V8 Land Cruisers - and had no trouble at all - 'you may need to let the tyres down on hills though' admitted one. And then suggested that maybe I had not had enough off-road experience to know any better'.
Apart from insulting a possibly (but no longer) potential customer, I suggest that sales advice like that hardly helps.
Collyn. Caravan & Motorhome Books. Sydney  

Friday Funnies

The two most requested jokes/stories from 2011.

My apologies to all the blokes out there ‘cos this is really a girl’s joke. Brings tears to my eyes every time I read it!

When you have to visit a public toilet, you usually find a line of women, so you smile politely and take your place. Once it’s your turn, you check for feet under the cubicle doors. Every cubicle is occupied. Finally, a door opens and you dash in, nearly knocking down the woman leaving. You get in to find the door won't latch. It doesn’t matter; the wait has been so long you’re desperate.

The dispenser for the modern ‘seat covers’ (invented by some Mum, no doubt) is handy, but empty. You would hang your bag on the door hook, if there was one, so you carefully, but quickly drape it around your neck, (Mum would turn over in her grave if you put it on the FLOOR!) down with your pants and assume ‘The Stance’. In this position, your aging, toneless, thigh muscles begin to shake. You'd love to sit down, but having not taken time to wipe the seat or to lay toilet paper on it, you hold ‘The Stance’. To take your mind off your trembling thighs, you reach for what you discover to be the empty toilet paper dispenser.

In your mind, you can hear your mother’s voice saying, ‘Dear, if you had tried to clean the seat, you would have KNOWN there was no toilet paper.’ Your thighs quiver. You remember the tiny tissue that you blew your nose on yesterday - the one that's still in your bag (the bag around your neck, that now you have to hold up trying not to strangle yourself at the same time). That would have to do, so you crumple it in the puffiest way possible. It's still smaller than your thumbnail.

Someone pushes your door open because the latch doesn’t work. The door hits your bag, which is hanging around your neck in front of your chest and you and your bag topple backward against the tank of the toilet. ‘In Here’ you scream, as you reach for the door, dropping your precious, tiny, crumpled tissue in a puddle on the floor, while losing your footing altogether and sliding down directly onto the TOILET SEAT. It is wet of course. You bolt up, knowing all too well that it’s too late. Your bare bottom has made contact with every imaginable germ and life form on the uncovered seat because YOU never laid down toilet paper - not that there was any, even if you had taken time to try. You know that your mother would be utterly appalled if she knew, because you're certain her bare bottom never touched a public toilet seat because, frankly, dear, ‘You just don't KNOW what kind of diseases you could get’

By this time, the automatic sensor on the back of the toilet is so confused that it flushes, propelling a stream of water like a fire hose against the inside of the bowl and spraying a fine mist of water that covers your rear and runs down your legs and into your shoes. The flush somehow sucks everything down with such force and you grab onto the empty toilet paper dispenser for fear of being dragged in too.

At this point, you give up. You're soaked by the spewing water and the wet toilet seat. You're exhausted. You try to wipe with a sweet wrapper you found in your pocket and then slink out inconspicuously to the hand basins.

You can't figure out how to operate the taps with the automatic sensors, so you wipe your hands with spit and a dry paper towel and walk past the line of women still waiting. You are no longer able to smile politely to them. A kind soul at the very end of the line points out a piece of toilet paper trailing from your shoe. (Where was that when you NEEDED it?) You yank the paper from your shoe, plonk it in the woman's hand and tell her warmly, ‘Here, you just might need this’. As you exit, you spot your hubby, who has long since entered, used and left the men's toilet. Annoyed, he asks, 'What took you so long and why is your bag hanging around your neck?

This is dedicated to women everywhere. It finally explains to the men what really does take us so long. It also answers that other commonly asked question about why women go to the toilets in pairs. It's so the other girl can hold the door, hang onto your bag and hand you Kleenex under the door.

Remember the story of the visit to the women’s toilets a few weeks ago? Here’s one for the blokes. And yes, it is something that has come from America...let’s just leave it that way.  

Last weekend I saw something at Larry's Pistol & Pawn Shop that sparked my interest...

The occasion was our 15th anniversary and I was looking for a little something extra for my wife Julie. What I came across was a 100,000-volt, pocket/purse- sized tazer.

The effects of the tazer were supposed to be short lived, with no long-term adverse affect on your assailant, allowing her adequate time to retreat to safety....??

WAY TOO COOL! Long story short, I bought the device and brought it home, loaded two AAA batteries in the darn thing and pushed the button.

Nothing! I was disappointed. I learned, however, that if I pushed the button and pressed it against a metal surface at the same time; I'd get the blue arc of electricity darting back and forth between the prongs.

AWESOME!!! Unfortunately, I have yet to explain to Julie what that burn spot is on the face of her microwave. Okay, so I was home alone with this new toy, thinking to myself that it couldn't be all that bad with only two AAA batteries, right?

There I sat in my recliner, my cat Gracie looking on intently while I was reading the directions and thinking that I really needed to try this thing out on a flesh & blood moving target. I must admit I thought about zapping Gracie (for a fraction of a second) and then thought better of it. She is such a sweet cat. But, if I was going to give this thing to my wife to protect herself against a mugger, I did want some assurance that it would work as advertised. Am I wrong?

So, there I sat in a pair of shorts and singlet with my reading glasses perched delicately on the bridge of my nose, directions in one hand, and tazer in another.

The directions said that a one-second burst would shock and disorient your assailant; a two-second burst was supposed to cause muscle spasms and a major loss of bodily control; and a three-second burst would purportedly make your assailant flop on the ground like a fish out of water. Any burst longer than three seconds would be wasting the batteries. All the while I'm looking at this little device measuring about 5" long, less than 3/4 inch in circumference (loaded with two itsy, bitsy AAA batteries); pretty cute really, and thinking to myself, 'no possible way!'

What happened next is almost beyond description, but I'll do my best.
I'm sitting there alone, Gracie looking on with her head cocked to one side so as to say, 'Don't do it stupid,' reasoning that a one second burst from such a tiny thing couldn't hurt all that bad. I decided to give myself a one second burst just for heck of it. I touched the prongs to my naked thigh, pushed the button, and...

HOLY MOTHER OF.... WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION. ... WHAT THE....???

I'm pretty sure Hulk Hogan ran in through the side door, picked me up in the recliner, and then body slammed us both on the carpet, over and over and over again. I vaguely recall waking up on my side in the fetal position, with tears in my eyes, body soaking wet, both n*pples on fire, t**ticles nowhere to be found, with my left arm tucked under my body in the oddest position, and tingling in my legs! The cat was making mewing sounds I had never heard before, clinging to a picture frame hanging above the fireplace, obviously in an attempt to avoid getting slammed by my body flopping all over the living room.

Note: If you ever feel compelled to 'mug' yourself with a tazer, one note of caution: there is NO such thing as a one second burst when you zap yourself! You will not let go of that thing until it is dislodged from your hand by a violent thrashing about on the floor! A three second burst would be considered conservative!

A minute or so later (I can't be sure, as time was a relative thing at that point), I collected my wits (what little I had left), sat up and surveyed the landscape. My bent reading glasses were on the mantel of the fireplace. The recliner was upside down and about 8 feet or so from where it originally was. My triceps, right thigh and both n*pples were still twitching. My face felt like it had been shot up with Novocain, and my bottom lip weighed 88 lbs. I had no control over the drooling. I may have messed my shorts, but was too numb to know for sure, and my sense of smell was gone. I saw a faint smoke cloud above my head, which I believe came from my hair. I'm still looking for my t**ticles!

P.S. My wife can't stop laughing about my experience, loved the gift and now regularly threatens me with it!

If you think education is difficult, try being stupid!!!

Disclaimer.

Please note that the opinions and articles included in the Friday Five are not necessarily those of the Westprint mob. Nor do we endorse any products (other than our own), or tours listed in contributed articles.

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Cheers for now,

Jo

 

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