Local Walks 6. Bunyan and Bull Ant Lookouts

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We went out for a long walk yesterday – down to Glenbrook Creek, then across the creek, up the far side and on to first Bull Ant Lookout, then on to Bunyan Lookout.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A very pleasant six hour walk not quite right from our front door, but from the library at Blaxland, which is only five minutes drive away.

The bush is particularly spectacular at the moment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The lookout from the top of the rise beyond the creek was excellent.

It is quite an effort climbing up to Bull Ant Lookout, but worth it.

The view from Bunyan Lookout is also excellent, an hour further along the track.  Typically for this are, the paths are along the ridges and the views down into the valleys.

LSWR progress 2

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I now have the radio control apparatus, seen piled on top of the superstructure .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have opted to have sound (!) as well as battery-powered radio-control.

The battery-packs can be seen stacked on the outside edges of the side-tanks.  The speaker for the sound is in the cab at this stage.  The batteries will eventually go inside the water tanks.  So far the electrics all seem to work OK.

The kit is very well made from sheet brass (and steel).  This is so true that when parts don’t quite fit I first blame myself for not building it well enough!  So far I have had to use no molded parts, just sheet metal cut to size.  Mike Palmer, I think it is he who packs up the kits for the Gauge 3 Society, had taped parts together to aid their identification – important when several oblong bit of brass, or pieces of thin brass strip have to be identified before assembly.

I started off the kit by silver-soldering the steel frames (see the previous entry in the ‘blog), and have carried on using silver-soldering up until now – I love the way silver solder “flows” into the joints once they bare hot enough.  It’s also difficult to get the joints apart if you make a mistake though.  As you can see, progress on the body continues, and the engine is beginning to take shape.  Now that the main parts are done I’m intending to change to “soft soldering”, at a lower temperature, but I will have to se a large soldering iron, with a clean tip, as the large amounts of brass form a large “sink” for the heat.  That is, it’s difficult to get the work hot enough for the solder to melt and adhere.  I will need to use a better-cleaned tip on the iron than I am usually using.

The kit is very well thought-through, although in some ways this needs to be better explained than is done in the provided instructions.  Perhaps I’m too inexperienced at putting these models together, but it might have made things easier if I had understood a few central principles like the fact that the from part of the boiler is separate from the rest, but when it and the made-up water-tanks-and-cab section are held onto the footplate (with half-a-dozen bolts) it is all held together and in-line.

It is possible, now, to see the body mounted provisionally on the frames and wheels.  There IS something of a problem, though …

The rear wheel on the left side is missing!

I had put all the wheels in the frame, added the coupling rods and persuaded the whole assemble to turn under the power of the motor, using the radio control system and the rechargeable batteries I have bought.

After a while, though, it stopped, and on close inspection this had happened:

The mount for the crankpin had worked itself out of the black plastic molding which represents the wheel hub and spokes.  Disaster.  Can I get a new wheel from Slaters?  The trouble is that this would take weeks at best.  Can I just push the brass mount back into the wheel (and use cyano-acrylate glue)?

I suppose that whatever I do, at least I can get on with the bodywork …

LSWR G6 progress

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LSWR is only one letter different from LNWR after all …

I am constructing an LSWR tank engine in Gauge 3 because basically it is the only locomotive available for this scale at a reasonable cost with the necessary attributes: a good scale representation of the original, electrical propulsion but with radio control, and a scale model of an engine which is not too large.

Fortunately, the Gauge 3 society has produced a model kit which fills these categories/criteria.  A scale model of an 0-6-0 tank engine which was used for shunting and light traffic.  Here are some pictures of the kit as I start to make the body of the lodomotive:

 

The frames I have started on already (see the entry “Miscellaneous, incl. Rashmi’s wedding”, but now I am starting on the main part of the engine – the boiler, water tanks cab and coal bunker.  The kit is largely in brass sheet, about half a millimeter thick.  As with the steel-sheet frames, I am trying to use silver-soldering for the major joints, thinking that later construction will be made easier if I use (lower temperature) “soft soldering”.

So far it has all gone well.

Miscellaneous, incl. Rashmi’s wedding

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We recently went to Rashmi’s wedding.  Rashmi is Andrew’s oldest friend apart from Nick.  She joined Andrew at St Paul’s Grammar school at about age 16/15 respectively and they have gone through the IB exams together, medical entrance exams, medical school and being interns and residents together.  Their academic rivalry was probably why both achieved 45s in the IB (the top mark) and both were well into the top percentile of the application to UNSW Medicine.

An old joke has been that whoever married Rashmi got Andrew as part of the contract …

This was (another) spectacular Indian Wedding, and most of the guests wore suitable clothing.  Here is a picture of Andrew and his friends at the wedding.  What a truly. multicultural event!  Backgrounds are Indian, Chinese, European, Phillipines, but all are Australian.

 

I’ve started to build another railway engine.  This time in Gauge 3 (the same size as my Dyak live steam locomotive) and so twice the size of my previous builds in Scale Seven.  This will be very different – battery powered and radio-controlled.  Gauge three is the scale of the wagons which I have built (see the Baddesley wagons blog and other previous entries) and this is for a long-awaited garden railway in Glenbrook.

I’m having to learn new skills, including silver soldering.  The frames are steel and the silver solder is much stronger than “soft solder”.  THe operator usually has to use a (small) blowtorch as the source of heat

So Far, So Good.  There’s a 20c coin (about the size on an old penny) to give an idea of size – this 0-6-0 tank engine will be over 40cm long.  The scorch marks on the wood are because the advice is to use a “jig” of wood constructed to be at exact right angles to clamp the frames and footplate to before blow-torching them up to temperature.

 

 

 

I’ve also been exploring the eastern end of the old Glenbrook Tunnel again as the local council prepare it for use as a cycleway!  They have done a lot of clearing up, as you can see here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, this is a view of a pair of kookaburras in Euroka Clearing when we walked down there recently.

The are wonderful birds.

 

Piano Fest Out West

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Last weekend we went out to the “Piano Fest Out West” at a station outside Bathurst.  It is a weekend of beautiful piano music held at an old farm outside Bathurst, now largely used for recreational purposes, I think, rather than farming.  It was owned at one stage by the Australian artist Olsen and his wife, an clearly is set up now for weekends such as this one.

The people who run the Sydney International Piano Competition also run this event.  They co-ordinated four piano-players to make the program work, at least one of whom is a past winner of their competition. 

 

 

They also make it attractive by offering gourmet food and wine as part of the package.

Obviously attractive to us.

 

 

 

The property could easily be in the Home Counties of England, though with considerably better weather!

 

Not even slightly local walks (6) – Wilpena Pound and the Arkaba Station

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We returned about a week ago from South Australia, where  we did the Arkaba Walk.  It is called one of the “Great Walks of Australia”, although how these walks are chosen I do not know.  It was a very good three-day / two night luxury camping walk (see later for the “camping” accommodation !

Arkaba is about 500km north of Adelaide, and so it is a bit of an effort to get there – flight to Adelaide, long drive in the hired 4WD to get to the Arkaba Station.  The Station is an ex-sheep station, now being carefully reverted back to its natural state.  The old station building has been beautifully converted, with relics of its past scattered around. 

The guided walks are a way of supporting the efforts to do this.  Arkaba Station is at one edge of the Wilpena Pound, which is an ancient volcano crater.

Our first day walking started at Wilpena, and we walked right across the ancient crater to a pass over the mountain range which makes one edge of the pound, and is called Bridle Gap.  On the way was a settlers cottage: it was a hard life …

 

The track was very clearly delineated and easy to follow, but our guides were also useful in pointing out all the points of interest.  Reaching the “campsite” (at Black Gap”) was a revelation: the sites are in fact accessible by four-wheel drive, and comprise the cooking hut, two-person open-air sleeping platforms, “long-drop” toilets (sitting in privacy, toilet paper rolls, handbasins, towels, but no flushing), and showers (via buckets of hot water, solar heated or gas).  Food was excellent, breakfast good.

 

 

 

 

The second day was spent walking the length of the Arkaba Station, ending up at Arkaba Creek.  Once again, the accommodation was superb, food excellent, etc.  The scenery was breath-taking and the walking excellent.

This was the scene we woke up to.  Not bad, for “camping”.

 

 

The third day was through parts of the Arkaba Station, ending up at the homestead.

An excellent guided walk.  Wonderful country.

Amsterdam and the Rijkmuseum

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Amsterdam is a great city.  The Netherlands was clearly a very wealthy country at one time and unlike many previously wealthy states they have preserved their magnificent infrastructure well.

The museums and art galleries are wonderful.  Amsterdam is a modern city, yet has kept many of its old buildings well.  The canals, of course, are a major attraction also.

The Rijkmuseum is a major attraction.  Not for its Renaissance art or the voluptuous nudes or the religious artwork, although there is much of that. 

For me it is the wonderful landscapes, like a couple chosen almost at random here:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There were also some surprises:

 

Here are a pair of musical instruments: count the strings on the bass viol – there are 6!

Look at the size of the violin!

 

 

 

 

Now look at this aeroplane from the early 20th Century:  What’s the most unusual thing you notice about it?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It has a motor with seven-cylinders !!!

The rijksmuseum is full of such surprises, as well as full of wonderful artwork.

 

The Kimberleys Day 16

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We have finished the tour really, just the helicopter flight from Naturalist Island to the Mitchell Platreau airstrip, then a 2-hour flight back to Broome.

This is a picture of our ship, with one which carries over a hundred passengers behind it.

Our crew were staying on with the replacement group of guests looking much more frail and much less mobile than our group was.

The helicopter ride was my first for over twenty years, and was very exciting.  Several helicopters were using the beach at Naturalist Island for sight-seeing tours (for the larger ship), and to transfer the 19 passengers from our tour the half-hour flight to the airstrip, including scenic loops over the Mitchell Falls

 

 

 

On the Michell Plateau the waterfalls are spectacular seen from the ground, but less so from the air, despite their being the greatest drop over multiple levels in Western Australia.

Best seen from the ground, I think.

 

The aeroplane journey from the airstrip was in a small-but-12-seater ‘plane., over the Kimberley coastline up which we had just travelled, including a figure-of-eight loop over the Horizontal Falls (Kimberley Day 8).

 

It was interesting to try to identify points of interest seen previously at ground level (water level?).  Above in the centre is an area of mangrove previously seen as a dry mud area, as we stayed overnight anchored to the channel on the left (Kimberley Day 11).

This scenery was easy, though:

 

Here are the Horizonal Falls.  The top section of water is widely open to the sea (left section in the upper photo., with watercraft visible).

 

The central section, although seawater, is only connected to the sea by a narrow passage.  As the tide rises, and gradient is created down into the middle patch of water, and down an even tighter passageway to the lowest lake/bay.  In the lower picture it’s possible to make out a boat heading towards the gap between the hills (even though you cannot see the gap itself).  Boats pass through the outer gap (as you saw us do on Day 8).  Eventually the levels equilibrate, then the flows reverse as the tide falls.

These days, no-one goes through the inner rapid-flow section, since a bad accident a couple of years ago.

 

The Kimberleys Day 15

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We had an early start with a trip to visit a tunnel eroded right through a promontory of sandstone.

 

 

 

 

 

There were trees which had trapped after floating in with the tide, and then slowly worn away. 

 

 

 

 

In some ways the most striking aspect of this visit was for us to emerge from the tunnel/cave and not immediately be struck by the beautiful sandstone wall opposite.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next we had a trip up an inlet called something like: Rainforest Inlet (irony in naming?) which was very picturesque with wonderful rock “sculptures”, lovely mangroves, and a crocodile!

 

Some of the sandstone shapes are so striking because it is not obvious how they do NOT immediately collapse.

After a swim (where I received some good advice about how to improve my swimming technique from the other travellers), we visited another cave, this one not being a tunnel as there was only one real entrance. 

Once again I was struck by the way in which the sandstone can be eroded in ways to create extraordinary shapes, and even caves/tunnels through the rock.