A lesson learned the hard way

[2LaneCruzer]

Can't remember if it was the same book or not, but did the planet have high gravity, everyone had to be armed, very quick, very strong and a good shot? I have that book, can vaguely remember the cover, but the book is stored in a box in the barn.... I think there was a sequel to the first book.

Later,
Dan

Sounds like the same one! I recall the protagonist needing a body guard, who turned out to be a youngster that was a crack shot with his pistols. One passage I recall very vividly, was where a space ship was unloading, and the passengers were in clear glass or plastic containers. Something called a "Sting Wing" attacked the containers, injecting poison from his wings into the containers, which turned them milky. It's been over 50 years since I read that book!

 

[kc5dlo]

Heard this morning the dad may be in trouble for going back and shooting the alligator.

 

[smstonypoint]

Heard this morning the dad may be in trouble for going back and shooting the alligator.

There was a story a couple of days ago about the alligator being poached. So, they think the dad did it?


Poached alligator identified as southeast Texas man?s killer | Dallas Morning News

Steve

 

[3930dave]

Australia is my top favorite country to visit. It is somewhat bureaucratic but it makes it predictable, it is highly developed but it still a frontier. If you want you can get lost there and nobody will find you, provided you have to know how to survive. It is big but has low population, everything has different dimension there. Gas stations are 400 miles apart on main road or not at all once you leave the pavement.
I was working in Pilbara few years back. Me and another guy were driving every Sunday to Karijini national park about 350-400 km one way on a gravel road. Before I left for my rotation home I told guys in the office (all expats) they should visit the place. I gave them instructions: Take nonperishable food for at least four days. Take water for at least a week. Take full tank(s) of diesel (45 gal) and make sure that you have two spare tires that are in good order. When I returned back to work few months later I heard a story about the trip.
They took two Toyota Landcruisers with three guys per car. They just made it to the boundary of the national park when one of the cars died and wouldn't restart. It was out of fuel. The driver was Dutch and had no clue about the place. He thought that there will be a gas station. So they all sardined in the other car and eventually returned back. The problem was how do you explain to the car rental company where the car was. There are no street or road signs. It took them four days to find it. The wheels and the engine were gone though. If you read car rental agreement fine print (rental company dependent) you would know that any accident on gravel road is excluded from coverage, any accident after sun set outside the town is also excluded, any damage to undercarriage is excluded etc. To make the story short they charged his credit card about AUD 30000. If you leave town your mobile will lose signal in about 30 km, your radio will go silent in about 100 km away and you are on your own.
There was embargo on export of live cattle to Indonesia few years ago. The grazers (ranchers) complained loudly so it was in news every day. I listened news every morning driving to work on local public station Radio National. One guy complained that they are small operation and as such they are really hurting. He said they had only 400 000 acres (or hectares?).
I have other stories I could tell but will save them for another time.

Somebody that has only lived in a high density area like Holland may have trouble mentally switching gears to deal with the distance/isolation.

There are parts of Canada I wouldn't venture into w/o at least 40L (10 gal.) of extra fuel in cans...... people here in civilization are used to seeing plenty of bling on trucks at the shopping mall, and tend to forget that some of it has real utility..... it doesn't sink in that all those extra fuel cans are on a Camel Trophy truck for a reason..... w/o even considering any extra dedicated supply trucks that are staged for fuel.

Gators haven't changed (evolution wise) much in a very long time, as they were already a very efficient and deadly predator. Ignorance of this fact gets people killed.

There does seem to be a problem with the gene pool, in regard to dealing with deadly animals.... elsewhere I posted about US and/or Canadian park officials having to issue bulletins telling people not to be posing for selfies with bears in the wild.

Or... the glass-half-full approach would be to set up dedicated parks full of gators and bears....... Darwin would have understood.

Rgds, D.

 

[dmccarty]

Sounds like the same one! I recall the protagonist needing a body guard, who turned out to be a youngster that was a crack shot with his pistols. One passage I recall very vividly, was where a space ship was unloading, and the passengers were in clear glass or plastic containers. Something called a "Sting Wing" attacked the containers, injecting poison from his wings into the containers, which turned them milky. It's been over 50 years since I read that book!

Yep! That sound very familiar. I have thought of that book often over the years and want to reread it. I bought a compilation of H. Beam Pipers books for the Kindle and have not yet gotten around to reading them again. I have a bunch of old paper backs I want to reread but they are so old they are falling apart.

Later,
Dan

 

[Redneck in training]

Somebody that has only lived in a high density area like Holland may have trouble mentally switching gears to deal with the distance/isolation.

There are parts of Canada I wouldn't venture into w/o at least 40L (10 gal.) of extra fuel in cans...... people here in civilization are used to seeing plenty of bling on trucks at the shopping mall, and tend to forget that some of it has real utility..... it doesn't sink in that all those extra fuel cans are on a Camel Trophy truck for a reason..... w/o even considering any extra dedicated supply trucks that are staged for fuel.

Gators haven't changed (evolution wise) much in a very long time, as they were already a very efficient and deadly predator. Ignorance of this fact gets people killed.

There does seem to be a problem with the gene pool, in regard to dealing with deadly animals.... elsewhere I posted about US and/or Canadian park officials having to issue bulletins telling people not to be posing for selfies with bears in the wild.

Or... the glass-half-full approach would be to set up dedicated parks full of gators and bears....... Darwin would have understood.

Rgds, D.

I used to work for Oil & Gas for many years. Did many jobs in remote places in Canada also. Some places were 100 or more km from pavement accessible by gravel or just mud roads. Quite few times I couldn't find the place and had to return back to paved road to get mobile signal and call the people to get me. GPS with route tracking was an absolute necessity to return back to civilization. If you get lost in Australia it is the usually the environment that can kill you (unless you are familiar with "bush tucker". In Canada it is environment and you being a part of the food chain. You are the food. Hehe.
I have a friend living in Pilbara (Australia) who is a hobby gold prospector. Instead drinking in a bar every weekend he and few buddies go to some place they call salt flats with metal detectors look for nuggets. Few of his buddies were aboriginals. Quite few of them switched from gold to "bush tucker" expeditions. They take group of city slickers to bush without any supplies and return them back to civilization few weeks later alive. Way more profitable than looking for gold.
While working in Australia years back I watched a show in TV about expedition from I think Sydney to northern territories approximately to where is today Darwin. All members of the expedition died. Some of them actually reached the north shore but because they were so late the boat that was supposed to take them back already left. Following expedition found their camps and recovered diaries describing the journey. First they had lack of water, then food etc. The show was about an expedition of college students retracing the expedition route with a professor (expert on bush tucker) as a guide. He was showing a place where was water and the diary said there was no food. He walked to the bilabong pull some plants saying the roots were edible, then he pull handful of shell fish that were also edible. There was plenty of food along the route. The moral of the story was it was ignorance a feeling of superiority that killed them all. If they would take just one aboriginal he would keep them all alive I suppose.

Another guy originally from Switzerland living in Perth told me that when his brother came to visit him he asked if he could borrow his car in the morning to drive to Sydney saying he would be back afternoon. It takes about four days of hard driving just to make it one way. People from small countries don't have a clue.

Australia used to be a wild place I suppose. My gold prospector friend has a pickle jar of gold nuggets in his kitchen and bucket of found bullets in his garage.

 

[3930dave]

I recall modern day stories of people trying to drive across Australia. A lot of them didn't make it. MC riders have been found at the side of the road, sitting in their gear, dessicated.

As you touched on, if you don't know how to access the available water there, you will die. Here, freezing to death is a real threat, still happens today even with people in vehicles.

Back in their seriously crazy days I remember Car and Driver driving a Corvette across the Outback. Although probably certifiable, they had some smart people working for them, who managed to pull it off. Took some head-scratching, but some outback mechanic managed to change over a tire for them.... pretty sure he hadn't seen Z rated tires in that profile before.

Never made it to Oz yet, but it is one place I would like to visit, including the remote parts. Good to see those guys doing well guiding the BTucker trips.... unique, and real knowledge that would be hard learn otherwise.

I think part of the dangerous complacence concerning ignorance today revolves around "Not to worry, if I have a problem, I'll call 911....". Even in developed areas, let alone the middle of nowhere, you can't always count on a cell signal. And, cell phones can die, just on their own..... not something to bet a life on, IMO.

Rgds, D.

 

[Redneck in training]

Australia is still a frontier in many places. You can see people on side of road cooking food on a fire. Considering possible danger people still care about each other. Southern hemisphere has beautiful night sky because it is looking toward center of the galaxy. I wanted to get out of city lights one night so I was driving rather slow on a coastal highway looking for a good place to stop and enjoy the view. I was passed by another car that was slowly disappearing in distance when I found a spot to stop. I parked on side of the road and turned light off. 20-30 minutes later the people in a car that passed me came back asking if I was OK because my lights disappeared from their view. Closest inhabited place was about 100 km away.



This sign actually means that there is no gas, no water, no food, no mobile signal, no radio signal etc. The road is paved and there is traffic though.

Should I start another thread sharing travel stories?

 

[MoKelly]

Heard this morning the dad may be in trouble for going back and shooting the alligator.

I read that Florida authorities agreed no charges would be filed.

The alligator still had undigested body parts in its system when killed.

MoKelly

 

[k0ua]

HF radio is fairly popular in the outback.. For those of you not familiar with the characteristics of HF radio, you can talk for thousands of miles without infrastructure of any kind.