Woohoo, I'm famous ... well just a little!
Submitted: Thursday, Jun 16, 2016 at 02:45
ThreadID: 132765 Views:3123 Replies:6 FollowUps:22
Pete Jackman (SA)
My post about a tragic death near William Creek (73559) has been picked up by a German travel site and republished together with some photos grabbed from my website:
http://www.reisebineblog.de/?p=12904
Its in german and Google translate struggled with it for me.
Still nice to see they are warning travelers about the risks out here for outback travel.
Any mug can be uncomfortable out bush
Reply By: Member - John T (Tamworth NSW) - Thursday, Jun 16, 2016 at 06:51
Thursday, Jun 16, 2016 at 06:51
Good morning Pete
Yes I am still amazed with the lack of knowledge about the vastness of the Australian outback. Had relies here from the UK last year - I mentioned that next time they come out I'd like to take them "outnack" - somewhere like Cameron Corner for instance. They were absolutely gob smacked when I told them that we would take 3 days just to get there and not even leave NSW to do so. Further to do that trip than from one end of the U.K. to the other.
Cheers and be safe out there
John T (Lifetime Member)
VKS-737 Mobile 2619
Selcall 2619
"Argue for your limitations and sure enough they're yours" - Richard Bach in "Illusions"
Follow Up By: Steve - Saturday, Jun 18, 2016 at 20:14
Whilst we're discussing ignorance of other countries, Lands end to John O'Groats is actually 100 kms further than Tamworth to Cameron Corner and there'd be a bloody sight more of interest on the way but carry on ....
Reply By: Member - Stephen L (Clare SA) - Thursday, Jun 16, 2016 at 07:36
Hi Pete
Well done and I hope you got full credit for it.
Long time since you have been online here, hope things are going well for you.
Smile like a Crocodile
Follow Up By: Pete Jackman (SA) - Thursday, Jun 16, 2016 at 11:06
Thanks Stephen,
My photos were watermarked and they gave me credit at the bottom of the article. They asked permission before hand.
I've not been spending much net time recently, too busy being retired.
Reply By: vk1dx - Thursday, Jun 16, 2016 at 09:34
Talking about the size of our "little" island home;
I used to talk to a bunch of American hams on a weekly schedule and one night that were happy to say that they, all four families, were coming to see Australia soon. All four families and coming to see the Great Barrier Reef and places like Birdsville and the Simpson. That was almost a their exact words. As much as they can in two weeks. !!!!!! I won't say what I thought.
I suggested that they get two maps, the same scale, one of Australia and another of mainland USA. Then put one over the other and see how much they could do in two weeks on the USA map and start planning the same area on the Australian map.
They were also surprised, as John's relatives were, that it takes three days just to drive the length of the reef and also to get to Birdsville from here. And then I mentioned that they will need all the communications and safety stuff as service stations can be hundreds of kilometers apart.
Not one of them had changed a flat tyre on a car. Why would I change tyre pressures. I am thinking "this will be fun for me if I go with them"!!!! Most of the blokes were in electronics and communications and wouldn't have had anything bigger then a small soldering iron or screwdriver in their hands. Hmmmm And they want to go to the Simpson.
I don't know if they came or not. I was away for a while with work and when I came home I didn't turn the radio on as I was sick of talking computers and programming. I just wanted to leave work at work.
I do hope that they got here. But I doubt it as that was all the time that the four families could arrange to have together. I didn't hear from them again but that was the nature of the hobby. They may have gone back to their regular sched on UHF and given HF a miss after I failed to turn up for the scheds. Packet radio was in it's infancy back then. It's now called emails and the internet. It wasn't as reliable as today., especially on HF.
Follow Up By: Member - Boobook - Thursday, Jun 16, 2016 at 09:38
Phil, that's why God invented war.
To teach Americans geography.
Follow Up By: Member - Alastair D (NSW) - Thursday, Jun 16, 2016 at 16:28
I recall reading that at the time George W was elected President he had never travelled outside America.
Follow Up By: Ron N - Thursday, Jun 16, 2016 at 18:45
Watch some of the YouToob videos where they question Americans in the street about other countries and world geography, and it will leave you wondering what they actually teach them at school.
No doubt the largest part of their education is learning everything about the Boston Tea Party, the Civil War, how they won WW2, - and how there is absolutely nothing in Australia, except sizeable numbers of curious-looking, hopping marsupials.
I find most Europeans, and especially the Germans, are quite knowledgeable about Australia, and even Outback Australia.
However, that knowledge often doesn't extend to knowing how to prepare for remote area travel, nor how to survive when things go wrong.
Cheers, Ron
Follow Up By: Member - Boobook - Friday, Jun 17, 2016 at 06:16
Here is another geography question for Americans.
About 1 in 20 get the answer right.
Name the most northern state, western state, southern state and eastern state of the US in order.
Wait till they give you all the answers then tell then how many they got right and ge them to do them all again.
The correct answers are
You usually get
Washington or Alaska
California or Hawaii
Florida or California
Follow Up By: Member - J&A&KK - Friday, Jun 17, 2016 at 06:57
I used to manage a company with offices around the world. Europeans were far more knowledgable on Australia than the Americans. I used a couple of map overlays in presentations to show comparisons in physical sizes of major continents ( similar to that attached- can't find what I actually used). I erred when adding the titles to the images. Not sure how to fix them.
Australia/Europe
Follow Up By: Bob Y. - Qld - Friday, Jun 17, 2016 at 08:36
From where you sit, John, there should be a pencil symbol above(I think?) each image. If you click this it will take you back to the image title box, you change what you need to, then hit save.
Haven't checked this, but that's what I remember doing.
Seen it all, Done it all.
Can't remember most of it.
Follow Up By: vk1dx - Friday, Jun 17, 2016 at 09:30
I worked at British Aerospace and we found the same. Europeans and British knew buckets more than the USA visitors.
Yes we did warn them all about the drop bears!!!!
They also got an idea of how big, isolated and dangerous the "middle" was when we all visited those places. Let's hope it did some good in the tourism areas.
Follow Up By: OutBack Wanderers - Friday, Jun 17, 2016 at 19:20
Thanx BooBook, well, I'll be damned, learn something everyday, who else got off their chair and looked at their World Globe? Waddya know, so it is, never noticed that until tonight.
Watch out trivia night, here I come
Follow Up By: Michael H9 - Saturday, Jun 18, 2016 at 06:21
Speaking of big places, has anyone noticed how big Kazakhstan is? You could fit all of Western Europe in it. However, Russia is the largest country in the world.
Follow Up By: Peter_n_Margaret - Saturday, Jun 18, 2016 at 09:55
There is actually a very big bit of Europe called Scandinavia missing from the Europe comparison map above.
And having done it just last year, I can tell you that it takes much longer to drive the length of Norway than it takes from Adelaide to Darwin.
Europe is much bigger than most Australians think.
OKA196 motorhome
Follow Up By: Member - Boobook - Saturday, Jun 18, 2016 at 10:45
I.m not sure of your point Peter.
It takes longer to do the Canning than do Adelaide to Darwin too. That is no where near as far either.
Adelaide to Darwin is about 2620km
Norway mainland North to South is about 1610km ( over 1000km less)
Canning is about 1400km
You can see how small Europe is even with Scandinavia is in this true size map. Normal maps distort the size of countries toward the poles.
You will also see that everything pales compared to Africa. Move the 2 countries around to get a real perspective.
How small Europe inc Scandinavia is compared to Australia.
Follow Up By: Shaker - Saturday, Jun 18, 2016 at 14:14
You only have to watch quiz shows to see what a dismal knowledge young Australians have of their own country!
Follow Up By: Candace S. - Sunday, Jun 19, 2016 at 14:58
LOL @ all this!
I've been coming to this forum for years. And at times it has appeared that some Aussies here don't know the US has deserts, areas without cell service (or other services), hot weather, etc.! Maybe just a little ignorance there?
Follow Up By: Ron N - Sunday, Jun 19, 2016 at 19:14
Candace - GASP! - You mean to tell me that the U.S. has roads that are NOT paved??
I can't believe this!! Everyone knows that America is paved from one end to the other!! LOL
Regards, Ron.
Follow Up By: Member - Boobook - Monday, Jun 20, 2016 at 07:23
What is surprising is that at about 2,000,000 km of unpaved roads, the US has nearly 4 times as much as Australia at about 560,000 kms.
There ARE things that the US does right. Spelling and pronunciation for one.
If we pick on Australians it would take too much time.
But if you guys elect Good ol trump, well, what do I say...
Follow Up By: vk1dx - Monday, Jun 20, 2016 at 09:29
English came from England NOT America. Both countries developed their own traditional version. Why then is the American way better than the Australian. I can only assume that maybe, you are an ex pat American, and wish us to follow you and dump our Australian ways.
I'm at least 5th generation Aussie on both sides Phil. English, Welsh and Irish blood.
Don't get me wrong, I don't like US terms flooding our kids and us, Buddy, etc and I refuse to high 5.
But US spelling makes so much more sense than UK. You are probably using US spelling without knowing it too. Eg Yoghourt or Yoghurt is the UK spelling and Yogurt which is derived from the turkish name is the US spelling.
US english is almost phonetic.
Analogue or analog? etc.
The problem with UK English is that it's a mixed collection of Latin, French, Germanic and Gaelic and other languages randomly mixed without real rules.
US english greatly simplifies this. Having said that, Aluminium is not aluminum.
It's just the next generation in an ever evolving language. Though you could kill that argument with me, on the basis that the nxt stp is txt that evolvs frm sms msgs.
LOL ( see it's started already)
Follow Up By: Ron N - Monday, Jun 20, 2016 at 10:25
Boobook, does that proper pronunciation extend to pronouncing "nuclear" as
"nook-leeee-ahhhh"? - or zebra as "zeeee-braaaa"? LOL
The language thing is interesting, because a friend who is a linguistics professor says U.S. English is more like Middle Ages English, because British English was altered over the last 300 years via the continuing impact of many of the Romance languages - which, in the U.S. did not happen, because the Americans were relatively isolated, regionally, as compared to Britain.
Never to worry, with the massive impact of American culture on us, the younger generation continues to think that U.S. English is our national style of spelling and pronunciation, anyway!
Cheers, Ron.
Ha Ron, can of worms huh?
I thought the difference came about because Thomas Jefferson and Noel? Webster( the dictionary guy) and others wanted to simplify it and differentiate US from UK after Independence. Not 100% sure about that though.
My PET hate though is how the UK has led the charge in pronouncing
Kilometers as Kil-ometers, not Kilo-meters. ( or French metres)
A Kilometer is a thousand meters, just like a kilogram is a thousand grams
Just like an pedometer measures steps, and a speedometer measures speed, a Kil-ometer must measure kills.
Reply By: Ron N - Thursday, Jun 16, 2016 at 18:54
Pete - Well done, and those pics are especially good. I would expect the Germans running the blog probably picked up Caroline Grossmuellers name from the stories on the internet about her tragic death - and your pics would probably have been found via searches on names in the area where she died.
Because her name was German, it would have been a magnet for the bloggers to find out more.
Anything that helps educate overseas visitors intending to travel to remote areas in the Outback, can only be good.
Reply By: Member - David P (WA) - Thursday, Jun 16, 2016 at 20:13
I love telling people that I live in a state almost as big as Europe and we have only two sealed roads across the border that are about 1800 km apart.
Follow Up By: Ron N - Friday, Jun 17, 2016 at 10:11
David - I love telling the Americans on other forums, about how the Westernmost city I live in, in Australia, is three days drive at highway speeds, from the next nearest Australian capital city! That seems to do their heads in! [:-)
Reply By: Member - Robyn R4 - Friday, Jun 17, 2016 at 21:28
Not sure how to do Googletranslate but I got the gist of enough of it. The essential advice for the unsuspecting German traveller was there in the last few paragraphs re staying with the vehicle etc ("bleibe beim Wagen").
I hope they plug the dangers of the Krokodil in their blog one day, too.
Robyn :)