What a drone

Drone bees are male used for sex and then discarded. Not that unlike some humans really. 

Is there a parallel with drones of the skies?

In the noughties Ray and I were on a grassed area at St Kilda Beach, Melbourne, when I heard a noise and looked up and saw a drone aircraft, and it descended to land right next to us. This is a public safety issue, said the State Government and banned them in some areas.

Skip to the teen years of the 21st century and I thought from my balcony I could see a hovering bird over the streets of South Yarra. We don't have large hovering birds. I realised it was a drone. I watched for a very short time and went inside to get my camera to take a photo, but it had gone by the time I returned. The drone operator was certainly in breach of laws.

Now, they have become skilled surveillance cameras, weapons that can hunt down and kill people with precision, can be armed to attack sites and suicide bombing devices.

Their abilities are quite scary, but they can be used in very useful areas too, for surveying and mapping, to check inaccessible areas and to fight against crime. 

They are topical here because they are used at Sydney beaches as shark spotters. Sadly at Coogee Beach a female swimmer was recently attacked by a shark. The beach is one of the popular few that doesn't have drone coverage because of Sydney Airport flight restrictions. Duh, how high do drones fly compared to planes? The authority has now temporarily allowed shark spotting drones to fly over the sea at Coogee Beach.

Over the summer periods, Sydney beaches are often netted to stop sharks coming close to shores, but this has a huge impact on sea wildlife, with many creatures getting caught in nets, including dolphins, whales, stingrays and turtles. Drones are a far more effective way to prevent shark attacks and don't have the impact on creatures of the seas. 

After all, aren't the seas the province of sea creatures. Humans enter at risk.

There is a natural predator for drones, as this Australian wedge tailed eagle shows. (PS. If this post seems very unedited in someway, that's because crazy things are happening around me) 

Flights

I confess I am not great with a camera, still or video. I did capture this video of planes on Australia Day.

Then there were plane flyovers for the Australian Grand Pricks Prix.

With a plane making a roll over.

I cut off my nose in England

You know the saying, cutting off your nose despite your face and that is what I did when I put my foot down with a firm hand.

Before we left Australia we had booked our train trip from Newcastle to Kings Cross Station, where we would catch a tube train to Heathrow for our flight home. I had allowed for more than a two hour delay for the trip into the plan.

The night before we caught a wonderfully smooth and luxurious LNER train to York, after a couple of drinks at Sister 1's R spouted forth. He (that's me) thinks his trains are so wonderful. The last time we travelled from Kings Cross, it was a horrible trip. Someone vomited everywhere and...well I can't remember now his other complaints. All I could remember about the trip was that it wasn't nice and at quite a high speed, it was hard to walk down the train corridor to the buffet car. I think we may have sitting backwards too, which was our fault. 

R went on and on about the train trip, in great detail that I don't remember. I said enough. Stop this now. He didn't, and I said if you hate the train so much, I will cancel the train booking to London then. Fine, he replied. I went outside and with my phone and I cancelled the train booking and LNER promised me a full refund, which I have yet to receive. I think for the two of us the price was about AU$100, £50.

When I returned inside the conversation had changed. About an hour later R asked me if I had really cancelled the train booking. I replied yes. Voices were not raised, there was not an argument. 

Next morning when R arose, he again asked me if I had cancelled the train trip. Yes, I had. 

The next day on train to York I said to R, we need to book something to get to London to go home. The reply was, you cancelled the train. You look at flights to London. It seems trains are killing domestic flying in England but I did find a BA flight on my phone to get to London. After double checking the times with R, it was good and I booked and paid for the flight to Heathrow. 

The cost was a few hundred dollars. I've never actually checked. I am too scared. I mentioned the cost to R, and he replied, you cancelled the train, you pay for the flights. And that is how it has remained.

I did really cut off my nose despite my face, but I don't care, least of all about the money. I mostly go for the quiet life but I stood up to his loose talk.

The real issue is R made me doubt myself about the train trip to London. Have I allowed enough time? What if the train is cancelled? What if there are obnoxious people on the train? What guarantee is there about the train? Industrial action has been affecting all train traffic in England. This had begun before we travelled to England, has been ongoing and is still happening now. PM Sunak seems uninterested in doing anything about the industrial relations public transport mess within his country. 

R made me lose confidence in myself and travelling by train in England. It will all be brought up in a future argument. Lol, very mature and after nearly 44 years together, we still behave so childishly.

Fly overs

I dislike Good Friday. Shops shut, nothing normal. I felt discombobulated. We caught the tram to St Kilda for brunch. I didn't even go out this afternoon. I spent the time sorting photos and fixing up my blog homepage links to my old High Riser blog, motivated by finding it can be seen on the Way Back Machine, as well as Trove.

Last night was an early dinner in town at Brunetti's with Ex Sis in Law and Little M. We escorted them to the theatre and we were exhausted but home by 7pm. They returned back here to retrieve their car and go home.

As always Little M's questions exhausted our brains.

Why can't we catch a number 1 tram back to your place?

Because it turns off before before our place.

Where does it go?

To South Melbourne and Albert Park.

You have lots of trams past your place so if one breaks down, you can get another. What if the number 1 tram breaks down? People can't get home.

There is more than one number 1 tram. I didn't encourage further conversation about how if one tram breaks down, it blocks every tram behind it. 

I just heard Aunty Andrew from the tram driver (auto announcement) that we are now in the 'free tram zone'. Does this make it cheaper.

No, you've already paid for the tram trip. 

That is not fair. We should now be travelling for free. 

Yes dearest oldest great niece, it is not fair and just shut the fuck up.  

Anyway, this Good Friday I culled all the rubbish photos and did quite a bit of cropping to feature my photos of the Grand Prix flyovers by RAAF Roulettes. I started with about 100 photos and reduced them to these.

They flew every day of the GP. Aside from Sunday, the preceding three days were cloudy, as when this photo was taken.

And this one.

Fail. Just contrails. 

Magnificent men in the their flying machines, and possibly women too.

Fine Dining, now Facing Poverty

Last week was an expensive time food wise. We lashed out dining at Chin Chin and then on the Saturday Ex Sis in Law's husband called and said he had won on the gee gees and asked if we would like to join him and Ex Sis in Law Sunday at a place called Wings and Fins. 

Damn, we the day before been to Mother's and taken her out for lunch. She had forgotten we were coming and was not dressed or made up. Tradie Brother was there to fix ABI Brother's garage roof drainage issues. Mother is much better when she is surprised by a visit from anyone. She doesn't suffer pre visit stress. We lunched at a local cafe and she later said it was the best afternoon ever. I managed to extract from her $50 for her meal, and the last one she did not pay for. Bills and paying for things has never been her focus. 

Anyway, the point of mentioning Mother's outing is that I had already driven Saturday on the Monash Freeway and now to visit Wings and Fins, it would be another drive on the Monash. I hate the road with a passion. Interestingly to local readers familiar with the area, rather than use the South Gippsland Highway through Cranbourne, Google suggested we use Cardinia Road from the Monash which becomes Dalmore Road, joining the Highway almost right at the restaurant gate. It was quick.

Wings and Fins sits over the Tooradin light plane airport, with a view over some seaside mudflats. It is not a cheap eats place but it was ok though rather noisy. It has a lovely outdoor partly shaded deck but hard to believe a few days later, it was a bit warm to sit out. 

This abandoned ship sits on swamp before the mudflats. Ex Sis in Law suggested we ask staff about its history. Her husband confidently said, 'It was one of the boats Vietnamese boat people used to arrive here in the 70s and then abandoned'. While waiting for our meal, I went out on to the deck to take some photos and also had doubts about the ship tale. I googled it and armed with facts I returned to the table. 

Now when you don't normally swear, you can very occasionally do so with great effect. "Vietnamese refugee ship my arse", I proclaimed. Here is the rather sad story of the ship.

It was owned by a man who was renovating the small steel ship. The swamp leading to the mudflats below our dining position was the only place he could find to store the boat while he worked on it with occasional help from his son. Between them they extended the length of the steel hull by six metres. The son was in Darwin in 1974 when Cyclone Tracy hit and was killed. The father was so distressed, he never returned to the ship. The ship has sat there ever since, slowly rusting away.

Are these passionfruit vine flowers? Interesting aren't they.

We didn't see any of these tiny planes land or take off but a light helicopter made a landing.