Automotive death with dignity

How do you say goodbye to a dear and faithful friend who's been part of your life for nearly 20 years? A friend whose gender isn't quite clear. I once had a Hillman Hunter who was called KEN (his number plates made his gender clear). This one, TYG, was a tiger of sorts, but a dependable, comfortable, sensible gender-neutral Toyota Corolla sort of tiger.

It was time to bite the bullet today. Tiger has often refused to start recently, sometimes at rather inconvenient times and places. A failing petrol pump was diagnosed, and for a while now I've been solving the problem by hitting it with a rubber mallet! You've got  to be cruel to  be kind, but it can only go on for so long, and a fuel pump would cost more than the car was worth.

Here we are setting off on the final journey. Look how many kilometres we've done. Tiger's engine was still basically perfect, and would have happily given me a few hundred thousand more. It was a Toyota Corolla, after all.

I opted to dispose of Tiger cleanly and humanely. I came across a website - https://www.scrapcarrecycling.com.au/  - which offers to locate the best deal in honest and straightforward car wrecking for your particular car. It guarantees (sort of) the price you'll be paid. In this case it was $50 if they collected it, and $300 if I was able to drive it there (across town to Fairfield East). A place in Blacktown was offering $100, so Fairfield East it was.

My previous experiences of car wreckers have not exactly been positive. They're usually rude, slippery crooks in fact. But this seemed entirely different. At this place they were polite and friendly. They made no attempt to renegotiate the deal. They helped me remove the plates, and respectfully whisked my old friend away while I wasn't looking. Much as a tactful funeral director might have done in an upmarket crematorium.

Talking turkey

What do you say to a brush turkey that's colonised your property as part of his territory? Mostly you say things like "#$@&%* off turkey!" It doesn't achieve much though. Brush turkeys are amazingly resilient. They're completely oblivious to  all your efforts to make them feel unwelcome. You can chase them around the garden, scream at them, shoot them with water pistols (lethalweapons not allowed - they're native animals). They just look at you quizzically. "You're in a bad mood" they tell you condescendingly. Then when you go back inside they happily resume their excavations in your vegetable garden!

And they have the nerve to roost overnight in your angophora tree, out of range of your most powerful water pistol. (So far.)




Wonder if my scarecrow is going to achieve much.

Explorers of Rumbalara

Actually I was the only real explorer of Rumbalara Reserve yesterday. I came across Matthew Flinders and John Eyre, or their statues at least. But their claims to fame are for exploring other places entirely.

Rumbalara Reserve is on the hillside above and to the east of Gosford. I did a nice little walk from Gosford to Lisarow, mostly on bush tracks and fire trails. It took three or four hours.

Extreme postcodes: 2179

I went to explore Leppington the other day. It was much in the news a year or two ago, when Sydney's latest bit of suburban train line was opened. The area, south west of Liverpool, and 50km from central Sydney, is designated as a growth centre, with enormous new suburbs being built all around.





At least they're building the public transport before building the suburbs, which is probably the right way round.








So what is there now at Leppington proper? I had no idea before I got there and stepped off the train at the sparkling new station.

Well, not much. Here's that station, with an attached convenience store.

Here's a sign advertising the dream home experts, with only two or three dream homes so far.









Otherwise it's still mostly farmland and cacti.


I had an interesting encounter with one local farmer. I was taking photos of his happy and healthy herd of dairy cows. He came out and enquired about my motives. It turned out people purporting to be from the council had been doing the same, and allegations had been made that

he was not looking after his animals properly. I suspect there were ulterior motives of land developers involved. Could they be trying to shift him off his soon-to-be-residential-suburb property before he's ready to go?