Wallaby Jack, SASS #44062 Posted January 18 Posted January 18 3 hours ago, Alpo said: You left off the part about the Australian being a ventriloquist. That's why the New Zealander's dog and horse would "talk". ok, .......... now explain the sheep ...... 5 Quote
Buckshot Bear Posted January 18 Author Posted January 18 ‘THE BUSH CALLS US’ - The defiant women wo demanded a place on the walking track. Bushwalking is a hobby most Australians are fond of, but there was a time when women weren’t allowed to take part in these treks – until some trailblazers decided to take a hike. In the 1920s and ’30s, some people scoffed at the idea women could handle rugged encounters with nature. The bush was considered a place only for men. Besides, how could women walk rocky paths and steep hills in their long skirts and dainty shoes? But some courageous women walked anyway. The Melbourne Women’s Walking Club formed in 1922, and was the first of its kind in Australia. The women were severely criticised and sometimes harassed, especially when they experimented with wearing pants – or even shorts. In 1922, a group of women decided they wanted their own bushwalking club – and the Melbourne Women’s Walking Club was born. The women defied societal expectations by walking in bushland across Victoria and beyond – sometimes for weeks at a time. The annual program offered between 30 and 40 walks catering to a range of abilities, as well as a busy calendar of other social events. In the club’s early years, the women waited until they were in the bush, hidden from public view, before stripping off their bulky skirts and donning jodhpurs instead. By the 1930s, some women even wore shorts. The women carried a communal billy and took mealtimes seriously. For a weekend walking trip, the recommended packing list for each woman included: creamed rice pre-cooked stew and vegetables tinned pineapple and cream grapefruit eggs and bacon steak for grilling over the campfire six teaspoons of tea four teaspoons of coffee two crumpets (for tea on Sunday) The women carried homemade sleeping bags for overnight and multi-day walks. Sometimes, pack-horses joined the journey. Marriage and domestic responsibilities could also prevent women from walking. In 1936, the journal’s editor wrote of a club member’s impending marriage, and expressed her hope that the soon-to-be husband would not force his wife to “forgo tripping with the troops to keep him in holeless socks and juicy steaks!” Members of the Melbourne Women’s Walking Club cherished their time in the bush. They formed firm friendships and laughed and sang together. They rejoiced in escaping their domestic responsibilities and the busyness and pollution of city life. On the sweltering Bogong High Plains trip in 1928, a friendly farmer offered the walkers a swim in his dam. The women only had one pair of bathers between them, but landed on a solution: one walker would wear the bathers and jump in the dam, and when she was immersed in water, would wriggle out of the bathers and throw them to the next would-be swimmer, and so on. The women’s written accounts express their enjoyment of this small, shared scandal. While some observers welcomed the women’s disregard for convention, others were highly critical. In a newspaper article in 1932, the Archbishop of Brisbane, James Duhig, described women bushwalkers in male clothes as “absolutely nauseating”. He warned wearing pants might encourage risk-taking, saying: “I know that young girls dressed in men’s garments would go to places where they would never venture in their proper attire”. The women often attracted unwelcome attention and disgusting lewd comments from men, especially when taking public transport to the beginning of each walk. They felt relief at beginning the bushwalk, safe with friends and far from judgement. The Melbourne Women’s Walking Club was the first of its kind in Australia. But other women of the era also took their place on the walking track. They include Jessie Luckman of Tasmania, Marie Byles and Dot Butler of New South Wales, and Alice Manfield, who led guided walks on Victoria’s Mount Buffalo. The club survived the stresses of the Second World War and a slump in membership in the 1950s. Today, more than 100 years after its inception, the Melbourne Women’s Walking Club is still going strong. In fact, today, it boasts its largest-ever membership. 1 1 Quote
Buckshot Bear Posted January 18 Author Posted January 18 One day the sheriff sees Billy Bob walking around town with nothing on except his gun belt and his boots. The sheriff says, “Billy Bob, what the hell are you doing walking around town dressed like that?” Billy Bob replies, “Well, sheriff, it’s a long story!” The sheriff says he isn’t in a hurry and that Billy Bob should tell the story. Billy Bob continues, “Well, sheriff, me and Mary Lou were down on the farm and we started cuddling. Mary Lou said we should go in the barn and we did. r>Inside the barn we started kissing and cuddling and things got pretty hot and heavy. Well Mary Lou said that we should go up on the hill so we did. Up on the hill we started kissing and cuddling and then Mary Lou took off all her clothes and said that I should do the same. Well, I took off all my clothes except my gun belt and my boots. Then Mary Lou lay on the ground and said, “Okay, Billy Bob, go to town...” 1 1 Quote
Buckshot Bear Posted January 21 Author Posted January 21 Mud crabs at Moreton Bay The mud crab is one of Queensland’s most famous delicacies, currently (2023) selling at the Sydney fish market for more than $100 each for a 900g-1kg crab. But the first Europeans to make the “muddy” part of their diet were not gourmets but convicts. After the Moreton Bay penal settlement was founded in 1824, the felons supplemented their prison rations with whatever they could catch – and mud crabs were numerous in the mangroves along the shoreline. The crabs, which had long been eaten by Australia’s Indigenous people, can grow to enormous sizes, measuring up to 300mm across the shell and weighing up to 3.5kg. They live in sheltered estuaries, mud flats, mangrove forests and the tidal reaches of some rivers and can be found right around the north coast of Australia from the Exmouth Gulf in Western Australia down into New South Wales. In the 1890s a small-scale commercial fishery began in Queensland and some measures were taken to prevent over-fishing. Minimum weights were specified for male and female crabs and, in 1913, this was changed to a minimum size limitation of 5 inches (125mm) across the carapace. The taking of female mud crabs was then prohibited. Further regulation followed and, in 1984, commercial crab fishers required a licence while bag limits were introduced for the recreational fishery. Other states and the Northern Territory also have regulations governing size and catch limits for the crabs. Mud crabs have long been highly prized by diners. Crab suppers were common in hotels and oyster saloons in the first decades of the 20th century and a newspaper report in 1932 tells of 12 cooked mud crabs being sent from Baxter’s Oyster Saloon in Sandgate, Brisbane, to Geelong in Victoria. The crabs were to form part of a banquet given by the manager of the Ford Motor Company. Visiting Australia in 1964, Andre Simon, founder of London’s Food, and Wine Society, was particularly impressed by Brisbane mud crabs, South Australian yabbies and Australian fish. Today, mud crab is often found on the menu at Australia’s Asian restaurants, complemented by flavours including chilli, ginger and curry spices. One Melbourne Sri Lankan restaurant offers “Mud Crab Wednesdays” when, for $95, diners can choose between Chilli Garlic Crab, Pepper Crab, Curry Crab and Chilli Butter Crab. If you want to enjoy mud crab at home, you need to be intrepid. It’s recommended you buy them alive with their giant claws securely trussed, then put them to ‘sleep’ in the freezer for an hour or so. They can be boiled, steamed, grilled or roasted, with perhaps the most famous recipe being that for Singapore Chilli Crab. In 2023, the Western Australian Department of Primary Industry was backing research into mud crabs in the Kimberley region, with the prospect of creating an Indigenous-owned fishery to supply restaurants in Perth. 2 1 Quote
Alpo Posted January 23 Posted January 23 2 hours ago, Buckshot Bear said: I need to clean my glasses. I read that as Who's chuckin' a SICKLE tomorrow... Could not figure out what a curved blade for cutting grain had to do with a 4-day weekend. And why you would throw it. 1 Quote
Eyesa Horg Posted January 23 Posted January 23 1 hour ago, Alpo said: I need to clean my glasses. I read that as Who's chuckin' a SICKLE tomorrow... Could not figure out what a curved blade for cutting grain had to do with a 4-day weekend. And why you would throw it. Think it's sickie. 1 Quote
Buckshot Bear Posted January 23 Author Posted January 23 1 hour ago, Eyesa Horg said: Think it's sickie. You guys don't call taking a day off from work a sickie???? If not....you've got a great new word to use Have good weekend Eyesa 👍 2 Quote
Buckshot Bear Posted January 23 Author Posted January 23 Monday Australia Day (or as the Lefties refer to it Invasion Day) is such a great day for the people who love Australia and get together with family and friends and make a top day of it. The other idiots think they are having a great day burning Australian flags and looks like a bunch of nuts....which they are! 3 Quote
Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984 Posted January 23 Posted January 23 On 1/18/2026 at 10:27 AM, Alpo said: You left off the part about the Australian being a ventriloquist. That's why the New Zealander's dog and horse would "talk". many of us just asumed that without having to be told. 1 Quote
Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984 Posted January 23 Posted January 23 On 1/21/2026 at 7:22 PM, Buckshot Bear said: wodonga? Is that a town or something they bake? 1 1 Quote
PaleWolf Brunelle, #2495L Posted January 23 Posted January 23 2 hours ago, Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984 said: wodonga? Is that a town or something they bake? https://www.thecrazytourist.com/15-best-things-to-do-in-wodonga-australia/ 3 Quote
Sedalia Dave Posted January 23 Posted January 23 15 hours ago, Buckshot Bear said: The other idiots think they are having a great day burning Australian flags and looks like a bunch of nuts....which they are! WANKERS!!! 1 1 Quote
Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984 Posted January 24 Posted January 24 this'll never happen in Austrailia... 2 2 Quote
John Kloehr Posted January 24 Posted January 24 22 hours ago, Buckshot Bear said: You guys don't call taking a day off from work a sickie???? If not....you've got a great new word to use Have good weekend Eyesa 👍 Here in the land where shoes do not require velcro, a situation such as described would come under the heading of an "eye problem." Just could not see going to work. 2 2 Quote
Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984 Posted January 24 Posted January 24 (edited) In baseball seaon... "Employees planning a sickie are requested to inform management the day before the game." Edited January 24 by Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984 1 1 Quote
Buckshot Bear Posted January 24 Author Posted January 24 (edited) Edited January 24 by Buckshot Bear 1 1 Quote
Buckshot Bear Posted January 24 Author Posted January 24 (edited) Edited January 24 by Buckshot Bear Quote
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