The Aussie Humour Thread

[Buckshot Bear]

‘FOUR TEENAGERS TRAUMATIC GUN FIGHT WITH BUSHRANGERS’ - 1865
National Museum of Australia.

Four of the Faithfull brothers were attacked by bushrangers Ben Hall and his gang members, John Gilbert and Johnnie Dunn.

Monty and Reginald Faithfull were returning to The King’s School in Sydney after their summer holidays, and their older brothers William Percy and George were taking them to Goulburn to see them off by coach.

As the boys turned out of Springfield’s drive and on to the main road in their four-in-hand carriage, they were bailed up and shot at by the gang.

To the bushrangers’ surprise, the teenage boys fired back. It was a harrowing battle during which many shots were fired.

The Faithfull boys escaped and Ben Hall and his gang retreated, with the only casualty being John Gilbert’s horse.

Eleven years later the New South Wales government recognised the bravery of the Faithfull brothers by awarding them a gold medal.

Gold was scarce at the time but William Pitt Faithfull had three more made — one for each of the boys.

 

[Alpo]

27 minutes ago, Buckshot Bear said:

 WATERING the HORSES’ - 1928

 

Watering the horses.

 

[Alpo]

That was the closest thing to what I really wanted a picture of.

 

There's some land up north of where I live called the Sandhills. And there are many little patches of water up there referred to as sandhill ponds. Some people I used to run with would go up to the Sandhills on the weekend and try to climb one of the Sandhills. They start off pretty easy but they get steeper and steeper in the sand slips and most people don't make it. They lose traction and end up sliding down the hill, hopefully turning their FWD around so that they can steer. If there happens to be a sandhill pond at the bottom of the hill - and there frequently is - you often end up windshield deep in the pond. And this is known as watering the horses.

 

Sort of like that verse from boot scootin' boogie.

 

When it's quittin' time, I hit the door runnin'
I fire up my pickup truck and let the horses run 

 

Sometimes you just got to give the horses a drink.

[Buckshot Bear]

[Buckshot Bear]

[DeaconKC]

Hey Bear, you don't have to worry about Prince Andrew. Hillary Clinton just sent him a condolence card on his upcoming suicide.

[Buckshot Bear]

39 minutes ago, DeaconKC said:

Hey Bear, you don't have to worry about Prince Andrew. Hillary Clinton just sent him a condolence card on his upcoming suicide.

 

Hahahahahahaha

 

[Calamity Kris]

16 hours ago, Buckshot Bear said:

 

Hahahahahahaha

 

 

It will be interesting to see if he does try to strike some kind of plea deal.   That could set the whole world on it's ear.

[Sedalia Dave]

2 hours ago, Calamity Kris said:

 

It will be interesting to see if he does try to strike some kind of plea deal.   That could set the whole world on it's ear.

 

 I’m willing to bet that there are a few powerful people wondering if he’ll keep his mouth shut or if he’ll use them to reduce his sentence. 

[Buckshot Bear]

[Rip Snorter]

Some  folks can dish it out, but not take it!

[Sedalia Dave]

2 hours ago, Buckshot Bear said:

 

You never know. I bet a lot of people are tossing those in disgust. Someday it may be a collectable simply because there are only a handful left..

[El Sobrante Kid]

1 hour ago, Sedalia Dave said:

 

You never know. I bet a lot of people are tossing those in disgust. Someday it may be a collectable simply because there are only a handful left..

 

Yep... but it will be his grandchildren or great grandchildren that will be able to cash in on that.

[Buckshot Bear]

I'm so lovable, even my beer loves me

 

[Buckshot Bear]

[Chickasaw Bill SASS #70001]

BB 

 

ya be a legend in your own mind 

[Wallaby Jack, SASS #44062]

20 hours ago, Buckshot Bear said:

I'm so lovable, even my beer loves me

 

 

 ..... ok, ....... so what flat-out, bald-faced lie did you tell it 'bout yourself  ???

[Buckshot Bear]

‘FASTEST AUSTRALIAN SHEARER’ 1892

National Museum Australia.

Jack Howe was a shearer whose feats in the sheds of central Queensland made him a legend. In 1892, Howe sheared 321 sheep in one day using hand shears – a record that still stands today.

John Robert Howe was born in Warwick in southeast Queensland in 1861. Known as Jack or Jackie, he worked as a shearer and settled in the Blackall district of central Queensland. He became famous, a gun shearer, setting records that stood for decades.

Physical descriptions paint Howe as a giant of a man, with hands the size of small tennis racquets and wrists as strong as steel. He set records even when other shearers tried to distract him, by tickling him or jumping on his back. His presence in a shed was said to lift tallies far above normal, as men tried to compete with him.

At Alice Downs station in Queensland in October 1892, Howe sheared 1437 sheep in a week. A few days later, he broke another record, shearing 321 sheep in seven hours and 40 minutes.

Howe performed both feats using blade shears and, despite the introduction of machine shearing technology, his record tally of 321 sheep remained intact until 1950.

In the same 1892 season, Howe also broke the record for machine shearing at Barcaldine Downs, where he sheared 237 sheep in one day using the new technology.

When Howe quit shearing in 1900, he became a publican and owned hotels in Blackall and Barcoo.

He had been an active member of the Shearers’ Union and he continued to advocate for workers’ rights as a member and president of the Blackall Workers’ Political Organisation. He was also a member of the fledgling Australian Labor Party. Howe died in 1920, aged 58.

 

 

[Buckshot Bear]

[Buckshot Bear]

‘THE SULKY’

National Road Transport Museum.

A sulky is a light two-wheeled vehicle, so-called because it had space for only one passenger – the driver – who necessarily sat alone.

A ‘more sociable’ version, which could accommodate two people, was developed in Sydney in the mid-1880s from a vehicle imported from San Francisco. This Australian version became known as the ‘Sydney sulky’.

From the beginnings of the depression in the late 1880s, the sulky was said to have become ‘the most popular vehicle in Sydney’.

In 1895 a visitor to the Royal Agricultural Society’s Sydney Show commented that, ‘No Sydney display of vehicles would be complete without a large representation of her most popular vehicle, the sulky’.

At the time, the sulky was ‘the cheapest form of horse-drawn passenger vehicle on sale in Australia’.

Until the 1920s the Sydney sulky remained extremely popular being ‘sold in parts or complete by coach builders’ suppliers to the trade and public’.

Today, sulkies still feature in carriage driving and harness events.

 

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

On 2/22/2026 at 3:06 PM, Buckshot Bear said:

I'm so lovable, even my beer loves me

 

A few more beers and I might believe that.

[Buckshot Bear]

Facts about Orstralia!

1. The bigger the hat, the smaller the farm.

2. The shorter the nickname, the more they like you.

3. Whether it's the opening of Parliament, or the launch of a new art gallery, there is no Australian event that cannot be improved by a sausage sizzle.

4. If the guy next to you is swearing like a wharfie he's probably a media billionaire. Or, on the other hand, he could be a wharfie.

5. There is no food that cannot be improved by the application of tomato sauce (theoretically speaking).

6. On the beach, all Australians hide their keys and wallets by placing  them inside their sandshoes. No thief has ever worked this out.

 7. Industrial design knows of no article more useful than the pallet.

8. All our best heroes are losers.

9. The alpha male in any group is he who takes the barbecue tongs from the hands of the host and blithely begins turning the snags.

10. It's not summer until the steering wheel is too hot to hold.

11. A thong is not a piece of scanty swimwear, as is the case in the U.S.A., but a fine example of Australian footwear. Therefore, a group of sheilas wearing black rubber thongs may not be as exciting as you had first hoped.

12. It is proper to refer to your best friend as "a total bastard". By contrast, your worst enemy is "a bit of a bastard".

13. Historians believe the widespread use of the word "mate" can be traced  to the harsh conditions on the Australian frontier in the late 1800s, and the development of a code of mutual aid, or "mateship". Alternatively, Australians may just be really hopeless with names.

14. The wise man chooses a partner who is attractive not only to himself, but also to the mosquitoes.

15. If it can't be fixed with pantyhose and fencing wire, then it's not worth fixing.

16. The most popular and widely praised family in any street is the one  that has the swimming pool.

17. It's considered better to be 'down on your luck' than 'up yourself'.

18. The phrase "we've got a great lifestyle" means everyone in the family drinks too much.

19. If invited to a party, you should take cheap red wine and then spend all night drinking the host's beer. (Don't worry, he will have catered for it).

20. If there's any sort of free event, or party, within a hundred kilometres, you'd be a mug not to go.

21. The phrase "a simple picnic" is not known. You should take everything you own. If you don't need to make three trips back to the car, then you're not trying.

22. Unless of ethnic origin, you are not permitted to sit down in your front yard, or on your front verandah. Pottering about, gardening or leaning on the fence are acceptable. Just don't sit. That's what backyards are for.

23. The tarred road always ends just after the house of the local mayor.

24. On picnics, the esky is always too small, creating a food-versus-alcohol battle that can only ever be resolved by leaving the salad or bread rolls at home.

25. When on a country holiday, the neon sign advertising the motel's pool will always be slightly larger than the pool itself.

26. The men are tough, but the women can be tougher.

27. The chief test of personal strength is one's ability to install a beach umbrella in high winds.

28. Australians love new technology. Years after their introduction, most conversations on mobile phones are principally about the fact that the call is "being made on my mobile".

29. There comes a time in every Australian's life when he/she realises that the Aerogard is worse than the flies.

30. And, finally, don't let the tourist books fool you. No-one EVER says "cobber" to anyone ... EVER!

[Buckshot Bear]

Funny, Odd, Interesting, Relatively Useless and Random Australian Trivia

 

1. Each and every part of Australia is within a distance of 1000km from ocean or a beach.
2. 30,028 square km of land is under cattle ranches. This area size is almost the same as that of the whole Belgium.
3. People of Queensland in Australia are called "Banana Benders", and "Sand Gropers" is the name given to the people from Western Australia.
4. There are nearly 25,000,000 people in Australia, of which approximately 80% live in cities next to the sea.
5. Australia has, probably, the lowest population density of any country in the world, ie, 2 people per square km. Japan has 327 people/2km
6. The area of Australia that is covered by snow in winter is larger than the area of Switzerland.
7. 70% of the world's wool comes from Australia. We have over 126,000,000 sheep, which use fully half the continent for grazing.
8. The longest fence in the world is in Australia, and it runs for over 5,530 kms. It's designed to keep dingoes away from the sheep.
9. The wine cask, the ubiquitous plastic bag full of wine contained in a cardboard box, was invented in Australia in 1967.
10. Qantas stands for Queensland And Northern Territory Aerial Services.

[Buckshot Bear]

[Buckshot Bear]

[Buckshot Bear]

Is this called a bachelors handbag in your country?

 

[Rip Snorter]

15 minutes ago, Buckshot Bear said:

Moving "Chop Chop" no doubt!

[Wallaby Jack, SASS #44062]

1 hour ago, Buckshot Bear said:

Is this called a bachelors handbag in your country?

 

 

 .... NEITHER!!! .... I'd like to be able to buy one WITHOUT the "seasoned stuffing"......

                                                        I don't like their idea of what seasoning is

[Alpo]

$12?? Is that normal? I see that the Woolworth has got garlic bread in it. Is there other stuff in there besides just the chicken? 

 

My local grocery store a rotisserie chicken is about $7. Sam's Club it's $4.98.

 

Now I know y'all's money is not worth as much as our money, so $12 Aussie isn't really $12.

 

But I bet it's more than seven.

[Buckshot Bear]

36 minutes ago, Alpo said:

$12?? Is that normal? I see that the Woolworth has got garlic bread in it. Is there other stuff in there besides just the chicken? 

 

My local grocery store a rotisserie chicken is about $7. Sam's Club it's $4.98.

 

Now I know y'all's money is not worth as much as our money, so $12 Aussie isn't really $12.

 

But I bet it's more than seven.

 

They are ALWAYS on special.

 

They did try and jack the prices up at Woolies with the stupid 'RSPCA' (Royal Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Animals) label. 

 

Yeah.....as if the chook committed voluntary suicide so a human could take it home in a bachelor's handbag and eat it!

 

 

 

 

 

[Buckshot Bear]

2 hours ago, Alpo said:

 

Now I know y'all's money is not worth as much as our money

 

 

Nope it's not at the moment.

 

But the average salary in the USA is $61,984 per year.

The average salary in Australia is $108.000 per year.

 

$108,000 AUD to USD works out at $76,756.68 

 

 

[Buckshot Bear]

I went to boarding school with his son Sam, at one stage they had the largest cattle station in the world.

 

Bill Tapp - The Reluctant Pioneer Who Built a Northern Territory Legacy - He was known to be agonisingly shy and had a pronounced stutter.

Charles William Tapp, best known as Bill Tapp (2 June 1929 – 22 May 1992), was a pioneer and cattleman from Killarney Station in the Northern Territory of Australia.

Early life

Tapp was born in Sydney on 2 June 1929 and grew up in Vaucluse. His father was Earnest Charles Tapp, a radio technician in the Australian Navy and his mother was Sarah Ann (Sadie), a managing director of Rosenthal Australia – a German-owned department store in George Street, Sydney. He was an only child.

Tapp lived in a house with a tennis court and a maid during the 1930s and later became a full-time boarder at the Scots College in Bellevue Hill.

A champion sportsman and scholar, he represented his school in many sports, swimming, cricket, football, rowing, diving and played tennis at a state level. It is said that he played with, and against, Australian tennis champions Lew Hoad and Frank Sedgman.

He was known to be agonisingly shy and had a pronounced stutter.

While at Scots College, Tapp read the Ion Idriess book 'Cattle King' about Sir Sidney Kidman who owned large cattle stations in the Northern Territory.

The book had a lasting effect on him and he decided that as soon as he finished school he would become a cattleman. His mother Sadie secured a job as a jackeroo-bookkeeper on Elsey Station near the tiny township of Mataranka 400 kilometres south of Darwin, made famous by the book We of the Never Never.

Tapp settled into station life learning everything he could. He left Elsey Station a few years later to manage Rosewood Station on the Northern Territory-Western Australian border.

Two years later he established a droving business in the early 1950s, moving cattle from Alice Springs through Tennant Creek and Elliott along the Murranji Track.

In 1952 Bill Tapp and business partner Bill Crowson bought Montejinni Station. With Crowson's family, the business partners transported all their worldly possessions and their plant of horses up the Murranji to Montejinni.

With them was Aboriginal stockman and a young sixteen year old deaf man, Kenny Wesley. Simultaneously, Paul and Mick Vandeleur acquired Camfield Station and Leo Izod and Ivor Townshend Hall drew Killarney Station. These names formed the initials for the brands of CTT for Montejinni and ITH for Killarney.

Following a breakdown in the relationship with the Crowsons, Bill Tapp began talks with Izod and Hall about buying Killarney Station and reached an agreement in 1960 to pay £90,000, a Northern Territory record price for a cattle station at that time. He received title to Killarney in 1962.

The Cattle King

Tapp's empire at Killarney Station began under a bough shed at Mayvale Bore with a sign swinging off a post saying "COCKRAG DOWNS' (Toni Tapp Coutts states that 'Cockrag' means "broken down and uncared for"). His first stock camp consisted of brothers Jim Forscutt and Boko Forscutt, Joey and Alfie Russell, and Kenny Wesley. He worked tirelessly, mustering and building fences to contain the wild cattle. They lived on salted beef and black tea.

Tapp met his future wife June Clements, a divorcee with three small children Billy, Shing and Toni (Toni Tapp Coutts: who would later become his biographer), while staying at her mother's house in Katherine. After their first meeting, Tapp stated that he wanted to marry her. The courtship was short and sweet and June soon found herself out at Killarney Station living under a bough shed, a structure made from four tree posts with fencing wire slung across the top and branches thrown over to make shade. The bough shed was the kitchen, the office and doctors surgery. On 2 August 1962, Tapp wrote in his diary, 'Day off – got married today'. Bill and June Tapp went on to have seven more children, Sam, Joe, Ben, William, Caroline, Daniel and Kate.

Tapp went on to purchase Maryfield Station, Roper Valley Station and Mountain Valley Station.

Later life

Bill Tapp and June divorced in 1985. After years of mismanagement by agricultural company Elders, the Tapp family properties went into receivership in 1991. All three properties owned by the Tapps were advertised for sale. After a battle in the Northern Territory Supreme Court between the Tapps and Elders, Killarney Station and Maryfield Station were sold, but the Tapps were permitted to retain Roper Valley Station.

Tapp died on 23 May 1992 in his own bed on Killarney Station at the age of 62.

He was buried at the station on 3 June. A plaque on his grave reads:

Killarney stands as a monument to his vision and contribution to the Northern Territory horse and cattle industry.

Tapp's legacy was recognised by being inducted into the Australian Stockmen's Hall of Fame with his proud children accepting the award on his behalf.

 

[Buckshot Bear]

‘DARING ROAD TRIP’ - female motoring pioneer and pilot Gladys Sandford.

Daily Telegraph.

THE tyres were good, the car was sound and Gladys Sandford was confident of her mechanical skills as she planned to drive from Sydney to Perth, Darwin and back in March 1927.

Years later, she admitted she was less diligent in her selection of a driving companion.

After advertising in New Zealand for another woman to join the trip, Sandford recruited Stella Christie, daughter of a car dealer, then found out she could not drive

From March 4, 1927, to July 25, 1927, the pair squabbled their way around Australia, Sandford recounted decades later, camping in the fold-down seats of Sandford’s Essex 6 coach which arrived with her from New Zealand on March 1, with 17,700km on the clock.

Sandford set out from the obelisk in Macquarie Place, Sydney, at 1pm on a Friday afternoon, her 26th birthday.

Growing up at Hawke’s Bay, Sandford skipped music lessons, preferring to tinker with car engines. She was a schoolteacher at Napier when she married widowed car salesman William Henning in June 1912.

Joining Henning’s Auckland car dealership, he taught her to drive in three hours so she could deliver vehicles around New Zealand.

She followed Henning and her older brothers to serve in World War I, sailing to Egypt with the New Zealand Volunteer Sisterhood in 1916.

As an ambulance driver she transported injured soldiers to a hospital in Giza. From May 1917 she drove ambulances in England, transporting wounded soldiers arriving from France and Belgium.

Sandford’s husband and two brothers were killed in the war. She was discharged in January 1919 with near-fatal influenza and awarded a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1920 by King George V for her services.

Back in Australia, at Darling Point in 1920 Sandford married Squadron Leader Frederick Esk Sandford, an Australian serving with the Royal Air Force and a friend of her late husband.

They lived in England, India and Egypt until she became ill and returned home to family in New Zealand in November 1923. In October 1924 he wrote to say a sick wife “was no use to him” and he did not intend to live with her ever again.

Sandford’s itinerary went from Sydney to Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth, where she hoped to proceed along the West Australian coast to Darwin. If rains had set in, she would return to Adelaide, then head north through Central Australia to Darwin, and return to Sydney via Queensland and Brisbane.

Sandford and Christie carried “tinned foods and flour, a frying-pan, a billy and a gridiron, blankets and a mattress, canvas waterbags, a tomahawk, fencing wire and a wire strainer, a set of bog extractors, a Red Cross outfit, a revolver, and four suitcases of personal luggage. Their only spares were two spark plugs, a coil and a soldering iron”.

As they travelled about 17,800km, Sandford’s repairs included reassembling the vehicle engine and short-circuiting the Transcontinental telegraph-line to contact technicians on the one occasion she needed mechanical assistance.

Granted a divorce in November 1928 on grounds of desertion, Sandford’s ex-husband was killed in a car accident in December 1928.

She settled in Sydney in 1929 and in World War II founded the Women’s Transport Corps, training almost 400 members in military drill, driving and maintenance.

Sandford also worked as a censor for the Department of the Army, joining the Repatriation Department after the war. She died at Concord in 1971.

PHOTO - Round Australia motorists Gladys Sandford (right) and Stella Christie in Perth, 1927.

 

[Buckshot Bear]

[Buckshot Bear]