Night Road Works

While common in larger cities, Darwin has seen more of this over recent times.

Partly due to a need for considerable renovation of roads after the very damp wet season of 2010-2011, and well, it is cooler to work at night too. Especially now, when day temperatures can reach 36C, while night temperatures are rising too, but are more pleasant at around 25C.

The effect can be a bit eerie - people all kitted out in bright refective vests, flashing lights and the odour of hot tar, a hint of steam rising from the asphalt too, and traffic moving slowly past the work.

Enjoy the photos........hope they convey some of odd imagery seen during night road works.

Photographed on Trower Road, Rapid Creek not far from our place. Available light using DSLR with ISO at 3200.

Speedy Forklift

One thought these stories were the preserve of the NT News, but no, it seems NZ has its share too. Enjoy the story, and laugh.

A mistake on the part of New Zealand police has seen a forklift booked for speeding at 119km/h on a highway.

According to Invercargill-based Lindsay Carrying, the company received a notice asking it to identify the driver of a vehicle which was supposedly clocked speeding on the State Highway 1 at Waikane, near Invergargill.

The assistant manager checked the vehicle fleet against the registration number, as one does, matching it with a Toyota forklift.

The forklift has a top speed of 19km/h, and never strays far from the depot.

According to the police, the speeding notice was a mistake and should be disregarded. That was easy......but it is not always that easy to convince the police it was not what they say it was!

Local Fauna

Parrots are a significant part of the Australian bird fauna. And none probably as ubiquitous as the galah.

These grey and pink parrots are great talkers in captivity, and long lived. They seem to be everywhere across Australia, and can be the biggest problem to grain growers......they eat the seed when it is sown, and then eat the seed once the crop matures, expecially for sorghum and millets.

But today it is very wet [60mm of rain in about 2 hours] and they were seen scavenging by the roadside........eating some local grass seeds.

They can be a pest on the road, and I must confess to having hit a few in motorcars, and even the odd broken windscreen. They tend to suddenly fly off the roadside, invariably one or a few heading across the road into the path of the traffic.

They did that almost immediately after the photo!

NEW Victoria River Bridge

On the road again..........in November and yes, an airconditioned car is delightful on long trips in 40C weather. A quick 1200kms round trip to collect grass plants, and take some photos.

It can be very wet in the Northern Territory. And the rivers can rise to very great heights.

This bridge on the right is relatively new, but still has managed to be submerged for many weeks in several of the last few rainy seasons, including nearly 6 weeks last wet season from late January 2008. The river appears very benign now, in November, at the end of the Dry Season, with a few long waterholes, and little, if any, flow, except maybe after a big storm nearby. But come January and February and that water hole is part of a torrent that can be 3-6 metres above the existing bridge. For weeks at a time!

This is National Highway 1, the main circular road around Australia, and this section provides the main link between northern Australia and Perth. Not having a road connection for many weeks is a bit of a disaster.

The project will build the new bridge, about 10m above the present one, and redevelop a large section of the road, on either side, above flood heights. As you can imagine, the river spreads out almost across the entire Victoria River gorge when in full flood. The new road sections need to be mostly above that datum level.

Early days yet, but the new bridge is making good progress.