Railway progress into Darwin

"Keith Sayers" wrote in message
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On Thu, 18 Sep 2003 08:26:21 GMT, "PhilD" wrote:

How long ago were you here????

Well the first time was pre-cyclone .....

A small story, FWIW. I had been living in the Pilbara - on the
cyclone coast - and had been familiar both with cyclones and the sort
mid to late last century construction designed to withstand them. In
due course I left there for a leisurely trip around Oz. Coped with
the 400 miles of dirt road to the fascinating little port of Broome.
Bumped my way around the Kimberleys, getting about as far down the
Gibb River road as was possible with two-wheel drive and spare fuel in
jerry cans. On across the VRD to Katherine and that enormous gorge -
'Wow, what a small river in such a big gorge - why build this bridge
so high?' ..... Drove on north up the the 'Track'. Bitumen! Wow,
what luxury! Only one lane, need to pull off onto the dirt to pass,
but still the luxury of smooth driving. Eventually, a day or two
later maybe, reached a country crossroads called Berrimah. Remember
the little village there with its post office and a fellow who mounted
Buff horns. Soon after that was driving alongside what used to be
claimed as the world's largest airport in area covered (or was it just
Australia's largest?). And so into Darwin.
There's still a stretch of the old Stuart Hwy south from Adelaide River (now
called a "scenic route"), and it's frightening to think that we used to use
it all the time, and with roadtrains always present. Deliberately putting 2
wheels in the dirt to overtake a roadtrain was normal driving and you either
learnt the art, had accidents or did a lot of following.

I was looking for a friend in Alawa (who, incidentally, was a
trackie on the NAR) and that took me a while. As I was driving around
I was absorbing the feel of the place and I still remember my first
impression : 'Mmmmm, interesting. This area is evidently not cyclone
prone. These houses are obviously not built to cyclone standards.'

The following Christmas came Tracy ......
I was posted here in mid '73, but was working in Katherine at the time of
Tracy and came into Darwin on Boxing Day to find relatives. There were whole
new suburbs destroyed, but amongst older suburbs were wooden framed, fibro
clad houses barely touched and other near new brick ones destroyed. With
many destroyed ones it was quite easy to see that the roof was poorly tied
down and just lifted off and then the walls fell in.

We pay a lot more now for cyclone coding, but it's still only to cat 4
standard. One day we will get a 5, but hopefully not before I've built my
own shelter to cope with it. We've always wondered why some of the same
rules are not applied down south as well. We see media coverage of small
storms down there and can see how simple things like proper attachment of
roofs would save a lot of damage.

__________________________________________________ ____________
Keith Sayers, Canberra, Australia
Mail : 6 Clambe Place,
CHARNWOOD, ACT 2615 http://www.pcug.org.au/~kmsayers
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