Australia's Wildlife: Pelican

[above: a pelican by our riverside restaurant in a place called Tea Gardens (yes, honestly) hopefully waiting for some titbits].

Did you know pelicans:

• Can stay in the air for 24 hours.
  
• Pelicans have a wingspan of 2.3 to 2.5m; and can fly at 56 kph.


• Their bill can hold 13 litres of water.


• They will sometimes eat small turtles or seagulls, but their main diet is fish.


• The males attract females by dancing.
  

Altogether now:

A most peculiar bird is a pelican
It's beak can hold more than its belly can.

Geography Question No.5

Hi, Professor Madfish again. Not sure whether this is a geography question - it's more revision on the information provided in the past blog postings.

We have been fortunate to see some impressive and world famous bridges; and we have also learnt a little bit about the different designs used for the structures. So, this is a kind of revision test - we have a list of three bridges, and a list of three design structures. All you have to do is match up the bridge with its design type.
The Bridges :

• San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge
• Auckland Harbour Bridge
• Sydney Harbour Bridge

And now the Bridge Designs:

• Cantilever Bridge
• Single Arch Bridge
• Suspension Bridge

Have fun! (and if you are stuck, look back in the blog to the postings about the bridges).

Rivets!

The three bridges we have talked about in this blog - the Golden Gate (at San Francisco), the Auckland Harbour Bridge (the 'Nippon Clippon') and the Sydney Harbour Bridge - all use rivets in their construction. So it's about time I explained what they were.
A rivet is like a bolt with a round head and no thread. It's heated white hot and then inserted through two plates. One man (or women called Rosie) held the rivet firm while another hammered the other end with a pneumatic hammer. This forced the hot soft metal to spread and fasten against the hole.

[below: detail of rivets on the Sydney Harbour Bridge]
The rivets have to be as hot as possible so were heated to white-hot state in small furnaces located across the bridge called 'cookers', and then thrown to a catcher who passed them to the riveters.

[below: a rivetting team with their cooker from the Brisbane city hall construction]
Aahh, the days before Health & Safety! Can you imagine what the working conditions were like - hot chunks of metal that could injury and scar you if they hit you, being thrown about, the sparks flying off, while the riveters stood on a steel beam high above the ground??

Australia: Land of Immigrants

Sydney was the disembarcation point of many thousands of people and the start of a new life - from the 'First Fleet' of 1788 from England to the present day. The Maritime Museum celebrated that with extracts of people's thoughts on arrival at the promised land, and one caught my eye:

'The wind was now fair, the sky serene, though a little hazy,
and the temperature of the air delightfully pleasant: joy
sparkled in every countenance, and congratulations issued from every mouth. Ithaca itself was scarcely more longed for by Odyessus, than Botany Bay by the adventurers who had traversed so many thousand miles to take possession of it'.

from the personal diary of Watkin Tench who arrived 1788.

I really like the phrase 'joy sparkled in every countenance', and must try to use it in the next directors meeting minutes.

Sydney Harbour Bridge

It is the landmark for Sydney and for Australia generally. Everyone has seen the fantastic firework displays from the 2000 Sydney Olympics and every New Year since then.
[below: Sydney Harbour Bridge at night]

It took 8 years to build - from 1924 to 1932; the contractor was Dorman Long, of England. The bridge was designed with strength in mind - it carries six lanes of road traffic plus two train tracks. This is a weight loading in excess of, say, the Golden Gate Bridge's design. And a stronger bridge means a heavier bridge - it weighs 53,000 tonnes before any vehicle gets on it.

The design choosen is a single arch - an ancient design which you have seen in door arches and domes of cathedrals.The weight of the bridge is 'funnelled' along the arch into the supports at either end, producing a stable structure. The bridge deck is then attached (suspended) to the arch to result in a strong crossing.

Steel is a strong, yet flexible building material, but it's main disadvantage is that it expands with heat. On a hot day in Sydney, the bridge can 'grow' by 180mm. To allow for this the engineers designed hinges at the four corners of the main span:
Did I say 'hinge'? This is not something that you would hang a door on - they each weigh 300 tonnes and can support a weight of 20,000 tonnes:

[below: installation of one of the bridge arch hinges]

The bridge, including the approach ramps, contain approximately 6 million rivets. That's a lot of rivets.
The four concrete and stone towers (called 'pylons') are not part of the structural integrity - they are just for show. And what a difference they make to the visual impact of the bridge, giving it a solidity and grandeur it deserves.

If you want to have a look at the bridge yourself there is a webcam (best to view either early in the morning or late at night since they are 10 hours ahead of us).

Circular Quay, Sydney

After a hectic journey around Sydney streets on the airport shuttle bus, driven by a mad Russian, it was with relief that we finally struggled into our hotel room. However, the view from the windows compensated for all the travel hassle:

And *this* was the view from the hotel roof garden and pool (can you guess what this is??):
And at night, it was a busy and lively place, with the added attractions of the floodlights.

Leg 6 : Auckland to Sydney : 1342 miles

After three wonderful weeks, we leave Ray and Pat and New Zealand, and start a new adventure in Australia. The flight took 3 hours 10 minutes, but we gained 2 hours in the time zone change, so effectively it only took 1 hour out of our day. We flew on the mainstay of the Qantas fleet, a (fairly old) Boeing 767-300:

[The above picture was taken while we were waiting at the boarding gate - I also had time to phone Mum and wish her a happy birthday!!]

We were to spend a few days in Sydney, then hire a car and take 12 days to get to Brisbane. But first, there was Sydney....

Earthquakes and Volcanoes

We have talked about the earthquake hat hit Napier, and the active volcanoes in Tongario. The reason for all this activity is due to the tectonic plates that meet underneath New Zealand:

This diagram shows a cross section of North Island, west to east. You can see the Pacific tectonic plate being pushed *under* the Indian-Australia plate which is moving from the west. Earthquakes, volcanoes and geothermal springs occur along the line of where these two plates clash:

Mount Doom!

Mount Ngauruhoe in the Tongariro National Park looks like exactly how a child would draw a volcano. Straight, sloping sides topped with a crater:

It looks too good to be true, perfect for playing the part of Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings films. Which, indeed it was.

Wikipedia has a great picture of the mountain.

There are two other volcanoes in the area - Mount Ruapehu and Mount Tongariro; together they provide a moonscape of dramatic grey rock:

More about Shipping Containers

We are so used to seeing those big steel shipping containers, on ships, on trains or lorries that we probably don't realize that the global standardisation of containers was one of the important innovations in 20th century logistics.

There are three common standard lengths: 20-ft (6.1 m), 40-ft (12.2 m) and 45-ft (13.7 m), with the 40-ft container is the most popular container worldwide.
You have noticed the numbers on the container side. It is an unique number, comprised of a four character reporting mark or ownership code ending in the letter U, followed by a number up to 9 digits long.

Containerization has revolutionized cargo shipping. Today, approximately 90% of non-bulk cargo worldwide moves by containers stacked on transport ships; 26% of all containers originate from China.It is estimated that some 18 million total containers make over 200 million trips per year.

Shipping Containers

At Napier, the headland just north of the town looks down on the port. There, as in practically all the ports in the world, was a container handling dock, and we were lucky to watch a container ship being unloaded:

The ship is the Nora Maersk, owned by the Danish company, Maersk, which is the largest container ship operator in the world.
The Nora Maersk is specifically designed to carry containers, and its capacity is 2200 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) which makes it a medium sized container ship.
[When googling the Nora Maersk to find its capacity, I came across this interesting story about the ship - reported to be sinking in Auckland Harbour].

Earthquake destroys town!

On 3rd February 1931, an earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale hit the town of Napier.

Buildings which survived the earthquake were burnt down by the ensuing fires. It was a national disaster, killing 162 people and making thousands others homeless. Over the following three years, the town was completely rebuilt, in the architecture of the time, Art Deco.

Art Deco architecture is pretty distinctive; angular and geometric shapes, colourful bordering on gaudy. One building in this style easily catches the eye, but an entire town like it is just bonkers.

Leg 5 : Flight Info

By now we were seasoned travellers, well practised in the intricate ritual of airport procedures. And then we came to Nelson Airport. As usual, we turned up 2 hours before the flight time, and checked in at the one and only check-in desk. The airport only handles domestic flights, and not many of them. In fact, the airport lounge itself reminded me of a coffee bar, only with more seats than you would expect.

For a long time, nothing seemed to be happening, and with 30 minutes to go before the flight time, we started to wonder whether we had got the right day (or place!). But, 10 minutes later, they was a tannoy announcement and we followed a group of people out the door on to the runaway tarmac:

Altho' we had booked the flight to Palmerston North with Air New Zealand, the actual flight was operated by a small company called Vincent Airlines. A very small company in fact, and we would have had Vincent himself flying the plane if he hadn't needed to take his Mum up to the hospital that day. Instead, his mate Phil was pilot. (Phil is the one on the far left in the photo above, helping with someone's baggage). The plane was a Beechcraft 1900D which is a twin engined turboprop aircraft. It carries 19 passengers at a crusing speed of 510 Km/hour and altitude of 10,000 feet. Because the plane flew a lot lower than the normal jets (which fly 30,000 to 40,000 feet up) and it was a clear day, we had a fantastic view of the landscape as we travelled north.

Leg 5 : Nelson to Palmerston North : 138 miles

We enjoyed our few days in Nelson. The town is big by South Island standards (it has traffic lights!) and the area has a sort of micro-climate that is different from the rest of the west side of the island - it is sunny and dry. In fact, there are wineries in the region.

And there was another reason to be sad. Nelson was our last stop in South Island, and we were headed back to the relative hustle and bustle (well, I said relative) of North Island. To save time, we were flying to a place called Palmerston North, hiring a car there for the journey to Napier.

Mermaid seen in New Zealand!

The Abel Tasman national park lies on the north-west corner of South Island, about a hour drive from Nelson:It is an area of unspoilt beauty, wooded mountains and sandy beaches. There are no roads, you either walk or take a water taxi. We took the water taxi to a place called Anchorage Bay, and then walked back to base. But first, there was time to chill out on the beach:

And it while I was slowly falling asleep under the deep blue sky, on this wonderful beach, that I saw a mermaid! Luckily, I managed to snap a quick picture:

Well....... I think it was a mermaid. Not sure of the blue sunhat, though; and I didn't think mermaids wore clothes... Perhaps it was a whale!