My Home Dyeing Video

Made this vid this morning on my mobile phone. You may need to turn your sound up quite high to hear it.

Golden Dragon Museum - Bendigo, Vic, Australia

Golden Dragon Museum

These are some of my photos photos from my visit. You can't use a flash in the museum so a lot of the photos are quite dark.

If you look closely you'll see real gold thread couching on some of the ceremonial costumes.












If you'd like to see more of my photos please visit my facebook Golden Dragon Museum photo album

What Are You Listening To, What Are You Reading etc

What are you listening to?
Simon & Garfunkel Old Friends album



What are you reading?
I've got quite a number of books to read or look through at the moment.
Vintage Adelaide - Peter Fischer
Lost Adelaide - Michael Burden
Rag Rugs - JuJu Vail
Crochet - Jane Davis

The Art Of Graeme Base - Julie Watts
I love Graeme's books and reading about his childhood and his developing talent is very interesting. There's a lovely photo of a wistful young Graeme, holding his teddy, newly arrived in Australia from England.

Nancy Wake - a biography - Peter Fitzsimons
Stranger In The House - Julie Summers
The Prayer That Changes Everything - Stormie Omartian
From My Heart To Yours - Robin McGraw

What websites are you visiting?
facebook
friend's blog footprints diary
ancestry.com.au I'm uploading photos from my trip and inputting all the information I found in Bendigo and Elmore, Victoria, Aust.

Adelaide Hackerspace

Photos of today's get together

In January 2010 we started a Hackerspace in Adelaide. Over 30 people with a diverse and exciting range of skills and interests are involved.

We are having semi-regular meetings to discuss the organisation and to actually hack. At present we are sharing a space with Format Collective which is working out very well. Anyone interested please join the mailing list and come along to a meeting.

You don't have to be a hardware or software guru to come along. I'm working on a crochet project involving recycled hardware and hopefully LEDs.

What is a HackerSpace
http://pumpingstationone.org/2009/02/what-is-a-hackerspace/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackerspace

To join the mailing list and see what we've been up to:
http://groups.google.com/group/hackerspace-adelaide

Join The Teen Challenge Cause On Facebook

Teen Challenge South Australia-Giving Our Youth A Hope And A Future!

We are a Christian, non-profit, community organisation whose primary aim is to assist young people with life-controlling problems.

This Facebook cause is to raise funds and awareness for what Teen Challenge is doing in South Australia to help stamp out drug abuse, homelessness and suicide. Click here to join the cause and show your support.

1. Donate now or join the TC 3000 Club.
2. Teen Challenge is the oldest, largest and most successful program of its kind in the world.
3. 32% of South Australian prisoners are serving a sentence for offences including alcohol or other drugs.
4. Every day Teen Challenge works with young people trapped in the vicious addiction cycle.
5. Teen Challenge provides residential rehab programs, emergency housing, Teen Challenge Chapel, support groups, training, seminars, regional centres

My Great Great Grandfather & A Fatal Mining Accident 1881

Transcript of the above article:

Misfortunes never come singly. The deplorable accident which happened yesterday at the Catherine Reef United mine, Eaglehawk,by which the lives of two miners were suddenly cut off, has been closely followed by another fatal mishap, the scene now being the mine of the Carlisle North Garden Gully and Passby Company, near Long Gully. The victim was a young man, 28 years of age named George Jenkin, who leaves a wife and two children very badly provided for. It appears that during some recent baling operations at the mine the tank, in its passage up and down the shaft, knocked against the skids and injured the timbering. Two of the men employed by the company—the deceased and a miner named Richard Wigley—were on Tuesday night put on to repair the timber-
ing, and to do the work they took off the baling-tank from the eastern compartment of the shaft and put on a bucket in its place, on which they could sit and get more conveniently to their work of fixing the skids. This morning about 4 o'clock the men finished their work, with the exception of putting in one skid. They signalled to be raised to the surface to get the skid they required, but when the bucket had been brought up to about 680ft. from the surface, Jenkin knocked his shoulder against one of the frames of the sets, and losing his hold of the rope fell off the bucket, on the edge of which he and his mate were standing, and was precipitated to the bottom of the shaft, which is 1,340ft. deep, the unfortunate man, therefore falling a depth of 660ft., and
dropping into the well, which contained 23ft. of water. The sudden swaying of the bucket, caused by the jerk, and the removal of Jenkin's weight from one side, placed Wigley in a very perilous position, for on the one hand he was in danger of being caught in the frame sets, as Jenkin had been, and again the bucket tilted through the weight being all on one side. He was in imminent danger of losing his footing and following his mate. He managed, however, to cling to the rope until he reached the surface, when men were at once sent to the bottom of the shaft to recover Jenkin's body. It was never hoped that he would reach the surface alive. Grappling irons were sent down, and the well was dragged, but several hours elapsed before the body was raised above water. It was in a dreadfully mangled state, the unfortunate man having no doubt in his fall knocked from side to side against the timbers in the shaft.

The accident appears to have arisen from carelessness. The regulation of Mines Statute provides that men shall not ride on a bucket up or down the shaft without being lashed to the rope attached to the cage. A great many miners object to being lashed to the rope. Jenkin and his mate objected similarly, and although they were furnished with rope for lashing purposes, they did not use it. An inquest will be held tomorrow.
********************
Richard Henry Wigley was my great great grandfather. The mine where he worked is in Bendigo. I went to the place where the mine used to be. There are only a few things left and a plaque now.

Bendigo

at the border


in Dimboola

Sadly the lake is completely dry

the sign hasn't been removed though, it still lists boating fees etc

Bendigo cemetery, Jessie Tregear, nee Wigley, her husband and daughter



Bendigo Backpackers where I'm staying

at the tram depot

took a trip on the 'talking tram'





mining display