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Noted in Passing: Vacation Now in Howard Springs, Australia

Just two of the millions yearning to visit Australia these days.

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  • Mike Austin December 3, 2021, 9:14 AM

    Australia is reverting to type. It started as a penal colony. It is ending as a penal colony. Alas, no more “Crocodile Dundee” movies, no more kangaroo jokes, no more hanging out at the billabong, no more waltzing with Matilda, no more hoisting of a Foster’s.

    How will the world survive?

  • ghostsniper December 3, 2021, 9:42 AM

    Never had much inclination to have anything to do with down under, but I did buy some nice exotic wood from a chap down there a few years ago. The shipping was blue murder. I did kinda like Quigley Down Under though, and Mad Max, but never cared much for ACDC and all their screamin and yellin.

    • Casey Klahn December 3, 2021, 12:31 PM

      Bet you never realized Mad Max was a goal statement.

  • John Venlet December 3, 2021, 9:52 AM

    Glad I was able to visit while on liberty in the 80s. Downed vast quantities of Swan Lager on an epic pub crawl, and learned that when invited for Sunday “tea,” you’ll be plied with more Swan Lager and all manner of eats. I don’t think I’ll be going back to visit.

    • James ONeil December 3, 2021, 10:45 AM

      My visit to OZ was around 1980. All the beaches were topless excepting the nude beaches. Train from Melbourne to Sydney fast and smooth, so smooth nearly no ripple on the surface of the beers I brought aboard and was drinking in my window seat. Private clubs had a dress code, no admittance if you weren’t wearing leather shoes. Local rodeos; St. John’s Ambulance hauling off damaged riders every 15 minutes (Lack of our western boot high heels resulted in many riders getting a foot through the stirrups and being dragged.). Manly, across the harbor from Sydney, ten thousand cockatoos come home to roost around six thirty, all hollering about their day to the other birds. Get in a wee bit of a blue in a pub and then drinks all around. Good times!

      Nope, no desire to return to today’s OZ.

  • Casey Klahn December 3, 2021, 12:38 PM

    Pubic Health, writ large.

    I just watched some tweets with footage from the voluntary lockdown camp. I wonder if one can stream movies in there, like Schindler’s List, or The Pianist? Just a thought. I suppose if you’re there, without the Covid, and you catch it from the sickos down the street, that you have no recourse legally with the absolute state of Australia?

    Imagine what the Nuremberg Trials that come after this event will be like. That great Aussie accent and dudes in the dock saying, “I was just following higher up’s orders, Mate!” What goes around, comes around.

    Man. Maybe I do need that AR, after all. Just in case the ammo matches the tool, with black market supplies, as it were.

    • Boat Guy December 6, 2021, 9:57 AM

      AR’s have their place but “…a Mauser rifle, 20 rounds of ammunition and the will to use it…” ( RIP Aaron Zelman) will do just as well

  • Tom Hyland December 3, 2021, 2:52 PM

    I spent about a month in Oz around 1986. Flew from Singapore, landed in Perth and made my way across from Adelaide to Melbourne to Sydney. The country looked like the Texas panhandle spread out 3,000 miles wide… with greenery on the edges. The Aussies reminded me of Texans, too. Loud, boisterous, hard drinking, fun loving, totally don’t give a shit types. These people are living their worst nightmare imaginable. How they ever turned in the guns is unbelievable. These are not the kinda people to do such a thing.

    • Mike Austin December 3, 2021, 3:59 PM

      “The Aussies reminded me of Texans, too.” I lived in Texas for three years. I never—not once—confused them with Australians.

      “These people are living their worst nightmare imaginable.” No they are not. Wait for what is coming.

      “How they ever turned in the guns is unbelievable.” Why unbelievable? Most people are natural slaves and will do as they are directed by their government. Americans are different—vastly different.

      “These are not the kinda people to do such a thing.” What? They turned in their guns did they not? Thus, they are exactly the kind of people who would “do such a thing”.

      Why waste time worrying about slaves, about cattle, about geldings? They turned themselves in, Tom. Given the chance, they would turn you in as well.

  • Zaphod December 3, 2021, 3:55 PM

    It’s not the country it was.

    Spent a chunk of my growing up years there from mid 70s to early 90s. Looking back, the PC/Poz was beginning to make a dent by 1990 with the dawn of the Wimminz is Alwuz Right era. Feminism was only the fuse. Female Infallibility and Feminization of the professions was the bomb. The homos were just starting to dare to get in normal folks’ faces, too. A big change happened in the late 80s when there was a government policy change to encourage everyone to get a university degree. We all know what Universities do.

    But if I had to guess what neutered Australia, it would be the introduction of no fault divorce in the early 70s. It takes a while for new societal trends to percolate and fully manifest their effects. By the 90s, men were consciously or subconsciously emasculated. The knowledge (one way or another) that at any moment you can be destroyed as a man by female / judicial fiat with zero recourse is, well, unmanning and I think it took the fight out of them. And believe me, the Sheilas are shockers.

    Now when I go back for visits it’s a foreign country. And full of unvoted for mystery meat immigrants and ‘refugees’ who have no business being there. It’s toast. Vegemite optional.

    • Tom Hyland December 3, 2021, 10:25 PM

      A very fine explanation of what happened in Australia, Zaphod. I was going to go item by item after Austin’s scolding but I’ll just say read what Zaphod just wrote. It’s not the same country I visited in the mid-80’s. It’s toast.

      • Mike Austin December 4, 2021, 2:44 AM

        Tom: I just read Zaphod. Very perceptive it is. And we agree about Australia: It’s toast.

        And I promise not to scold for a week.