Austin of England

 

This Austin A30 was parked by the Esplanade in Terrigal today. I have seen it driving and parked around the town a few times recently. It is not on historic plates and it looks as if it is being used as a regular or even a daily driver.  

The A30 was manufactured by the Austin Motor Company from 1952 to 1956 when it was superseded by the A35. The A30 was surprisingly advanced for its time. It had a monocoque body and the newly designed 803cc A Series engine. By today's standards the performance was awful  (0 -100kmh was 42.3 seconds!) but in the immediate post war period petrol was very low octane so this was a major factor. I am sure the performance is better today with modern fuel although an egg timer is still probably useful for timing acceleration.

The A30 was assembled in Australia at the Austin Motor Company of Australia assembly plant in West Melbourne from KD ( knocked down) kits of parts shipped from England. At that time thousands of KD kits were being shipped all over the world by Austin and their major competitor, and later BMC partner, Morris. The kits were like IKEA flat pack furniture although unlike IKEA often parts were missing due to supply problems when the kits were packed. Local suppliers supplied parts such as tyres and batteries in more advanced markets such as Australia.

Standing on the street the A30 looks tiny. Look at the size of the Jeep in front of it. I cannot imagine driving it in today's traffic on a regular basis. Visualise trying to jump into a line of traffic or onto a roundabout with that sluggish performance. It would be frustrating for you and the drivers behind you. The brakes must be woeful by modern standards and as for safety and crash performance, well best not to think about it. 

What must it have been like to drive an A30 on Australian roads in the early 1950s? Outside the main cities and larger towns most of the roads were dirt. There was no airconditioning and tyres were poor quality so punctures were frequent. The headlamps would be like a pair of candles. If you hit a kangaroo it would probably come off in better shape than the A30.

 Imagine packing a family into that tiny car-with their luggage and camping gear and driving from Sydney to Terrigal. A journey of just 100km but back then there was no motorway only the very narrow, winding Pacific Highway and there was no bridge across the Hawkesbury -just a ferry with long lines of vehicles waiting to cross. "Are we there yet ?" would have been a very frequent refrain. It must have been a very long journey. 

An unusual curiosity and I would be interested to hear its full story.

Farewell USA?

I seem to recollect that photography was not permitted in the glorious, Frank Lloyd Wright designed, Solomon R Guggenheim Museum in New York but anyway I managed this one photo back in 2012. I vaguely remember security guards asking patrons not to take photos of the paintings with their phones. They have probably given up on this hopeless task now.

I last visited the US in May 2017 when we drove the Mississippi River Road from New Orleans to Memphis and then on to Chicago. I fear that may well have been my last ever trip to the US. I cannot see Covid-19 free travel being possible before 2022 and I foresee getting travel insurance for the US at my age may well be impossible or at best prohibitively expensive. 

I also fear that the US may be on the verge of imminent collapse. It sounds melodramatic but four years of the Trump presidency have totally undermined the rule of law and the institutions of government. Extensive civil strife or even a civil war is a real possibility if Trump does not win the forthcoming election and if he does win I see the US rapidly becoming an authoritarian neo-fascist state. This would have terrible implications for the US and the whole world.

I was bought up to look upto the USA as a shining example of democracy-a beacon of freedom- and this was a widely held view. Uncle Sam was the strong and benevolent leader of the free world. That view has certainly changed. Now the USA is seen by the citizens of many countries as a tragic, failed state unable to contain the Covid-19 pandemic and apparently willing to let its citizens die from the virus at a rate not equalled almost anywhere else the world and presided over by an appalling narcissist who delights in insulting the USA's friends and allies and who actively courts the affection of leaders of authoritarian states. It is beyond tragic.

So sadly I fear that my days of visiting the USA are behind me. It's not all bad news. At least I won't ever have to face waiting in a line for two hours at immigration control at Los Angeles Airport to enter the USA again.

 

Holiday snapshots from Stockholm

It seems like years ago but in fact only 15 months have passed since I was in Stockholm for just a week. A week was too short -I did not even manage to find time to visit the Abba Museum!

I did manage to take a vintage steam ferry to delightful Vaxholm passing beautiful summer homes on the islands. 

I have visited Sweden three times over the years and would like to see more of it but I suspect that I am running out of time. I may have to be content with just my memories and travel photos.

Last week I received an email from a British travel company advising me that I could visit Sweden without quarantining. Sadly the advice was for UK residents-and I wonder if it still applies anyway. For Australians we are still prisoners on our island continent. Not permitted to leave to go even to New Zealand yet alone Sweden. 

A few holiday"snaps" from a week in Stockholm. Memories from the time before Covid-19 changed the world.

For all the photographers who stress about their cameras and who have attacks of gear acquisition syndrome (gas) on a frequent basis all these photos were taken with my 11 year old Leica X1. The world is often full of surprises.

 

Memories of Romania

Two years ago I was travelling in Romania for nearly three weeks. Apart from the crazy, dangerous driving it was a really enjoyable and interesting country to visit. I came home with some worthwhile photos a few of of which I subsequently overlooked and so they have not seen the light of day until now. So here's a selection of my overlooked Romanian rural memories.

Oktoberfest

It should have been Oktoberfest 2020 in Munich now but like so many events this year it has been cancelled due to covid-19. This would be a massive blow to Munich and in particular the hotels, restaurants, beer gardens and the brewers as well as the people of Munich and the hundreds of thousands of tourists who come for the festival.

I first went to Oktoberfest 1967 during a one day stopover on a train journey from Yugoslavia to the Netherlands. I cannot remember much about it apart from drinking a lot of beer during the afternoon before getting on a train late in the evening at Munich main station.

I was in Munich in September 2018 in the week before Oktoberfest and saw this superb HB dray being paraded through the city.

I love Munich. It's my favourite city.

On a morning walk

 The last few months have been difficult, very difficult. First the lockdown and travel restrictions due to the pandemic and then secondly Val's health. Instead of two exciting overseas trips we have had none. Indeed we would have been sailing on a small riverboat up into darkest Mynmar this very week if events had not intervened.

This forced confinement to base has not been easy but at least I am in Terrigal and even in the depths of winter my early morning cliff top walk at The Haven has been enjoyable . Now it's even better as spring has really sprung. The temperature has gone up and the gardens are suddenly bursting with colour.

Due to all the gloom my enthusiasm for taking photographs has waned, despite my having bought a  new camera in early July, as there have been many, more serious things to deal with . Today I decided that it was well past time to give it an outing and I took it with me on my early morning walk. I came across a flock, or is it a gaggle, of pelicans in their usual hangout at the end of the boat ramp at The Haven waiting for an early morning fisherman to return and descale and gut their fish.

This guy, or girl, stood still just long enough for me to take one frame. It is a sizeable crop but if I had edged another cm forward it would have been off I'm sure.

Walkies

Early morning Terrigal Esplanade. Suddenly it's not Terrigal it's Dogland. I feel like the odd man out walking without a dog. The local vets must be having a great time. All those vaccinations and flea and tick treatments they are selling. And the dogs come in all shapes and sizes. Puppies must have been selling like bikes and laptops in the pandemic.