The Steamtug Blog

This week I have steamed up the street in a traction engine, then cruised down the river in my new dinghy, all in an exciting week as the atmosphere in old Geelong town peaks before the mighty cats meet Collingwood’s magpies in the greatest footy game of the year, the Grand Final. But firstly, here is this weeks rant! (continue reading…)

Did you see the footy tonight! Wow… what a game!!! Hawthorn and Collingwood fighting for the grand final chance. I am stuck at work, and the whole night crew were sitting in the mess room watching the footy. A contractor working on the cracker shutdown walked in looking for something, only to see us all sitting there. What would he be thinking. Them poor buggers out doing the work, while we are all sitting in side watching the footy! The game was so tight, everyone wanted Hawthorn to win because we all barrack for Geelong, except poor Steve who barracks for Collingwood, and we all wanted an easier game for Geelong if they win tomorrow against West Coast Eagles. Hawthorn dominated the game until the middle of the last quater, then collingwood hit the front. Then after a struggle Hawthorn got the goal back and the whole mess room erupted in a loud cheer (except for Steve). But Collingwood finally got the lead back and won the game. But what a cracker of a game!!! I hope Geelong don’t have such a hard time tomorrow. Go Cats! Then next week it’s the grand final… Oooorrrr.

I can’t believe they drank all my beer!!! Oh, I don’t really mind because as I write this, I have another big pot of boiling barley sitting on the stove. Yeah, it’s the stove in the garage since I got kicked out of the kitchen for making too much mess… But last weekend, we had the party of the century up at Niel’s farm near Camperdown with a great bonfire party! (continue reading…)

Two weeks never went so fast, and now I am home coping with the worst winter weather I can remember here. (Ok, stop laughing… I know Russian Winters are worse!) During the past 2 weeks, I relaxed on the beach, tried all the different beers, went scuba diving, a kayaking in the marine national park, motorbike lap of Koh Samui, watched some poor football games, gave a tiger a belly rub, and rode an elephant down into the river Kwai for a wash! Busy eh? Read on to find out more… (continue reading…)

Just relaxing on the beach in Thailand. Sitting here drinking a beer while looking out to sea and wondering how long it would take to sail my yacht here.

The humidity here is a bit high, so whenever you lift your stubby holder up to your mouth, you get a little trickle of water that has condensed down into the holder which dribbles on your shirt making you think your already drunk and missed your mouth. It’s very annoying, and I hope you have lots of sympathy for me having to put up with this annoyance. (You are feeling sorry for me, right?)

They voted me president of the geelong underwater hockey club again for the next year. We held the AGM at my place over a friendly barbie and a few beers while the club affairs were put in order.

You can find all the details at www.geelongunderwaterhockey.org.au and we have vacancies for new players for anyone who comes down to Norlane waterworld, 7pm Wednesday nights!

Above, the new committee. Stu: Treasurer, Natalia: committee, Mark: President, Barry: new member welcoming officer, Mitch: secretary, Andrew: committee.

Boy it sure has been cold here. Yesterday we had a top temperature of only 11 degrees. I can’t remember a day where the top was less than 13 degrees ever! So much for global warming eh? (Don’t be fooled… it’s real despite this cold snap!) After living 4 years in Russia, I can honestly say I am colder here than I ever was in Russia. It’s because we don’t take winter seriously. In Russia proper winter care mean dying, here its just a pain in the fingers and toes. Even Petri when he visited here from Sweden said our houses were make like cardboard boxes with thin walls. He said that in Sweden now, double glazed windows are not used anymore, because everyone has triple glazing as standard. He could not believe we dont even have double glazed windows! I remember when I renovated our old house and requested double glazed windows, more for sound proofing while doing shift work, but it was a real problem finding someone to do them. Well stay rugged up… winter is only beginning…. brrrrr! (continue reading…)

I just heard the news, that old Bob Davis, one of the best players of the Geelong Football club has just died. He was also a great stalwart and still active in the club. He played in grand finals in the 1950’s, and coached Geelong to victory in the 1963 grand final. It’s a very sad day from the old GFC.

But it had me thinking, because there has been a lot of talk around the town about the top 20 players and the local newspaper is trying to compile its list of players. Now I have not seen there selections, but decided to put together my own. You can make comments and tell me who should be included, or taken out!!! So don’t be afraid to feed back on this one! Here is my list! (continue reading…)

Reminiscing: The mechanical marvels or yesteryear!

“Why can’t we get a new tele?” 

“Because this one has a life of 25 years, so we don’t need a new one for another 15 years!”

My son was not impressed by my answer, acknowledging he was probably going to be stuck with the technology in front of him which had slipped a couple of years behind his friend’s newer, wide screen model. (continue reading…)

With 2 rallies per year, it seems we just packed up from the last one and here we were again! I was keen to try out the whistle from my old tugboat “Lyttleton II” which I had just aquired and we had a plan to mount it on the boiler in Rabbit’s shed. Tom and Philip assisted by making me up an adapter flange to fit the boiler’s whistle pipe. We finally got to blow her filling the rally ground with the deep organ pipe so ominous with old steam ships. (For the story of the tugboat, look to the tab at the top of this page) (continue reading…)