On the first Tuesday in November, 2002, Damien Oliver won the Melbourne Cup on Media Puzzle. Two strides past the post, the jockey blew a kiss to the sky, a gesture aimed squarely and tenderly at his brother, Jason.
Also a jockey, Jason Oliver died during a barrier trial in Perth, less than a week […]
Elizabeth Gold ran across the tennis court with a bullet in her breast. She was trying to escape her lover called Russell Snodgrass. This was 1897, and the period gown wasn’t helping her dash one jot.
The trouble started a year before, in the gold town of Coolgardie, when her first husband, Captain Charles Gold died […]
‘Band of gold’ is the literal translation of Ora Banda, a prospecting town in arid WA, though ‘town’ itself is a loose translation.
Ora Banda is one pub, a gold battery, a few open craters and a naked racetrack. Mind you, the pub is lucky to be still standing.
The place was twice bombed in 2002 […]
Japanese bombers, in 1943, never had much luck bombing Onslow. Navigators mistook the glitter of the salt marshes as civilization, and proceeded to blast the vacancy with incendiaries and several 500-pounders.
As if that lunacy wasn’t enough, some 10 years later, the Australian government glad-handed plans for the British to detonate atom bombs on the […]
An extension of Bunbury (WA), the settlement of Australind is a portmanteau of the two nations, Australia and India.
The name was hatched in hope of a strong trading relationship between both countries, especially in the famous ‘walers’ of New South Wales, robust horses used as cavalry chargers.
These days the place is less noted for […]
Only diehard fans of Cold Chisel can pinpoint Bow River, the band’s belting anthem to the outfield worker.
The song (http://www.coldchisel.com.au/l1_bow.html), penned by guitarist Ian Moss, resembles a treasure hunt, passing off clues in each verse. Take these hints for example:
“Only 6 days separate me and the great Top End…”
Or
“Going for the heat and the tropical […]
Can’t be too many towns named after a horse – let alone founded by a horse!
(Following on from our last zoo-art entry, this trail-blazing horse deserves a special mention in dispatches.)
As the hoof of Norseman, a handsome steed owned by Laurie Sinclair, raked the earth one day, in 1894, and uncovered a lump […]
Broome is described as a melting pot of races. But a century ago, the place went closer to a cocktail shaker.
Riots were regular. Race and pay (often connected) were the major beefs, with 2000 Japanese pearlers, and 400 Koepangers (from Indonesia) often major players in the biffo.
The worst clash was in 1920. The latter party […]
Marian Tomas was a man’s man. His birth name was Marinko, and mates called him Tich, a Slavic nickname meaning ‘little man’.
But Tich Tomas will be remembered as a hero, Western Australia’s first conscripted casualty of the Vietnam War.
Fresh from throwing his 21st birthday in the Cundinup Community Hall, Tich hit the paddy fields […]
Peaceful Bay, just south of Nannup’s Valley of the Giants in WA has been tormented over the years by a 6-metre white pointer nicknamed Skidder.
While onshore paddlers are safe, the fishermen have copped their share of hell in deeper water. One bloke ran a heavy-duty line trying to catch the pest, and found himself being […]