VENOMOUS SPIDERS

White-tailed spiders and 

Daddy Long Legs: An urban myth

Today I spent most of the day at a First Aid course as well as a couple of hours driving a school bus, so not many new posts on the blog today. Sorry about that, readers.

A Daddy Long Legs spider

During discussions at the First Aid course the subjects of poisons came up and in particular the Australian White-tailed spider which can give a nasty bite. For many years it has been claimed that the White-tailed spider is venomous because it eats Daddy Long Leg spiders and the Daddy Long Legs is actually the world’s most venomous spider, but with fangs not powerful enough to penetrate human skin. This claim was also mentioned today.

When I suggested that the connection between the White-tail and the Daddy Long Legs may just another urban myth, the tutor replied that it was a definite known fact that the White-tail is only venomous because it eats the world’s most venomous spider, the Daddy Long Legs.

So when I got home I went on the internet and did the research. Here is part of what I found.

White-tailed spider

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

White-tailed spiders are medium-sized spiders native to southern and eastern Australia, and so named because of the whitish tips at the end of their abdomens. Common species are Lampona cylindrata and Lampona murina. Both these species have been introduced to New Zealand.^[1]

A White-tailed spider

White-tailed spiders are vagrant hunters who seek out prey rather than spinning a web to capture it. Their preferred prey is other spiders and they are equipped with venom for hunting.
They are known to bite humans and effects may include local pain, a red mark, local swelling and itchiness; rarely nausea, vomiting, malaise or headache may occur. Ulcers and necrosis have been attributed to the bites, but a scientific study by Isbister and Gray (2003) showed these were probably caused by something else, as the study of 130 white-tailed spider bites found no necrotic ulcers or confirmed infections.^[2]

AND from the Straight Dope Science Advisory Board

Is a Daddy Long Legs the most poisonous spider?

Possible envenomation

Is there any truth to this oft-repeated tale?

Daddy-longlegs (Opiliones) - these arachnids make their living by eating decomposing vegetative and animal matter although are opportunist predators if they can get away with it. They do not have venom glands, fangs or any other mechanism for chemically subduing their food. Therefore, they do not have poison and, by the powers of logic, cannot be poisonous from venom. Some have defensive secretions that might be poisonous to small animals if ingested. So, for these daddy-long-legs, the tale is clearly false.
Continued below . . . . .

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HAPPY READING

Daddy-longlegs spiders (Pholcidae) - Here, the myth is incorrect at least in making claims that have no basis in known facts. There is no reference to any pholcid spider biting a human and causing any detrimental reaction. If these spiders were indeed deadly poisonous but couldn't bite humans, then the only way we would know that they are poisonous is by milking them and injecting the venom into humans. For a variety of reasons including Amnesty International and a humanitarian code of ethics, this research has never been done. Furthermore, there are no toxicological studies testing the lethality of pholcid venom on any mammalian system (this is usually done with mice). Therefore, no information is available on the likely toxic effects of their venom in humans, so the part of the myth about their being especially poisonous is just that: a myth. There is no scientific basis for the supposition that they are deadly poisonous and there is no reason to assume that it is true.

What about their fangs being too short to penetrate human skin? Pholcids do indeed have short fangs, which in arachnological terms is called "uncate" because they have a secondary tooth which meets the fang like the way the two grabbing parts of a pair of tongs come together. Brown recluse spiders similarly have uncate fang structure and they obviously are able to bite humans. There may be a difference in the musculature that houses the fang such that recluses have stronger muscles for penetration because they are hunting spiders needing to subdue prey whereas pholcid spiders are able to wrap their prey and don't need as strong a musculature. So, again, the myth states as fact something about which there is no scientific basis.

In summary

For true daddy-long-legs, the opilionids, the myth is certainly false, and for the daddy-long-legs spiders it is certainly not based on known facts.

And then from Burkemuseum.org

Myth: The daddy-longlegs has the world's most powerful venom, but fortunately its jaws (fangs) are so small that it can't bite you.
Fact: That is a full-fledged Urban Legend, with no basis in fact whatever. This legend is so widespread that many people believe it who should really know better, including some teachers and TV documentary producers.

Three different unrelated groups are called "daddy-longlegs." Harvestmen (below left) have no venom of any kind. None at all! Same with crane flies (below right). Pholcid spiders (below center) have venom (like almost all spiders) but there's nothing special about it; in fact, a recent study showed that pholcid venom is unusually weak in its effect on insects. This myth is debunked at greater length on Rick Vetter's web site.

So getting rid of Daddy Long Legs spiders from your house is not the way to get rid of the White-tails. It would be better to use a recommended insect repellent in all the dark corners of the house including inside the roof.

PAKISTANI POLITICS

Pakistan court summons PM over contempt

New prime minister summoned to face possible contempt charges, after he failed to open graft probe against president. Last Modified: 08 Aug 2012 08:58  from Aljazeera Pakistan's top court has summoned the new prime minister to appear later this month to face possible contempt charges, escalating a wrangle over corruption cases against the country's president. Pakistani Raja Pervez Ashraf

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court - which has already dismissed the prime minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, over the issue - summoned his successor Raja Pervez Ashraf on August 27 for ignoring a request to ask Swiss authorities to reopen cases against the head of state, Asif Ali Zardari. It is the latest episode in a two-and-a-half-year saga in which the government has resisted demands to have Zardari investigated, arguing that as president he enjoys immunity. The government is due to become the first in Pakistan's history to complete an elected, full five-year mandate in February 2013, but the showdown could force polls before then. The court had previously given Ashraf until August 8 to write to Switzerland asking it to reopen the multimillion-dollar graft probes. "We issue notice to Raja Pervez Ashraf under [the] contempt of court act 2003, read with article 204 of the constitution to show cause as to why he may not be proceeded (against) in contempt of court and [is] not complying [with the] relevant direction of the court," said Judge Asif Saeed Khosa. "He shall appear in person at the next date of hearing. Hearing adjourned until August 27," the judge added. 'Personal vendetta' Critics of the judiciary and members of Zardari's main ruling Pakistan People's Party accuse the court of over stepping its reach and waging a personal vendetta against the president. The government had wanted the case adjourned until September. Irfan Qadir, the attorney general, said he needed time "to bridge the gap" between the two sides, and "find an amicable solution". Experts say Ashraf will be asked to explain his position on August 27. If the court is not satisfied, he risks being summoned to be indicted for contempt, precipitating the second contempt trial against a sitting prime minister in just months. The allegations against Zardari date back to the 1990s, when he and his wife, late premier Benazir Bhutto, were suspected of using Swiss bank accounts to launder $12 million allegedly paid in bribes by companies seeking customs inspection contracts. The Swiss shelved the cases in 2008 when Zardari became president and the government insists the president has full immunity as head of state. But in 2009 the Supreme Court overturned a political amnesty that had frozen investigations into the president and other politicians, ordering that the cases be reopened. Zardari had already signed the contempt law, which sought to exempt government figures, including the president, prime minister and cabinet ministers from contempt for acts performed as part of their job. Imtiaz Gul, an analyst, told AFP that Wednesday's decision showed the court was refusing to back down. "The logical consequence of the court's position is the disqualification of any prime minister who refuses to write the letter," he said. Peter’s Comment The judges of Pakistan’s Supreme Court must be the only honest and corruption free people in the whole country. What a pity that they have to be the stage managers for a comic opera called Deals Within Wheels for the Big Wheels.

THE TRUTH ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE

Climate Change: It has been around
longer than humans

The chart below shows how average earth temperatures have changed over the last 2 billion years. It can be seen at a glance that the world has been recovering from an ‘Ice House’ period since just before humans inhabited the planet.

There are smaller cycles too (not shown in the chart) and a significant one was the Little Ice Age from 1400-1850 AD when average temperatures started rising again.

The chart also shows how several Ice Ages occurred with an average earth temperature of 10 degrees C. It is important to realize that in an ice age, ice does not usually cover the entire earth’s surface, but is more an encroachment of the polar caps into temperate zones.
On the high side average temperatures have reached 25-27 degrees C and since we are dealing with averages, maximums will have have been far higher than anything recorded by modern day meteorologists.

As world average temperatures continue to rise (naturally) the arid areas like central Australia and the Sahara will not become drier, as is predicted by alarmists, but will have a warmer moister climate. Other areas at present too cold for agriculture will be brought into production. In short, as the climate warms, the world will be capable of producing more food, not less as predicted by the alarmists.

The climate during the Miocene Age was similar to today's climate, but warmer. Well-defined climatic belts stretched from Pole to Equator, however, there were palm trees and alligators in England and Northern Europe. Australia was less arid than it is now.

Global climate during the Late Eocene Age was warmer than today. Ice had just begun to form at the South Pole. India was covered by tropical rainforests, and Warm Temperate forests covered much of Australia.

The chart above shows more than 2 billion years of completely natural climate change. 

WARNING!

Climate change alarmists will have 

you worried into an early grave

for no good reason

RELAX WITH A GOOD BOOK

The Asker Trilogy

MALAYSIAN CENSORSHIP

'Un-Islamic' book trial opens in Malaysia

Bookstore raids raise concerns about the rule of law in the southeast Asian state. Kate Mayberry Last Modified: 06 Aug 2012 08:47

Since 1971, 1,517 books and other publications have been banned in Malaysia [AP]

It was a quiet Wednesday evening towards the end of May when Malaysia's religious authorities paid a surprise visit to the Borders bookshop in one of Kuala Lumpur's more upscale shopping malls. The three officers from the Federal Territories Islamic Affairs Department, better known by its Malay language acronym JAWI, were courteous but brought with them 20 other men. They milled around the shop, browsing the shelves and taking pictures on their mobile phones. The officers asked the employees whether the shop was selling Allah, Liberty and Love, the newly released book by New York-based Canadian academic Irshad Manji. Understandably, the staff, dealing with a raid by the religious authorities for the first time, was nervous. They lead the men to the shelf where the offending book was on display. After confiscating a couple of copies, the officials asked for the manager. Stephen Fung, a Malaysian Chinese and non-Muslim, who buys the books and distributes them to the six Borders branches in and around the capital, was the first to speak to the men. But then they asked to see the most senior Muslim member of staff. The store manager, Nik Raina Nik Abdul Aziz, a 36-year-old Malay woman planning for her wedding and in the midst of a marriage course at her local mosque, happened to be on shift. Accusations  "They singled out the Malay women and asked them if they were married," Borders Books' Chief Operating Officer Yau Su Peng told Al Jazeera. "Those who said they were single were then accused of being a lesbian. Some were in tears." Nik Raina and Fung were then ordered to appear at JAWI's offices the next day. When they did so, Nik Raina's lawyer was turned away, denying her a right to counsel that's enshrined in Malaysia's constitution. All this happened even though at the time, on May 23, Allah, Liberty and Love wasn't actually banned. Some groups had expressed disquiet about the book and Borders had been forced to cancel a "meet-the-author" session with Manji earlier in the month following threats of violence, but no fatwa had been issued. Borders said it had been given no indication that there was a problem with selling the book. Indeed, it was on sale at other shops in the same shopping complex. With its Muslim Malay majority and large communities of non-Muslim Chinese, Indian and indigenous people, Malaysia has long prided itself on its ethnic diversity and religious tolerance. For decades, Shariah courts, with jurisdiction over the personal lives of the country's Muslims, have operated alongside the civil system with the Federal Constitution as the country's supreme legal document. But as Islam has become increasingly politicized and the religious authorities more assertive, the system has come under increasing strain. Religious authorities 'emboldened' The case "is symptomatic of an alarming trend in which religious authorities have become increasing emboldened by the lack of proper oversight and a secular 'leash'", Azrul Mohd Khalib, who writes a column for the online newspaper the Malaysian Insider and works on HIV/AIDS issues, told Al Jazeera. Nik Raina is charged with distributing a book that's offensive to Islam, even though her job doesn't involve choosing the books for the store or stacking the shelves. Due in court on Tuesday, she faces not only the prospect of a 3,000 ringgit fine ($1,000) and a two-year jail term, but a criminal record. "There was no fatwa, no communication, not even so much as a phone call," Yau said. "Nik Raina is being persecuted because she's a Muslim." The Borders raid took place nearly three weeks before the Home Ministry's Publication and Quranic Text Control Division published the ban, declaring the book "prejudicial to morality and public order". JAWI, which ultimately reports to the Prime Minister's Office, says it doesn't need a court order to raid a bookshop like Borders if it suspects it's selling "un-Islamic" material. It's a view that's echoed by Jamil Khir Baharom, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department and the man responsible for Islamic affairs in the government. Lawyers acknowledge that laws governing the religious authorities in individual states are quite broad. But there is skepticism about the charges that have been brought. "It seems the religious authorities have had to find someone who is a Muslim within the Borders organization to be charged," said lawyer Andrew Khoo, the co-chair of the Malaysian Bar Council's Human Rights Committee. "The question is whether the appropriate person has been charged or whether she's the unwitting scapegoat of people trying to enforce the unenforceable." As a company Borders can't be charged, and neither can Fung. JAWI's officers admitted as much as they handed Fung a summons. After Nik Raina had been charged and a date set for the Shariah hearing, Borders learned it had secured a judicial review to challenge the raid in the civil court. The hearing was set for a couple of weeks before the Shariah case. But then JAWI asked to have its hearing brought forward, a move it said was in the public interest. JAWI did not respond to emails or phone calls requesting comment on the raid and its aftermath. Book seizures It's not only Borders, a company controlled by ethnic Chinese business tycoon Vincent Tan, which has turned to the civil courts. The publisher of the Malay language edition of the book, ZI Publications and its owner/director Ezra Zaid, also sought a judicial review. As with Borders, at least 20 people turned up at ZI's offices looking to seize the book. "The concern for me, and especially for my staff, was the legal jurisdiction in which they were operating," he said. Raman Krishna has run Silverfish Books in a Kuala Lumpur suburb since 1999. It's a small operation specializing in Malaysian books and the kind of writing that isn't on the bestseller lists. JAWI visited Silverfish on June 1. While the two officers were polite and showed Raman the gazette of the soon-to-be published ban when he asked to see it, they warned him that if he had any Muslim staff on the payroll they would be at risk of prosecution if the book were discovered. "The other part of this is censorship by harassment," Raman said in an interview at his shop. "We have a name for it, 'budaya samseng' - a culture of gangsterism. It's absurd. No civilized society would tolerate this. I don't understand why Malaysians do." After JAWI's visit, Borders wrote to the appropriate ministers to express their concern over the circumstances of the raid and the continued prosecution of Nik Raina. It's not just Nik they're concerned about. The company, which bought the rights to the Borders' name when the US parent company folded, employs 150 people, 77 per cent of them Muslim. It has yet to receive any response, although the consequence of Nik Raina being found guilty could have serious implications for all Malays simply trying to earn a living; whether an ethnic Malay crew member serving wine to a non-Muslim passenger on a Malaysia Airlines flight or a waiter serving food to non-Muslim Malaysians during Ramadan fasting hours. "We have the government rhetoric of Malaysia being a progressive democracy and a center for moderate Islam, but then you have the political action on the ground, the lack of political will to tackle issues like this and a backsliding into medieval times," said Imtiaz Malik Sarwar, a constitutional expert and lawyer who's representing ZI Publications and Ezra. "It's very worrying." Change in focus Borders' attempt to delay Tuesday's proceedings in the Shariah Court until the completion of the judicial review was unsuccessful. Citing the Constitution, High Court Judge Rohana Yusuf said the civil courts didn't have the authority to intervene in a Shariah case. But she also noted a seeming "lack of good faith" on the part of JAWI and said she was confident the Shariah Court itself would grant a stay of proceedings. A delay would help ease some of the unease surrounding the case and show the kind of legal co-operation that lawyers such as Khoo say is necessary for a dual system to work effectively. But the question of jurisdiction remains a difficult one. Where other countries have found a dual system unworkable, Malaysia has persevered, often by steering away from difficult debates over where jurisdiction ultimately lies. A couple of decisions at the end of July, one of them backing an earlier ruling to lift a ban on a book about women and Islamic law, have raised hopes that the civil courts are becoming more assertive. What started off as a surprise raid by the religious authorities on an unsuspecting bookshop may finally force a discussion few have been willing to risk. There "needs to be some acknowledgement of how the rule of law works in this country", said Ezra. "There's a lawlessness in which they are operating. All we want to know is where our civil liberties end and where they begin. And, if I'm a Muslim, where does Shariah intercede. This really is a litmus test of the veracity of our legal system." Irshad Manji is not the only writer to find her works banned in Malaysia. Lebanese-American poet Khalil Gibran, Booker Prize-winning novelist Salman Rushdie, polemicist Christopher Hitchens and Peter Mayle, a British writer best known for his tales of expatriate life in France, have all had books banned in the past four decades. Since 1971, some 1,517 books and other publications have been added to Malaysia's banned list. Along with magazines and newspapers, books are also monitored for content. Pictures are sometimes blackened out with marker pen or pages removed altogether. Operating under the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984, the Publication and Quranic Text Control Division is in charge of the process. It decides which publications are allowed to be sold and which are deemed too dangerous for the Malaysian public to see. As Malaysia battled a Communist insurgency, early bans focused on Communism and politics. In the 1980s and 1990s, as well as the predictable bans on adult magazines, kung fu caught the censors' attention. These days, sex and religion are the most sensitive subjects. Peter’s Comment Malaysia’s claim to star status as a model of democracy and racial and religious tolerance seems to be fading. When I visited Malaysia briefly in the nineties I believed the propaganda. To me country and people appeared friendly to tourists and the diverse cultures seemed to be co-existing in harmony. Everywhere I went I found smiling faces. However, since the nineties I have come to realize that all may not be as it seems in Malaysia. I can recall a political trial that went through the courts a few years ago that, to the rest of the world, was a farce that was stage-managed to eliminate a political threat. In a true democracy the courts are totally independent of politics. Now as I read of this latest witch-hunt by religious zealots, I am reminded of another vital facet of democracy; the state must be completely free of any kind of religious dominance. A religion dominated state cannot be a democratic state. It would seem that Malaysia must be about the last country in the world to discover the real effect of banning books; a ban will only serve to guarantee more sales all around the world and even more sales to Malaysians. This blog is sponsored by Gypsy Books Will our books now be banned in Malaysia for speaking out? PO Box 110, Ngatea 3541, New Zealand Print books: http://www.gypsybooks.co.nz For E-readers: https://www.smashwords.com/books/search

NEW ZEALAND GREEN

Jailed New Zealand dope grower vows to sell again

By Mike Dinsdale

10:32 AM Monday Aug 6, 2012

Photo / Thinkstock

A man who walked into Whangarei police station with a number of cannabis seedlings he had been cultivating has vowed to continue defying the country's drug laws when he is released from prison.

But police said they will continue to take action against anybody growing drugs and the man can expect to be arrested if caught.

Brian Borland, 56, has been sentenced to six months' jail after pleading guilty to one charge of cultivating cannabis and one of breaching special release conditions after he went into Whangarei Police Station with up to 39 cannabis seedlings on June 1.

It was initially reported that Borland went to the police station to hand himself in on outstanding warrants and as he had nowhere to live took the plants with him, asking police if they could look after them for him. The plants were destroyed and he was charged with their cultivation.

He appeared in Kaikohe District Court on July 17 where he pleaded guilty to the charges and was sent to Ngawha Prison for six months. He will be released before the end of this month due to the time he had already spent in custody.

But an unrepentant Borland said he would continue to defy the country's marijuana laws when he was released.

"When I experienced the joys of cannabis for the first time in 1973 it wasn't illegal ... it was banned the following year in 1974," he said.

"I could not see any reason why it should be banned, 38 years later I still feel the same way."

Borland said dope prohibition had only made many thousands of ordinary Kiwis criminals, and claimed there were up to 700,000 people in the country who smoked the drug regularly.

However, relieving Whangarei police area commander Inspector Tracy Phillips said officers had a responsibility to enforce the law, and that includes illicit drug cultivation, dealing and manufacturing.

"Cannabis is prolific in Northland and has negative impacts on our communities, particularly our young people," Mr Phillips said.

"It is also associated with other criminal activities such as burglary and violence. If anyone is caught growing or dealing in this or other drugs then we will take action."

Northland is the cannabis capital of the country, with a third of the marijuana plants seized and destroyed by police in six-month long, nationwide operations targeting drug growers and dealers grown in the region.

- NORTHERN ADVOCATE

Peter’s Comment

Borland, who police must regard as a bit of a bore, may have a point about whether or not the law should change.

But breaking the law is not the way to seek change. Borland should think about becoming the local Member of Parliament, but then some would say that Parliament already has an over-supply of bores.

So perhaps the best course of action for Mr Borland will be to demonstrate that he can behave rationally while partaking of the weed. From all accounts, he hasn’t done that yet.

MEMORIES OF PAST WEATHER

New study links current events to 

climate change

By SETH BORENSTEIN | Associated Press 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The relentless, weather-gone-crazy type of heat that has blistered the United States and other parts of the world in recent years is so rare that it can't be anything but man-made global warming, says a new statistical analysis from a top government scientist.

A cumulonimbus, or  anvil cloud
Photo: National Geographic

The research by a man often called the "godfather of global warming" says that the likelihood of such temperatures occurring from the 1950s through the 1980s was rarer than 1 in 300. Now, the odds are closer to 1 in 10, according to the study by NASA scientist James Hansen. He says that statistically what's happening is not random or normal, but pure and simple climate change.

"This is not some scientific theory. We are now experiencing scientific fact," Hansen told The Associated Press in an interview.

Hansen is a scientist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and a professor at Columbia University. But he is also a strident activist who has called for government action to curb greenhouse gases for years. While his study was published online Saturday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, it is unlikely to sway opinion among the remaining climate change skeptics.

However, several climate scientists praised the new work.

In a blunt departure from most climate research, Hansen's study — based on statistics, not the more typical climate modeling — blames these three heat waves purely on global warming:

—Last year's devastating Texas-Oklahoma drought.

—The 2010 heat waves in Russia and the Middle East, which led to thousands of deaths.

—The 2003 European heat wave blamed for tens of thousands of deaths, especially among the elderly in France.

The analysis was written before the current drought and record-breaking temperatures that have seared much of the United States this year. But Hansen believes this too is another prime example of global warming at its worst.
Continued below . . . 

Don't be alarmed by climate change alarmists

Relax with a good book

HIGHWAY AMERICA

The new research makes the case for the severity of global warming in a different way than most scientific studies and uses simple math instead of relying on complex climate models or an understanding of atmospheric physics. It also doesn't bother with the usual caveats about individual weather events having numerous causes.

The increase in the chance of extreme heat, drought and heavy downpours in certain regions is so huge that scientists should stop hemming and hawing, Hansen said. "This is happening often enough, over a big enough area that people can see it happening," he said.

Scientists have generally responded that it's impossible to say whether single events are caused by global warming, because of the influence of natural weather variability.

However, that position has been shifting in recent months, as other studies too have concluded climate change is happening right before our eyes.

Hansen hopes his new study will shift people's thinking about climate change and goad governments into action. He wrote an op-ed piece that appeared online Friday in the Washington Post.

"There is still time to act and avoid a worsening climate, but we are wasting precious time," he wrote.

The science in Hansen's study is excellent "and reframes the question," said Andrew Weaver, a climate scientist at the University of Victoria in British Columbia who was a member of the Nobel Prize-winning international panel of climate scientists that issued a series of reports on global warming.

"Rather than say, 'Is this because of climate change?' That's the wrong question. What you can say is, 'How likely is this to have occurred with the absence of global warming?' It's so extraordinarily unlikely that it has to be due to global warming," Weaver said.

Peter’s Piece

We’ve heard all this before. It’s the same old recycled trash.

Climate has always been changing and always will change, but the notion that the change is man-made is not logical. Climate change comes naturally in cycles that can last months, years, decades, centuries and millenniums and with much greater extremes than anything experienced during man’s time on the planet.

Hansen talks about a supposed recent increase in extreme weather events and I can understand that people will fall for that argument. He is depending on peoples flawed memories of past events. We tend only to remember one hot summer, one cold winter, or one severe tornado or other serious happening.

But the fact remains that the highest temperatures ever recorded date from the early twentieth century rather than the late twentieth or twenty-first centuries. Similarly, world records for wind, floods, thunder storms and tornadoes were recorded before most of us were born.

Hansen will call me a skeptic. I call him an alarmist.

ON THE ROAD IN AUSTRALIA

Australian road train driver

By Kingsley Foreman

Australia is about the size of the U.S., but most of our people live within ten miles of the sea in a handful of cities. The inland of Australia is made up of a few cattle ranches which they call cattle stations. They are hundreds of square miles in size, but because the land is so dry and there is not much water, few cattle are spread over a lot of land. Most of the land is still unused government land.

Railways are few and far between in central Australia. There is no freeway from coast to coast. The numbers of cars are few and the roads are narrow with one lane in each direction. When you get two trucks passing each other, they are only a few feet apart.

With thousands of miles of road between the cities and few hills to cross, the Australian Road Train makes good sense. The normal road train is made up of three, 44-foot trailers with a twin axle turn table dolly under the front of the trailer hooked up to the back of the trailer in front of it with a ring feeder and a dolly bar. The load is 120 tons, spread over the three trailers. The normal road train is made up of three trailers, but in the mining game they haul six trailers or more.

For training to get a road train license you have to be over 18 years old and you start with what's called a TAFE course that is held at a collage. I am an old-time driver that has not done this course, but from what I have been told you learn everything from how to tie ropes to how much air to put into the tyres--you notice we spell tyre differently to Americans. After a passing the TAFE course, you then have to do a heavy truck-driving test on the road.

It is one thing to get a license, but another thing to get a job driving a road train. You have to get a permit from a company that will give you a job. So, it is a catch 22. No one will give you a job unless you have experience and unless you know someone who will give you a go at it; it is hard to find a job driving a road train.

The best way is to start driving small trucks and do that for a number of years. Then start driving bigger trucks. As you progress, then someone will let you loose with a road train. There's no quick way.

Most of the trucks (tractors) we use are U.S. makes. The big two are Mack and Kenworth. They have to be made to road train standards (which listing all those details would take all day). The chassis are made stronger with more cross members and the chassis are not allowed to be too long, so you do not have room for big sleeper cabs. We have to double the number of air tanks, plus add more fuel tanks on both sides and lots more.

In Australia, you can drive four hours without stopping then you must stop for half an hour. You cannot drive for more than 12 hours in one day, but most drivers break regulations every day. A driver has a logbook to fill out, but that means nothing. It's called the "book of lies."

These days a lot of trucking companies run two drivers to each truck. While one drives the other one rests, that way they can go straight through.
Continued below:

Available now from Smashwords

There are some differences in terminology. In Australia truck drivers are called "truckies" not truckers. The tractor is called a "prime-mover" not a tractor. (A tractor in Australia is what a farmer uses to dig up his field to grow his crop.)

Most trucks have fuel for at least one thousand miles because, as you leave the big cities on the coast and head into the outback, the price of fuel goes up. There are truck stops every 150 miles and most of these are small compared to American truck stops. They seat ten or so people. The food is home-style cooking: steak and eggs, plus burgers and fries (what we call chips). It's simple food, not conveyer-belt food.

The wages are not too bad for Australian truckies. They earn around 600 a week. The average wage in Australia for other blue-collar jobs is about 375 a week. There are two Australian dollars to one U.S. dollar.

Australia is very large and its seasons are the reverse of the U.S. December is the start of our summer so Father Christmas is pulled by kangaroos not reindeer. In the south, the summer is hot and dry, and the average temperature is about 95 degrees F with a lot of days just over 100. In the winter, the weather is mild and I have never seen snow. The north has just two seasons, the wet and the dry, with a yearly average of 95 degrees. The middle of Australia is always dry and hot, but can be freezing at night during winter.

As to what you see driving in Australia, near the coast there is normal farmland, but in the outback you do not know what you will see next. At night there are lots of kangaroos. They are heavy on most roads and that's why our trucks have big "roo bars" on the front. It is not unusual to hit four or five kangaroos on one trip and they can do more damage than you think.

In the daytime you see a lot of wildlife--birds, big eagles and falcons; emus, which are big flightless birds; snakes; wombats, which are a bit like a fat dog; and dingos.

The good part of doing the job is that there is no boss looking over your shoulder all day and every trip is different. You are so far away that you have to do your own thing. You have to be a jack-of-all-trades. If the truck stops running, you have to try and get it going by yourself. Help is hundreds of miles away.

The bad part about the job is that you have a timetable to keep and you are paid only when you are running. If you breakdown and have to wait for someone to come hundreds of miles to get you going, you do not get paid for the waiting time. But it's a good time to catch up on your sleep.

For more information on trucking in Australia, visit Kingsley Foreman's website: www.inselfdefense.net/outbacktowing

Peter’s Comment

The wages quoted above appear to be a few years out of date. An Australian road train driver in 2012 earns more like $1,500 to $2,000 AUD a week. Also the exchange rate has changed and US and Australian dollars are about on a par now.