Palm Lake Resort Eagleby Social Bowls Club

27/09/2026

Good morning everyone, to those playing this afternoon, may your bias be true! Wishing you all the perfect line, smooth weight, and plenty of touchers.

The artwork I have for you today is at Dromana in Victoria and the artist was TD Illustrations.

On this day in Australia, the 28th of September 1962.

Paddington tram depot fire destroys 65 trams in Brisbane.

The Paddington tram depot fire occurred on the night of 28 September 1962, and was one of the largest fires in Brisbane's history. As well as the depot, 67 trams were destroyed, 20% of the city's fleet. The destruction of the depot is generally seen as the beginning of the end for Brisbane's tram system, providing the justification for the subsequent closure of four tram routes and the gradual encroachment of bus operation on other tram routes, with the final closure of the tram system occurring on 13 April 1969.

The depot was constructed in 1915 on Latrobe Terrace, Paddington by the Brisbane Tramways Company to service its western suburbs routes. Initially the depot had 10 roads, but it was subsequently lengthened and widened to 13 roads.

It was on the side of a hill and was largely built of timber and corrugated iron panels. The front of the depot was at street level, but owing to the slope of the site, the rear of the depot was supported by a forest of timber supports, some over 15 m high.

It is believed that the fire started in a storage area underneath the depot, although the cause has never been fully determined. Around 7:30 pm depot staff were alerted by nearby residents who had noticed sparks falling from under the depot. Staff first secured the depot's cash in the depotmaster's car and then attempted to drive some trams out of the depot. Three trams were rescued before the fire cut the power to the depot. Firefighting was hampered by very low water pressure. As the fire progressed, burning trams periodically crashed through the weakened floor to the ground below. When it became obvious that the building could not be saved, firefighters concentrated on ensuring the fire did not spread to neighbouring homes. The fire, fuelled by tyres, oil and grease stored under the depot, was visible from many areas of Brisbane.

The loss of so many trams put considerable strain on the Brisbane City Council Transport Department. Trams allocated to the depot that were in service at the time of the fire were temporarily stored at the Tramways workshops in Milton. The City Council admitted that neither the trams nor the depot had been insured.
Initially, older-style trams were brought out of storage from other depots to assist with peak-hour demand, but in December 1962 tram services to Kalinga, Toowong, Rainworth and Bulimba Ferry (in the suburb of Newstead) were converted to diesel bus operation. These closures were the first significant route closures of the system and within 6½ years, the remainder of Brisbane's tram routes had been converted to diesel bus operation.

The City Council hired a number of buses from the New South Wales government, in a move which some saw as a publicity stunt by the then Lord Mayor, Alderman Clem Jones. The Courier-Mail newspaper revealed that the City Council had been storing several of its own buses, which could have been made available rather than hiring buses from New South Wales.

Irrespective of the brief and comparatively minor controversy over the use of the Sydney buses, Jones was able to argue that the availability of buses "to fill the breach" left by the fire was evidence of buses' greater operational flexibility compared to trams. One of the justifications subsequently raised by the Brisbane City Council when it decided in 1967 to abandon the tram system completely was the greater operational flexibility of buses.

Thanks to Wikipedia for the above information.

Our quote of the day is from: Zsa Zsa Gabor
I am a marvelous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man I keep his house.

27/09/2026

How true is this my friends.

26/09/2026

Welcome to Sunday everyone, a fresh day for you all. Thank you for being such an integral part of our bowls club's community and spirit.

What a great game of football to watch yesterday, Congratulations Brisbane Lions on a great win, I didn't think they were going to win close to the end, but they hung in for a great win.

The artwork I have selected for you today was created by Shannon Boyd at the Narellan Scout Hall in NSW.

On this day in Australia, the 27th of September 1932.

Maude Bonney becomes first woman to fly around Australia.

Maude Rose "Lores" Bonney, AM, MBE (20 November 1897 – 24 February 1994) was a South African-born Australian aviator. She was the first woman to fly solo from Australia to Britain.

Maude Rose Rubens was born on 20 November 1897 in Pretoria, South African Republic, the only child of Rosa Caroline (formerly Staal, née Haible) and German-born Norbert Albert Rubens, a clerk and later a merchant. She later adopted the name Dolores, shortened to "Lores" (pronounced Lor-ee) in preference to her given names. The family moved first to England in 1901, then to Australia in 1903. After education first in Melbourne, at the Star of the Sea Ladies’ College and the Cromarty Girls’ School, in Elsternwick, she then attended Victoria-Pensionat in Bad Homburg, Germany in 1911 to advance her music studies at a finishing school, becoming an accomplished pianist but suffering from stage fright. At this school she became fluent in French and German, before returning to Australia in 1913.
In 1917, age 19, she met and married Harry Barrington Bonney, a leather goods manufacturer, whilst she was a member of the Red Cross working on the war effort during the World War I war effort. The couple moved to Brisbane, Queensland, Australia and settled in Bowen Hills.

In 1928 she met Bert Hinkler, Harry Barrington Bonney's first cousin once removed and a Queensland aviator who had set a solo England–Australia record in his Avro Avian biplane (now in the Queensland Museum, Brisbane). His exploits fired her imagination and her first flight in his Avian confirmed her determination to learn to fly. She took her first lessons (initially secretly whilst her husband played golf) with instructor Charles Matheson on 6 August 1930 and gained her private pilot's licence within the year. When she told her husband about her flying, he bought her a de Havilland DH.60 Gypsy Moth which she named My Little Ship.

Bonney's first record breaking long-distance flight was in December 1931 when she decided to spend Christmas Day with her husband in Brisbane, and join her father in Wangaratta, Victoria, 1,173 km south, for lunch on Boxing Day. Leaving Brisbane at 4.30 a.m., she reached Wangaratta at 7.20 p.m., in time for dinner with her father.

The outbreak of the Second World War ended her flying career just as she was planning her next flight – around the world, via Japan, Alaska and the United States. The Klemm L32-V VH-UVE was destroyed in a hangar fire in 1939. VH-UPV was requisitioned for the war effort, deployed to a flying training unit, declared unserviceable and scrapped after the war. During the war, Bonney served on the executive of the Queensland branch of the Women's Voluntary National Register. She returned to flying after the war but retired in 1949 due to failing eyesight.

During the 1950s she was president of the Queensland branch of the Australian Women Pilots’ Association.

Thanks to Wikipedia for the above information.

Our quote of the day is from: Tom Clancy
The good old days are now.

26/09/2026

25/09/2026

Good morning one and all, we hope to see you at the club tonight for the members draw, we Thank you for your continued support each week, let's make today great together.

The artwork I have for you today was painted by Kyle Torney at Carapooee in Victoria.

On this day in Australia, the 26th of September 1983.

Australia II wins the America's Cup ending the New York Yacht Club's 132-year domination of the race.

Australia II (KA 6) is an Australian 12-metre-class America's Cup challenge racing yacht that was launched in 1982 and won the 1983 America's Cup for the Royal Perth Yacht Club. Skippered by John Bertrand, she was the first successful Cup challenger, ending a 132-year tenure (with 26 successful defences) by the New York Yacht Club.

Australia II was designed by Ben Lexcen, built by Steve Ward, owned by Alan Bond and skippered by John Bertrand. Lexcen's Australia II design featured a reduced waterline length and a short chord winged keel which gave the boat a significant advantage in manoeuvrability and heeling moment (lower ballast centre of gravity) but it was a significant disadvantage in choppy seas. The boat was also very quick in stays. The winged keel was a major design advance, and its legality was questioned by the New York Yacht Club. During the summer of 1983, as selection trials took place for the Cup defence that autumn, the New York Yacht Club challenged the legality of the keel design. The controversy was decided in Australia II's favour.

Australia II sported a number of other innovative features that contributed to her success, including radical vertical sail designs, all-kevlar running rigging and a lightweight carbon fibre boom.

In 2009, more than two decades after Ben Lexcen's death, Dutch naval architect Peter van Oossanen claimed that the winged keel was actually designed by him and his group of Dutch designers, and not Lexcen. If true, this would have been reason to disqualify Australia II, since the rules then stated that challenging yachts were to be designed only by citizens of the nations they represented.

The controversy arose due to Cup rules allowing designers to use model basins for testing that were not located in the challenging country. Model testing was performed in the Netherlands and Peter van Oossanen and another Dutch engineer, Joop Sloof, performed measurements and analyses related to evaluation of winged keel designs.

The suggestion that the vessel was not designed by Australians has been refuted by both Bertrand and project manager John Longley. Furthermore, it is well established that Lexcen had been experimenting with wing adaptations to the undersurface appendages of boats before, including his 1958 skiffs Taipan and Venom, although in the latter application they were not determined to be effective and not further adopted.In 1983, Lexcen commented on the design issue: "I have in mind to admit it all to the New York Yacht Club that I really owe the secret of the design to a Greek guy who helped me out and was invaluable. He's been dead for 2000 years. Bloody Archimedes..."

Thanks to Wikipedia for the above information.

Our quote of the day is from: Mark Twain
I can live for two months on a good compliment.

24/09/2026

Good morning everyone, may your morning be smooth and your day filled with positive achievements.

The artwork I have selected for you today was painted by Mural Nomad at Gladstone in South Australia.

On this day in Australia, the 25th of September 1998.

On 25 September 1998 a catastrophic fire occurred at the Esso natural gas plant in Longford, Victoria, Australia. A pressure vessel ruptured resulting in a serious jet fire, which escalated to a conflagration extending to a large part of the plant. Fires lasted two days before they were finally extinguished.

Two workers were killed and eight others injured. Natural gas supply to the state of Victoria was severely disrupted and was not fully restored until 14 October. Total estimated property costs amounted to US$443 million (US$987 million in 2021), while financial losses to the companies affected by the gas shortage were estimated at around A$1.3 billion.

The Victorian state government established the Longford Royal Commission to publicly investigate the causes of the accident.

In 1998, the Longford gas plant was owned by a joint partnership between Esso and BHP. Esso was responsible for the operation of the plant. Esso was a wholly owned subsidiary of US-based company Exxon, which has since merged with Mobil, becoming ExxonMobil.

Built in 1969, the plant at Longford is the onshore receiving point for raw natural gas output from the Marlin, Barracouta and Snapper fields in the Bass Strait, as well as crude oil from further offshore oil platforms. The plant complex consisted of three gas processing plants (Gas Plants 1, 2 and 3 or GP1, GP2 and GP3) and one crude oil stabilisation plant (CSP). It was the primary provider of natural gas to Victoria and provided some supply to New South Wales.

The gas feed from the Bass Strait consisted of liquid and gaseous raw natural gas, containing methane, ethane, propane and butane, together with water vapours and hydrogen sulfide (H2S). In order to produce natural gas of commercial specifications, it was necessary to separate nearly all non-methane content. Water and hydrogen sulfide were first removed from the gas. The resulting stream still contained both liquid condensate and gaseous components.

Process schematic of Gas Plant 1 (for simplicity's sake only one absorber is shown)
Gas Plant 1 was a lean-oil absorption plant separating methane from liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) by stripping the gas using a liquid hydrocarbon stream called "lean oil" (a light oil similar to aviation kerosene). This occurred in two absorbers (working in a parallel configuration), large vertical pressure vessels in which chilled raw natural gas rose up from the bottom, on its way up shed heavier components (ethane, propane and butane) against the falling stream of lean oil and finally left the vessel at the top as methane. Lean oil, on the other hand, absorbed heavy gas components on its way down and thereby left the absorber having become "rich oil". Most of the heavier gas components left at the bottom of the absorbers in the form of LPG.

Thanks to Wikipedia for the above information.

Our quote of the day is from: Chanakya
The fragrance of flowers spreads only in the direction of the wind. But the goodness of a person spreads in all directions.

23/09/2026

Good morning to all of our amazing friends in the Lifestyle Village, may it be a great day for you all.

The artwork I have for you all today was painted by Fintan Magee at Banna Lane in Griffith NSW.

On this day in Australia, the 24th of September 1903.

Alfred Deakin become the second Prime Minister of Australia, following the resignation of Edmund Barton.

Alfred Deakin (3 August 1856 – 7 October 1919) was an Australian politician who served as the second prime minister of Australia from 1903 to 1904, 1905 to 1908, and 1909 to 1910. He held office as the leader of the Protectionist Party, and in his final term as that of the Liberal Party. He is notable for being one of the fathers of Federation and for his influence in early Australian politics.

Deakin was born in Melbourne to middle-class parents. He was elected to the Victorian Legislative Assembly in 1879, aged 23, additionally working as a barrister and journalist. He held ministerial office sporadically beginning in 1883, aligning himself with liberal and radical reformers. In the 1890s, Deakin became one of the leading figures in the movement for the federation of the Australian colonies. He was a delegate to the federal conventions and served on the committees that drafted the federal constitution. He later campaigned at a series of referendums and lobbied the British government for its adoption.

After the Federation in 1901, Deakin became the inaugural Attorney-General of Australia in the ministry led by his close friend Edmund Barton. He succeeded Barton as prime minister in September 1903. Two subsequent elections in 1903 and 1906 produced an even split between three parties, with Deakin's Liberal Protectionist Party occupying an effective middle ground between the Free Traders and the Australian Labor Party (ALP). He left office in April 1904 following an unproductive first term but returned in July 1905 and was able to form a functional government with the support of the ALP. He relinquished office again in August 1908.

In 1909, in what became known as the Fusion, Deakin controversially led his supporters into a union with the Free Traders. Their alliance, based on anti-socialism, marked the beginning of a two-party system in federal politics and allowed him to form Australia's first majority government. Deakin regarded his final term as prime minister, from June 1909 to April 1910, as his most productive. However, to his surprise, the ALP won a majority in both houses at the 1910 election. He retired from politics in 1913, in the early stages of a degenerative neurological condition that led to his death at the age of 63.

Deakin is regarded as one of Australia's most influential prime ministers. He was the principal architect of the "Australian settlement", the features of which – the White Australia policy, compulsory arbitration, protectionism, state paternalism, and support for the British Empire – formed the basis of Australia's socio-economic framework well into the 20th century.

Thanks to Wikipedia for the above information.

Our quote of the day is from: Sidonie Gabrielle Colette
What a wonderful life I've had! I only wish I'd realized it sooner.

22/09/2026

Welcome to Hump Day, top of the morning to ya all, we hope it will be a great day for you.

The artwork I have for you today was painted by Arina Apostolova at Berwick in Victoria.

On this day in Australia, the 23rd of September 1856.

The town of Perth, Western Australia is proclaimed a City by letters patent from Queen Victoria.

Perth is the capital city of Western Australia. It is the fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth as of 2023. The world's most isolated major city by certain criteria, Perth is part of the South West Land Division of Western Australia, with most of Perth's metropolitan area on the Swan Coastal Plain between the Indian Ocean and the Darling Scarp. The city has expanded outward from the original British settlements on the Swan River, upon which its central business district and port of Fremantle are situated.

Perth was founded by Captain James Stirling in 1829 as the administrative centre of the Swan River Colony. The city is situated on the traditional lands of the Whadjuk Noongar people, where Aboriginal Australians have lived for at least 48,000 years. Perth was named after the city of Perth in Scotland. Initially established as a free settlement, the colony accepted transported convicts from 1850 to supply labour for public works and construction. Perth was proclaimed as a city by Queen Victoria in 1856. Substantial population growth occurred during the late 19th-century Western Australian gold rushes, and the city has continued to expand, particularly after World War II due to a high net migration rate. Post-war immigrants were predominantly from the British Isles and Southern Europe, while more recent arrivals see a growing population of Asian descent. During the late 20th and early 21st centuries, a series of mining booms in various regions of Western Australia propelled Perth into the role of the regional headquarters for significant mining operations. It became Australia's fourth-most populated city in 1984, overtaking Adelaide.

Ranked as one of the world's most liveable cities, Perth was classified by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network as a Beta global city in 2020. As of 2021, Perth is divided into 30 local government areas, comprising over 350 suburbs. The metropolitan contours span 125 kilometres (78 mi) from Two Rocks in the north to Singleton in the south, and 45 kilometres (28 mi) from the west coast to Sawyers Valley in the east. Beyond the central business district, predominant urban centres within the metropolitan area include Armadale, Fremantle, Joondalup, Midland and Rockingham. Most of those were originally established as separate settlements and retained a distinct identity after being subsumed into the wider metropolitan area. Mandurah, Western Australia's second-largest city, forms a conurbation with Perth along the coastline. Despite this, it is generally regarded as an independent city.

Perth is home to many parkland areas and nature reserves, the most-visited being Kings Park and Botanic Garden, one of the world's largest inner-city parks. Other popular natural features include Cottesloe Beach and Rottnest Island. Notable heritage buildings and cultural sites include Perth Mint, WA Museum Boola Bardip and the World Heritage-listed Fremantle Prison. All five of Western Australia's universities are based in Perth. The city is served by Fremantle Harbour and Perth Airport.

Thanks to Wikipedia for the above information.

Our quote of the day is from: Bernard Meltzer
A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked.