Corruption.

Posted on by

Corruption.

Everyone loves a good outrage story and this one is an absolute ball tearer.

Those familiar with the northern part of NSW may know a sleepy little town called Evanshead which has some pretty great aviation history, its still used as an electronic warfare targeting range today, but in its heyday had an amazing airport with a multitude of runways where many trained, flew and learnt to drop munitions onto the live firing range off to the south.

In recent years it has been home to just a few local general aviation aircraft and more recently (10 years ago) the Aviation Museum which notably holds one of the several discontinued F-111 flying pigs. Fast forward a bit more and it seems Richmond valley council decided to sell the airport. The group originally proposed to buy had plans for maintenance facilities and conference centre and all on paper seemed like a great aviation idea… however it would seem that consortium of people kinda changed somehow….and on the sly in 2020 the airport was sold.

Now..just for a brief second, think of how much land is on a airport.. a fair bit right.. so you expect in recent property price booms that would probably be worth a fair bit, even as just commercial land. We have seen how lucrative that is in say Bankstown airport which was also sold several years ago and has been slowly been dismantled and sold off to non-aviation interests, amazon full-fillment warehouse anyone ? Just waiting for the local flying school to plant a plane onto that roof!

Back to that sale figure… ok, so we might need to cleanup the site right.. could be a bit of contamination right, being a airport and all….. that might knock a bit off that sale price shine, so how much you reckon? 50Mil ? 20 mil ? that would be a bargain right ? nope.. sold for 3mil.

Fast forward to 2024 and guess what, there is now a multiuse housing development on the town side of the airport… its amazing how quickly things can happen when there is real estate involved 🙂 . Now, take another guess how much the average house on the main road here costs to buy ? any where from 1 to 1.5mil. so how many houses you gotta sell to make you purchase price back? no fing many right.

There is someone out there making a truckload of money off it now…

Back to the aviation side of things… anyone gonna take a guess and whats gonna happen now – noting there is no flying aircraft on the airport anymore, no regular yearly flyin and airshow.. its also now too difficult for the average ultralight flyer.. or actually average private pilot to fly in ….. what does that mean.. well guaranteed the owners will then say no one uses it any more so they can’t afford to keep to open as a airport right..convenient huh..

But what about the aviation heritage and history here you say? back to the museum… which by the way has to pay RENT to the airport consortium called Evans Head Airpark… haha, should be called Evans Head Housing Park. This is their link back to justifying they are actually maintain some of the heritage of this site.

Yeah I am outraged. If your ever passing through Evanshead, be sure to stop in and support the Museum.. its run by volunteers who love aviation, its a great little museum and is really affordable if you want to take the kids, its like 25 bucks for a family or close to, you pay extra to sit in the cockpit of the F-111 and get a photo but thats worth it I reckon, they need more volunteers so if you love aviation and are a local consider sharing some time with them.

If you know anyone on the Richmond Valley Council, give them hell for selling this, this does not pass the pub test in any shape or size.

Here is the link to the agenda meeting of May 2020 where the sale is mention, see Section 18.7.

A couple of pictures I took when I was there, I love these old cockpits and there is a shot of the F-111 as well.

The Cave Window

Posted on by

The Cave Window

I wanted to tell a good window pun, but I couldn’t find the right frame of mind 🙂

This is a little ol’ place called Lincolns rock, a sad place over run by social media popularity and tourists every time of the day 🙂

Under Lincoln’s rock is a series of alcoves and caves, this is one such popular one which is short climb, just large enough for a couple of people and will probably keep you sheltered from some of the elements. Myself and Rodney Campbell found it not too bad in keeping the rain off, however the wind basically meant you got wet no matter what corner you tried to hide in 🙂

Luckily sunset was well planned and at a time such that the rained finished and a sunset was …. lets say evident (at least), maybe not that well timed since the amazing sunset was probably another 50km down the road 🙂 but it could have been worse we could have just gotten wet all evening 🙂

Anyway, there is only so many shots you can take of a window on the edge of the Jamison Valley, here are few and its actually two windows, a little one and a big one.

All at 14mm to give you a idea of how small this cave really is…

#lincolnsrock

Lines.

Posted on by

Lines.
The new North Sydney station (Victoria Cross) is pretty neat, much like the rest of the new stations, you can just throw your camera at it and it will take a good shot 🙂
#SydneyMetro

Sydney Metro

Posted on by

Sydney Metro
I think this is gonna be some fun, especially since I can pretty well roll outta bed onto this train. I’m in the transport mecca 🙂 planes, automobiles and trains.. now I just need some decent cycleways 🙂

Surfers Paradise.

Posted on by

Surfers Paradise.
This place (Coologatta) is pretty bonkers for the surfers, you don’t need to be a surfer to appreciate that these waves are pretty speccy, almost made me want to go out and have a go.. but then i counted how many surfers were actually out there… nearly 100!