Our last event for 2023 was attended by ten Bearbrass members and four guests including one from the Northern Territory.

It was a fun morning with all members showing great improvement from the first event held in August.   We then ventured on to Mojo for light refreshments.  

We hope you all have a Happy Christmas and a safe and healthy holiday season.  We look forward to seeing you all back at Archie Brothers in 2024.

Elizabeth and Judy.

Convenors

 

Half a glass of wine times six wine types makes for an evening. When the wines are unfamiliar, the evening becomes a challenge.

 

Bearbrass wine-tasters meet monthly to take the challenge, sometimes in the meeting room of a Southbank apartment building, sometimes at a city wine bar, sometimes even across the wineries of a region.

 

Convenors volunteer to select the wines, the wine bar or the wine region, so every tasing session is unique, every presentation is different. Tasters learn about wines they have never considered, regions they have never visited, tastes they never anticipated.

 

When the wines were selected from vineyards along the famous cycling route of the Tour de France, tasters followed the path on a series of maps while they noticed the subtle changes generated by changing soil and climate as the cyclists pedalled their way from south to north.

 

Touring the Heathcote region took in six very different wineries and their various wines - a big day. We noted that grapes aren’t stomped by foot any more, that oak barrels are not always used for fermentation and that the cost of cork has brought screw top bottles to the Australian market.

 

While South African wines tend to show similarities with Australian wines, soil conditions and weather, again, make all the difference. As they do in Chile and Argentina. And Spain is different again, Hotter, drier weather makes for a more limited range of grape varieties and the Rioja region of northern Spain makes for some interesting Shiraz (or is it Syrah? The grape is the same, the language of origin is the only difference.

 

Australian wines, of course, have dominated the tastings. From Margaret River to Queensland, from the Riverina to Rosebud, we have access to the widest range of red and white wines available at affordable prices. And the government tax of cellaring which resulted in a change of wine-making to get bottles into the market as soon as possible has removed the need to check for ‘corked’ wines because wine under a screw top has no contact with cork.

 

Bearbrass wine tasters have enjoyed wines in a wide range of groupings with all whites or all reds on a given night or a range of reds and whites on the same night. Whatever the presenters choice, by country, region, variety or even price (within limits) the Bearbrass tastings have been unique social events - enjoyable, challenging and educational, all on a single evening

Pics: Left below- Jill gets presented with a Christmas cake thank you for her great job in 2023; Right - the mob re-assembles at the Clarendon Pub to enjoy laksa, chow main and nasa goring...

Bearbrass's  tour of the RAAF Museum at Point Cook on November 16 had an unexpected bonus -- Wing Commander Jason Easthope gave us an 800kph flying display of an RAAF Mustang fighter. He was leaving Pt Cook to fly via Temora  to take part in the Williamtown Newcastle air display next day. He told us the Temora stop after two hours flying was because the WW11 Mustang lacks a working toilet. Jason, a kiwi,  is an RAF veteran of the Falklands war and then an F18 pilot, with 4500 hours flying all-up.
Mechanics wheeled out a battery starter to his beautiful Mustang with its shark-tooth nose. The 12-cylinder Packard Merlin engine burst into life with its 1200HP roaring and a puff of blue smoke. Jason sat for a while with canopy open, ensuring engine pressures and temperature were OK. Then he swung the iconic fighter around onto the strip – blowing away a few hats from the prop-wash. The engine blared and the prop howled as the tips neared the sound barrier, then his Mustang was into the air and climbing for its first pass across our small party’s sightline. 
He followed with a loop putting 4G stress on his body – as if it weighed more than 300kg. Several more passes and rolls, then a waggle of wings as he waved us ‘goodbye’.  Watch him go here!

 

 

 

 

That was the highlight but our tour of the museum itself was also terrific. Behind every plane and exhibit there was a story and our guide Norm was keen to tell it. For example, the roundel in planes used in the Pacific have no red dot in the middle –because four planes including a Catalina were shot up by friendly fire from US gunners mistaking the red dot for Japan’s emblem. 
The oldest plane there was a replica 1913 Bristol Boxkite aircraft that was actually flown 100 years later at Point Cook with former Air Force Test Pilot Air Vice Marshal Mark Skidmore (retired) at the controls. “Considering it’s mainly wood wire and cloth, Mark was a brave airman,” said Norm. We attach a video of the flight below, in case you don’t believe Norm.

Our tour numbers were increased with a group of guests from Tony's Rotary Keilor East.

 

 

Twenty Bearbrass members were thrilled to see how dedicated craftsmen are restoring the 120-year-old three-masted schooner Alma Doepel at its huge Docklands warehouse. In a few years the historic vessel will become a training ship for youngsters ranging from Duke of Edinburgh candidates to troubled teens.

The ship began life as a timber trader out of Port Macquarie. Its roles evolved from cargo handling for IXL Jams Tasmania to supplying our wartime troops upriver in the islands campaigns. 

Guides showed our party how traditional shipwright techniques have been revived to restore the ship’s every plank and crossyard. The strip-down became essential when they found the stealthy toredo worms had infested the timbers.

Originally the builders could use large timber sections from trees that are now rare and off-limits. So instead the restorers now grab shorter pieces from old piers and wharves, split them into centimetre-thin slices and bend and glue them into shape.

The work site is as big as an aircraft hangar and full of dusty materials, equipment and long masts awaiting restoration. The masts are so high, indeed, that in the design of the Bolte Bridge, its height was raised several metres to enable to Alma Doepel to pass through.

What an experience for Bearbrass to see sailing-ship history coming back to life!

A Bearbrass group of 15 enjoyed a morning’s history tour of Melbourne’s superb State Library, led by our guide Graham, who’d been a high school history teacher for more than 40 years. He led us through the gorgeous main rooms of the Library while educating us about its social and architectural history. We finished the morning lunching at the Library’s Mr Tulk Café.

The Library was established in 1854, barely 20 years after the city was settled. It opened as one of the two earliest free public libraries in the world. Anyone over 14 could use it, although there was a wash-basin to ensure all visitors had clean hands!  For periods it was also home to Museum Victoria, the National Gallery of Victoria and the Public Records Office.

Graham told us how the original design competition was won by recently-arrived architect Joseph Reed, whose firm went on to design the Town Hall and Exhibition Building. His successor firm still exists as Bates Smart. 

Governor Hotham laid the foundation stones of both the Library and Melbourne University on the same day July 3, 1854. The first book collection totalled 3800; the Library now has more than 4 million items including the diaries of John Batman and John Pascoe Fawkner, the folios of Captain James Cook, and the armour of Ned Kelly.

Graham led us to the awesome domed Reading Room, which for decades had its overhead glazing dimmed with copper sheathing because of water leaks. It’s now radiant with light but the pretty green reading lamps continue to add pastel color. The strange octagonal shape enabled a librarian to perch at the centre and keep an eye on all users, including via a rear-view mirror. He was known as the “Shoosh-er” for obvious reasons.

 We loved the new exhibition of Ned Kelly’s plough-share armour, which we were told weighs 44kg. All around the exhibit are facsimiles of his self-justifying 8000-word Jerilderie letter.

We learnt a lot – including how little we knew…

 

 

This month’s meeting saw over thirty members gather at Docklands to induct Emilie B and Fran W formally into the club. From their introductions it quickly became clear that both women will be real assets. And if anyone needs any tips on restoring a classic Buick, we know to whom we can turn! 

Guest speaker Lorraine Smith entertained and enthralled with her saga of the 1583 manuscript and its journey from Yorkshire England to a second-hand bookstore in Warrnambool by way of Korumburra and Kew. Absolutely fascinating! And what dogged determination kept Lorraine on the scent!

As usual the group retired to a fantastic lunch at TAP831.

This year’s AGM was held on March 14^th at the Library at the Dock. The meeting was a good mix of formality, fun and gratitude and induction of five new members! Outgoing President Sue H delivered the annual report and Treasurer Ray D explained the club’s financial position. We thanked Jean H for her organisation of morning tea for the past three years and then showed our appreciation for outgoing committee members Greg J and Allison H. Following a lively morning tea, elections for this year’s committee were held and we are proud to announce your 2023 committee, pictured below.

Following the election, we heard from incoming President Jill. We all know Jill a great deal better after her presentation. Picture above is outgoing President Sue handing over incoming President Jill.

 

A happy group of Probians celebrated afterwards at Tap 831.

 

 

A dozen members of the Club, in three tranches, got to see the hidden, secret side of Melbourne’s famous State Library recently. It’s one of the world’s oldest (from 1856) and still busiest libraries, with its design echoing the Library of Congress and the British Museum Reading Room. The guided tours “below decks” are rare events.

From the Library’s initial collection of 3800 books, it now has that many books about Bridge card playing alone. The total is 3 million books and items grow at 20,000 a year. If laid end to end the books would stretch 96km. Half are stored offsite in Ballarat.   Non-books include music materials, theatre posters and flyers and even “Zines” or household collections about things like UFOs and croquet.

Lots of rooms underground were stashed with odd furniture awaiting repair, as if for a garage sale. But there were also 40m rows of card index boxes - Dewey was more valued for his card indexing systems than for his cataloguing.  For example, the Library via card indexing can quickly give you the list of Victorian murders 1949-75, with name of person murdered, where the body was found, date found, who was charged with the murder, when they were charged, and sentencing details.

We even found an “elephant lift” in working order from the 1920s – the “elephants” referring to “double elephant” folios of plant and animal drawings. We crowded inside and discovered one wall of the lift could be slid back for loading big items.

The Library’s most famous “Double Elephant” is a John Audubon folio “Birds of America”, from a set of 100 folios (38in by 26in) with each of the 435 birds  life-size, hand-coloured and “in action”. A copy on the world market is now worth at least $US16 million. The Library got its copy from a private-school owner in Geelong who was going broke, and the Library’s founder (and also “Hanging Judge”) Redmond Barry beat him down from 200 pounds to 100 pounds for it in the 1870s. Other treasures include a folio of 16th German woodcuts including Durer’s.

Asked if the Library had suffered any thefts, our guide Norman thought for a moment and said, “Yes, in 1991 someone stole one of Australia’s largest gold nuggets that was on exhibition here, the 8kg Pride of Australia. It had been recently found at Wedderburn in 1981. It was worth $250,000 when the smash and grab people made off with it, and I doubt anyone will ever see it again.”

Our three groups were thrilled with the tours and are already plotting more Bearbrass trips to this magnificent and beautiful building.

Another great evening tasting wines, although a little less curated than some other evenings. We tasted wines brought along by members of the group, based on whatever selection criteria they chose.

 

We tasted:

 

The two rieslings were very interesting with the Pikes very crisp and dry and the Pauletts showing the characteristics of an aged riesling with its "keroseny" nose and palate (not as bad as it sounds!). The french pinot noir was delightful and the two grenaches were light and fruity. The chianti to finish, was a much drier wine, with much more depth of colour than the grenaches. The group was split on the best wine with votes shared for every wine tasted. 

 

As is our habit, we were off to The Clarendon Hotel for dinner (and a few more glasses of wine!).

 

Cheers!!

President Sue led a small keen group to the magnificent synchrotron at Clayton near Monash University. We spent an unforgettable 90 minutes being shown around the complex by our guide Emma, a young science graduate and future scientist of things nuclear.

Emma briefed us on how the 150m circular machine accelerated a beam of high energy electrons to nearly the speed of light and into a storage ring where they could whizz around for hours or even days at a time, bent by powerful magnets. Her key point was that the synchrotron was not a “collider” i.e. atom smasher, but a giant microscope even able to map the molecular structure of the Covid-19 virus.

Although the facility seemed deserted, Emma assured us that scores of researchers were holed up in offices and labs running experiments often round the clock, with teams swapping to give each other some sleep. Most users get usage free but commercial firms such as miners or manufacturers get charged around $700 an hour – which still seems pretty cheap these days.

Among her tales was how synchrotron research colleagues in Chicago were able to prove Phar Lap was poisoned with arsenic in the US in 1932. The proof was from two small hairs from Phar Lap’s neck in the Melbourne Museum. A day or two before his death, the hairs under synchrotron light showed a heavy dose of arsenic beyond any natural level. However it’s still unknown whether the poisoning was deliberate or through some sort of human error such as a careless stablehand.

One of the most inspiring applications at Clayton was to create better understanding of premature babies’ poorly-functioning lungs, which led to successful treatments. Emma said that if untreated, such babies’ lifetime medical costs could be many millions, so the synchrotron’s original $200m cost was being recouped several times over worldwide just from this research application.

It is now even being used to specially scan and irradiate adults with cancers that can’t be tackled conventionally.