Photography.

[nomadpete]

Thanks Wille.

Not the sort of view that Tourism Australia would caption "Where the bloody ell are ya?"

But it representative of a bloody lot of our wide brown land.

 

When I first travelled the outback in my teens, all I saw was endless monotony. But the country grew on me. Now, I miss it too.

We are heading to that country today. 

[willedoo]

9 hours ago, nomadpete said:

When I first travelled the outback in my teens, all I saw was endless monotony. But the country grew on me. Now, I miss it too.

We are heading to that country today. 

Have a good trip Pete, a good time of year to be heading out there. It's been over 14 years since I retired from working in the back country and haven't been there since. If I got my vehicle up to scratch I'd like to do another trip out there as I've never been there on a tourist basis, always working. From the east coast of S.E. Queensland it's bitumen all the way to Innamincka now. Last time I was out there the bitumen had extended from Jackson to past Ballera, but fell short of the border. It had been a good season with a good body of Mitchell grass as far as the eye could see.

 

In that same batch of photos, I fund this one of an abandoned well name plate at that field where we worked for a short time. Top line is Willowie No.1, the well name - ie: first well in the Willowie field. Second line, the well owner, Innamincka Petroleum. Third line the drilling contractor - Oil Drilling and Exploration Rig 30. Fourth line, the date drilling commenced. Spud is short for spudded, the term for when the bit first bites into the ground. Fifth line, the date it was plugged and abandoned. Last line, the total depth reached.

 

[nomadpete]

In my working life I drove just about every road in Qld. Numerous times. My territory was from Grafton, west to Birdsville, up to Threeways, across to Torres Strait.

 

As you know, working doesn't really let one see the country properly. So since retirement I've been visiting places that I promised myself to come back to, to see properly. Thanks for the tip.

[pmccarthy]

Willie you don’t know who M Bell was on that name plate do you? I had a schoolmate of that name who worked out that way.

[willedoo]

37 minutes ago, pmccarthy said:

Willie you don’t know who M Bell was on that name plate do you? I had a schoolmate of that name who worked out that way.

Peter, I don't know him. I'd have to check to see who's name goes on those abandoment markers. I'm fairly sure the information on them is a legal requirement by the various state's petroleum regulations. It could be a simple tradition of the welder adding his name to it, or more likely it's the name of an authorised person attesting to the closure of the well. That possibly could be someone from the drilling company OD&E which was based in Toowoomba, or someone from Innamincka Petroleum, or if they used a contractor to seal the well, someone from that company. Schlumberger and Halliburton were the main well services contractors out there.

[facthunter]

It must have been replaced lately. There's no bullet holes in it.. Nev

[onetrack]

I was watching a video of a bloke touring the Simpson Desert, and he came across a similar sign advising the earliest drill hole in the Simpson, Beachcomber #1. Someone had a sense of humour.

The sign had no name on it, so one has to presume the name on the Willowie No 1 sign, is the welders name.

 

The welded letters accuracy and eveness is something to be proud of, and to put your name to, because I've never been able to weld letters and numbers that straight!

 

[willedoo]

2 hours ago, onetrack said:

I was watching a video of a bloke touring the Simpson Desert, and he came across a similar sign advising the earliest drill hole in the Simpson, Beachcomber #1. Someone had a sense of humour.

The sign had no name on it, so one has to presume the name on the Willowie No 1 sign, is the welders name.

 

The welded letters accuracy and eveness is something to be proud of, and to put your name to, because I've never been able to weld letters and numbers that straight!

 

onetrack, I think you're right about the welder's signature. Now that I think back on it, I've seen a lot with signatures and a lot without. As far as a sense of humour regarding the naming of that well, It's not specifically meant as a joke. It's a Beach Petroleum well and all of their wells that I know of had beach and coastal themes in their names. I've seen a fair few of them as we used to contract for Beach quite a lot. Reg Sprigg did most of his early exploration work around the beaches off Adelaide in the 1950's and 60's with his company Geosurveys, then formed it into Beach Petroleum in the early 60's. At one stage they hired a dive instructor to teach them to hookah dive and did some seismic work on the gulf bed off Adelaide. They were a great mob to work for; of all the companies we contracted for over the years, I put Beach at the top of the list by a long way.

[facthunter]

Life's a BEACH  some say. I was an avid surfer. It's a wonder I didn't get Bitten.  I thought I could never be far from a Beach but everything rusts bar your trunks and flippers.  Nev

[willedoo]

4 hours ago, onetrack said:

I was watching a video of a bloke touring the Simpson Desert, and he came across a similar sign advising the earliest drill hole in the Simpson, Beachcomber #1.

onetrack, there's a few in the Simpson a bit older than that one, some dating back to the early/mid 60's and later 70's. In the 60's, I think the McDills and Hale River wells were the first.

[willedoo]

To keep within the photography thread topic, but on the same subject, this is a scan of a photo I took in 1984 with an instamatic camera. I'm not sure of the format ie: 126 or 110, Peter, red750 might be able to help there. It's a very small three wheeler drill rig that was used to drill shallow upholes on the surface of Lake Eyre South. I wasn't involved with it, but from memory they towed it with a Honda trike and the Argo buggy in the background was used to haul cables. I remember they had a heap of trikes on that job. It was right at that period in history where trikes were on the way out and quad bikes were first appearing on the market.

 

[red750]

Sorry, Willie, no personal experience with Instamatics. AI search revealed:

 

Kodak Instamatic cameras primarily use two distinct film formats: 126 film and 110 film. 

126 Film: Introduced in 1963, this 35mm-wide cartridge produces 28x28mm square images (typically masked to 26.5x26.5mm).  It features a single registration hole per frame and a captive take-up spool, allowing for easy drop-in loading without rewinding.
110 Film: Introduced in 1972 for the Pocket Instamatic line, this format uses a smaller 16mm wide film with a 13x17mm image area.  It also uses a drop-in cartridge design but results in significantly smaller negatives. 
While the term "Instamatic" is often used generically, 126 was the original format for the main Instamatic series, whereas 110 was reserved for the later, more compact Pocket Instamatic models. 

 

AI-generated answer. Please verify critical facts.