Wittenoom was shut down because it was a blue asbestos mining town in the Pilbarra region of WA up until 1966.. The company shut operations because they said it was unprofitable but I think they may have got wind of what was coming with the health issues and the compensation costs they were going to have to pay to victims of Abspestosis. The whole area around the old town is now a prohibited area due to contamination. I lived in the the Pilbara on the coast at Karatha in 1979 to 1981 in those days you could still go there and some diehards were still living in the town the last 2 residents were finally given orders to leave in 2022. The local aboriginal people are pressuring the WA government to spend hundreds of million of $$ to clean up an estimated 3M tonnes of contaminated waste that is spread over 46,000 hectares and return their country to its original state.
Imagine the clean up bill from that to taxpayers. Funny part is cist a fortune have to wear all the PPE etc. And when tipped of at the tip wrapped in plastic... the bulldozer just runs straight through it send a massive plume of toxic crap into the air.. seriously all the BS OH&S crap then right at the final stage.. who cares let it rip
Thanks, I came here to explain this too 👌🏽 My grandparents and most of their kids lived there for a few years and both my grandparents died from cancer as a result.
@@reneemckinnon5731 very sorry to hear about your grandparents. Quite a few Wittenoom residents suffered as a result of their exposure to what was later found to be an extremely hazardous mineral.
G'day Ian, the town Mary Kathleen, was a uranium mine, that closed down, there is nothing there now except for the streets and the concrete house slabs.
Ive ever had those particular type of iced yellow doughnuts....The one we used to get when I was a kid, and can still find somewhere in Australia, are the pineapple flavoured donuts, and those were my favourites...The pineapple went right thru the donut....very yummy...
It could be argued that around two thirds of Australia is a real rust belt. For instance the Pilbara region of WA has one of the world's largest reserves of Iron Ore which is basically a form of iron oxides or rust. The rocks are red, the soil is red and any light coloured clothing worn there regularly turns a permanent light red or pink colour. Many other regions in the Outback, desert or semi-desert, had a predominantly reddish soil mainly from the iron oxide or rust in the soil. On top of that there are other regions which have a high concentration of bauxite in the soil. Bauxite is a form of reddish aluminium oxide or aluminium rust. So a lot of Australian soils are a very reddish or pinkish colour because they are basically very ancient soils rich in iron and/or aluminium that had basically rusted over the previous millions or billions of years to form massive rust belts.
I have had 4 family members pass away from mesothelioma from wittenoom back in the day. Worst part is it laid dormant in them for 20 years. A lot of children got it and a lot of women got it from washing the men's work clothes.
Tropical Doughnuts are often based on Pineapple flavour and are the BEST!!! However, Woollies ones are way better than Coles which leave a fatty taste.
You usually see Australia superimposed on a map of Europe, and it covers countries and lots of sea. This one has other countries filling in those gaps.
The greatest things about Australia: A relatively decent minimum wage (paid holidays, leave loading etc.) A diverse and multicultural society. Government subsidised health care. Pharmaceutical benefits scheme (one years worth of thyroxine costs me $50). A belief that all politicians, regardless of their political colour, are selfish arseholes. Cricket. Safe, uncontaminated food and water. Strict gun laws. Our place on the map - with our largest trading partners close by. The less Australia is like the divided so-called 'united states' the better off we are.
Australia Map is correct. I'm sure you have seen the one superimposed over the USA. We saw it done on US TV news programme during 2019/20 bush fires showing how all of Australia was on fire, outlining where they would be burning if it was in USA and Americans commented that surely the map of Aust was not to scale as Aust was an Island. Maybe they think we are the size of Hawaii. 😂
@user-pk4wn3uj2n Except that, being in the southern hemisphere, we are inverted relative to the poles and equator, and so Queenslanders are truly "Mexicans" with a climate to suit. /Ignorance is bliss
Pay that last sentence. I think it every time I watch anything comparing the 2 countries, can't help it... Nod to Wagga, spent 3 years at CSU. Learned how to drink and nurse hangovers... ha ha ha
I bought one of those Macca’s salads once, and just the once. Not only did it have just two ingredients - lettuce and cherry tomatoes - but it also contained a piece of meat in the form of a SILENT Blowfly! If it ain’t buzzing, it’s already made its deposit! Needless to say, the salad went directly into the garbage bin! I also read that a few years ago, Iowa and Illinois had over 100 cases of illness after customers consumed chicken salads from McDonald’s there. There’s a video of tiny maggots crawling all over a chicken nugget! (2018)
Tropical flavors consist of one or more tropical fruits - typically a combination of two or more. These include passion fruit, coconut, pineapple, mango, orange, and mandarin. So some can be bad to Amazing depending on the formula used.
Well, Canberra's having another: "Extreme UV warning - avoid exposure to the sun!" day today. 💥 Only 27c but feels like 34c & you burn in 5 minutes out in the bloody sun. Ian, unless you're around Sydney, no big spider is going to ever hurt you mate. Honest.
we don't salt roads in australia for obvious reasons but rust on the coastline from the salt air is common. as for decaying towns i don't think it's really a thing if a mine shuts down businesses that supported that mine will leave but the town will likely remain. short term mines are usually built with temporary infrastructure.
Hey Ian - I finally made it into one of your videos. I was born in Traralgon and have lived here for my whole life, and yes, there are symptoms of rust-belt like circumstances in this area. We produce most of Victoria's power in the Latrobe Valley, and the brown coal stations are being progressively decommissioned after having been sold to private interests in the 1980's. They will (hopefully) be replaced by renewable power - probably not here, though.
Cats are so scary smart, if only we could read their minds! (One of sister's cats is named Luna too!) Australia can approximately fit 20 countries, luckily we don't wish to share it! Tasmania is the actually the same size as Switzerland, but it's mostly parks! Newcastle and Wollongong in NSW were basically shut down because of loss of heavy industry, but they have really recovered to become huge beachside, tourist and education draws instead! There are ghost towns in SA and in Outback NSW, but they are pretty rare in Australia! Tasmania has repurposed their abandoned mining towns into tourism and eco escapes too! I wonder if that was the tramdrivers dog? Was it a barefoot beach day? IWrocker cooking specials! 🤗👍♥️
Ian, look up Midnight Oil's "Blue Sky Mine", it's a fantastic song, video & summary of Wittenoom. Sorry, but now it has NO residents, you can't legally o sanely visit & the last structure is gone now. Has the 'honour' of being "largest contaminated site in the southern hemisphere". Yay. My eternal hero, [NSW Governor] Rear-Admiral Sir David Martin, died of asbestos exposure from serving the RAN. :(
I'm from WA, Western Australia, and of course know about Wittenoom. The town was taken off the map, I think, so people don't try to go there. I've just got one of our fences that had asbestos in it removed. It's not something we should ever attempt to do ourselves, so we pay a company to come and do it professionally. They have to wear hazmat suits and the asbestos material has to be wrapped and disposed of correctly. You just can't take it to the local tip. Note.....and our fence only had like 4 percent of asbestos. Horrible stuff 😢
I’ve always known the yellow donuts as pineapple unless they also had seeds which meant they were passionfruit. Don’t remember the last time I saw a passionfruit one though
We have ghost towns and dying towns that existed to service mines or the railways mostly but industry is mostly in our biggest cities and industries like steel are still a big thing. Possibly a plus side of condensed population centres.
G'day Mate. You just mentioned Tassie again. Well there is something or rather someone from Tasmania who is about to become international news. Yes we have our very own Princess who is about to become Queen of Denmark. Due to the Current Queen's upcoming abdication. Check out Princess Mary of Denmark's story.
Have to say…I love yellow doughnuts!! We fight over them in my household & I figured they were pineapple flavoured but tropical works too 😂 Passionfruit ones are the ultimate though, yummo 😋✌🏼
asbestos mine communities were made off limits, that guy refused to leave, but the dust is extremely dangerous, so you can't visit most places, there's a lot of ghost towns and rusting metal (often corrugated iron or cars), generally connected to mining of some sort, including gold rushes
If you visited every historical town within inner Australia, ghost towns, etc it’d take you 20 years. What young people don’t understand is that where now coastal Australia is populated and interior is sparse and unpopulated. It was the complete reverse 100 year ago. Mining and Agricultural was huge in outback and inner Australia, the arse dropped out of rural Australia and now they’re all ghost towns..
Wittenoom was a blue asbestos mine that shut down many years ago. This type of asbestos is the worst type for causing lung disease and was used in many building products. The town still had residents for many years after the closure. I went there once when touring in the area and the small store was still operating. I went to see the old mine and the tailings pile. I also went to see the nearby Wittenoom gorge. A few years ago the government declared the town a "no go" area and prohibited people visiting. A few residents were still refusing to leave last I heard some time ago now, even though the state has cut off all services to the town like water, phone and electricity. Lots of asbestos products still around, older houses with it in roofs and wall panels. My old dividing fence on the west side was damaged in a storm last year and half of it was still the old asbestos stuff and had to be removed and disposed of by professionals that do it for a business. My east side fence is still the old asbestos type. Not dangerous unless you drill or saw it and create dust.
The 7cm Male Funnel-web “Colossus”, was the old record holder. The new male record holder is 7.9 cm, his name is “Hercules”. The largest female to date is “Megaspider” coming in at 8cm ✌🏼
IWrocker These are pretty funny. And not that unusual really. Commenters are comedians as well. Makes me proud. 😍 But surely we're not alone? There must be other countries with their share of quirky videos? ENGLAND? SCOTLAND? IRELAND? Theyre all a bit nuts (where we got it from I daresay) Even US?
As far as "Rust Belt" is concerned there is no appreciable similarity in Australia. However there is a noticeable difference in communities as you move inland from the coast in any of it's states. There are many small towns that were once prosperous along waterways which have now dried up that once served for ship travel for stock and lumber trading. There are also many that were involved in early gold mining that have fallen by the way. So to some extent it can feel like you are progressing from 21st century along the coast in major cities to places remniscent of the 1930's to 1950's looking as you move inland. Which is not to say they don't have modern services like internet and a decent coffee.
I remember having an English tourist yelling about a huge spider. We were all confused. He was pointing at it and one guy was like, where is it hiding behind that tiny spider there lol.
Lithgow, Portland, Wallerawang, NSW, coal mines, power stations, cement works, Small Arms Factory, all defunct, still have one functioning Power Station and 2 coal mines with it. Way in the past there was Shale Oil mining and production. Now there are proposed big battery for old power station site and even a nuclear power plant. My favourite donut is caramel
That dog doing a 💩 is hilarious. The yellow iced donuts are tropical(basically pineapple or combo of pineapple passionfruit). There was even a story about this a couple of days ago and a Coles spokesperson confirmed tropical lol.
I live in the Latrobe Valley, 1 of our 3 coal power stations have closed and the other 2 are due to close in the next couple of years and the paper mill has just played off over 200 jobs. These industries are a large portion of the jobs in the area. It doesn't help that all of the hardwood industry has been closed down. The Latrobe Valley is a sinking ship.
Most Aussie small towns would be considered "rust belt" sadly, especially the further out from our few major cities you look. & I dare you to bring all your favourite metals to test out your "hardly any rust in Australia " theory 😂😂😂
If I had to guess the yellow doughnut flavour, it'd be passionfruit, probably. It's a popular flavour in Oz, and the colour's right for the fruit pulp. Otherwise, it's pineapple.
Hey Ian, can you please react to the full Sydney new year 2024 fireworks show? Specifically from the channels “ABC TV & Iview” or “City of Sydney”, for the best quality and experience. Much like you saw a couple years ago, Sydney still has one of the biggest New Year’s Eve firework shows in the world.
The donuts. Strawberry, Pineapple/ tropical and chocolate. Yes it could be tropical, but my local Puffin Fresh Donuts does Pineapple, and they are insanely yummy. Literally the best.
Both my mum and dad died from Mesothelioma, which is the worst form of asbestos. Dad worked in the mines there and mum was there with him. I was born there, so I get free check ups every year as one of the Wittenoom Children. ☹️☹️☹️
Hi Ian and family. My workplace in Brisbane has a Nespresso coffee pod machine for the workers with 17 flavours. Also around 10 types of tea, Milo and hot chocolate. Obviously it’s all free (because it’s a workplace) but no one gets mad if it’s not good enough and you have to go out to get better coffee or tea. This stuff is serious.
Hi Mate do a bit of research on the great artesian basin in Australia there's plenty of vids on RU-vid about it, most Aussies know the name but don't know the statistics on it. It will blow your mind.
Yellow icing on donuts is likely to be banana, possibly pineapple but pineapple donuts are a thing of their own. Normally a plain donut dunked in pineapple-flavoured sugar-syrup, so it soaks in a tiny bit and imparts a taste, but isn't an icing as such. Least likely, it may be lemon. Australia uses lemons for a lot of flavourings that aren't commonly used in the US, e.g. SOLO soft drink etc. US did have the equivalent of our Solo lemon soft drink in the '80s, called Rondo. We even stole the logo and can appearance 😀. Google "Rondo citrus soda". Not to be confused with "Brawndo" of Idiocracy fame.
A rust belt kind of town could be Whyalla in South Australia...it used to be a steel and ship building town but it closed down. Today it's still populated but job prospects are not too good...but the town might soon have a new big industry in producing commercial quantities of hydrogen...South Australia has a very high level of renewable energy and is expected to raise to 500% renewables making excess energy availabe for hydrogen production and electricity exports to the eastern states.
lol 😂 yes Melbourne is best for coffee and food but in saying that, I’m biast but Western Australia is the best 😁 if you ever visit I’d love to show you around
I'm aussie and I'm terrified of guns because so many peiple have illegal guns in my area and because I'm a law abiding citizen I don't have one to defend myself from them.
G'day Mate! Sorry for the late note...from yesterday's mailbox opening...MG cars are owned by Shanghai Automobile Industry Corporation and are made in China. Cheers!
Melbournian here. Luv ur videos. Pineapple (tropical) donuts are my donut of choice. Un-iced pineapple donuts are bigger and better. Moe (the town) is pronounced 'mo-ee'.
When it comes to Woolies and Coles, they get around under weight by advertising e250g. The E stands for estimated weight. That's why I always use the produce scales for packaged fruit and meat. Australia is a red country because of rust.
i agree ian , i only have to hear the words hash browns and i immediately think of America , i guess the aussie version would be a potato scallop , which is a slice of potato dipped in batter and deep fried . but i do like hash browns , one of the very few things i do eat from maccas
Hash browns here are the same as anywhere else as far as i know, grated potato, deep fried or baked, a scalloped potato in batter we call a potato cake.
@@mikeparkes7922 Cool, i wasn't totally sure, i just eat them 😆 Edit: wait a sec, i just read that again, never in my 44 years have i had a potato cake that was grated potato, its always a slice in batter, the only grated potato i have had is a hash brown.
Nah, Ohio is nearly twice the size of Tasmania. Ohio is around 116,000 sq km and Tassie around 68,000 so no, not accurate at all. Interesting snippet - Ohio's population about 11,800,000 and Tasmania is around 572,000. And about 42% of Tassie is managed by Parks and Wildlife.
Yes, it is accurate. What does the "true" size picture supposed to show??? Before she moves to Oz, she could practise standing on her head to get used to living "down under"! Never even seen a pineapple donut, must be a Queensland thing.
I highly doubt they are using scales that are out by 50g all the time, you would notice that much of a difference, if it was like 5g then that is a bit different.
