Author Archives: Bill Hutchison

One Step Closer to Becoming an Australian

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For those of you who don’t know, I am a Canadian who has living in Australia for nearly 10-years. My wife is and Australian, as are my two kids who were born in the Townsville Hospital.

Today I sat for my Australian Citizenship Test. Before I did the test I read through a free booklet that the Australian government provides, “Becoming an Australian Citizen“. I also did a few sample Australian Citizenship Tests and was quizzed by Tamara on the booklet.

Well, I passed my Australian Citizenship Test with 100%! I’m pretty excited as I have never been a person who enjoys test…

I wrote a bit about actually sitting the test on my personal blog, as well as some links to some sample tests on that site. Here are links to those articles:

Now I’ll be able to send in my application for Australian Citizenship and go from there to eventually a citizenship cerimony.

Townsville Showgrounds Decission – Best All Around

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Last year the Queensland State Government floated the idea of selling off the Townsville Showground to make way for more development near the centre of Townsville. This week though the government announced that they will not be selling the Townsville Showgrounds for redevelopment.

As a resident of West End, Townsville I had mixed feelings about the sale of the Townsvile Showgrounds. In one hand I like having the Showgrounds here, there is a lot of history to it, and it is central for most people in Townsville. At the same time though I was getting fed up with some of the noise, especially from the motor sports and speedway events begin held there.

In backing off the sale of the Townsville Showgrounds the Queensland government also stated that “high-level impact events such as motor sports and outdoor concerts should not be allowed at the (Townsville Showgrounds) site“. The report went on to say that state government land in the Bohle, a mostly industrial part of Townsville, had been identified for a proposed motor sports complex and drive trainer centre.

So as far as I am concerned, it a win both ways. Townsville gets to keep it’s Showgrounds, and there will be a new, suitable facility built for the motor sports.

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Free Garden Waste Disposal in Townsville

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This year the Townsville City Council has started to allow free disposal of Garden Waste at their land fill sites.

I reckon that part of the reason for the free domestic garden waste disposal is to stop garden waste going into the regular land fill in Townsville. Because Townsville is growing at such a rapid pace there is increased pressure put on the existing land fill site and the general waste disposal system here in Townsville.

We are currently using a garden bag service that we pay a monthly fee to. The new free domestic garden waste disposal is putting a lot of pressure on the companies that do the garden bag services, because they are still charged to dispose of the garden waste, even though most of the waste comes from domestic sources.

We might be looking at cancelling our garden bag service, but given the time saved, the cost of petrol, and the headache of borrowing a trailer, I am awfully tempted to keep paying for the service…

Source: Townsville City Council – Citiwaste

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Running Plumbing Through our Back Yard

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Kitchen Drain Run Into the Back YardAfter sinking 50cm into my back yard a few weekends ago and loosing my flip-flop I figured that I would have a look at some old photos to see where the plumbing was run under our back yard.

If you have a look at the photo on the left I actually sunk into the mud pretty much directly over the top of the new kitchen plumbing drainage pipe that was run through the back yard.

When they ran the new plumbing drainage after lifting our house they put some of it into the concrete slab, but a large amount of the plumbing drainage was run under the ground beside and behind our house.

Plumbing Pipes Behind the House in the Back Yard

Because the climate here never gets cold a lot of the plumbing is run down the outside of the house. It is very different from what I grew up with in Canada, where everything had to be way under ground, or inside the insulated walls, otherwise they would freeze and explode.

Digging the Hole in our Back Yard for our PlumbingWhen they filled in the massive hole that they made for the plumbing in the back yard I don’t think that they compressed the soil at all. It was probably assumed that over time it would compress itself, but with the extremely heavy rains that we’ve been getting the soil over the plumbing just became so waterlogged that it turned into a sort of “quick sand”.

One thing that was interesting that we found out while planning the plumbing and drainage is that our neighbours sewer line actually runs through our yard for their second bathroom. This prevented us from having a larger deck, not that it matters any more though since we are no longer doing a deck.

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