Sunday Stamps - Thomas Mitchell

Reading up on Thomas Michell was interesting! I had never hear of him, even though I have lived in Queensland for over 25 years. Seems he led the expedition to open up central Queensland which back in his day was still part of New South Wales. His team consisted of some Soldiers, Aboriginal guides and convict labourers. Seems they were successful as there a quite a few towns out there now but it must have been hard going as we sometimes venture out that way for a new parkrun and it is a long way even in my airconditioned car.

I had to laugh reading he was also the last person in Australia to officially challenge someone to a dual. It seems some politician did not like how much he spent on the expedition so they shot it out at dawn. The result! Both missed there mark just like most of our politicians today!

Stamp Collecting is a bit of an old fashioned hobby. I suppose I am not really into it an more but I always have a bit of a look if we get any snail mail that might have something interesting stuck to it.

Australia post still issue some good commemorative stamps but the internet and postage stickers seems to have pretty much killed the once cheap and simple hobby. It brings back a lot of good memories for me as a young boy as my dad used to be able to get lot of them from the University office staff where he was a maintenance electrician.

We would soak them off the paper, sort them out, swap and trade with other friends. I sold the bulk of what we gathered over the years when it went out of fashion and my son was more interested in video games and sport.

With the little bit of money from the bulk stamp sale on ebay. I put one good quality album together, one of each stamp we had issued in Australia with a couple of photos of my dad in the front.

I enjoy reminiscing and having a look through it on a rainy day and want to build some sort of digital copy of what I have collected over the years.