What other hobbies do you have?

I love shooting, reloading and collecting guns n gun stuff, but I also am a keen birdwatcher (yeah, yeah, I’ve heard all your puns before!) And I’ve passed up heaps of shots at rabbits because I didn’t want to scare away the little chats or robins ive been watching.
I collect old books and I like stuffing around with crappy cars.
What else do you guys get up to?

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My hobbies often have phases, I used to be into yachting well small boat sailing, Then for a couple of years I was talked into canoe racing, I have been into horse riding a fair bit also competing at low level that went on for a long time and is probably only on hold hopefully while my back is stuffed and my daughter grows up. I like to scuba dive but haven’t done that for quite a few years now. Got pretty good at it, went into the techi side of it could dive to 80m although i think my deepest was about 60+, Tri mix was my next course but could never get the numbers together at the right time then it would have been 100m. Apart from scuba it has nearly all had some form of competition I guess that is the same for all sports. Now in my older years I just exercise the one finger pulling a trigger. I nearly forgot the brewing hobbie not that I drink much these days either.

Horses four wheel driving fishing bush Tucker and generally anything that gets me in the bush.:beers:

Yeah, like @sungazer mine shift from one thing to another. These days (other than range/hunting time) it’s tinkering with reloading, geeking - building things and IT in general.

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Working with timber, golf, motorbikes.

Nearly finished the new mancave. Moved house recently. Large double garage converted to workshop/gunroom/mancave. Got a few projects to finish, my stock I’ve been working on for bloody two years lol. A bedding job on the .308 and restocking my .22 lever in Blackwood just for shits and giggles.

4wding, tree felling/chainsaws/cutting timber all go hand in hand, knives, and exploring vic bit of this bit of that

Mate I have just the tree or 100 for you to make you kick that habit.

Bit of a guilty pleasure of mine on the very odd chance i get to drop a tree on a property :joy: you have a shit load up the back though, they were nice trees!

I have about 4 laying on the ground at the moment after some of those big winds a couple of months back. To lazy to cut them up ATM The bonfire is going to get lit soon which the scrap wood, stumps and rotten wood gets put on.

Bonfire’s, finally a way to keep warm enough in VIC…

Fire

:sunglasses::beers:

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I’ve flown gliders, light planes and choppers though only managed to solo in the gliders and a Cessna 150. Shooting was something I was introduced to on the uncles farm when I was 6 and haven’t really stopped since then. I was big into Scuba diving back in the early days of Technical diving and did my ANDI Trimix certification under Ed Betts and wasn’t impressed so did the TDI version under Rob Palmer. It was through diving that I became interested in visiting Sweden and even managed to travel there to the Poseidon factory to be trained in servicing their range of regulators. The deepest I reached was 113m but on a 80m training dive a few weeks later my buddy had an incident and wound up doing some time in the chamber. Not long after that I lost a couple friends (Paul & Pat) and diving was interfering with the flying so I stopped.
Besides shooting I’m a big collector of Lego Technic and personally have >50 sets, including the rare and valuable Bull Dozer. Fast cars and bikes were other interests for a number of years culminating in the first road registered EVO VI TME in Aus and a series of Suzuki Hayabusa’s till one of them tried to kill me. These days I’m too old and broken to get too adventurous so I’m happy just to live vicariously through the boy :slight_smile:

Hobby’s include, woodworking (restoration and wood turning), metal work, 3D cad, RC, electronics… Just to name a few…

Here is a pic of a component in action that’s part of a high voltage rodent trap I was working on a while back… Worked great but had a habit of setting the catch on fire lol…

:nerd_face::sunglasses:

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Fark there’s some cool hobbies on here. I like travelling o/seas, 4wding and motorbikes. Just exploring and adventuring in general.

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Blade smithing. Brewing (well, kind of part of my job now). Cooking (also part of my job and has been in the past). Fishing. Would include boating if my boat wasn’t such a P.o.S.

Previous hobbies include rock climbing and martial arts (was also part of my job as an instructor, self defence teacher and security dude). Was also into cycling and mountain biking for years but not so much now.

Oh. I also like music. Guitar, harmonica and vocals. Not great at it but i do enjoiy it. Hiking should go on there but only as a mode of transport for fishing and hunting.

History, motorcycle racing, malt whisky, travelling. So going to the Isle of Man TT gives me it all rolled up into 1 tour! As a former Fitter & Turner I am also an inveterate tinkerer, and love working on old machines, especially steam engines. When I was younger I did a lot of sailing, coastal and blue water, but couldn’t afford my own yacht (bike needs parts, especially the BSA), and being in the bush, any bush, from the high alps of the NZ South Island hunting Chamois and Thar, to the wide scrublands of the Corner Country, and around Hungerford to Cunnamulla chasing piggies. Or just sitting on the Murray at dawn waiting for the 1st Kookaburra. Health has stopped the hunting but I still get away whenever I can just to camp.

I’m also with you on the single malt but am unfortunately restricted to the occassional bottle rather than the top self collection, these days.

You’d think, living in Tasmania you should have access to all sorts of world class malts, but nope, thank you broken taxation system.

I often find that top shelf and bottom shelf are much of a muchness. It’s all subjective taste thing anyway. You can buy a $1k bottle of Sulavans Cove or an $80 Balvenie and end up with very similar flavours.

…also I like 'dem cheap and nasty Canadian club, that right, I said it, I am a dirty bastard.

It’s less about the taxation system and more about investors wanting immediate returns on input for set up costs. Also about ecconomies of scale. Old established distilleries amortise their costs over thousands upon thousands or millions of liters a year.

Totally agree that a bottle of Dalwhinnie 15 at $80, a bottle of Oban 10 at $90 or even a bottle of Lagavulan 12yo at $200 is a better, more reliable buy than a Lark Cask Strength for $300+. Sure, they make some good wikkies in Aust but the centuries of experience the traditional makers have, along with the scale of operation, really shows in value for money. Also, as i told the boffin at Helliers road when he tried to sell me the ‘smaller casks in Tassy’s climate makes for faster maturation’ line… there is just no substitute for time on oak!

Nothing wrong with having a quaffer of CC or Jamos or Bushmills! :grin::wink:

PS: if you want a great, affordable dram to go with a nice hoppy craft pale ale, i highly recommend Oban 10yo. :astonished::sunglasses::nerd_face:

I’ve had Oban. Have vague good memories, because it was a while ago, not because I drank myself into memory deletion. May need to revisit that experience.

I recon Helliers Road is a one trick pony. Their wine cask stuff is good. Rest are average and way overpriced.

It’s true about maturation, don’t need 10 years in some climates. For example, Vic (warmer). But I was also pretty sure that Tas has ideal climate and generally requires 10 years.

It’s one of those things, maturation. Technically, the science says it’s possible to mature faster in smaller casks due to surface area:volume ratios and temp/humidity levels also play a factor. Like with many things, though, faster doesn’t mean better. The bloke at Helliers was trying to convince me that in Tas, a quarter cask can mature in 5 what a full cask can on Islay in 12 years. The quality on their product at that stage compared to the improvements the whisky has made over subsequent years (even though i still don’t like it) speaks to the fact that it is a bunch of marketing hoopla designed to sell young whisky and make a quick ROI.

A slower maturation allows for more depth of character and subtle nuances.

There is no substitute for time on oak! :grin::+1:

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