Is it true that in Cairns Locksmiths fly to remote places to do work

I have no idea where Cairns or Dennis Duncombe are, but there are certainly places in the world where private plane is the best way for a businessman to get around.

Of course there is the question of how many people out in remote places actually have locks that need servicing, and how willing/able they are to pay for the travel cost...

Cairns is Steve P's neck of the woods.. sure is beautiful place...

You have been reading the posts by our beloved Mr. Paris and never consulted an atlas or other resource?

Cairns is on the north east coast of Australia in the state of Queensland. Beautiful white sand beaches and of course the Great Barrier Reef. It would be a tropical paradise except for several things.

First it is the home of some really interesting jellyfish. One of these cute critters is nearly transparent about the size of a thumbnail. Covered from the top of its head to the tips of its four tentacles are millions of spring loaded harpoons filled with venom. This critter is named "Carukia barnsesi"

It's sting is described thusly: On a pain scale of 1 to 10 it rated between 15 to 20. "I was convinced I was going to die" (also severe cramps and vomiting. But he was lucky, not all of the species of irukandji administer fatal stings.

Then there are others like "Chironex fleckeri" it has four separate brains and 24 eyes. It can kill a person in one minute flat. It's bell is about the size of a human head and has 180 yards of tentacles, each lined with billions of cells bursting with deadly venom. it has powerful stingers (nematocysts) strong enough to pierce the shell of a crab and quick enough to shoot out up to 40,000 times the force of gravity.

But even worse are the local plumbers...

Come down the coast to Sydney Roger.... been here 35yrs and never heard o' them nasties..... just the spiders and snakes.... oh and plumbers....lol

steve

Crikey 'mate! Sounds like a real beastie there. Best watch yourselves while I grab one and torture it until it stings me!!

Watch for it in an upcoming episode.

You may or may not have seen the old New Yorker cartoon showing a Manhattanite's view of North America, with everything past New Jersey and short of California shrunken to a few miles and simply labelled as "Indian country"... I'm not that bad, but geography was never my strong suit.

Well, that'd certainly keep me out of the water...

... and that might keep the water off of me. <sigh/>

Actually Australia is the one place I really want to visit. I have no interest in seeing Europe or Asia or Africa, but Australia is someplace I would like to spend a few of months exploring.

This is not far from the truth. In 1961 a Cairns Doctor, Jack Barnes, was trying to figure out what was stinging the swimmers.

He found the little one (the one that bears his name) he asked for volunteers to be stung. His 9 year old son Nick was the first, then a big lifeguard (Chilla Ross) and then himself.

20 minutes later they all wanted to die even though the Doc had all the really good drugs.

In the Australian Medical Journal Doc. Barnes wrote: " [They were] seized with a remarkable restlessness and were in constant movement, stamping about aimlessly, swinging their arms, flexing and extending their bodies, and generally twisting and writhing."

This is why I want to visit OZ, the locals seem to know how to have a good time.

Fly to a lock job-That would be cool-suppose all the excitement would wear off after a few calls-LOL Trip Charge in U.S.$?????

Just wondering, goma.

I suspect that if someone was willing to hire a locksmith from a long distance it would probably be for a major job as it would be cheaper to replace the hardware for a minor job, so the trip charge as a percentage of the job would be minimal.

Also if the plane is owned and piloted by the locksmith it would be like the difference if hiring a locksmith that had to come to you by taxi rather than in his own truck.

For a variety of reasons, the cost of ownership of a light airplane in any country is gruesome. Seriously gruesome. We can get into the whys.

That also applies to Oz.

The locksmithing private plane 'hobbyist' would be doing the flying to a job for the 'fun' of it, not because hir locksmithing would pay for the cost of ownership of the craft.

It's possible some locksmiths may not be into the concept of 'hobbyists' -- unless it applies to something /besides/ locksmithing related crafts such as picking..

When I worked for a locksmith in Edmonton, one of our guys would do work with the government and needed to be flown (at the government's expense) to the remote locations they needed work done at. Once he had several locks to masterkey/rekey and that was a few days of flying from what I remember.

don't forget that gator farm across-the way :-)

we have an oil rich customer that flies us in their chopper to their 400+ acre ranch near Austin Tx. when they need something. the trip would be around 500 miles one way if we had to drive it.

Yes I'm back, after a server problem. Your absolutely correct Roger re - the above jellyfish. Not too many in my end of town, the Crocodiles ate them for desert. One of the reasons why I had a large resort pool inserted into my yard. I don't mind 'fishing' with those swamp puppies, but I won't swim with them. Funny though how so many people go water skiing in the river when they know it has a very healthy population of variouse sized Crocs.

G'day Chris, I'm not too sure about Dennis's guys. There are a couple of Lockies here in Cairns that advertise that they will travel up into the cape & gulf areas, and Thursday Islands to do jobs. They must have some government contracts with the missions for building maintenence etc. None of the homesteads or pubs etc up there bother with fancy locks, they just use logs or a lump of train line section accross their doors and of corse a couple of monster pig dogs and a loaded Win 30/30 for a deadlock. :-) I've taken my 2 wheel drive van into some pretty hairy places though. Up narrow dirt tracks deep into the rain forest to do jobs on cars and getaway type pole homes etc. Gee I hate snakes and leeches !

My daughter had her tonsils out last November. In the room next to hers was an American tourist that had just been stung on the leg by a jelly. He disregarded the LARGE warning signs all along the beaches at that time of year. It was his first day in Australia. He sure yelled the house down. A couple of days later when I was in there again, he was yelling even louder, as they had just given him the hospital bill, $5,500.00. He had not bothered to take out travel insurance before going on hollidays. Poor bugger.

Dennis does not have a web site, but Tom Cowles Locksmiths has a nice site.

Hi Steve i went to college with a guy from Tom Cowles, and he used to boldly pick his nose and eat it in front of me and other class members, proudly. He used to get out of doing college and work etc too, so he could do figure skating, i think his boss was a skater as well. hmm.

And , it was Gavin I believe, from Dennis dumcumts that i think was the pilot man.

When i did my college, we went to sydney and melbourne colleges for it, with guys from all over queensland. Rather amusing it was.