Australia 1998

I visited Australia for the first time in July 1998. What would be more natural for a buding boomerang freak but to go shopping for some boomerangs in the ledgendary land of their birth place? In Sydney I happened by chance upon Duncan MacLennan's shop and in Kurunda I managed to find a place where they produced more than just touristy boomerangs. Click on the pictures to view them in full size. Duncan's shop Strolling down William Street from the top of Kings Cross, Duncan MacLennan's shop appears on the right hand side. A small and unassuming shop with the one difference that make it stand out from all the other boomerang and souvenier shops in Australia: it's full to the brim with boomerangs that are meant to be thrown - not just to hang on a wall collecting dust. I bought a Hurricane Hook and standard hook with blue and yellow tips from Duncan.     Duncan wraps all the boomerangs he sell in a plastic bag. Duncan has a boomerang school too, as described on his cards. Noam is having fun in the Botanical Garden of Sydney ' First he tries to hit me with the Hurricane Hook and then he attempts left hand doubling with two right hand hooks. Obviously, the word "impossible" does not feature in his vocabulary.   Then he puts the hook on his head and says: "Look dad!" I later made a T-shirt featuring this picture on the back sporting the cry: "Watch Out!" Kurunda Like all the boomerang shops in Kurunda, this one have massive displays of tourist souvenier boomerangs. But in the back of the shop unfinished plywood boomerangs were stacked up. Among these were some four-bladers as well as a selection of oddly shaped tri-bladers. They looked more like big Y's and on closer inspection I realized that although the basic shape were the same, their profiles were not. I just had to buy one of each to see what effect the differences have on their flight characteristics. The lady in the shop explained that the Y's were made by different makers. Boomerangs do look their best on a background of green grass.