99.9 cents per litre

Australian capital city diesel price averages 14th August 2010 in terms of cents per litre.

Melbourne (Victoria): 128.8
Sydney (New South Wales): 127.8
Brisbane (Queensland): 128.1
Adelaide (South Australia): 127.7
Perth (Western Australia): 130.9
Hobart (Tasmania): 134.6
Darwin (Northern Territory): 136.6

National capital city average: 130.6
Country prices are generally higher

The old Pump's price is shown as stuck on 99.9 cents per litre - those were the days - it seems the Pump was not made to cater for $1:00 or more a litre prices and will slowly rust away into the great diesel pump heaven.

This was taken at a disused Service Station (once of the Golden Fleece brand in an earlier era) near my home that became an unexpected photo after yesterday's dabble in HDR. A sign of the times, sadly, inasmuch as local Service Station owners are slowly disappearing from the urban landscape, being replaced with large multi-national fuel company franchises. Thankfully, I don't own a car and so petrol or diesel prices are of no direct concern, though I see their effect when they rise in the subtle price increases in all manner of goods, mostly. Though recently I filled up the Old Girl's car - yikes, I dropped near on $60 (Australian) in the process and that, to put in a context relevant to me is a couple or more 8GB SDHC cards (even a small to medium camera bag) I could have bought for the camera, or a few bottles of good Bourbon, plenty of coffees and cheesecakes, even a good anthology of Poetry, which is far more important!

One of my recollections from my robust childhood, is going with the Old Man to a 'Golden Fleece' Service Station and being greeted by Stanley the neatly uniformed and immaculately groomed attendant (they were all called 'Stanley' even the few female attendants) when we filled up a Jerry can with a 2 stroke mix (petrol and oil) for Dad's Victa motor mower. Near religiously every Saturday arvo' through spring the Old Man would crank up his grass slicer to mow our lawns. That is before he'd splurge a small reservoir on the lawn to make it grow so that he could cut it - again and again. This was well before global warming, and el-Niño with its attendant Droughts made growing any lawn an extravagance. Water was like oil - never ending - so it seemed. I came across this hilarious and very bizarre advertisement (on YouTube) from the 1960s which features the erstwhile Stanley. I thought then, and still do now that this ageless bloke is just 'so cool'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibJ-B8CF1jU

Apparently, the Golden Fleece Service Station chain was established in 1913 by a company called H. C. Sleigh Pty Ltd. This company imported refined fuel, or as it was called then 'motor spirit' from California in the United States in 4 gallon drums. In 1920 Golden Fleece Service Stations opened steadily spreading across the country offering petrol (gas as it is called in the United States) from pumps instead of the 4 gallon drums. At one stage the Golden Fleece brand with its distinctive golden merino sheep logo atop its pumps had the highest number of fuel station proprietorships in the country. H. C. Sleigh was bought out in 1981 by the large US multi-national oil company, Chevron trading as Caltex, and Golden Fleece was rebranded under the Caltex banner. Occasionally, you still see in country towns mostly, some remnants of the Golden Fleece stations and their feul pumps with the Merino atop. I gather Golden Fleece memorabilia is considered quite valuable in Collectors Markets especially the pumps, uniforms and distinctive caps.