Latest news with #MickJohnson
Courier-Mail
5 days ago
- Courier-Mail
Byron Solar Train driver shares top tips for visiting Byron Bay
Byron Solar train driver, Mick Johnson, reveals everything you should see and do in Byron Bay. My favourite destination is… Byron Bay because I came up here in 2018 after retiring in Sydney. The main thing I like about Byron is Cape Byron Lighthouse. It's the most easterly point of Australia and you get a great view up there. Sunrise and sunset are the best times. Mick moved to Byron after retiring in Sydney The best thing about Byron Bay is… It's a happy place. Everyone's there on holidays and this is the thing I like about driving the Byron Solar Train. Everyone is happy to be there, they're there to enjoy themselves, and it's a good atmosphere. One of the best places to eat is… North Byron Hotel. You can catch the train over from Byron right to the front door of the hotel, almost. They have a lunch deal; you pay $35 and get a return (adult) trip on the train and lunch. A lot of people come over from Byron centre. Cape Byron Lighthouse is the most easterly point of Australia A great resort to stay at is… Elements of Byron. It's a lovely place to eat, and a great place to stay for families. It's also down the road from Byron Solar Train, which started operating in 2017. Many solar train passengers I speak to… Are coming from Elements because a lot of them go into town for dinner on the train, and get a taxi or an Uber back. We also get commuters who regularly travel back and forth on the train but it's mostly made up of tourists. A plus of taking the train is that you can park at North Beach Train Station for free, catch the train across to town and stay there all day for the price of a train fare ($12 return adults; $8 return kids), rather than pay for car parking everywhere in town. Poolside at Elements of Byron Families love the train because… A lot of kids haven't actually ridden on a train. You watch the kids sit in the driver's seat and get their photo taken, and as far as they're concerned they're driving a train. They love it. We also get a lot of overseas tourists. I've had a Canadian pilot and his wife, and number one on their bucket list was to ride on that little train because they're just train buffs. I've had the CEO of the London transport museum; there are a lot of train-mad people and they'll go anywhere for a ride on a train. There are a lot of train-mad people and they'll go anywhere for a ride on a train What I enjoy about driving the train is… The interaction with people from all around the world. I would say that would be my number-one thing. I've made some great friends with people from overseas who I still correspond with. Overseas tourists love the place. Most of them are from Europe – Switzerland, Italy, a lot from the UK, Germany. The most unique thing… About the Byron Solar Train is it's the first solar-powered passenger train in the world and it's the first time the curved, flexible solar panels were used in the southern hemisphere. Also, the train line is 132 km long, but only 3 km is used by the solar train. It's the old Casino to Murwillumbah line if you were going to the Gold Coast, and has been there since the late 1800s. The line was originally built to service the Northern Rivers. The lead car that goes from North Byron to Byron was built in 1949 in an old aircraft factory after the war, so that's why there's a lot of wood and aluminium in the train because that's what they made planes out of. The trailing car was built in the '60s and passengers all want to know how old it is and how the solar works. Byron Solar Train is the first solar-powered passenger train in the world Keep an eye out for… The 'little green frog'. It's a little locomotive that's like an oversized tractor but it runs on rails. It's the train that used to haul whales up from the jetty in Byron during the whaling days of the 1950s. After the whaling finished, it was used for the abattoir. It's now been restored and is in a glass case on the old Byron Bay Station, which is across the road from where the solar train pulls up at Byron Bay. Originally published as Byron Solar Train driver shares his top tips for visiting Byron bay
Sydney Morning Herald
25-05-2025
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
Rome wasn't built in a day, but Vanessa's house almost was
More than 100 homes have been built using REZICAST in the past 10 years, with founder and managing director Mick Johnson saying the system, which sends engineering drawings to precaster plants anywhere in the country, offers tremendous promise for helping solve the housing shortage more quickly. The average price of a home is about $400,000. 'It's becoming more popular all the time,' Johnson says. 'I think it really is the way of the future. It's also resistant to bushfires, termites and floods; is very strong; and you can't pick the finished home as any different.' NXT TEC is another prefab system that promises fast results, with components manufactured off-site and assembled on-site to get to lock-up in four days. Chair and managing director Natasha Di Ciano says: 'It's like pieces of a building that lock together like Lego. 'When you look at the housing crisis, this kind of technology is pretty exciting because it increases the speed of delivering high-quality, energy-efficient homes. With speed, too, comes affordability, as you can live in it or rent it out more quickly.' Then there's PT Blink, hailed as the 'IKEA of construction'. It involves a post-tensioned steel structure manufactured off-site and transported as a flat pack. This means that an apartment building can be delivered in half the time of the traditional process and at a 5 to 10 per cent lower cost. 'It's an innovative technology that co-ordinates the design, procurement and delivery for developers for mid- to high-rise buildings, and de-risks projects,' says chief executive Wayne Larsen. 'We have 190 apartment projects that we're working on in total, and around 170,000 apartments in the pipeline, worth about $2 billion. The challenge is to persuade developers to change their methodology.' Speaking of IKEA, SBS TV's Dateline program recently travelled to Sweden to investigate how the country is also bringing flat-pack homes to the market. Producer Colin Cosier says they have the magical combination of a culture of efficiency, innovation – and terrible weather. 'We can learn so much from Sweden for the Australian market,' he says. 'It's incredible, and my feeling is that we'll see a lot more of this here over the next 10 to 20 years.' Loading Building 4.0 CRC is an industry-led research initiative co-funded by the federal government. Its chief executive, Professor Mathew Aitchison, says modular (where a complete house is delivered) and prefab (where it's assembled on-site) are good choices for different circumstances, as well as whether to use timber or concrete. 'In Sweden and Scandinavia, they will tolerate a lot more homogeneity than Australia would, but it's often about marrying good design into a manufacturing system so you wouldn't notice how similar the homes are,' he says. 'And it depends on the location and climate, too. 'For instance, we have a lot of timber prefab on the east coast, while in WA it's concrete prefab because of white ants. But to supercharge the prefab and modular industry, you need to pull together as much demand as you can to create a strong and consistent pipeline of projects.'
The Age
25-05-2025
- Business
- The Age
Rome wasn't built in a day, but Vanessa's house almost was
More than 100 homes have been built using REZICAST in the past 10 years, with founder and managing director Mick Johnson saying the system, which sends engineering drawings to precaster plants anywhere in the country, offers tremendous promise for helping solve the housing shortage more quickly. The average price of a home is about $400,000. 'It's becoming more popular all the time,' Johnson says. 'I think it really is the way of the future. It's also resistant to bushfires, termites and floods; is very strong; and you can't pick the finished home as any different.' NXT TEC is another prefab system that promises fast results, with components manufactured off-site and assembled on-site to get to lock-up in four days. Chair and managing director Natasha Di Ciano says: 'It's like pieces of a building that lock together like Lego. 'When you look at the housing crisis, this kind of technology is pretty exciting because it increases the speed of delivering high-quality, energy-efficient homes. With speed, too, comes affordability, as you can live in it or rent it out more quickly.' Then there's PT Blink, hailed as the 'IKEA of construction'. It involves a post-tensioned steel structure manufactured off-site and transported as a flat pack. This means that an apartment building can be delivered in half the time of the traditional process and at a 5 to 10 per cent lower cost. 'It's an innovative technology that co-ordinates the design, procurement and delivery for developers for mid- to high-rise buildings, and de-risks projects,' says chief executive Wayne Larsen. 'We have 190 apartment projects that we're working on in total, and around 170,000 apartments in the pipeline, worth about $2 billion. The challenge is to persuade developers to change their methodology.' Speaking of IKEA, SBS TV's Dateline program recently travelled to Sweden to investigate how the country is also bringing flat-pack homes to the market. Producer Colin Cosier says they have the magical combination of a culture of efficiency, innovation – and terrible weather. 'We can learn so much from Sweden for the Australian market,' he says. 'It's incredible, and my feeling is that we'll see a lot more of this here over the next 10 to 20 years.' Loading Building 4.0 CRC is an industry-led research initiative co-funded by the federal government. Its chief executive, Professor Mathew Aitchison, says modular (where a complete house is delivered) and prefab (where it's assembled on-site) are good choices for different circumstances, as well as whether to use timber or concrete. 'In Sweden and Scandinavia, they will tolerate a lot more homogeneity than Australia would, but it's often about marrying good design into a manufacturing system so you wouldn't notice how similar the homes are,' he says. 'And it depends on the location and climate, too. 'For instance, we have a lot of timber prefab on the east coast, while in WA it's concrete prefab because of white ants. But to supercharge the prefab and modular industry, you need to pull together as much demand as you can to create a strong and consistent pipeline of projects.'
