About

Hi! I'm John and have been fascinated by windmills from a very young age. Although I now live (involuntarily) in Canberra, Australia, my early years were spent travelling through the countryside in south-east Queensland where there was (and to a large extent still is) a large number of windmills that could easily be seen from the car window. In those days, it was impossible to access any literature on Australian windmills unless you worked on them, so my interest petered out because I had no idea what type of windmill I was looking at.

It took a trip to Queensland along the Newell Highway a few years back with a close family friend (thanks Nick!) to re-kindle my fascination with windmills and prompted me to start to learn about them a bit more. Nowadays, there is an abundance of information available freely off the web (including Robert McKenzie's venerable Oz Windmills webpages) and via a dedicated journal, The Windmill Journal of Australia and New Zealand. Through these resources, I am learning a tremendous amount about Australian windmills, and as an extension, about Australian history.

This website is intended to provide a starting point for those wanting to know more about the diversity of windmills that can be seen on any drive through the Australian countryside.

My favourite windmill - the IBC Geared Simplex. This example at Maleny, Queensland, started my interest in windmills off as a 4-year old.

Am I a windmill expert? Absolutely not. Do I want to learn more about Australian windmills? Absolutely! I hope you enjoy my blog as much as I enjoy finding and photographing windmills and messing around with my own IBC Geared Simplex windmill gearbox.

All images and content on this website is Copyright to John Nielsen, with copyright privileges inherent under Australian Law. Unauthorised use of any image or content will be pursued.