3200 KM From Home

I am now in Darwin in north Australia after a long and tiring flight ... about 3000 km from home, although the air distance travelled was closer to 3600 km because I had to fly south Sydney first before tracking back north. This meant leaving home at 5.45 am and I eventually arrived in Darwin at 1.00 pm (or 2.30 pm Armidale time because home is 1.5 hours in front of us here mid-way across the continent). That's a journey of over 8 hours.

I'm here to deliver presentations to the Economic Development Australia group and they're fortunately paying the bill for travel accommodation and meals! Moreover I'm housed on the top floor of the local Hilton Hotel, which is very nice. I haven't seen much of the city - conferences like this are hard work - but was here several years ago and made a post to this BLOG. The flight was quite boring, so I turned my hand to taking pictures out of the window, several attached below.

Basically much of the flight was over desert and, in fact, I saw no housing for over 2000 km. However, the sights weren't entirely boring - the desert has some charm of its own as you'll see. Here are some dry salt pans surrounded by scrubby vegetation.

And here's a little billabong filled with muddy water - remnant from the last wet season.

Here's a much larger salt pan in the middle distance.

While here two roads diverge, one heading west and the other north-west. I wonder how many vehicles travel these roads during the course of a year?

This mottled landscape might be a scene from Mars, the red planet!

And this last view was taken of the screen in front of me showing the location of the aircraft.

Here's Katherine from the air. A friend of mine was economic development officer here until recently before deciding to return to Napier in NZ. I'll be meeting James in Christchurch in just over a month - yes, another long trip.

Now we've arrived at hobby farms on the southern outskirts of Darwin.

And here's Palmerston, a new town on the edge of the main city, followed by an industrial estate.

And, to end with, views from 8th floor hotel room. Nice, eh! The temperature was a pleasant 34 C (93 F). In fact Darwin's winter average maximum is about 30 C and the summer average is c. 35 C - not much range. However, it is now building up for the wet season and getting a bit muggy.

AS

Rainbow

Armidale has had an extended drought for much of 2014, with rainfall a long way below average. So it was pleasing yesterday to record a rare event ... a rainbow. In other words, it was raining nearby when I took this photo of a lovely rainbow. Let's hope for many more such images.

AS

A Touch of Spring

I like this time of year, which is Spring in the southern hemisphere. It is a season of renewal and energy, especially in the realm of flora and fauna. Two events reminded me of this today - just an hour or so ago. I was coming out of the building at UNE housing my office when a colleague gesticulated wildly towards a tree in the car park. And there, perched delicately in a fork in the branches of a tree, was a magpie's nest with a bird in it presumably incubating some eggs. I wasn't game to climb the tree for closer inspection because (a) I cannot climb large trunks and (b) magpies have a reputation for attacking humans who invade their territory. At the moment when I ride my bike down a nearby road I am immediately swooped and harassed by the male of the species even though I think I'm a long way from the nest.

Anyway, the nest I saw this morning was in the middle of a car-park and just above several cars. And the birds seem to have made their peace with nearby humans as the female on the nest simply looked at me looking at it. And her partner was nowhere in sight. So here are a couple of pictures I took unmolested. Spot the nest in the tree above the 4WD.

And here is a closer view of the nest with the occupant just visible to those of you with good eyesight. Quite how the nest remained in position given today's strong wind I don't know.

And the Azalea in our garden is in full bloom -- a picture just taken after I collected Dot from the airport on her return from Canberra.

Nice, eh!?

AS

A Quick Trip to Albury

If you recall, the week before last I travelled some 1800 km by road to Toowoomba and Lightning Ridge. Last week I beat that by quite a wide margin, though this time by air. The trip there and back only took 3 days and the road distance covered was about 1960 km ... it might have been a little longer by air as that routed me via Sydney. Whereas the previous week was all recreation, this one was all business and what's more I didn't pay a cent. A regional development conference organisation picked up the tab for the airfare, hotel, taxis, and meals. Why was that? Well, I was invited to give a keynote speech to about 150 delegates from all over south-eastern Australia.

I will not bore you with the details of my speech but instead note that I hardly saw anything of the city I was staying in! So, I only have one picture over the city from my bedroom window! The little I saw suggested a very pleasant place indeed - though one I've visited on several other occasions. In fact, the only real excursion away from the conference orbit or too and from the airport was with a colleague from Toowoomba (again) seeking out a restaurant. That turned out to be a Japanese emporium and I had a rather nice sushi / sashimi meal. For the reader who knows little of Japanese cuisine, the sushi pieces are usually small  round collections of rice and other vegetable / animal (including fish) pieces bound in what looks like seaweed and served with gari (ginger) or wasabi (a kind of horseradish paste). The sashimi is made from raw fish and other seafood. I like it, but lots don't.

Anyway, forget the meal. Here's the view from my bedroom window. Not much of the town I'm afraid - only a couple of spires and hills in the State of Victoria across the Murray River taken in the evening light.

AS

Max in the Pool

Lightning Ridge has a wonderful swimming centre for such a small town: it has a large diving pool 5 meters (15 feet) deep with a 10, 5 m and lower diving boards; an Olympic sized pool; and a theme park with water slides,  wave-making machine, and so on. As it was hot while we were there - believe it or not it was 35 C (95 F) even in early Spring - Max wanted to head there. I donned my own swimmers just in case I felt like a dip, though the water was cold!

Anyway, Max enjoyed himself at each of the three above features.

Max is a very good swimmer, but has had lots of lessons in Canberra and can do many different strokes.

AS

Lightning Ridge and Back

Soon after Max's arrival we took off for a quick trip to Lightning Ridge and back. The total distance driven over three days was a little short of 1000 km! That's 625 miles for my Pommy readers. There were two reasons to go there: Max likes fossicking for gems and minerals; and Dot's friend, Cheronne, has a daughter married to a farmer who owns a property 20 km from the township. To reach Lightning Ridge (one of our major opal gem-fields) via the farm, we had to travel 120+ km on a gravel road across black soil country. After rain it is easy to get bogged, but the  region has been in drought for months and the road was navigable at speed - up to 100 km per hour (62 mph). Another hazard on such roads was the wild-life and there was abundant evidence of collisions between vehicles and kangaroos. We also saw emus (large flightless birds like ostriches), goannas (large lizards) and even snakes. Alas, we had a collision with a 'roo ... or rather the other way around. We were driving along normally and the animal decided to leap behind the car striking and removing the rear fender. The animal hopped away alone and unaided and presumably survived. We re-attached the fender and it survived hundreds of km intact!

These images of the farm show a dessicated landscape where the rain has stayed away for nearly two years. This field contains blackened wheat crop - useless even as cattle feed. Look at the size of the field - the far edge must be two km away!

Our 'camel' - a Rav-4.

Even the region's major river - the Barwon - was barely flowing and muddy.

Empty wheat silos stalked by an emu.

More emus. I don't know how they were surviving.

Me and Max in local dress!

Local art-work.

Mining machinery.

AS

A Romp in the Pine Forest

We hosted Max for a week or so until today. He was on school holidays which are coming to end and he a Dot flew back to Sydney and on to Canberra by bus this morning, leaving me time to post a few blog entries.

One of the first things we did after we arrived back from collecting Max from Toowoomba 400 km north of here - Canberra lies c. 800 km south, so how Max came to be there is another long story(!) - was to take a stroll in the local Pine Forest. Dot's friend Jane wanted to exercise her two dogs,  Dot felt like the walk, and Max saw an opportunity to pedal his BMX bike. So off we set on a lovely sunny afternoon and the pictures tell the story.

The forest is home to lots of termite mounds.

Members of our party down by the creek.

Pine forest landscape.

Max with BMX bike.

AS

September winds

I can remember from long ago a ditty my grandmother used to sing to me and it went something like "March winds do blow and there shall be snow". Well, that may well be true of the northern hemisphere, at least in Britain's highish latitudes. Down under, Spring comes in September and October and yesterday was the last day of September. And guess what! The September winds have blown for a good few days. But that's where any resemblance to the northern hemisphere expired. Rather than snow, we're in the middle of a heat wave which would cause many Britons to expire. Parts of Sydney managed 35 C yesterday and here, in Armidale, at 1000 m asl we reached 25 C. Imagine standing in a gale on the top of Snowdon in Wales at the end of March in that kind of temperature. Admit that it's unlikely!

Oh well, these conditions surely cannot last. Today for instance a cold front is moving through dropping the temperature precipitously to a freezing 23 C!!

AS