Boiling?

For some unknown reason, some people deride the idea of global warming. But this Australian summer heat records are falling just about everywhere, north, south, east and west.  And we're experiencing a late burst of summer in what is the equivalent of mid-August in the northern hemisphere. It's only 9.30 in the morning and the temperature is 25 C (77 F) en route to an expected 32 C (90 F) and, when I went for an early walk at about 6.30 am this morning it was already about 18 C (c. 65 F).

And this heat has been accompanied by less rain than usual making life difficult for many farmers. One exception appears to be the country east of us which has had a succession of storms. No wonder our local bridge club has had large numbers of players just recently. The building we own is air-conditioned and the temperature is set to a very pleasant 21 C! It's a good spot to sit for 4 hours in the afternoon.

AS

Strange Goings On

Shhhhhh! Our local member of the Federal Parliament is Barnaby Joyce. He's (a) now the deputy Prime Minister to Malcolm Turnbull and (b) Minister for Infrastructure ... among other things. Wow! Well he's private life's a bit of a mess having left his wife and, I believe, four daughters for one of his staffers who's expecting a baby!

But, more interesting still, he's shifted his residential address to Armidale and is now, when in town, living just a few blocks away from us. I pass his abode frequently, but I've never seen him about. Maybe I'll get a glimpse of him on one of my daily walks which passes close to his abode.

AS

Rainbow over Armidale

I like to go for long bike rides and yesterday afternoon I found myself riding just north of Duval High School, where Emily and Rebecca were students many years ago now. Looking east I noticed a considerable storm dropping rain over the town's eastern fringes and, illuminated by the evening sun shining from the west there was a stunning rainbow illuminating the sky.

When I ride I tend to take my mobile phone with me to summon help should I burst a tyre or meet with some other mishap. I grabbed it from its hiding place and took the first two of the pictures shown here, which really don't do the event's justice. The first shows the complete arc of illumination and the second focuses on the northern fringe and does the rainbow a bit more justice focusing on its kaleidoscope of colours.

A short while late during my ride I could see dark rain-bearing clouds moving in from the south and, not having any waterproof gear, decided to make a run for home. That wasn't so difficult as my route had placed me on one of Armidale highest elevations. Pedalling furiously I began to encounter rain and wished I had wipers on my glasses! As Em and Bec know, however, Erskine Street is very very steep just west of my home and I hurtled down down it at speeds reaching, say, 60 km per hour (37 mph). A car behind me thought about overtaking but fortunately had second thoughts as the in-town speed limit is actually 50 kph. Fortunately, (a) I wasn't booked for speeding on a bike and (b) I didn't fall off!

Reaching home in reasonably good shape, I noticed that the rainbow was still on display and took another couple of pictures from the timber decking on the eastern side of the house:

After a very dry and hot period towards the end of January, we need rain badly but yesterday's falls were spatially variable and our house largely missed out. And by 'hot' I mean that we experienced a succession of days with temperatures of 30 C (86 F) or more in January, despite being 1000 m (3280 ft) above sea level. By the way, some land around us in the New England region rises to c. 1650 m (5400 ft).

AS

Commonwealth Games Relay

As with the Olympics, the Commonwealth Games involve a relay around the host country and the 2018 games are being staged on the Gold Coast from 4th to 15th April. Well, yesterday the baton relay came to town and Dot and I went to view the event. I thought it might attract massive public attention, but when the baton appeared in Armidale's Mall the on-lookers were dramatically out-numbered by officials and police! In retrospect, I should have realised that it was a normal workday and all the kids were back in school!

Here comes the parade up the East Mall, but notice the absence of crowds!

The Queen's Baton Relay comprised quite a few vehicles carrying equipment and organisers, not to forget large numbers of police cars. I suppose these progressed steadily around Australia.

No baton in sight yet!

Ah! Here it comes held by a female walker. Yes, you read that correctly ... walker! The relay's Armidale leg (excuse the pun) comprised 18 walkers, each of whom must have been tired out after their massive 100 m stints. Until yesterday I always thought that relays were run.

And, unlike a real race, the handovers were lengthy exchanges as shown here. The baton, too, surprised us as it turned out to be a metal hoop. At least it had some media coverage.

Here they are walking up the Central Mall viewed by an almost absent public, even though it was 9.45 in the morning!

At this point, Dot and I headed down to Curtis Park on the Creek-lands to see the end of the local relay and we were stunned by the mass of on-lookers, maybe well over 1000 people in total. But strangely, about 95% of them were between 5 and 18 years of age, in other words school-kids. All were delivered by a fleet of buses and even more strangely they were served a free breakfast run by mainly service clubs (Lions and Rotary) on arrival - at 10 am. All were dressed in school uniforms and lined up in queues to acquire their grub.

These guys might appear to be running, but in practice they were also walking ... though faster than before. Dot's on the far left taking a picture. The guy carrying the 'baton' is hidden behind the walker in the middle.

Some of the assembled kids.

The relay's end.

Speech-making at the end.

AS

Max's New Love

During his stay with us Max had considerable opportunity to improve his skateboard skills at our local park adjacent to the swimming centre. He also swims well, but showed little interest in the pool compared with the skate-park next door. I don't have any picture of him there, but he did try to hone his skills at home. Here he is in the garage for instance, and we also bought a plywood board to lay on a slope adjacent to the garage ... yet another thing to clutter up the garage. And as you may observe, there's not much space left to park a car!

I spent a while with him at the skate-park yesterday and he's now a lot more confident and proficient than he used to be. Practice makes perfect as they say.

AS

I Love Dangars Falls

We've had grandson Max staying with us for almost 3 weeks over the ACT School Holidays and, on one day, we took a trip to one of my favourite places in NSW, Dangars Falls in the World Heritage Listed Oxley Wild Rivers National Park. It lies about 20 km southeast of Armidale and is really spectacular. I love its long and sometimes challenging walks, but on the day in question we just went for a picnic lunch and to view the area around the falls themselves. Here's the young dude himself.

He's quite happy going off on his own these days and he found some rock-pools containing yabbies and fish. Alas he didn't have a net and was unable to supplement our lunch. Lack of a net was overcome yesterday and we made a large haul of yabbies locally.

I never tire of the surrounding gorge, river and waterfall. They're really beautiful, starting at the top of the massive falls with the water cascading over the edge.

The canyon walls are also attractive with their various rock formations, vegetation and occasional animals such as rock wallabies, and even wedge-tailed eagles.

And, across the lip of the gorge we have some attractive native vegetation.

AS

Eclipse?

This will be my shortest post for a long time. Last night, there was supposed to be a spectacular eclipse of the moon, especially visible in Australia where it occurred at mid-night. What's so spectacular about such an event? Well, it was supposed to be a combination of a Blue Moon, a Red Moon and a big moon (closer to the earth than usual). So Max and I waited up late to see this unusual combination, which has apparently not come together in North America for about 150 years.

We were bitterly disappointed. And why? Well, Armidale was swathed in dense cloud that only occasionally parted. We saw nothing of the eclipse itself, but I did catch one sight of the moon before earth encroached on its domain. And here it is:

AS