Last Week

I haven't done anything really exciting and photogenic just recently but there's a few events for which I have photos and some of them might interest readers. First up, I attended our annual district Rotary dinner held out at Armidale's local race-course. Don't worry, there was no horse meat on the menu as far as I know!

It was an enjoyable night among interesting people, many of whom I already knew. I'm getting to know how to take a good selfie with my new mobile phone. A couple of days later I attended the usual Thursday morning coffee session with a few colleagues, this time (a) at a coffee house called 'Altitude'

and (b) with one colleague who had just migrated to Fingal Head on the far north coast of NSW. He's enjoying his new location, but equally meeting up with us again.

A few days later I went to my office out at the university to do some printing of documents and collect mail. On my way there I noticed a strange vehicle lumbering up Elm Avenue towards our administrative HQ. I suddenly realised what I was seeing, swiftly parked car and ran uphill to take these photos. Guess what! You're seeing a practice run for UNE's new driverless bus service - due to start shortly and perhaps the first in Australia. I can guarantee that there was no-one in the driver's seat - just a couple of blokes lounging in the back.

I've been waiting around for a long time for these pictures,  but was never in  the right place at the right time,

The next thing I've like to mention is our weather. Armidale may have had the hottest January ever with temperatures mostly in the low to mid 30s C and a peak of 36 C a few days ago. Plants have been wilting in the heat ... along with us. And much of the grass in town has turned brown, except for where it's been watered ... including our own. We had a massive storm which I reported a short time ago. It deposited 40+ mm in a couple of hours, but seemingly had little impact on the colour of grass given the heat!

Well, last night we had a similar event and in an instant - about 1 hour - we received another 35 mm. So that's 75 mm (or 3 inches) in c. 3 hours over two days. From what I recall from the weather statistics for the south coast of England, they receive about 30 inches a year. With rainfall the same intensity as we've just had, the UK would receive its annual total in a little over day and the rest of the year would be dry. I ran out to take a few photos of the event amidst peels of thunder!

The rain had only just started and you can see how quickly the water built up. Alas, the heavy rain stripped a lot of flowers from our crepe myrtle - show below.

And the next photo looking northeast from where we live shows the grey rain-leadened sky. The rain came in from this direction and, driven by a strong wind, it drenched the wooden platform where I was standing. By the morning, all the accumulated surface water had dried off, which is hardly surprising since the minimum overnight temperature was just a little under 20C (68 F) - a good summer maximum in Britain.

I know people who had moved from Darwin to Armidale to escape the summer heat and humidity there. Yesterday, Armidale was hotter than Darwin, 2000 km to the north and just as humid. Ouch!

AS

Wild Weather

January is statistically the wettest month of the year in Armidale, which gathers rain from the warm waters of Australia's east coast mixing with occasional fronts coming through from the south-west. Average rainfall is c. 104.5 mm (or c. 4 inches).

This January there has been hardly any rain where we live, though fleeting storms passed east and west of us. Worse still, it has been unusually hot with daily maxima mostly ranging from 28 C to 37 C, especially in the last week. That compares with a January average of just 27 C. Our lawn was rapidly turning brown as the result of both heat and lack of water and Dot was beginning to lose some of her lovely plants, whether in the garden or in various pots that dot our patios - apologies for the pun!

Anyway, today repeated the usual weather pattern we've been experiencing, with the maximum reaching 36 c ... or almost 40 C when I got into one of our cars in late afternoon. At 5.30 pm the weather was still hot and sunny, but then a few dark clouds began to appear. Just after 6 pm thunder, air to ground lightening, and the patter of rain began to envelop us as we looked on in amazement. And then the rain began to fall faster and faster. Within about 45 minutes we received over 40 mm (1.6 inches) of rain or roughly 40% of the January average. It was torrential - about the heaviest I've ever seen and marvelous for our garden. In the last week I had watered our lawn and shrubs with our sprinkler systems and that gave us some of the greenest grass around.

Our friendly neighbourhood birds, and especially the magpies (Pied Currawongs) loved this watering because the rest of our neighbourhood had grass with consistency of concrete. They spent hours pecking at our lawn for various grubs, but never flew away as I approached. Instead, they looked up with the equivalent of a smile on their faces saying "thanks for your efforts on our behalf".

AS

Central Tilba and Mystery Bay

One of the great things about the NSW South Coast is is its diversity of landscapes, into which nestle often pretty and historic little towns. There are many farming areas hosting livestock on green pastures, vineyards, along with vibrant fruit and other horticultural production. The landscapes include numerous broad river estuaries; lots of rocky headlands separated by lovely curved beaches of white sand; great waves for surfing and other water sports like paddle-boarding; coastal forest with towering trees; and mountainous backgrounds. Some of the little villages are home to alternative life-stylers with their craft industries, arts focus, trendy dress codes, micro-breweries and other food producing businesses, cafes and restaurants, and maybe a hint of drug availability. One such town is Mogo on the Princess Highway - which links Sydney and Melbourne via the coast - which I included in an earlier post. This time we visited Central Tilba an hour or so to the south. It's a period village that's National Heritage listed and we liked what we saw.

Central Tilba is located amidst lovely scenery.

Many buildings have their biographies posted on their walls:

The journey then took us north along the coast amidst some lovely scenery, taking in serially Mystery Bay, Montague Island offshore, Narooma - astride the Wagonga Inlet, and the coast around Dalmeny.

Here's the coast around Mystery Bay and, if you look closely at the first photo you might just make out Montague Island.

The next few photos show Wagonga Inlet with Narooma on the southern shore.

These Pelicans posted nicely for me.

Narooma on the southern side of the inlet.

A couple of guys scanning the lake-bed.

And the coast looking north towards Dalmeny.

Lovely, eh?

As

Xmas / NY 2018 3

Guess what happened on New Year's Eve! Easy wasn't it. Yes, we went to see a firework display in a little resort near Broulee called Tomakin which has a population of about 1000 people. Of course that number shoots up in mid-summer as tourists arrive, but the whole place has a small village air to it. It appears that the display was hosted, if not entirely paid for, bu the local Sports and Social Club. Mt expectations were not that great given Tomakin's size - maybe just a few bangs with pretty colours.

We witnessed the event from the nearby park adjacent to the Tomaga River, maybe a km from where it enters the Pacific Ocean. It was a lovely calm and cool evening and our clutch of kids - James, Henry, Max, Ella and Flynn had a lovely time exploring the site, playing among themselves, and watching the dimming light as the sun went down. Here, for example, is Flynn regaled in a multi-coloured wand.

And here's Emily supervising some of the expectant members of our party. And then with bang the display got underway.












What shook us was how brilliant the display was in terms of length, colour, originality of effects, size, and so on. I've seen many displays in my time, but this one stood proud against the rest
 on all those dimensions. So small communities can challenge major cities in the fireworks stakes.

So I recommend that you head for Tomakin next year for New Year celebrations!

AS

Australia's International Standing

I'm taking a detour from my usual blog content to report on a study I've come across ranking nations' global standings in terms of what's termed geo-political capabilities. This takes into account such dimensions as:
1   government efficiency
2   size of economy
3   demographics
4   cultural prestige
5   diplomatic leverage, and
6   military might.

The study was undertaken by the UK's Henry Jackson Society and can be accessed at: https://henryjacksonsociety.org/publications/geopoliticalcapabilityaudit/ .

Their audit ranks the top 20 globally. The top 10 in order are the United States, UK, China, France, Germany, Japan, Canada, Australia, India and Russia. Australia came in eighth? We've only got 25 million inhabitants - less than, or about the same size, as some of the world's largest cities such as Tokyo-Yokohama (38 million), Jakarta (32.3 m), Delhi (27.3 m), Manila (24.6 m). Seoul (24.2 m), Shanghai (24.1 m) and Mumbai (23.3 m). See https://www.archdaily.com/906605/the-20-largest-cities-in-the-world-of-2018 .

So, as a nation, we're in the top class despite a tiny national population and geographical remoteness. The news gets better. If we consult https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult the international rankings of nations by median wealth of adults (in $US) are stunning. Have a look at the top 6:
1  Iceland               203,847
2  Australia            191,453
3  Switzerland        183,339
4  Luxembourg      164,284
5  Belgium             163,429
6  Netherlands       114,935

The numbers for other selected countries are Canada (106,342), UK (97,169) and USA (61,667). What's going on? The answer is simple. Wealth in the USA, and to a lesser extent the UK, is so skewed to a small minority of people that the wealth of middle-ranking people is depressed substantially. I might add however that the average per capita adult wealth in Australia is still ahead of the USA.

If we look at disposable mean income per capita for OECD countries, Australia only comes in 4th but these figures are affected by a population's age composition. Our country is in an interesting position compared with most as it has a high dependent population. As an immigrant society, the population is relatively young and Australia's birth rate is higher than many OECD countries. But at the other end of the age spectrum, the nation's average life expectancy is among the world's highest, coming in 4th with 82.8,  behind Japan, Switzerland and Singapore. Compare this with Canada (82.2), UK (81.2) and USA (79.3). What's going on here? the USA spends c. 16% of. GDP on health-care whereas Australia's outlay is only c. 8%.

OK, let's leave it there. Comments welcome.

Oh! A small post-script. Our little town is about 1000 m above sea level - or c. 3200 feet. Just have a look at the forecast maximum temperatures for today and the rest of the week in degree C (F in brackets): 36, 37, 37, 32, 31, 32 (97, 99, 99, 90, 88, 90 to the nearest whole numbers). We're sweltering!

AS

Xmas / NY 2 Creativity in the sand

On New Year's Eve, our entire party participated in a lovely contest held on the North Broulee beach just south of the Mossy Point headland. The competitive task, which was judged officially at the end of construction time was for teams of people to create sand sculptures. Teams of 5 could be kids only or, in the open event, both adults and kids and these two fields were judged separately.

The beach was pre-marked with rectangular and flattish construction sites and the sculptures on any subject had to be made from the sand within one's chosen zone, maybe embellished with sea shells, sea-weed, or little stones. Now for the amazing bit! There were about 130 contesting reams - registration necessary - each with roughly 5 contestants. Then there were the on-lookers, both family members and the general public. Let's say that for each team there were on average 3 'family' members and 2 private on-lookers. That makes close to 1300 people on the beach ... and believe me it was crowded. Fortunately the tide was out ... but slowly incoming ... which made for more space. And the weather was lovely - sunny and warm.

Have a look a the registration desk, yours truly, and the hundreds of people involved:

Next, I'll focus on the sculpture created by Flynn, Ella, Max, James and Henry along with their parents. It was Pikachu - Pokemon character about whom I know little! The did a great job and plenty of admirers stopped by to have a look. Alas they didn't win a prize, but that wasn't the real point of the day, which was practicing collective artistry and imagination. Here's Pikachu in various stages of construction:

And here are some of the surrounding competitors - even including prizewinners. Some won money and others were commended.

I'll let you work out what the sculptures represent, but you must agree that they're of a very high standard. It was an inspirational event.

AS