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
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