Australia Day 26.01.20

After looking at stacks of hay - see previous post - I turned to the main task of the day, celebrating Australia day by attending the Armidale Regional Council's awards and citizenship ceremony at the town hall. Unlike previous years, the event was poorly attended, which surprised me to some extent. But thinking about it, I found a couple of reasons. This Sunday, the last in month, provided an alternative and simultaneous attraction, namely Markets in the Mall. Also, of course, this is summer holiday season in Australia and the town has been very quiet for the last 3 weeks as many residents are on the road, especially to the coast.

While awaiting for the ceremony to commence at 11 am, we were entertained  by a brass band, pictured here in a corner of the town hall just in front of the stage. Many of the performers looked young and they played a lot of traditional Australian songs like 'Waltzing Matilda'.

Then the leaders of the ceremony took to the stage on cue. They included the mayor, Simon Murray, in traditional robes on the right standing next the Council's General Manager, Susan Law.

Together, they summoned the very young choir, now seen standing on stage, to sing the national anthem: Advance Australia Fair. Interestingly, the sang both verses rather than usual one that everyone knows. We all sang the first, but most of the audience, including me, didn't know the second verse and kept quiet!

At this point, a guy came on stage and recited (a) some traditional versus and (b) some, I gathered he had penned himself and focused on local community events.

Then came the ceremony where the mayor bestowed Australian citizenship on numerous people from all over the world: Asia, Europe, the Americas, etc.
























Then a local master of ceremonies took over to handle various community awards, Citizens for this that and the other contribution to life in the Armidale Regional Council












 The young girl below won the youth award.





Right at the end of the event, a group of 'firies' were invited. These are the people who have played a lead role in fighting the numerous bush-fires in our extensive region. None was close to damaging Armidale, but they had to be controlled to prevent environmental disasters and the smoke haze we endured. They were given a tremendous round of applause.






Thereafter people retreated from the auditorium with me in the lead!. I had to get back to Dot who hadn't been feeling the best today! I'd attended the ceremony alone.

AS

Hay Run

As you will have heard just about anywhere on this planet, Australia has just witnessed its worst drought event ever. My home-town of Armidale, NSW, was one of the worst hit areas and in 2019 we only received about one-third of our normal rainfall. Moreover, the back half of the year from July to December saw very little rain at all.

Needless to say, most local farmers have had to reduce stock levels. This is especially sad as New England, our region, is a premier livestock grazing region, focusing mainly on beef-cattle and sheep - for both wool and increasingly sheep-meats. Charitable organisations have put great efforts into helping our local farmers and yesterday, 25th January, we saw a mammoth hay delivery event. You might find what I'm about to say unbelievable, but it is true! No less than about 170 trucks carted hay in a convoy up the New England Highway from Singleton in the Hunter Valley - c. 300 km away - to Armidale.

We were told that the convoy would probably arrive between noon and 12.30 pm. So, Dot and I along with several others went to the end of our street, which joined Erskine Street which was the route the trucks were going to take. Here we are awaiting the great event and there's a view eastwards down to the nearby traffic lights where council staff lay in wait to control the lights to let the truck through efficiently.

Alas, the convoy was late and eventually arrived at 1 pm. I couldn't be there for the simple reason that I was playing contract bridge with my usual Saturday partner just a little way from the above intersection. Never mind! I took my usual early morning Sunday walk down towards Armidale show-grounds where the trucks parked, the hay was unloaded, and farmers would later to arrive to collect their allocation. At one of our nearby motels I came across this guy who had his allocation aboard and was about to head home.

The I took a wrong route and when I attempted to cross Dumaresq Creek, which flows through the centre  of town, I found it in flood! So I retraced my steps home and took one of cars instead. Isn't it ironic that the hay arrived after we have experienced one of the wettest months in a long time. Our home rain gauge is now showing about 180 mm over the 26 days so far!! That's over 7 inches of rain. Well, we now know that seasonal weather patters are returning to normal, which augurs well for 2020. Since we have a summer maximum of rainfall we'll not reach 80+ inches for the year.

Armed with our Rav4 4wd vehicle, I crossed the offending creek without getting washed away and was stunned with what I saw. Despite many vehicles having offloaded their hay - I saw one or two departed for home - the showground was awash trucks of hay, as these pictures show.

Here's a truck with the name of the convoy on its side! It's an odd name: BURRUMBUTTOCK, about which I know nothing. You may have noted that Australia trucks tend to be enormous. And, out west in remote locations, it is common to see prime movers like the one shown here towing not one, but three, trailers.

As you can see, our show-ground is massive, as is typical of many country towns. And, when I found an open entrance to the area, I could see many of the trucks and their contents parked neatly in long rows. Impressive isn't it! Let's hope that the dispersal of the contents well. I do not know the outcome because these pictures were taken at c. 8.30 am.

Look at the colour of the sky! Well within two hours fluffy clouds began to emerge and I expected heavy rain. Guess what! By 5 pm when I began typing this we heard a few claps of thunder and another downpour commenced. If this goes on, we'll be back to mowing our grass twice a week.

AS