No Water

Since I returned from the United States 7 weeks ago, Armidale has had virtually no rain. Instead it has been unseasonably warm and dry. This was brought home to me the other day when I took a visiting academic to see the local countryside. We wound up at Dangars Falls and for the first time ever I saw this dramatic waterfall without any water. In other words, the stream flow of the Salisbury Water has stopped, although there is still plenty of water in various pools along the watercourse.

Although the picture below looks as if there is falling water it's a mirage. You are having a look at white-tinged rock. The falls are 30m high (about 100 feet).

This picture looks down on the viewing platform at the top of the falls, and also shows the near vertical rock faces surrounding the gorge.

And here is one of the attractive rock pools still attracting water birds.

AS

A Quick Trip to Bellingen

Last Sunday I fancied a drive in the countryside and Dot agreed. And it occurred to me that it has been some years since we took the spectacular drive to the coast. So I prosed driving to Bellingen, a picturesque little town on the banks of the Bellinger river full of 'alternative' lifestyle people.

The drive takes about 2 hours and rises about 350m (1000 feet) as one reaches Ebor and then plunges 1300m (about 4000 feet) through lovely scenery (mountains, creeks, waterfalls, huge panoramas) towards Bellingen. It was also a lovely sunny day with not much traffic on the road. And we took Dot's friend Jane along with us. Although the Armidale district is currently quite dry and rather brown, the landscape greened as we drove east and by the time we were near Dorrigo -  another picturesque little town - the countryside was a lush green colour.

What does one do in Bellingen? Well, apart from being pretty, it's full of cafes and interesting buildings and shops and we spent perhaps two hours there imbibing coffee and some fancy food and strolling around soaking up the atmosphere. Here are some pictures of the event:

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Piano Recital

One of the marvellous things about living in Armidale is the procession of excellent orchestral and instrumental concerts held in town by both local and international performers. And last night added one more stunning event to the list when Konstantin Shamray, a very young and exciting Russian pianist gave a breathtaking recital at the New England Conservatorium of Music. Yes, we have such an institution along with two orchestras and an opera company - all in a town of 25,000 people - and don't forget the brass band and the pipe bands I reported last week.

His technique and command of the instrument was impressive and he chose some ferociously difficult works from across the classical spectrum:

1. Bach's Toccatas in F# minor (BWV 910) and D major (BWV 912)
2. Haydn's Sonata in B flat major (Hb XVI:18)
3. Beethoven's 32 Variations in C minor (WoO 80)
4. Myaskovsky's Sonata #3 (Op19)
5. Rachmaninoff's Etudes-tableaux (Op 39) Nos 3 (F# minor), 5 (Eb minor), 6 (A minor) and 9 (D major)

The last two items comprised an unbelievable torrent of notes, rhythms, tones, and volumes of sound from soft the crashingly loud. Nor was there a sheet of music in sight. Everything was from memory and at least some of the time Konstantin seemed to be staring at the ceiling rather than the keyboard. Even the fare at the intermission was classy by local standards - champagne and Lindt chocolates. The applause at the end was so pronounced that we received two marvellous encores. His mannerisms and bearing caused me to reflect that here we had another Franz Liszt, though I didn't see an imperial coach pulled by 4 white horses at the front door.

Dot accompanied me to this extravaganza on the very day she returned to Armidale after nearly 10 weeks in California helping Emily through the early days of Flynn's life.

AS

Home sizes

I was researching material for an article on housing this morning when I came across some stunning statistics. The size of Australia's new homes went from roughly 150 square metres (m2) in 1985 to c. 215 m2 in 2008. That was a rise of a little over 40% and it served put our homes top of the list in size, well ahead of the US in second place with 201 m2. What was even  more interesting in the table was the size of new homes in the UK in c. 2008. That number came in at 76 m2!! It seems improbable that the size of new homes here is 3x that of the UK ... or is it? Can anyone suggest a good reason for the discrepancy, except perhaps the British have taken up building new homes for their dogs and these have inadvertently entered the statistical average!

AS

Autumn Colours

One of the great things about living in Armidale is Autumn. April is traditionally a dry and sunny month and this year was no exception. Indeed, the weather in recent days has been brilliantly sunny and warm during the day, if not at night. The other wonderful feature is the Autumn colours. Again this year is no exception as the following pictures taken while roaming around the city today. Street after street is line with red and/or yellow leaved deciduous trees and from up high the city lights up as a patchwork of reds and yellows.

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ANZAC Day 2013

The 25th April is celebrated nationally as ANZAC Day, where the exploits and tragedies of war are remembered. ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps and I believe the term was first coined during the First World War, which started almost 99 years ago. Certainly the ANZACs fought at the misguided Gallipoli campaign, a major defeat for them, but one that has delivered an amazing friendship between Australia and Turkey. ANZAC Day has metamorphosed almost into a secular religion with all sorts of observances, though I doubt if it differs much from similar occasions in other countries. Britain has its Armistice Day (11 November).

ANZAC Day is full of marches like the one below, dawn services, memorial gatherings in parks and gardens, two-up gambling in Ex-Services clubs, sporting events, dinners and the like. The average age of participants used to be 'elderly', but strangely it is plummeting as increasing numbers of children participate - the youngest reported today being a few hours old. The rituals of the young also tend to be on various battlefields around the world, especially in Turkey (Gallipoli itself), the Middle East, Papua New Guinea, and Myanmar. I've been invited to a re-enactment of the last cavalry charge in history at Beersheva in 2017 (the 100th anniversary).

Today's Armidale march was at least 1.5 km (almost a mile) long. And the following pictures show images of the event:

Assembly point in Moore Street

Start of the procession

Buses ferrying the elderly and handicapped

Local and invited dignitaries, including the mayor second from the right

Start of the (Ex-)Servicemen section

UNE's Army Contingent - there's a base on campus

Ex-Servicemen

Armidale Brass Band - they're very good

Naval contingent ... there was an HMAS Armidale, which was sunk!

A women's auxiliary?

The Armidale pipe band in full regalia playing some Scottish number, not a lament

Many children took part in the march sectioned according to School. Here we have Duval (where Emily became head girl in year 12 - and she also served in the local Naval Cadets ... at 1000m asl)

And here's the contingent from Ben Venue school attended both Rebecca and Emily

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Population growth

Australia has just passed another milestone according the Bureau of Statistics. The text below is courtesy of the ABS:

"On 24 April 2013 at 08:56:47 AM (Canberra time - the time this posting was started), the resident population of Australia is projected to be:

23,000,479

This projection is based on the estimated resident population at 30 September 2012 and assumes growth since then of:

• one birth every 1 minute and 44 seconds,
• one death every 3 minutes and 32 seconds,
• a net gain of one international migration every 2 minutes and 19 seconds, leading to
• an overall total population increase of one person every 1 minute and 23 seconds ."

The 23 million mark was passed last night.

Since Australia's estimated resident population (ERP) at 30 June 2007 was 21.0 million people, the nation has added 2 million in under six years at an annual rate of 1.3%. This is fast compared with the developed world. In 2012, the US recorded 0.9%, Britain 0.55% and Canada 0.78%. In comparison, Russia managed -0.01%, Japan -0.08%, and Germany -0.2%. At that rate of regress, Germany's population will have shrunk to just 2 million by the year 2167, but not even I will be around to see that. Meanwhile, Australia's population will finally overtake the UK's in 2133 - assuming current growth rates. The UK's population will then be a little over 132 million. Where's the space for that? I suppose the Isle of Skye could fit in 4 million or so.

AS

Max's True Vocation?

Just after the previous episode the magnifying glass, we offered to help Bruce with his small orchard. It contains some olive trees and these had ripe fruit ready for picking. As far as I could tell these were black Kalamata olives, albeit a bit small because of the dry season. Anyway we collected half a bucket of the olives which I gather were destined for pickling.

Max was very agile rushing up the step-ladder, balancing a bucket at the top, and then leaning forward to pick the fruit. Bruce and I stayed on terra firma reaching up to the low-hanging branches. The job was done quite quickly but I never saw the production of the pickled product. However, we had olives for dinner that night and I presumed they were local rather than purchased at a supermarket.

Here he is in action:

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Max the Scientist

Max has learnt the power of the sun when used in conjunction with a large magnifying glass. When he was in Armidale in January he experimented with focusing the sun's rays on dry wood and leaves through the magnifying glass and making them at least smoulder if not burn outright. This is always done under supervision because, well, we don't homes to go up in flames!

I caught up with Max briefly on Friday when he was staying at Rob's parents on their 5 acres just outside of Tamworth. And, guess what! He was refining his experiments there. Here he is trying to set gum leaves, some grass, and a small dry block of wood alight. This time was not as successful as in Armidale, but I put that down to much stronger sunlight at midday in summer, compared to late afternoon sunlight in Autumn. Still, it made for lots of innocent fun. As far as I know Bruce's home is still standing!

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Changing of the Seassons

Armidale has had a lovely Autumn so far with some wonderful sunny days and temperatures averaging, I'd guess, at around 21C (70F). There's also been a little rain, so things are still verdant. However, the lower than average rainfall is encouraging the many trees of this city to don their Autumn colours and everywhere I look there are red or yellow towers of foliage - except of course for the natives which don't lose their leaves in Winter. April's counterpart in the Northern hemisphere is October, but I cannot recall encountering any October day with a temperature over 20C while living in Britain. Even night-time temperatures have held up around 10C, which makes for pleasant cycling to UNE.

However, Autumn is really going to arrive this evening when a vigorous cool change reaches the Northern Tablelands. Apparently it's snowing down in the Snowy Mountains and Melbourne's maximum is likely to be only 18C. I'll be driving down to Tamworth this afternoon to meet up with Max, who is currently staying with  Rob's parents during his school holidays, but the change coming through will not interfere with the drive.

AS