Category: weather

Another photograph from the inspiration stockpile

For those who are wondering what this is a photograph of, it is a tree bordered stream that runs along a long valley that runs from outside Canungra, in Queensland, to the Lamington National Park.

It’s near a place we like to stay for a few days when we want to get away from everything, and I mean everything. There is no television, and cell phone reception is awful if not non existent.

So, you can see the benefits.

Sitting at the table on the veranda overlooking the fields, and this stream, you have time to just think, or not, about what it might have been like before the settlers came.

What is was like when the explorers we seeking new places to live, and they chanced upon this valley. It it was me back then, I would have followed the stream.

But, as for a story…

I have read a great many stories for the explorers of this country, and the hazardous nature of their treks.

What seemed to be the most common theme was crossing from south to north, that is from Melbourne to the Northern most tip of Queensland, or from Adelaide to the Northern Territory. In both cases they would have to traverse a very dry, very hot outback where the sight of a stream, or river, like above, would have been very welcome.

For some, it became an impossible quest, and stuck in the desert, they eventually perished. That in itself, the trials and tribulations of an early explorer would make a great story.

Australia is a very fertile country around the coastal regions, but one you start venturing inland, it is dry, dusty and almost uninhabitable. Unless there’s water from rivers, streams, or underground, or mining settlements, there is very little else to see.

The exceptions to this are Uluru and Kakadu National Park, in the Northern Territory, Shark Bay and The Pinnacles in Western Australia, MacKenzie Falls in Victoria, The Simpson Desert, the Boodjamulla (Lawn Hill) National Park, and the Carnarvon Gorge in Queensland, to name a few.

One day I might get to see them.

Another photograph from the inspiration stockpile

I found this:

The innocuous explanation for this photo is that I took it at my grand daughter’s little athletics competition, now most sensibly being held on Friday evenings.

For those who don’t know how the weather can be in Brisbane, Queensland, it is generally hot, particularly from November when temperatures are between 35 and 40 degrees centigrade.

But not only is it hot but humidity, the real problem, is around 100 percent.

So at the moment we have reasonably cool evenings, ideal conditions for the young athletes.

But, where a photo could be innocuous there can a more interesting, if not sinister description.

Lurking in the back of my mind, and perhaps a lot of others, that there might be an unidentified flying object somewhere in the sky.

Of course, there might not be any, but it doesn’t mean that we stop looking, or assume, sometimes that a moving light in the sky isn’t a UFO.

And its been said that humans are quite arrogant in thinking that we are the only people in the universe.

Personally, I don’t think we are, and I keep an eye on the sky every time I’m out at night, perhaps the most likely time we might see one.

The only issue I might have is that if I am that lucky to see one, or that it lands nearby, what I would do when confronted by an alien.

And, yes, there’s definitely a story in that.

It’s raining, it’s pouring…

Yes, and it’s supposed to be a lot warmer, leading into summer.

I guess that’s about all we can expect from being midway through Spring.

Outside, its been overcast most of the day, but I have to go out so I’m sure we’re going to get rain.

It’s been threatening for the last few days, and the meterology department, who rarely get the weather right, have been telling us there’s big storm movements coming our way.

The other night we got a hint of it with a few short sharp heavy falls, but then nothing.

So, half past two in the afternoon and I’m off on the grand child pickup run, one from the school up the road, and one from the railway stations some distance away.

Sitting in the car, I’m watching the dark clouds gather, whilst in the other direction the sky is blue. A rather fascinating contrast. Then, suddenly, as it hit 3 pm, time to collect the child, you guessed it, it began to rain.

Not five minutes before, not=r five minutes after, but just as I stopped at the slot for her to get in.

One wet child in the back.

We then head for the railway station, about three km away, and half way there, stuck in a traffic jam, the rain stops. I get a call from the child on the train, just to make sure I have remembered to pick her up.

The clouds are black and low, but there’s no rain.

Instead we have a lightning display, and sit in the car counting the seconds after the bright lightning strike. Younger grand daughter is trying to be brave, but the cracking thunder scares the both of us.

The train is arriving, and, you guessed it, the rain suddenly becomes torrential, and poor elder grand daughter gets drenched in the short distances from the train to the car.

A few minutes later it stops.

Weather is unpredictable, and sometimes a complete pain. At least I didn’t have to get out of the car, but the damp children, that will live on for a day or so as all wet material does, and for some reason seems to be worse in cars.

Let’s see if the weather can be kinder to us tomorrow.

Oh, and something else, we need the rain, specially for my garden. It’s the first rain for at least four or five months.