Misery is...

...a dog in a bath.  At least it was warm.

James

Sad Snowman

Someone very Christmassy

But he's obviously expecting the thaw already.

The Letter for Today is...

... 'A'.

As modelled by Bev and Rita in Outside Auckland.

Holiday Memories

It's always nice to get a CD of pics from a now-not-so-recent holiday.

This pic (by Pam) is of us enjoying the kayaks on Endeavour Inlet, New Zealand. Pretty topping.

James

Weather Plus

A lot of rain certainly has an effect on some of the flora, while the other, younger, dahlias coped remarkably well.

After a weekend of 35+ degrees C (95+ F) and pretty continuous 40+ km/h (25+ mph) winds, we had 90+ mm (3 & 1/2 + in) in 24 hours. Certainly everything a garden might want, but in excess.

James

Greys, Blue, Red & Yellow

From the inside of the Auckland Art Gallery.

James

Well...

...it's been a busy month and a bit, with plenty to blog about, but little chance so far.

It'll be fun to catch up as we go through the photos, reminders and ideas, so stay with us!

The shells seen here were collected from the shore of Endeavour Inlet, South Island, New Zealand, but not brought home. Both Australia and New Zealand are now (rightly) ultra-hot on biohazards, and moving sych things from one country to the other is a big no-no, now.

Still the picture (by Bev) tells a story. We still collect shells on holiday.

Some Wave...

...that left this boat on a local dam. We're a good 50 kilometres from Port Philip Bay and about double that to the coast.

James

Autostitched Puddle

We've had a bit of rain recently, and there's a big puddle in the big field.

While standing in it in my Wellingtons (that's what puddles are for, remember?) I thought it would be a fun opportunity to try out the Autostitch App on the iPhone (from Cloudburst Research Inc, since you ask) and bashed off 27 images it then nailed together into one. All settings were basic auto, and although there are a lot of artifacts in the full size original, and I didn't try to fill all the gaps (I wanted it to look vaguely like a Hockney composite) it's an impressive job, I think.

James

Imperfect 10

Imperfect Ten, Lake Okanagan.

James

The Wet II - Rochester's Pub

Today, here's just one snapshot of the recent floods of Victoria. One of the areas hit by the floods was the inland wheatbelt town of Rochester, a place that we've driven through on trips north. It has a very memorable Aussie-style pub, the McMaster's Hotel:

Photo by James

As the Herald Sun reported on January 16th:

THE small wheat and dairy town of Rochester in the Victoria's north has been hit by its worst flood.

About 80 per cent of the town is under water and more than 200 properties have been inundated.

The flood waters are expected to peak this afternoon at more than 9.2m, when the full impact of controlled releases from Lake Eppalock are felt. The overflowing Campaspe River has split the town in half and continued to cause water levels to rise well above the town's 1956 record flood level about midday yesterday.

This is what the pub looked like from the air:


And worse than 'a pub with no beer' is a pub full of water:


As the Herald Sun went on to say, it was a real case of bad timing:

Tony McCurry is dreaming of most pub owners' and drinkers' worst nightmare - a dry bar. Mr McCurry and wife Marlene took over running the Hotel Rochester on Wednesday after owning the freehold on it for 10 years.

The water started to recede yesterday, but still covered the floor of the main pub and beer garden.

Mr McCurry said the couple knew the flood was coming, but never expected the damage to be so severe.

"We did sandbagging but by 7am the water was just starting to trickle in," Mr McCurry, 63, said. "Within three hours it was knee deep right through the hotel. It is certainly bad luck."

We hope they've dried out and been able to wet some whistles since.

James

Sharks Patrol These Waters...

... as we are often told, by overseas visitors.

(Shark wrangling by Paul.)

Cloudscapes

One of the things we like very much about living here is the big sky.

Yesterday evening there was a number of thunderstorms rattling about, and they created the most amazing pre-sunset cloudscapes.

When the sun did start to set it turned the opposite sky pink.

Ripples in the dam were created by paddling feet.

James

The Wet - I

Normally a nice view of Five Mile Creek in Woodend, from this bench. Still a pastoral scene, but somewhat more aquatic.

It's been interesting times around Eastern Australia recently, as most know. The tragic events up in Queensland, including the shocking fatal flash flooding in Toowoomba, have hit the world's headlines, and recently, and currently, there's been significant flooding in North-Western Victoria, with towns flooded and in some cases isolated, but with thankfully none of the sudden onrush and subsequent loss of life Queenslanders have faced. Many people have asked us if we are OK, (including Sahlah in a recent comment) and we are.

In fact the longer it stays wetish (for us) the better as stuff can grow, and it eats into what's normally fire season. We'd all like it in less big lumps, more evenly spread over time. But we certainly aren't going to complain, here.

There's been exceptional rainfall around us and some minor flooding, which has thankfully been mainly 'interesting' rather than a problem for our area of Victoria. Here's some of what we've seen.

The view of the rock, shows a local field filling from the lower side. The low line of trees running down to the right are on a creek, normally dry, but here... On that day we measured 102mm (4 in) of rain, which was frankly like being in the tropics, for us.

A later walk a day or two later with as much rain again, this was a nearby field. I liked capturing a cloud in the puddle. Kind of existential waterness.


This is (rather obviously) the Campaspe River in flood. The turbulent line is the river, the rest is meadow, underwater. It's a fair amount of water, and in fact this is the stuff providing part of the problem for our north-western neighbours, because the Campaspe flows inland and (much later) into the Murray, this causing Echuca and the other towns to the north of us and downstream on the Murray (westwards) lots of problems. Like a lot of Australia's rivers, it's not very big, it's very long, and it goes the wrong way. And like many of them, it's there as much as a flood route - very infrequently - as a normal river.

'No Entry' indeed. This is the car park for Woodend's tourist information centre. It's actually only a few centimetres deep, and drained quite soon. In fact before we got there, our friend Kathy captured a shot in Woodend that was waterless when we arrived a few hours later. It's a great shot, and you can see it here.

ALL of the waters above have now gone, and while it's a bit damp (like England is all the time) it's not a problem anymore.

But more on the Big Wet soon...

James

First Dip

Toby's first swim of the year.


Apparently just the thing on a warm day after a run.

Reflections, light and water in Wellington

I don't think this café was always a café, you know. And how 'HB' can be the initial letters for 'Clothing Factory' beats me.

Mermaid in the Museum of Wellington City & Sea

Keep right in the cablecar.

Blue skies and the observatory

Maori carvings awaiting erection

I think the market will crash soon.

...

Pretentious architecture and blue lights.

Cause sunbathing later

Restaurant & fishing boat

Hooked on Scotland.

The light in the old cathedral.

And the words on the University Bookshop.

amam Wag.

Wake.

Beached boat.

Beached whale?

Protected stream.

Gordian knot.

And more on the wonders of windy Wellington soon.

James

New boots, mouli & floods

It's good to have some new boots, and we also got a new mouli that'll be crushing items into Italian delicacies in no time. Drawing by Bev, of course.


The boots went straight into action as there's been some serious flooding in this part of Victoria.


We are alright thankfully, but the creek that's been dry earlier in the winter was running about ten metres wide yesterday. (Some places have had a month's average rainfall overnight.)

The picture above was taken yesterday, Saturday. If you look at the picture below, taken from this post a few weeks ago, you can see how much bigger the creek became.


But that's not all.

The whitecaps running past the big tree are in the creek bed proper, but that island isn't normally one!



This meant that Bev went into 'worm rescue' mode, saving many of the little guys to become aerators in the veggie-beds, rather than drowning on the driveway...


All good fun. But sparing a thought for those flooded out, or our Kiwi cousins in Christchurch dealing with a major earthquake.

James