We were on Extreme Fire alert for a few days last week which is the category before Catastrophic (the family's signal to leave). The very high temperatures of over 40 degrees lasted for four days - all we could do was to keep the children in the air conditioned house with plenty of water. When they went into the pool it was with sunhats, rashies and 50 suntan lotion, although we all did go in after the sun was down which was beautiful especially with the sunset followed by a lovely full moon.
On Friday the sun was covered by cloud as the weather front came through from the south, and within half an hour the oppressive heat had dropped significantly. That night we had terrific winds, rain and thunder which brought the temperature down 20 degrees (this in the space of 24 hours). Today, Tuesday 21 we are back into Ugg boots and sweatshirts! Australia's nothing less than exciting!
Last weekend we went to Mannum on the Murray River to go on the steam paddleboat Marion which was built in 1897. The boat is manned by volunteers, who also look after the very impressive museum where it normally lives. Our captain on Sunday was a descendent of Gonville Bromhead who won a VC at Rorke's Drift which was interesting to us all as the children had been looking at how the Zulu army fought as part of a video on different fighting techniques. Because they found it fascinating (from a series of videos on different fighting techniques) we had watched the film Zulu with Stanley Baker and Michael Caine,.
Needless to say we all enjoyed ourselves immensely. Today we went into our local shopping area Stirling which is part of the route of the cycling Tour Down Under this week so it is really nicely decorated. On the way back I started up the steep drive at the speed needed to get to the top frightening a small koala crossing in the roadway. It shot up a pine tree where it sat about 7 feet off the ground to get over the shock. It has since moved to a eucalypt.
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