Australia

I've never seen the Molonglo River that full

I was back in Australia for a few weeks, the first time in 6 months, during Spring.  I recommend Singapore Airlines, they were unbelievable, them and my awesome over-the-counter sleeping tablets meant I could fly from London to Sydney, arrive at 6:30am and go straight into work that day.  Considering how I was after coming over to London last time that recovery was fairly incredible.  I even made it all the way through the 5pm meeting scheduled for that day.  So seriously if you are not a great flier I don't think you can go too far wrong with sleeping tablets and Singapore Airlines.

Lions at the zoo

I spent most of my time in Canberra this visit, it was funny flying in, the entire 8 years I lived there I don't think Canberra was out of drought once, so to see all the green, and the rivers full, was a bit of a turn up.  In fact if we had flown in a week earlier Dave would not have been able to get to Wagga because of the flooding. 

Lets just say that NSW has been having a particularly wet summer.  I think they got all the rain London was meant to have.  Apparently almost all of England is officially in drought, there's talk of building a water pipe from Scotland.  I find it hard to believe though, until your neighbours are encouraged to rat on you for watering your garden, I don't think you've reached desperate straits yet.  I think it's more that they have never had to build reservoirs before, they could rely on their aquifers, but a couple of dry winters and the ground water is all dried up.  I'm thinking after the April we just had there must be some water seeping back down.

Giraffes being fed privately

I visited the zoo in Canberra, like I said, can't get enough of a good zoo.  I think the zoo in Canberra is very much a privately run zoo, I don't really know how much they participate in breeding programs or research.  At least they've got rid of their ligers or tigons or whatever they were called, that was a bit circus-show.  Though as a replacement they have a pride of white lions, which are just kind of pale normal lions.  For a change though all the animals were out and about, which for big cats is definitely not the norm.

A tiger being obliging

The view from Mt Stromlo

In most other zoos the keepers will put on little talks throughout the day, so everyone can come see the animals close up and see them being feed.  Here they do that as well, but only if you pay extra for a private tour.  Otherwise you have to stand well back and just try and eavesdrop on what the keepers are saying.  I guess if you're a private zoo you gotta make your money somehow.

The Australian bush really is something else, and the space there is something you forget.  There's just nobody in most of it.  Which is something I have yet to find here in the UK, even in their so-called national parks there's still wide scale farming.  Perhaps if we make it up to the highlands of Scotland it could be a bit wilder.  Maybe it'll just be wide scale distilling up there instead.

Nice day for a surf comp

After the dry of Canberra, even with the impressive green, it was north to the Sunshine Coast.  It 

really didn't live up to it's name though, rained almost the entire time we were there.  Really we can't complain as a week after we left it was flooding as well.  I'm not surprised, there was an impressive amount of rain when we were there, and the drains were already almost full.  I could imagine it being a little heavier and there just being literally nowhere for the water to go.  Well I suppose there is always the sea, but perhaps it just couldn't flow in there fast enough.

That's a lot of water

It was the week of a surf competition when we were there too, I've never been a surfer, we literally had no waves where I grew up.  It's quite amazing, I always thought that was just how the sea was, sure it got a bit choppy in the middle of a cyclone, but nothing you would even contemplate trying to catch, let alone with a surf board.  So I'm always amazed to see tiny little kids with boards leaping off razor sharp rocks into the swell.  It just doesn't look normal.