Sydney's got water again!

The big rain event of a few weeks ago worked wonders on Sydney's water supply. We've gone from 40% and falling dangerously, to over 80% and time to relax about it again.
 
So off to Warragamba Dam, and Lake Burragorang reservoir, the other day.

The visitor centre is open most days, and on weekends you can walk over the dam.

I think I mentioned once before about how Sydney's big reservoir compares with that of my home town, Birmingham England. They're very proud of their Elan Valley reservoir and dam there. Well it turns out that Sydney's Lake Burragorang is actually 40 times bigger than Birmingham's.

Hotter

I said that today could be even worse. Well, it was!

Hot

It just kept getting hotter yesterday afternoon. It was the day we'd been warned about. South East Australia has been literally on fire for months, and it's only getting worse. Here in Sydney's northern suburbs it was hot, hot, hot.

Today was much cooler, but there's  little prospect of rain any time soon, and this Saturday could be even worse fire weather than yesterday was.

It actually is a rather great ocean road!

Just about everyone does the Great Ocean Road at some time, along Victoria's coastline. Especially the grey nomads, the Asian package tourists, and the Melbournian day trippers. It's much talked about, and I'd wondered at times if it was perhaps a little overblown.

That wasn't my experience though. It truly is a rather good trip. At least, it was the other week, out of season and away from school holiday time or weekends. It might get a little busy then.

For a start, there are the free range koalas, and some over-friendly native birds.

Then there's that truly stunning scenery to the east and west of Port Campbell. Like the Twelve Apostles. It seems the number of apostles is a little rubbery. Wikipedia, (here: Twelve Apostles Wikipedia ) tells us that from the main viewpoint you see seven - there were eight but one collapsed. (Or was it nine but one collapsed, except that might have been one of the nearby Three Sisters - the accounts vary).

And there's the remaining part of London Bridge. The connecting bit collapsed in 1990 (see: London Arch Wikipedia) and it became London Arch instead. That would have been a sight. It surely was quite an experience for the two tourists who were stranded and rescued by helicopter!

A climate emergency everywhere else

While the powers-that-be of Hornsby Shire Council saw little evidence of a climate crisis the other night (see here:  Hornsby Council fail ), much of the rest of the world turned out in the streets yesterday because of it. In Sydney 80,000 of us gathered at the Domain. It was primarily a schoolkids' strike, but us grownups were very much invited too.

I was with the group that assembled in Milsons Point and marched over the Bridge. At the Domain we were joined by thousands more coming in from all directions.

 These occasions are always inspiring, colourful, and photogenic. No need to listen to the passionate speeches (inaudible actually), because I could just wander around taking hundreds of pictures. The placards tell the story. Click on the photos to enlarge them.

More garden parrots

This one's the yellow-tailed black cockatoo. He's one of two who visited the front garden this afternoon, and crunched away on the seeds of a Banksia tree. You usually see them further west, in the mountains. I don't recall seeing them here in the northern suburbs that much before.

Here's an Australian Geographic article on the subject: Australian Geographic article

Schools out! Reinforcements at last for the class of '69!

Yesterday the schoolkids went on strike for action on climate change. The Sydney rally was one of hundreds of such events around the world.

I've covered many political protests at Town Hall, but this was the biggest yet. Even the normally antagonistic Australian newspaper estimated the crowd at 20,000.

And it was so good to see it. It's wonderful that at last, after all these decades, a generation of caring youthful activists is at last emerging to rival that of 50 years ago!

There was the predictable criticism from the usual quarters. Children should be at school, 'learning stuff'! Well, they learnt lots here, and in fact taught their elders a lot too. The words on their placards said it all.

There were a fair few parents and other oldies in the crowd too of course. Some of the seasoned ones had signs like "Class of '87", and "Class of '69". Come to think of it, I was in the class of '69. I might be able to think about retiring at last.




Keep it up kids!