With Dust, Smoke, Hail and Bushfires - January 2020 has swept on by.
Early January the smoke was so bad (over 3 times the WHO health recommended safe levels) that Des flew to Darwin to accompany her grandson home, escape from the smoke and stay with her daughter for a bit. A few days later, with no sign of the smoke lifting in a hurry, I drove to the Sunshine Coast in Queensland to stay with Des's brother. Des (and Connor) joined me there a few days later, and it was another week before the Canberra air quality seemed to have returned to less hazardous conditions.
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| 5 Jan - Bushfire Smoke & dust from our Back Deck |
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| Drought country between Dubbo and Gilgandra |
On the way north I deviated off the Newell Highway through Gulargambone and Coonamble to photograph their painted water towers.
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| Coonamble Painted Water Tower |
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| Gulargambone Painted Water Tower |
As I drove through Milmerran Qld, I caught sight of their Water Storage, and quickly turned around to add it to my collection.
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| Millmerran Water Storage |
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| Sharing a drink |
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| Verandah Spider at Kureelpa |
On the way home, we stopped for a leg stretch and a dog walk on the banks of the Condamine River in Warwick. Quite a lot of wildlife was around - even in the middle of the day.
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| Intermediate Egret fishing |
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| Corellas resting |
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| Eastern Water Dragon sunning |
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| An attractive Murray Cod sculpture |
Another U-Turn and back-track as we passed these painted silos in Yelarbon Qld
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| Yelarbon Silos |
From Yelarbon to Moree, we travelled with the rain - first this part of the country had seen in months. In many places there was a lot of surface water, but I think it was partly that the ground was so dry it had become hydrophobic and was repelling the moisture.
Between Wellington and Cowra we stopped for these trees (and a leg stretch). No rain in this area, Still very dry and dusty. The day after we travelled through Dubbo, on the way home, a massive dust storm reduced the visibility to near zero around Dubbo.
A few days back in Canberra and we experienced a very heavy hailstorm - the hail around us was slightly smaller than a golf ball. However it was not as large as other places in the path of the storm where it was noticeably larger than golf balls and did considerable damage to cars and property. It did, however, shred our tomato plants and strip a lot of leaves and twigs from our trees.
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| Hail decorating our front yard |
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| Hailstone |
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| Infra-red photo of the hail |
One morning we drove out to Gundaroo to visit a gallery showing some local bird photos. Dust had been forecast and as we approached Gundaroo, visibility dropped and dust was lifting off the paddocks.
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| Dust lifting near Gundaroo NSW |
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| Dried flowers |
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| Drone view of Ginninderra Creek |
I am often attracted to our Eucalypts on my walks - they are all different.
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| Gums on the Ginninderra Creek floodplain |
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| Smoky Light on the trees |
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| Peeling bark |
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| Smoky |
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| Macro of a gum leaf |
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| Ginninderra Creek flowing again |
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| Smoky morning light |
