I live to tell another tale. And it rained!!!

Haha, okay I made it through the night and survived. I am stiff and sore but happy.

Anyway the most exciting thing that happened is that it rained! After living n New Zealand for most of my life, and being used to it raining a great deal, coming here to this often drought ridden land, having rain is a very exciting event.

When we first moved to Australia we lived in a town called Bundaberg.  Let me digress for a minute...I will go completely off subject.  When we lived in Bundaberg I tried to find out why it was given that name. It was  a funny name for a town. No one knew why Bundaberg was called Bundaberg.

In New Zealand, many towns have Maori  names and we usually knew why they were called that name, or it was easy to find out, you just asked someone. I lived in Te  Awamutu. That town was at the junction of two smaller rivers and it was as far as the Maori could go in their canoes, so they made camp there and eventually it became a town over the years. It means the end of the journey. Perfectly sensible. Another town  I lived in was Paraparaumu. It means dirty dirty oven. Apparently it was known for something to do with dirty ovens. Next to Paraparumu was Paekakariki. (Said pie kok a ree kee). It means the place where the parakeets flew. Apparently there used to be cockatoos or parakeets on Kapiti Island and all around there in the past. And the English names were usually after famous people in NZ history.

Anyway, no one knew about  Bundaberg. It took me four years and a great deal of asking to find out that it meant the town of the Bunda people. It seems the local Aborigine tribe were the Bunda people, and a man who lived there as the town was forming was a German man. In Germany, berg means town, or similar. So he called it the town of the Bunda people, or Bundaberg.  Once I heard that it made sense.

Okay, back to the rain. When we lived in Bundaberg, generally shortened to Bundy, (where the Bundy rum is made) it didn't rain very often, but when it did, it poured. The towns in the north of Aussie are built with concrete channels all around the towns to take away water quickly. So often it would rain just a few times a year, but they would be downpours that might last a couple of days. Or with the tropical weather, in the summer storms would often go over in the afternoons and drop a heap of rain in just a few minutes then the clouds would waltz out to sea and the sun would be back. So we would stand on the veranda, ooohhing and aahhhing that it was raining.

Well, we have been about six or seven weeks here without rain and it was getting really dry. The lawn grasses around here are just amazing. If you don't water them, they just die,they go brown, and crunchy. If they go without water for long enough, the grass more or less disappears and you have dry ground. But when it rains, the grass is back in a few days. It is truly amazing! You can almost see the grass grow.

Well, over the past few weeks our grass at this house sit has got browner and browner, and some of the trees and shrubs were looking very sad. (We had checked with the owner, but he said not to worry, don't water the trees, all will be well when it rains.)  Then on Monday night we got about 26 mils of rain and yesterday a bit more. Overnight, the grass has  become green.

Aussie is full of frogs during the summer. This little critter is on the outside of the kitchen window in one of our New South Wales house sits.


 The frogs are coming out, a sure sign summer is on the way, and the trees and shrubs have perked up. October and November are storm months around here, so often afternoon storms roll over and drop a good soaking rain before they head seaward. Our weather generally comes from the hot inland during the summer, humidity and heat builds up for storms.

This picture is not our current house sit, but one in New South Wales. I took this during a thunder storm. You can see the heavy rain bouncing on top of the tank, and it is pouring out of the top by the white pipe and running down the sides of the tank.


Anyway, it has rained, I have lived through two sessions at the gym, we have some friends coming for lunch and all is okay.

It's pretty dry out here!

Moving from place to place and from state to state, it's interesting to see the ways the different seasons unfold.

We had a very wet early winter here on the Gold Coast, and now it is nearly spring, we have gone about a month without a drop of rain and everything is getting really dry. With some strong northly winds, we are having fire warnings in the south east, especially around Ipswich way. The whole south east is drying out, so I hope we are not in for a bad fire season round this way.

We know from living here some years ago that the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast can get some pretty severe storms. Around October/November, most afternoons, a thunder storm will build and pass through. These are good for the ground, apart from the fact that lightning combines with the raindrops to provide good fertilising for the soil, the showers are often pretty heavy but short, so the gardens get a good drop of rain, and then the sun comes out again not long after.

But the thing that really impresses me, coming from the green, cooler, wetter NZ, is the grass and native plants around here. They have the ability to withstand the drought conditions with style. Often in the summer there are watering restrictions round this area, so no one can water their lawns. And in this house sit with an acre to water, it would be out of the question anyway. (The owners have lots of pots which we water, but the general garden usually waits for the rain.)  But the grass is amazing. So many times I have seen the grass wither during the summer, go dry, actually go quite crunchy underfoot, and then appear to completely die. It can be like that for quite a while. If the storms come regularly, its not so bad, they get a drink often, but if the storms don't drop water on your little patch of land, the grass can appear to be absolutely beyond help.

And then it rains, maybe for a day or two, or maybe lots of showers, and all of a sudden in just a few days, its back. You can almost see the green returning as you watch it, and before you know it, your lawn is back. Its the same with the trees, especially the gum trees, that look half dead when they go without water for a long time, but give them the rain, and they are back, good as new. These types of grass and trees must have wonderful self preservation capabilites built into them for survival. Amazing really.