An English Obsession

For Dad (but the weather is important for all us English!)
Read this next word and then shut your eyes (for a moment) what do you see - “Australia”.

My guess you imagined: hot days?, dusty landscapes? Endless beaches? (of the golden variety)?

I did before we came, now I know there are rainforests here, and mountains, but they are not typical Australia right, and even rainforests and mountains are hot and sunny in Oz right?

So we have spent going on 4 weeks here what has the weather been like? In a word
‘Changeable’ (or ‘British’, but warmer).
Last summer (New Zealand summer) Oz was in the news for the great droughts and fires in the south, well when we got there it was fine in Melbourne (I was pleased, just right for me, not too hot), we had a pleasant 2 days in the sun maybe 18 or 19 degrees.

Well this is the Oz weather report.

• Great ocean road – Cloudy, some rain, heavy at times, 18 degrees
• Wilsons Prom – Cloudy, severe gales, tipping it down, 16 degrees
• South coast – Mostly cloudy, light patchy rain, 17 degrees
• Snowy mountains – Showers with bright spells (had a nice day, ish, for the walk up Kosciuszko, no rain at least)
• Canberra – fine, quite a nice couple of days actually, 18 degrees
• South East coast – wet, sun and occasional showers, not too windy though 16 – 17 degrees
• Sydney – Quite nice, hot almost, evenings rather cool though, it did rain one evening though, but only occasional showers, we managed to stay dry.
• Blue mountains – Rain, cloud, fog, occasional sunny patches, 16 degrees.
• East coast – the general pattern was that of changeability, 1/2 day glorious, 1/2 day wet, or nice day, shame about the squally showers. 18 – 20 degrees.
• Glasshouse mountains – raining when we arrived, raining when we went to the zoo, raining when we left, but there were some sunny spells, which we used to climb a mountain. 20 degrees.
• East coast north of Brisbane patchy cloud rain at times, sunny spells 20-21 degrees.
• Brisbane – Well we have only been here for 1 day, but guess what, it rained, well only a little, mainly overcast, warm though 21 degrees.

I can count the number of days I could have worn shorts on my fingers, and can count the number of days where I did on one hand, just. Kat did better than I, guess I’m softer.

You wouldn’t think it from our photos, but then you cant really take pictures in the rain, but its been a bit of a wet holiday, mind you saying that it has been sunny just as much as its rained, but there weren’t many days that were totally moisture free.

Floods, floods and more floods, strewth!
As an aside, Brisbane has just had a record month of rain (worst floods since 1974), all the camp sites we have been on have been flooded, the one we are in now was under 50 cm of water across the whole site just 2 weeks ago, emergency evac apparently, it took out quite a number of their sites (the ones next to an embankment).
Also a major bridge was lost on the main coast road from Sydney to Brisbane, which meant we had to take a rather large detour inland.