Rain Rain Don't Go Away

I'm loving all this rain. It's amazing how quickly the tanks refill and the grass regreens (is that a word?) with a bit of rain.

2 Days in the Dark

It's great to have the power back on!

I realised how much I take the convenience of electricity for granted when we were without it for the best part of 48 hours after the storms on Wednesday.

Now that the good folk of SP AusNet have restored the electricity life can get back to normal. Everything from washing your hands, to cooking, showering, flushing the toilet, washing clothes, watching TV and using the computer was out of the equation. Oh, and no phone (cordless phones don't work without electricity!!) That's just at home.

Outside, there was no petrol available because they couldn't pump it. The hardware sold out of camping style gas cookers (luckily they still had some at the service station).

I'm not complaining. It was nice to experience the absolute quiet and candlelight for a couple of nights. No buzzing fridge or idiots on the TV. Got reacquainted with the transistor radio and kept up to date with the havoc updates on 774 and ABC Gippsland.

How scream was my valley

It's amazing how far noise travels in a quiet valley. When I lived in Melbourne, with the hum of the traffic and everything else, the idea of hearing your neighbours only entered your head if they got a drum kit for Christmas.

Here in Venus Bay it's a different matter entirely. If someone's having a party across the road until 2 in the morning, you hear it like it's in your own house. Voices travel a long way in the still night air. Luckily it doesn't happen all that often and the place will return to it's usual quietness soon enough, but geez... it's hard to sleep with the yelling and screaming and the loud conversations - no matter if they're just having fun or not - going on all night.

In the words of Darryl Kerrigan from The Castle: "How's the serenity?"

Back to normal

It's like turning off a light switch. The end of the school holidays has seen Venus Bay return to normal. Gone are all the extra visitors, the queues at the shops and the throngs at the beach. Venus Bay has returned to it's normal state of being a quiet, seaside town.

Hopefully the local businesses made enough hay while the sun of tourism shone to sustain them until the next expected influx over Easter.

It was good to have a bit of life in town, but it will be even nicer to be able ot go to the beach again without hundreds of other people. Not that it was ever really that crowded... it's all relative.

Is this it for the drought?

We've had over 40mm of rain over the last few days in the rain-gauge in the backyard in Venus Bay. It's been so long since we've had sustained rain for more than half a day, I'd forgotten what it was like. Here's hoping we get some more - enough to fill the tanks and dams, water the ground and put out the fires in the high country. Everything was looking so dry. After only a few days of rain, you can see green returning to the landscape. The dry, brown farms around here are starting to grow grass again. The cows will be happy!

I know it hasn't been as dry here as other parts of Australia. On a recent trip to NSW, the country between Bathurst and Forbes was desolate. Our brown fields were lush by comparison. None the less, it's illuminating to see the rainfall readings to the Tarwin Lower supermarket for the past few years. In many of the months of the last year, we've had very little rain compared to even 2 years ago, and they were drought years too.

what a relief!

Wow! The afternoon storm coupled with the widespread blackout was amazing. Seeing all that heavy rain come down so fast was fantastic... good tank-filling rain. We got about 12 mm in half an hour. Luckily we left the beach just before it started.

The power went off about 5.45pm and came back on at 8.20, just as I was about to light some candles.

It only cooled down to about 25 degrees, not ideal sleeping weather, but it was a relief all the same. Today was supposed to be hot again, but the seabreeze seems to be keeping a lid on the temperature for now. I notice that it's already 31 degrees in Melbourne at 11.30am and it's still only 26 here. Here's hoping it stays that way. I realise that I'm no good in the heat.

hot as hell

Right now in Venus Bay, it's about 37 degrees and as hot as hell. I just noticed on the Bureau of Meteorology site that it's only 18 degrees down at Wilsons Prom. Maybe I should drive down there to cool off for a while. How can there be such a difference in temperature between here and somewhere just 40km away?

The beach would be a good option and it would be nice and cool in the water, but by the time I got back to the car it would be worse than before. Maybe go down after 6 when the anti-dog rules finish so I can take the pup.

almost like a real town

I'm loving the holidays. The local shop, the Venus Bay General Store is open until 9pm! Such convenience :)

They normally close around 6.30, so if you don't get there early enough, the Tarwin Lower supermarket is normally open until 7 or 8pm, and maybe later at this time of year.

Luckily, I'm easily pleased....

I read something earlier about a proposal in 2004 to build a new estate of 2,000 homes in Venus Bay. The locals at the time were against it it seems. They saw it as a threat to Venus Bay's splendid isolation. I have to say I'm glad it didn't go ahead. How many people can you put on a giant sandbar anyway? It might have led to better local services, such as garbage collection or street mail delivery, but the dirt roads and lack of facilities are part of the charm. Turning Venus Bay into something like any other coastal town would be a shame. As the world gets faster and more connected, it's good to know that there are still some places where you can escape from it all.

crowded...

When I came to Venus Bay in the middle of winter, it was very quiet. People said it gets really busy in the summer. Well, it's the middle of summer and most of the houses have people staying in them for a change, but it still doesn't seem busy. I guess it's all relative. I used to live on a main road in Melbourne... That was busy! Granted though, it is a lot busier than usual. Sometimes there are more than two cars on the road at the same time.... amazing!

It's really nice here at this time of year. We had a hot week, but it's turned cooler again now, which I like much more. There has even been a small amount of rain, which is good. The grass is developing a green tinge instead of the summer brown. What's the old saying? The grass is always greener over the septic tank. I hope it rains some more though. I don't fancy the idea of having to have water trucked in if the tank doesn't fill itself. I have no idea how much it costs, I assume a lot.