Beach Recycling

As we have seen recently, Mother Nature is a pretty awesome force. Sometimes she can devastate, as with the floods, cyclones, bush fires, earthquakes and tornadoes in the Antipodes. Sometimes she can majorly disrupt countries across the globe, as with the snowstorms in northern Europe and the US and the volcano in Iceland. But sometimes nature can actually be beneficial, improving an area with its brute force.


We went to one of our favourite beaches on Sunday. It is a lovely, sheltered, sandy cove bordered by rocks at each end and not once have we had to share it with anyone, other than the resident dog who likes to dig up crabs. Its downside is that low tide reveals a swathe of rocks that makes swimming difficult. If you time it right and are there at high tide, there is a nice stretch of water without a single rock but of course high tide doesn’t always occur at a time that you necessarily want to be at the beach. Fancy a swim at 4am? First navigate the dirt track in the dark, then watch out for the sharks, then go to see a shrink as you are clearly not quite right in the head. So, on the days that high tide didn’t coincide with beach-going hours, we had to content ourselves with a mere paddle or lying flat out in the inch of seawater before the start of the rocks. Not unpleasant but not quite the refreshing swim that you so often need when baking under a roasting-hot sun.

However, the beach we arrived at on Sunday had been transformed since last we were there. At first we couldn’t quite put our finger on what it was but when we were in the water, having a lovely swim, we realised. There were far, far less rocks. It was a long way off high tide and yet there were only a smattering of rocks on a huge expanse of flat sand. It was The Husband that clicked what must have happened. When the rains from the most recent cyclone created a surge at high tide, it must have brought with it so much sand that the rocks had been covered. It was only with that realisation that we saw that the beach was definitely higher. The extra sand had raised the beach by a foot or so, creating a feet-friendly sandy beach with hardly any rocks. Amazing. Isn’t nature great? Well, until the next disaster she is anyway.

Tornadoes, Cyclones and Earthquakes - Just Another Day Down Under

Everyone knows that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned so the Antipodeans must have somehow seriously disparaged Mother Nature. Yesterday afternoon Karratha was preparing to shelter from Cyclone Carlos – businesses shut early and everyone was on their way home to secure their homes and prepare to bunk down for a day or so. Little did we know that the weather was about to unleash its worst before Carlos was even close. As we were taping up windows and moving the wheelie bin and outdoor furniture into the shed, four freak tornadoes were ripping through residential streets and the shopping centre and sending the tops of palm trees and shopping trolleys into the public swimming pool. Houses lost their roofs, which went flying into nearby gardens, trees were torn from the ground, ending up smashing their way through people’s windows. At least one woman was hospitalised when her front window was hit by debris and smashed into smithereens around her. Boats and caravans were picked up and sent flying through the air as if they were toys.


The freak tornadoes came from nowhere and people caught outside rushed to find somewhere, anywhere to shelter. It lasted mere minutes but caused devastation and those hit were left with the knowledge that their damaged roofs would be under the force of cyclone-strength winds and rain over the next 24 hours. I still don’t know how the home of our friends has fared as we are on red alert meaning we can’t leave the house, and the mobile phone networks are down. Luckily, they were still on their way back home when it happened so they were unharmed but they now have holes in their roof, leaving their furniture and treasured possessions without cover. We lost TV signal early on and so had had absolutely no idea that any of this had happened until they phoned us, despite the fact we live only a mile or so from the epicentre of the destruction. We’re just praying that come tomorrow morning further disaster hasn’t been metered out by Cyclone Carlos.

We of course then woke this morning to the news of Christchurch’s deadly earthquake a mere five months after the destruction caused by September’s earthquake in the city. Although this one was of a lower magnitude, it is already very clear that it will be far more disastrous. At least 65 are dead, hundreds more are still trapped, buildings have been decimated, and the iconic cathedral is crumbling. Seriously Mother Nature, give us a break.

Swamped

It’s amazing what passes for entertainment out in the sticks. On Sunday morning the Husband and I and a couple of friends drove down to Mairee Pool, a swimming spot on a river roughly thirty minutes south of Karratha. With the recent persistent rains we thought the river might be raging and be quite a spectacular sight. We piled into the work ute, drove down to the raised parking area, slathered on the sun cream and picked our way down the mud. I suppose that should have been our first indication that this wasn’t going to be as pleasant an outing as we’d hoped. There was mud everywhere, some baked hard in the sun, some still sticky, sloppy and wet. It gave off a strange, rather unpleasant smell, which only intensified as we neared the banks of the river.


When we reached the water, it was clear that none of was going to venture in it for a swim and it was not going to yield photo opportunities or awe-inspiring views. The water level was raised but it was calm, swamp-calm, and was the colour of a swamp too - brown with a yellowish foam at the edges where it was gently lapping the bank. Not quite the excitingly turbulent river that we expected, nor the crystal-clear pool that we had visited in October. However, we seemed to be the only ones who felt that way. Two families were already floating languidly on lilos and splashing about in the river and as we were leaving, another group of Aussies were piling out of their ute, ready to jump into the water with gusto. We none of us could understand their fervour for a stinky, muddy, brown expanse of stagnant water, especially when there are so many pristine beaches nearby. Was it really that they just wanted something different to do, or did they know something we didn’t? Perhaps the malodorous water contains some sort of health-promoting minerals or beauty-enhancing beneficial algae. Or perhaps they have just lived in Karratha too long.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

We are now into our third day of rain. Of hammering, driving, ceaseless rain and inky black days. This is the longest it has continuously rained since we first arrived in Karratha, almost a year ago. Of course, we haven’t been here in February before so for all we knew this could have been a normal occurrence. Except the data published online told us all we needed to know. The Pilbara received more rain in January alone than it normally does in an entire year, and the sky has thrown down bucket loads more of the wet stuff since then.


It’s odd, seeing roads swamped with rain, the ground struggling to drink more water than it’s normally given all year, the sky dark rather than blindingly sunny. It’s rather nice though, the unexpected, a break from the norm. I love warm, sunny weather but it does the soul good to have a bit of a change now and again, to break the monotony. No matter how much one loves the sunshine, one can get bored of it appearing day after day after day. Plus, it’s far easier to work knowing that I’m not missing a lovely day outside, I don’t feel that pull to shut down the computer, pull the reclining chair out and go and bask in the warmth of the day.

However, I do feel that it is now time for the rain to go away and the sun to put his hat back on. It’s been a nice change but I’m ready for blue skies and sunshine again, for sunlight pouring through the windows rather than artificial light shining down from the ceiling, especially as the weekend is approaching. It’s starting to feel like England, except without the chilly damp that comes with prolonged rain over there. The creeks are already raging, the ground can’t take much more saturation. Schools are shut, some roads are closed, widespread flooding seems imminent. But, alas, it seems we are not to be relieved – a cyclone has formed off the coast a few hundred kilometres south of us and further heavy rain is expected. Oh well, at least the flies have scarpered for a bit.

Kamikaze Crickets

The crickets and grasshoppers are out in force. Whether running over the local oval or walking through a newly grassy gorge on the Burrup Peninsula, you are currently likely to get hit on various parts of your bodies by kamikaze jumping insects. These aren’t tiny bugs either, they are giant, gangly insects which can cause quite a blow if you happen to get in the way of one throwing its body at full force into the air. Which they seem to do a lot. They are actually very timid creatures and walking through undergrowth of any description causes a tidal wave of crickets to leap out in front you as they attempt to escape from the giant humans.


Unfortunately, these crickets are also not the brightest sparks in the animal kingdom and seem perpetually surprised when they jump directly in front of the giants only to find them still bearing down on them. They also in their panicked state manage to jump straight into fences, windows, walls, trees, and other obstacles, rebounding off them with equal speed. This is quite a spectacle but becomes decidedly less entertaining when said mammoth crickets fly straight into your jugular, as happened to me yesterday as I was running. Despite spluttering, choking and straining for air, I soldiered on, determined not to let a pesky cricket ruin my good intentions to exercise but I am afraid I no longer feel sorry for them when they face-plant our windows .

Harney Fever

What do you think the biggest news story in Australia is right now? The devastating floods and aftermath of Cyclone Yasi in Queensland? The most recent Aussie soldier to die in Afghanistan? The first day of Parliament? No, no and no. The most talked about topic on the news - in newspapers, on talk-back radio, talk shows and morning TV, and all over Twitter, the blogoshpere and social news sites – is Liz Hurley and Australian cricketer Shane Warne hooking up. Yes, Harney (pronounced ‘horny’ – yes, I’m afraid so) has made front page headlines since the pair were caught smooching a couple of months ago while Warney was in London. They have since carried out their tryst in the very public domain of Twitter, for all who actually care (and it seems that a lot of people do) to see their relationship blossom.


The story has now exploded again as Hurley has flown over to Australia to stay with Warney and the paps have been tracking the couple’s every move. Which in truth hasn’t been at all difficult seeing as they haven’t actually left his house. That in turn has of course kept everyone speculating just what they’ve been getting up to in there. Yes, seriously. Every morning since she arrived breakfast news has been crossing over to a journalist who is camped outside his house, just for her to say that they still haven’t emerged yet but that a mattress has been delivered and some workmen turned up the day before for a couple of hours. And I thought the English press was bad! Why does everyone care so much??

And that’s when I realised why I was so surprised at the media attention this fling was getting. In England this would be par for the course but the Aussie press aren’t like the English. They don’t really have tabloids, not to the same extent anyway. They don’t have a problem with celebs getting hounded. Like in most things in life, they are a lot more relaxed about it all. So why this big hoo-ha over what doesn’t really seem to be that big a story? OK, as one of Australia’s cricket legends he’s pretty big news here but she’s just an ex-model turned businesswoman who dated Hugh Grant last century. She seems to hold this spell over Australia, as if her glamour and admittedly very good looks have bewitched the Australian people and, by dating an Aussie, they have somehow been sprinkled with fairy dust too.

I’m sure that the press in the UK aren’t covering the story to this degree – or perhaps at all. In the name of research, I went on to the Daily Mail site, that bastion of trashy news (though with a couple of actual news titbits thrown in so that middle-class housewives can pretend that they’re only interested in the serious news stories) to see whether they have reported on ‘Harney’. And it seems I was wrong – they have made the Daily Mail, albeit only in a short piece. I just don’t get it.

Discovering a Hidden Gem



Living in Karratha can often be fairly monotonous. In a town centred on work and containing little diversion other than the great outdoors which, all too often, it is too hot to enjoy, rarely do you get the opportunity to do something different. It is always nice to be surprised, and occasionally the remote outback town does just that. Hearing that the recent heavy rains had created an impromptu waterfall on the Burrup Peninsula, we drove out there on Sunday to take a peek. Parking up by the road, we hiked up to the rocky outcrop and began to climb the boulders. I kept imagining snakes slithering out from between the rocks, fangs bared and ready to bite me, or perhaps a giant spiders web, the sunlight rendering it invisible as I walk straight into it and watch helplessly as an eight-legged monster slowly crawls across my face. Luckily, we saw no snakes and although I did in fact walk into a web (and screamed only for an understandable length of time given the circumstances and my already deeply entrenched fears), the spider appeared not to be at home.





However, what we did find made it all worthwhile. Water cascading down the rocks, collecting in pools and then falling again. Dragonflies mating mid-flight, just above the surface of the water. A lizard basking in the sun whilst clinging vertically to a rock. Virtual meadows of grass and wildflowers that have sprung up almost overnight thanks to the wet ground. And, best of all, Aboriginal rock art dotting rocks everywhere you looked. A warrior, a lizard, a giant turtle, a row of people holding hands, a kangaroo, all decorated the rocks, probably thousands of years old. Who’d have thought that just minutes from the road is a whole other world, tucked away from sight. It just goes to show that Karratha does have its secrets and can surprise you every now and again. You just might have to put up with the interminable flies and potential death by spider or snake bite.

The Price of Fame

I really don’t get the whole obsession with celebrity. If I saw my favourite movie star or singer walking down the street, yeah my heart might skip a beat, my tummy turn into knots and my legs go all wobbly – well, Jake Gyllenhaall would probably induce those reactions anyway – but I would not queue up for hours in the rain and cold to catch a glimpse of them. I would not ask for their autograph – I have never understand what’s so exciting about someone’s signature scrawled on a piece of paper. I would not scream like a toddler or break down into uncontrollable tears. I would probably widen my eyes in shock, inhale deeply but then carry on as if I didn’t care who they were or hadn’t notice them at all. Perhaps I have some sort of complex or maybe I’m just proud but I hate the idea of people thinking they’re better than me just because they’re famous. I hate the thought of myself going all gooey and being looked at as ‘just another annoying fan’.


On the flip side, I don’t understand why anyone would want to be famous. Who would want to be followed everywhere by maniacal paparazzi photographers trying to earn the big bucks by snapping you in some compromising position? Who would want to be hounded everywhere they went by the media, fans, and wannabes? Who would to have to wear a disguise to go on a normal day out, or to have to make sure their hair and make-up was perfect to pop down to the shops for a pint of milk? Who would want to wonder if the person they’re dating is really into them or just into the celebrity status? Who would want to worry about stalkers? I just don’t get it. Yes, I would love the money and the invitations to swanky parties but I would not want to be recognised everywhere I went. Which is why when I received an email from a PR agency promoting a new ‘experience’ called ‘Dayfame’, I shook my head in disbelief, although sadly not surprise.

For the princely fee of upwards of £160 you can be followed around all evening by a group of 50 paps who will shout at you, get in your way and shove cameras in your face. What part of that is fun exactly? There’s a certain irony in the fact that true celebrities pay people to ward off the paparazzi whilst Tina down the road forks out two weeks worth of grocery money to draw them to her. Give her a couple of weeks of being hounded by the paps and she’ll soon wish they’d leave her alone. However, what’s possibly even sadder are the extras, including ‘stunning company’. For an extra wad of cash you can step out of your limo and into a club on the arms of a couple of attractive men or women. So, it’s basically an escort service too.

Dayfame is a sad reflection of society’s complete and utter obsession with celebrity, where a fun night out isn’t with your friends or your family but with a load of camera-wielding middle-aged men and two strangers who probably can’t string together two interesting sentences. How tragic.

Queenslanders Face Further Terror

It seems that all I blog about these days is the weather but it’s been one hell of a few months weather-wise over here. Devastating floods, blazing bush fires, battering cyclones, and now a super-cyclone that the Bureau of Meteorology has predicted will be “more life-threatening than any storm in recent generations.” Worst of all, this cyclone will hit flood-ravaged Queensland, still trying to clean up and rebuild following the tragic flooding and storm surges that inundated the state a few weeks ago. 2011 has so far been a pretty crappy year for poor Queenslanders and it seems things will only get worse.


With wind gusts at the core of cyclone Yasi already reaching 295km/h, the prediction is that by the time it reaches land the winds will exceed 300km/h. Unfortunately, a number of factors coinciding will result in the effects of the cyclone being even more devastating than they might otherwise have been. Yasi will be at its strongest around about the time it reaches landfall, resulting in these terrifyingly powerful winds and it will also coincide with a high tide, meaning 7 metre high storm surges can be expected. People are panicking, they are crying, they are fearing for their lives, and not without reason. The Bureau has described the cyclone as “a serious threat to life and property.”

This is not scaremongering by the media, these quotes have not come from sensational newspaper headlines. These words have come from official organisations – the State Premier, the Bureau of Meteorology, the State Emergency Response Unit. Even Major General Mick Slater, who heads the state’s Flood Recovery Taskforce, earlier said that Yasi is “potentially so dangerous you can’t risk leaving preparations to the last minute.” Anna Bligh, Queensland’s Premier, has described Yasi as “terrifying” and a “monster”.

When you consider that the cyclone will travel over 400km inland, at which point it will still be Category 3 rated, it is not overly dramatic to use such strong adjectives. It has been upgraded to Category 5, the most severe category, since the early hours of the morning, making Yasi the first Category 5 cyclone to hit Queensland since 1918. The information being relayed to us constantly throughout the day seems to get more frightening by the minute. The cyclone has already taken out one of the Bureau’s monitoring stations and will batter the state for at least 20 hours. Possibly the most staggering fact I heard today, one that really gives you an idea of the incredible strength of this cyclone, is that Yasi has enough energy to power the entire world for a year.

All the people of Queensland can do is prepare, bunker down and pray. With the State Disaster Deputy Commissioner Ian Stewart warning that people who have chosen to stay at home must brace themselves for the possibility that “the roofs of the houses may lift off,” there will be a terrifying 24 hours ahead. The world is praying with them.

Things that go Boom in the Night

It came out of nowhere. Yesterday was a typical Pilbara day – scorchingly hot, bright blue skies with not a cloud to be seen, a little humid maybe but with all the rain we’ve had recently that’s not unusual. The washing took under an hour to dry and I had to wear sunglasses to take it down from the line. Business as usual then. So when I tiptoed into our darkened bedroom, trying not to wake The Husband who had gone to bed an hour earlier, I was rather surprised to hear a distant rumbling that sounded very similar to thunder. Presuming it to be a car backfiring or traffic on the main road, I dismissed it and proceeded to get ready for bed. And that was when the room lit up. It was like someone was standing directly outside our window taking pictures with a huge flash. And then it happened again. And again. And again. Bemused, I drew back the blinds to see what looked like WWIII. The sky was illuminated with constant flashes of light, as if we were being bombed. I was now officially scared. Were the ports being attacked? Millions of dollars worth of iron ore and salt are shipped out of those nearby ports, an incredibly valuable facility for processing gas is currently being built a mere 20km away, and we’re over 1,000km from the nearest city. If you think about it, we’re sitting ducks. Then I heard the boom again – was that the sound of falling bombs?


By this point I had woken The Husband up with my cries of angst but he apparently did not share my fears. “For goodness sake, come to bed and shut up,” he moaned. Charming. There I was, terrified that we were about to be blasted to smithereens by foreign despots, and he’s annoyed about being woken up. “But look, look,” I cried, pointing to the sky. “It’s just a storm,” he said, grouchily, as he buried his face in his pillow. Oh. Right. Well it was a pretty scary storm. The thunder roared again, and then again, and then the rain started to hammer down and the wind all of a sudden picked up and began to rip around the house. The flashes of lightning were so bright, it hurt to look at them and I could feel them burning my eyeballs even through tightly closed lids. Of course, it didn’t help that The Husband, who by now had taken interest in the storm in the way an excitable 10 year old would, had insisted that we keep the blinds open so that we could watch it.

This was more terrifying than the cyclone, especially as it came without warning. How I managed to fell asleep I do not know – the lightning like 100 paparazzi photographers all simultaneously taking pictures with flashing cameras combined with the roar of the wind, rain and thunder was not especially conducive to sleep but somehow I drifted off. And when I woke this morning, the sky was bright, the sun warm and only a few fluffy clouds remained. It was as if the storm had never happened.