Tuesday, 17 August
Today it rained!!! Well actually, it started raining last night and finally (hopefully) cleared mid afternoon, which allowed for the far more comfortable emptying of toilet cassette and filling of water tanks.
Despite the light rain early this morning, we set off for a drive through the horticultural district – and the anticipation of some cheaper fruit. (It is amazing how much cheaper fruit is at Woolworths here!) The amount of land under cultivation is immense, especially considering all the water for irrigation (and the town) is taken from a waterless river. A fair proportion of the crops are grown under netting, to protect from the wind, especially the table grapes. We stopped at a plantation with a roadside stall to buy bananas and tomatoes and the lady owner told us that people are now realising the netting is creating fungal problems due to the lack of direct sunlight – a grower lost his entire mature capsicum crop recently. After hearing how table grapes are sprayed at every stage of development, I’m not sure about eating grapes anymore (far better to drink them perhaps).
We stopped at the OTC (NASA) tracking station, which is no longer in commission and were able to climb up for a look at the rain clouds building up again over the ocean. The station was involved with the moon landing and was also the station routing the first international live television broadcast between Australia and England.
We completed the morning with a visit to Woolworths, as it was raining quite heavily by that time. We discovered (standing in the rain) that the entrance to the shopping centre was blocked by about a dozen rather noisy indigenous persons and quickly realised that it was literally “on for young and old!” One female in particular seemed to be a tad upset with all the other members of the group and it is amazing how some words, or one in particular, translate very easily from one language to another. We stood in the rain, will we push through, will we wait, push through, wait? In the end, we put our heads down and did a quick duck through the door. It wasn’t long before three large policemen arrived, which didn’t really do much to decrease the noise level.
The rain absolutely bucketed down at lunch time and it wasn’t long before we had a caravan site on a “canal development with absolute water frontage.”
Today it rained!!! Well actually, it started raining last night and finally (hopefully) cleared mid afternoon, which allowed for the far more comfortable emptying of toilet cassette and filling of water tanks.
Despite the light rain early this morning, we set off for a drive through the horticultural district – and the anticipation of some cheaper fruit. (It is amazing how much cheaper fruit is at Woolworths here!) The amount of land under cultivation is immense, especially considering all the water for irrigation (and the town) is taken from a waterless river. A fair proportion of the crops are grown under netting, to protect from the wind, especially the table grapes. We stopped at a plantation with a roadside stall to buy bananas and tomatoes and the lady owner told us that people are now realising the netting is creating fungal problems due to the lack of direct sunlight – a grower lost his entire mature capsicum crop recently. After hearing how table grapes are sprayed at every stage of development, I’m not sure about eating grapes anymore (far better to drink them perhaps).
We stopped at the OTC (NASA) tracking station, which is no longer in commission and were able to climb up for a look at the rain clouds building up again over the ocean. The station was involved with the moon landing and was also the station routing the first international live television broadcast between Australia and England.
We completed the morning with a visit to Woolworths, as it was raining quite heavily by that time. We discovered (standing in the rain) that the entrance to the shopping centre was blocked by about a dozen rather noisy indigenous persons and quickly realised that it was literally “on for young and old!” One female in particular seemed to be a tad upset with all the other members of the group and it is amazing how some words, or one in particular, translate very easily from one language to another. We stood in the rain, will we push through, will we wait, push through, wait? In the end, we put our heads down and did a quick duck through the door. It wasn’t long before three large policemen arrived, which didn’t really do much to decrease the noise level.
The rain absolutely bucketed down at lunch time and it wasn’t long before we had a caravan site on a “canal development with absolute water frontage.”
1 comment:
Beautiful blue sky - not a cloud to be seen here:) About time you came home I think.
K
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