StooJ on February 11th, 2009

It’s difficult for a scottish lad to comprehend the scale of destruction here. 450,000 hectares of land burned. Death toll hits 180. And there is more to come.
Evan Davie has put together a map to track the fires.

Living fairly close to the centre of Melbourne, we’ve been well out of the calamity that has struck [...]

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StooJ on February 1st, 2009

One slight disappointment with Australia so far is that I haven’t really seen too many “Australian animals” yet. By “Australian”, I mean ridiculously deadly and absolutely terrifying. In fairness, I have come across a kangaroo standing in the middle of the Hume Highway while we came blearily along it on our way from Canberra to [...]

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StooJ on January 30th, 2009

Melbourne still struggles under an oppressive heat, although it cooled of a little this evening. With all the air-conditioners and fans being abused throughout the state, the power grid has started a programme of rolling blackouts. Areas of the city get their electricity cut off for around an hour at a time to reduce overall [...]

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StooJ on January 29th, 2009

Although Gin & I are staying in a pretty nice place just now, we’ve realised that we both want to have somewhere to ourselves. So, I’m house-huntin’.
Having never lived in a big city before, I’m not sure how Melbourne compares to other places so this may be the norm: 15 minute viewing windows.
We find a [...]

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StooJ on January 28th, 2009

It is probably appropriate that the inaugural Australian post will be about the HEAT.
Anyone in Scotland will undoubtedly be aware of the temperatures here this week; since they have all been following the tennis rather closely.
When I talked about Australian temperatures in Scotland, I was often treated to a disbelieving look of “nowhere gets that [...]

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