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Australia

Once when I was at Tower Hill near Warrnambool we had to make a run for it from the car to the visitors centre to avoid the inquisitive emus.
 
These FLIES!!!

Fly season: What to know about Australia's most common flies and how to keep them away

As the days grow longer and temperatures climb, we're greeted by a familiar chorus of buzzing. It's fly season again.

This year is off to a bumper start, with bush flies swarming beach-goers, March flies on the march, and mosquitoes taking to the skies en masse.

But with almost a million species worldwide and some 30,000 calling Australia home, the (unusually) warm weather also presents an opportunity to appreciate these remarkable and essential insects with whom we share our world.

Despite their sheer diversity, we're likely to encounter only a select few flies daily. So who are these curious insects, and how should we think about their presence in our lives?
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Melbourne has just overtaken Sydney in population.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...takes-sydney-as-australias-most-populous-city

Now some Sydneysiders will dispute this by saying “Greater Sydney is larger” but this has always been a false comparison as Greater Sydney includes the Central Coast, which is completely separated from Sydney, and if you told a Gosford resident they were from Sydney, you are inviting a fistfight. Melbourne may as well count Geelong and Kilmore, which we don’t.

Anyway the interesting thing is why this has happened. It has nothing to do with immigration. In fact more people are immigrating to Sydney than Melbourne. In fact, people are leaving Sydney in droves.

Some, even in Australia without knowledge or experience of Sydney may ask why. How can people leave a city with such a beautiful harbour and beaches? The reality is that most people live far from these outstanding parts of the city, sometimes 50km away. The idea of even travelling into the city and surroundings is unthinkable for most. But it’s mainly affordability.

The average house price in Sydney is approaching $A1.5m. In the inner and beach suburbs it’s ridiculous. I lived in a traffic and factory infested suburb in inner Sydney in the 1950s to early 1970s called Chippendale. There were no parks and very few trees and the place was a dumping ground for factory fodder poor. That tiny three bedroom terrace we rented with no back yard recently sold for over $A3m.

Meanwhile in Melbourne, while house prices are approaching an average of $A1m, there are a heap of affordable and pleasant places. I live 30km from the CBD in a large house on an acre surrounded by bush. I had to chase off a herd of kangaroos this morning. I’m not aware of an equivalent affordable suburb in Melbourne.

There are, of course, disadvantaged parts of Melbourne, but we are not going anywhere and I doubt we will see a mass exodus. We will still visit beautiful Sydney, and all who can should visit, but for most residents it’s no paradise.
 
lionking said:
Melbourne has just overtaken Sydney in population.

...

There are, of course, disadvantaged parts of Melbourne, but we are not going anywhere and I doubt we will see a mass exodus. We will still visit beautiful Sydney, and all who can should visit, but for most residents it’s no paradise.
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Jeez, big whoop. :rolleyes: I thought we left this childish interstate rivalry behind decades ago.

Victorian number plates: Victoria - On The Move...to Queensland.
 
Norman Alexander said:
Jeez, big whoop. :rolleyes: I thought we left this childish interstate rivalry behind decades ago.

Victorian number plates: Victoria - On The Move...to Queensland.
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I’ve not seen it as an issue in Melbourne. In fact, I think Melburnians have been very happy with being number 2. And wasn’t NSW the Premier State? We have never been that arrogant.

But the main thing I was highlighting is the exodus from Sydney.
 
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lionking said:
I’ve not seen it as an issue in Melbourne. In fact, I think Melburnians have been very happy with being number 2. And wasn’t NSW the Premier State? We have never been that arrogant.

But the main thing I was highlighting is the exodus from Sydney.
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Because it was the first founded state. Not because it had any particular pedigree in the country today. But I think you knew that. ;)

As for the exodus from Sydney, that is indeed happening. But don't confuse people leaving Sydney with the population shrinking. Ditto for all the major capital cities, especially during the pandemic. Country towns like Orange and Ballarat have been showing major upticks in population growth due to tree-changing and remote working.

[IMGw=500]https://www.ceicdata.com/datapage/charts/o_australia_population-resident-estimated-annual-new-south-wales-greater-sydney/?type=area&from=2006-06-01&to=2017-06-01&lang=enn[/IMGw]
 
Norman Alexander said:
Because it was the first founded state. Not because it had any particular pedigree in the country today.
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I’m not sure of that. The plates were introduced by Wran, who despite being Labor, was very much part of the NSW Born to Rule brigade. But it’s not worth arguing about.

To your main point, Australia and its cities will continue to grow on the back of immigration, and the genie will not get back into the bottle. I think it’s sad that post Boomer generations cannot, in the main, afford to live in suburbs they grew up in. But we need the nation to grow for a number of reasons.

This issue could be debated further here I suppose.
 
Meanwhile in a town in Australia…

On Friday I saw a wallaby near the front of our hospital.

This morning I saw a fox near the back of the hospital.

:)
 
psionl0 said:
The nostalgia bug bit me today.

How many Aussies remember this iconic ad?
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All too well. Sadly, I actually not only wore some of the fashions shown, but convinced myself that they were very cool.

Never owned a Holden, but drove one as a company car, so ticked that box.
 
We had a day that cold the other day, with a highest temperature of 11°C.

This morning I’m elsewhere in Victoria where it was 1°C at 8am and there was ice on the car.
 
lionking said:
-2.1C here right now. I’m pretty certain this is a new record low.
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Yep, 0.8 overnight here.

That's very chilly for us, I won't be shocked if we end up with some overnight/early morning lows in the minus range.

(Generally that doesn't happen here, because I'm so close to the sea, which is a stabilising influence in both directions.)

I've even resorted to wearing fingerless gloves on some of the morning walks in the last few days.

Thank goodness I've kept all my old Canberra outdoor clothes.

:)
 
I believe that they just hide in holes (in the ground, inside trees, etc.) when it is cold, and stay in some kind of torpor, until things warm up.

Around my place, in spring, lizards suddenly appear everywhere.

(Never seen a snake here. It's too metropolitan here.)
 
novaphile said:
I believe that they just hide in holes (in the ground, inside trees, etc.) when it is cold, and stay in some kind of torpor, until things warm up.

Around my place, in spring, lizards suddenly appear everywhere.

(Never seen a snake here. It's too metropolitan here.)
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There's quite a few places around Canberra where there's certainly eastern brown and red belly black snakes. They're incredibly shy though and you could spend your life living here and never see a single one.

Like me.
 
arthwollipot said:
There's quite a few places around Canberra where there's certainly eastern brown and red belly black snakes. They're incredibly shy though and you could spend your life living here and never see a single one.

Like me.
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I spent a fair bit of my leisure time, walking and cycling in the Canberra environs, and saw plenty, so they definitely were there.

Closest encounter was a baby red-bellied black snake that crawled over my leg, while I was sitting on a picnic blanket. (Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve)

:D
 
Temperature again. Brisbane had record temperatures last week and Sydney is expecting 30C today. Equally ridiculous temperatures. 19C at midnight, something that rarely happens even in summer here, bit between 2 and 3am it went up to 23C.

Not a good sign in early autumn. We could be in for a hot, fiery summer.
 
ABC news were discussing the lack of rain this winter for Victoria and South Australia last night.

Apparently cropping yields are very poor for those states this year.
 
That temperature last night was the warmest overnight temperature for September ever by nearly 3 degrees. Crazy.
 
Spring here happened almost literally overnight.

Last week were were shivering in a "extra-tropical cyclone" and today we're halfway up the 20s.
 
arthwollipot said:
Spring here happened almost literally overnight.

Last week were were shivering in a "extra-tropical cyclone" and today we're halfway up the 20s.
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I seriously considered getting the shorts out when we hit 27 the other day, but last night we were back to single digits, and we had an ice-cold morning mist this morning.
 
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