Snow in Australia on Koninginnedag

Its been snowing in south australia the past few days in the Alps near Melbourne, meanwhile here in Queensland its still a sunny and pleasant 26C. I will be heading down that way tomorrow for a business meeting and flying back the same day.

So no Queens Day celebration here just yet, that comes in June when theres a public holiday when the whole australian nation celebrates the english Queens birthday - they dont even do that in England(!)

ANZAC Day

Today Saturday 25th April is when Australia celebrates its rememberance day for War dead from WWI thru to Vietnam, its a public holiday and is celebrated by a dawn service in France, Gallipoli (Turkey) and all over Australia. ITs not just a moment when veterans remember their lost mates but is also taken seriously by the youth who remember what past generations did to fight for freedom.

This is what the BBC Reporter here has to saw about ANZAC Day.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/nickbryant/

Off now to watch Billy Connolly on tv going around Canada.

Garden 'Expo

On Friday we went to a Gardening Expo here in Brisbane. Lots of things to see and ideas to try out. Just as I have to re-wire my brain for flying here, Inge has to do the same for gardening. The seasons are different and with a subtropical climate there are different flowers to take into account. We learnt about the nasty "fire ants" that give you a rash when they bite, seems they are becoming a big problem hee, accidently introduced from South America.
On Saterday we went to a Japanese Garden in Toowoomba which is 100km away. We then made a round trip by driving to Warwick. The weather was beautiful and mild at 27C with low humidity. We stopped in tourist information offices and picked up folders for some ideas in the next few months. Seems in the summer theres a sunflower route to drive round. It was nice to see the two towns we stopped in, very quaint with old building refurbished and put to new use.

Easter Weather

We spent the 4 day long weekend trapped at home due to the unseasonal wet weather which has been continuing over the last few weeks. We didnt bother joining the long traffic jams of people leaving Brisbane. So some useful time was spent writing an article for a dredging magazine and getting on top of my work.

Australian Weather

Having been here more than six months now one thing which I am still getting to grips with here is the weather in this sub-tropical part of Australia. Reading and understanding the weather has been an interest of mine since I took up hanggliding more than twenty years ago however it seems that here I have to throw away my acquired knowledge learned in Europe and go back to school. Watching the weather forecast on tv is next to useless as they cant seem to predict anything they only report whats happening so I bought a technical book titled “Australian Weather Book” for the bargain price of 4 euros and am now reading it avidly.

There is a poem quoted in the book which I liked and it goes like this :

“I love a sunburnt country,
a land of sweeping plains,
of ragged mountain ranges,
of droughts and flooding rains”

This week we got to see the flooding rains again as on one day over 400mm fell in 24hrs.....the yearly total is 1600mm. One elderly woman drowned when her car was washed off the road. I have a healthy respect of the weather here and the extremes. We arrived here in Queensland after the worst drought in living memory with very little rainfall and empty dams (23% full) and now the dams have doubled in volume in just a few short months.