One last swim at Tathra. It's a georgeous beach!
The waters down south will be a lot cooler 🥶
I just finished my final shift at Drift Tathra. On Tuesday we leave the Bega Valley which has been our home since October. New adventures await but there is much sorrow in leaving.
If you haven't read John Blay's books about walking Australia's SE and the region's links with settler-colonialism and First Australians you really should. They're excellent.
20mm rain yesterday. That’s a start to bringing the green back and filling the tanks, dams, and rivers. To get back to where it needs to be, we need that much rain every week from now to the new year.
An elevated view looking north from our place. In the right-centre of picture, far distant, you can see Gulaga, the mother mountain of the Yuin people.
Tomorrow, we are likely to see our first high fire danger of the season, with temperatures over 30C and northerly winds.
It’s the middle of Spring and the nights are getting warmer, so we won’t need much more firewood.
What we do need is some rain. The house tanks are at about 50 percent, which is normal for the end of winter (60,000 litres plus a 30,000 litre firefighting reserve when they’re full). The guest cottage tanks are about the same (20,000 litres for each cottage and a 20,000 litre catch tank at Bracken Cottage).
We need about 150mm of rain between now and Christmas to fill everything up and then consistent rain through to early Autumn (March) to keep everything topped up and give us the necessary reserves to last through to this time next year. The Bureau is forecasting a damp late Spring and Summer, but it hasn’t shown itself yet. #bushlife #rain #begavalley #australia