I’m writing this having just come back from a morning walk up the road, enjoying a sight we haven’t seen in much too long in our area—water running and singing to itself in ditches, water puddling on roadsides, water rushing into dams and tanks…Rain, rain at last! Good rainstorms over the last few days and other showers scattered over the last few weeks, with more forecast to fall in the next few weeks—cross fingers!—has meant that in our immediate area at least, things are looking more hopeful. Here in our high-country region of northern New South Wales, we have been enduring what appears to be the worst local drought since records began in the mid-19th century–we received only one-third of our normal annual rainfall in 2019. Paddocks have been turned to dust, farmers have had to sell or send away livestock, and large numbers of trees have died, especially on the free-draining granite country just to the west of us. Our own heavy clay soil might be a pain to work with in terms of gardening, but it does hold water better, even when you don’t particularly want it to. Trees have died even on our own block, including sixteen tough old cypress pines that well-predate our ownership of this block, and which my husband David has had to cut down due to their becoming a fire risk. Our thriving vegetable garden, pride and joy of green-thumbed David, has had to be abandoned for the moment, apart from the perennials.
It’s not only drought that haunts us, but fire. As people around the world know from the news, Australia is going through a terrible bush-fire (wildfire) season which most recently has seen massive, deadly firestorms tear through large swathes of southern New South Wales, parts of Victoria, and Kangaroo Island in South Australia. Earlier, dangerous fires also broke out in areas such as the Blue Mountains just west of Sydney and other areas close to the national parks that surround Australia’s biggest city to the south, north and west, while Tasmania and Western Australia have also experienced some fire outbreaks. Here in my high-country home region of the Northern Tablelands in northern New South Wales, the fires came even earlier, from September onwards. Conditions have eased in this region now since the most dangerous period across northern NSW and southern Queensland in November, when people died and many homes were lost. The weather has improved slightly and of course the brave and tireless work of firefighters has meant the threat in our area has lessened, though some fires in inaccessible forest and gorge country are still not quite put out. New ignitions and flare-ups are still a worry, exacerbated by the effects of the drought—all those dead trees attracting lightning strikes and, of course, hot days or windy ones drying out the country yet again. So firefighters are vigilant and all of us take nothing for granted, even now with that lovely rain. Like most people in all too many areas of Australia right now, we closely monitor the ‘Fires Near Me’ app which shows you up-to-date information on any fire outbreaks within your nominated watch zones. We’ve got to know well the color-coded fire alerts: Blue meaning ‘Advice’ (there’s a fire at this location but it’s not a threat yet); Yellow meaning ‘Watch and Act’ (the fire is a threat, get ready to go) and Red meaning ‘Emergency’ (leave at once if it’s safe, seek shelter immediately if it’s not). And we keep our ‘getaway’ bags packed and near the door—bags that don’t only have essentials, important documents, clothes, medicines, etc, but also a selection of those personal things you know you can never replace…
Ah, that selection! When the fires first started appearing in our region back in September, I began the process of trying to decide what to save from our many many treasures if the worst happened and our house was in imminent danger of fire. It was very hard—I was frequently in tears doing it. What about all my books, the ones I’ve written, the antique ones I’d collected, the big collection of signed books by other authors which I’d gathered? What about all the paintings and other unique artworks we’d so lovingly collected? What about the beautiful hand-made furniture created by David? But we could only have one extra bag other than the essential ones, one bag which had to be not too big, not too heavy, and easy to wheel out at a moment’s notice. [Read more…]
