Cooling off: The story behind a photo

There is a much loved Australian poem, My Country, written by Dorothea Mackellar. One particular verse rings so true today. It was written by Dorothea when she visiting England in 1904 at the age of 19 and, feeling homesick, she wrote:

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror –
The wide brown land for me!

You can read the whole poem here

In the past three years, Australia has most definitely experienced droughts and flooding rains. First came the drought, leaving the landscape tinder dry, and then came the horrific bushfires of the summer of 2019/2020. Our seasons are, of course, the inverse of those in the northern hemisphere. Many of us, including me, spent Christmas 2019 under a blanket of acrid smoke from the fires. The conflagration raged for weeks, consuming vast areas of forest and vegetation. It destroyed homes and infrastructure and killed and injured people and animals and in particular took a terrible toll on the native wildlife.

Extremes

After the fires came the flooding rains and the eastern seaboard of Australia has seen record rainfall and major rain events over the past four months. Major rivers have burst their banks. Brisbane, the capital of the North-Eastern state of Queensland, experienced serious flooding across many suburbs. The town of Lismore in northern New South Wales was devastated by major floods in early March. The climate change-denying politicians swept through the devastated areas and designated the floods as a once in a thousand-year event. Then four weeks later it happened again. A total repeat. A thousand years nowadays is not what it used to be.

Where I live in Terrigal, north of Sydney, on the coast of New South Wales, we have experienced weeks of rain and rainstorms which were almost typhoons. January and February are the humid months, but this year the humidity was exceptional. It was worse than I have experienced in the many years I have lived here. Every day felt like a hot day in Singapore. Mould has been growing everywhere and you have been very lucky if you have not experienced leaks in your house.

Because of the awful weather, the Covid lockdowns and the death of my wife last year — and the fact that I have done almost no travelling — my photography has almost ground to a halt. I did exchange my Q for a Q2 in July last year resulted in little extra photographic activity because I endured a four-month Covid lockdown immediately following its purchase.

Hot journey

However back on February 1 this year, I visited a friend in Kiama south of Sydney and I did take the Q2 and came back with the photo which is the subject of this story.

Kiama is a 300km, three-hour drive for me, with much of it on motorway. The journey that day was in very hot, sunny and humid conditions. The aircon in my Mini is excellent and my drive was comfortable, but as I skirted Sydney on the M7 the external temperature on the car was showing at over 35ºC and I knew that the humidity was 80% plus.

Sydney is hemmed in on three sides by the sea to the East and national parks to the North and South and to a lesser extent by the Blue Mountains to the West. The M7 motorway skirting Sydney to the West passes through the areas of urban sprawl and I spared a thought for all the people who live there in the vast new treeless housing estates and for the sweltering children on their first day back at school after the summer holiday. I felt for them.

Late in the afternoon, my friend had a pilates class in the small settlement of Gerringong to the south of Kiama. Whilst she was taking her class I went for a walk along the beach. Despite the fact that it was 5.30 pm, the seaside was still very hot and humid. The sea was flat and clouds of mist hung in the air. I was really sweating — it was definitely a three-shirt day. The light was really unusual. Weird is perhaps the best description of the conditions.

Photo on the beach

There is a small ocean pool built on the rock shelf at the southern end of the beach. The pool is pretty basic and usable only at low tide. That afternoon, however, there was a stream of bathers walking tentatively across the very slippery rock shelf to reach it. I gingerly walked across the rocks to position myself for the photo. One false step and it could have been both me and the Q2 bouncing on the rocks.

So that’s the story behind the photo. A rather unusual scene taken at a time of extreme weather. A memory of a very hot and humid day in a very unusual summer.

Read more from John Shingleton here and visit his blog here

Our donations link is now back in action

Apologies to all readers who have tried to donate in the past four weeks and found the message “this site can’t accept donations”. PayPal changed the rules a didn’t tell us, so we had no idea anything was wrong. We have now sorted this out. If you wish to make a small donation, we will be genuinely grateful. We are a non-commercial site, funded personally by the editorial team. Any assistance is appreciated.