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Published: February 23rd 2013
Discovering the Goldfields
One of the tunnels carved out by goldseekers in the Ophir Reserve near Orange, NSWIn Canada and in the US, and I'm fairly certain parts of Europe as well, the seasons are defined according to the Earth's position around the sun. Thus the longest and shortest days of the year, as well as the equinoxes, define the season boundries. I never really knew any other system, so it surprised me that here in Oz, the season boundries are simply dates on the calendar. So summer here offically starts December 1st and ends with autumn's start on March 1st. It's already confusing enough for me to have my seasons reversed, but to also have different definitions of seasons...oy veh!
Adding to that confusion: the fact that this year's spring, summer and autumn didn't really feel much different...
This has been a slow summer.
Summer is so slow that there's a festival called "Slow Summer".
Actually, I think it's more accurate to say that the summer has been slow in arriving this year. With another La Niña for the summer of 2011-2012, it has meant cool temperatures and rain. Lots of rain.
And with working a full-time job, there was not much opportunity to enjoy the little bit of summer we did
Summer storms
This summer has seen a lot of rain and some great storms! have. But we still had some fun. Our summer experiences included:
December: We received a visit from my Swiss aunt and uncle who had been traveling around Australia for 6 months. They bought a Landcruiser in Darwin in July, and slowly made their way down the West Coast, across the Nullarbor to Adelaide and Melbourne, then up to visit us in December. Together we went hiking at
Ophir Reserve, which is an old gold mining area. There is still an active gold mine in the area, and we spotted people panning for gold in the river as we hiked along. We discovered old mine shafts and partial tunnels dug into the hills. In Orange, we enjoyed some of our favourite restaurants, including
The Rocking Horse Lounge and Provista.
December also included trips to Sydney, and Christmas and New Year's in Perth, Western Australia.
January: Rain for the week of Australia Day and Orange's "Slow Summer" festival. This year, the festival was advertised with great-looking pamphlets, but the rain threatened multiple events. I was hoping to join the treasure hunt and other festival activities at Lake Canobolas, but a downpour kept me in my car instead. For Australia Day, we drove to
More Goldseeking
Another area cut out by goldseekers in Ophir Reserve Boorowa to visit family, and listened to the Triple J's "Hottest 100 Countdown". I was very excited that very awesome band
The Beards made the list this year!
February: Dave competed in a mountain bike race called the
Ginger Ninja 250. The thing I like about mountain bike races is the atmosphere, and that there's always a mascot running around! This one had a red-headed Ninja, of course!
February also included a visit from another Swiss visitor, whom we took hiking on Mount Canobolas, as well as out to the
Borenore Caves. Funny how you only discover your own back yard when tourists are in town! She arrived in town on the day that we were organising an orienteering event, so she joined in and had a blast!
Looking back at this summer, I know we had sunny afternoons filled with frisbee at the Botanic Gardens, going for jogs up the hill behind our house, long walks around Orange with stops at our favourite cafés, and generally enjoying the longer daylight hours (with sunsets past 8pm - not quite as awesome as European late evenings but I'll take what I can get!). However, I cannot remember being "hot" - this year's
Storm clouds
All the storms have meant we have gotten some spectacular sunset scenes! summer weather wasn't very summer-like. We didn't even swim once at Lake Canobolas this year. We went for swims in the heated public pool instead. In general, we had a lot of rain and cooler weather this summer. Hopefully next year will be better! (Although that may mean the drought returns...we can't win in this country of weather extremes!!)
On to Autumn... March: Rain. Rain. And more rain. So much rain that the river systems in the Central West began to flood. And slowly the flood moved from west to east, as the river basins drained. It did mean an exciting day when I got to go home early one Friday, when the Macquarie River in Bathurst burst its banks. Rumours all morning suggested that the highway would be closed, that the river would indeed cover the highway between the suburb of Kelso and the main part of Bathurst. So after listening to the radio, and checking local news websites as well as the Live Traffic webpage, many of us decided to go for it - supposedly the highway would be closed at noon. I drove through an uncomfortably large amount of water at about 12:10pm, getting home an hour later. When I checked the Live Traffic upon getting home, 44 flood events had been reported on roads around NSW. Eeek!
Maybe winter will be less rainy....
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