Bush fire fallout

Three weeks ago I shared a map that showed all of the fires burning across the state of New South Wales. Unbelievably the latest map is even worse as a ring of fires is now burning around the entire Sydney region.  Compare the latest map with the one I published last month. The coastline shown stretches almost 1000km from the southern outskirts of Brisbane to Sydney's northern suburbs.

Yesterday the Rural Fire Service (RFS) said there are 120 bush and grass fires burning in NSW, 50 of which are yet to be contained. More than 2 million hectares of land has now been ravaged by fire (that's 5 million acres for the imperial measurement folks) - and we're only four days into Summer.

For four days now the heavy smoke haze has left us feeling like we’re live in the twilight zone. Every day the sky takes on a surreal orange hue. It gives everything a freaky amber glow while casting ominous orange shadows. Then, in the final hours before sunset, the sun slowly turns a bizarrely vivid pink. Sydney's skyline increasingly resembles the notoriously drab and gritty conditions I've always associated with Delhi and Beijing.

We’ve also been waking to the bizarre sight of thermal inversion layers across the Sydney skyline. The horizon has dirty smoke haze bands appearing at ground level and high altitude; which are then separated by a band of clear blue sky.

Last night these layers were enhanced by swirling fringes of grey ash clouds. The cloud then settled overnight and we woke this morning to find black ash and ghostly grey grit covering every external surface.  The paving image below is the same area shown in the orange shadow image above. These images were taken three days apart.

UPDATE: 1:00pm.  6 December
This afternoon a combination of dry conditions and difficult terrain has resulted in several large fires joining together north of Sydney.

The Rural Fire Service said the Gospers Mountain fire, which has burnt more than 250,000 hectares, has merged with the Little L Complex fire near Singleton and the Three Mile fire at the Central Coast.  The merged fire is now up to 200,000 hectares wide, large enough to engulf the entire city of Sydney, from the coast to the Blue Mountains.

Furthermore, without an extremely strong westerly change, Sydney could be blanketed in smoke for weeks or months as fires continue raging to the north, east and south of the city. At 1:00pm today more than 40 fires state-wide are still burning out of control (i.e. classified as not contained).

UPDATE: 10 February
As of 14 January 2020, fires this season have burnt an estimated 18.6 million hectares (46 million acres; 186,000 square kms), destroyed over 5,900 buildings (including 2,779 homes) and killed at least 34 people. An estimated one billion animals have been killed and some endangered species may be driven to extinction.

Set for Summer

Garry has been hard at work refreshing our entertaining space.  The gardens have been replanted, the pot plants repotted or replaced and the new built-in BBQ is looking simply awesome.

Recently, our building also finished its "once in twenty years" facade refurbishment.  Every external surface has been repaired and repainted.  The contractors have even filled and repaired gaps in concrete formwork that the original builder never rectified.

Everything is now looking literally as good as new.  It's all been finished just in time for Summer. We have just one small task to complete.  Garry is keen to install a permanent internal gas line under the garden bed for the BBQ. Once this is done we'll be able to remove the external gas hose currently exiting the front of the built-in frame.

FYI. The new stainless steel spotlight pole visible on the left has been installed plumb with the walls. Unfortunately, the camera has warped the perspective in this image. It’s honestly not about to drop off.

Catastrophic fire warning!

New South Wales is currently experiencing its worst start to the bushfire season in more than two decades. Today's fire warning map is a real eye-opener. Fire warnings and active fire zones now stretch almost 1000km from Brisbane to Sydney (that's the coastline visible in the map above).

More than 3000 firefighters are currently on the ground across the state, supported by 60 aircraft. There are 71 fires burning along the coast. Eight are at an emergency level, 10 at watch and act rating and 40 remain uncontained. One fire alone, west of Coffs Harbour, was 150,000 hectares in size, with a perimeter of 1000 kilometres.

Today's weather forecast is predicting highs of 38C and winds of up to 80km/h for the Greater Sydney region. Fire authorities have issued a "catastrophic" rating fire warning for Sydney. This rating effectively means that if a bushfire breaks out today any home or structure in its path won't survive the firestorm that engulfs it.

So far this month three people have died in bushfires in the state, more than 100 homes have been lost and thousands have taken refuge in regional evacuation centres. Sydney has been engulfed by smoke haze and smog on and off for weeks as bushfire smoke is blown hundreds of kilometres along the coast. At times the haze has been so thick it's obscured our stunning view of the city skyline. On other occasions, the sky has taken on a bizarre sepia shade.

We last saw bushfires this destructive and pervasive in 1994. During that year, bushfires closed every road out of the greater city basin with the exception of the Hume Highway. Multiple bushfires raged within bushland around the harbour, in the Blue Mountains and across the Hunter Valley.

This year much of the state is entering its fourth year of intense drought. Dry conditions have left hundreds of thousands of hectares of forest, bushland and farmland littered with deadly levels of Dry, combustible fuel. Already this season we've seen normally moist and dense rainforests burning in Queensland; a phenomenon never recorded or witnessed since European settlement began more than two centuries ago.

Fingers crossed we have a boring day!

UPDATE: 8.00pm 
Temperatures in our suburb hit 37C today. The sky was transformed into an eerie lavender and sepia haze this evening as the winds slowly swung south. No major fires broke out in Sydney and a few flare-ups in the Blue Mountains were quickly brought under control. Tomorrow’s fire rating remains at a “catastrophic” level.

UPDATE: 19 November 
This morning we woke to another day of incredible smoke haze drifting across the city.  This photo published by Reuters shows just how pervasive the haze is throughout the inner Sydney basin today.

UPDATE: 21 November 
This morning we woke to another morning of extraordinary smoke haze.  Here's the view from our balcony. As you can see the city skyline has simply vanished.  Our outdoor furniture also smothered by a growing film of gritty brown dust.

UPDATE: 29 November 
Overnight the Australian Bureau of Meteorology released its long-range forecast for Summer. The bureau says it's likely to be much hotter than the nation's normal "average" temperature of 27.5C; with drier than average conditions. The following map highlights in red those areas where the probability of this forecast exceeds 80%.  We've also woken to yet another day of smoke haze across the city skyline. 

Kangaroo Island

Garry and I recently took time out of the business for a three-day strategic planning offsite. It's been four years since we acquired Artiwood. During this time we've progressively worked towards, and ultimately achieved, almost every long-term goal we set ourselves in 2015.  This includes a comprehensive rollout of new back office systems, an all-new website, new policies and procedures, a new corporate identity, our first staff hire, and growth that's seen see us double the size of the business.

Having achieved so much, the time is right to set some fresh goals. I worry that we’ll start drifting and erode the potential of our business without a clear and compelling long term vision. We need a new roadmap for the next four years. Once that’ll focus us on the right priorities to continue evolving and growing our business. 

In all my years as senior manager, I’ve found that physically separating an executive team from the daily grind always pays dividends. Therefore, with so much at stake, Garry and I decided to go somewhere remote, with limited internet access, where we could step back from the day-to-day distractions and find time to truly think outside the box. 

After some debate, we settled on Kangaroo Island.  We secured a superb deal at the highly-rated Southern Ocean Lodge that included a meal plan, daily excursions to the island's most scenic locations, and a meeting space where we could close the door and go deep into the business without interruption. The island proved to be an inspiring choice. We spent three, highly productive, days alternating between mind-cleansing encounters with nature and comprehensive, often passionate, strategic planning sessions - one of which ran late into the night.  

The blend of fresh sea air and refreshing coastal views has worked its magic. We've returned from our offsite with an exciting new four-year vision. If all goes according to plan, by 2023 we'll have a business that's doubled in size again, we'll be running it from a Sydney showroom, have a new website in place, and have a key account manager on board to help us secure and maintain new corporate accounts. Let's see what happens next!

Until then, here are a few images from our time on Kangaroo Island.

PS: The Remarkable Rocks really are remarkable. We were also incredibly lucky with the weather during our entire time on Kangaroo Island. We woke to blue skies and light winds most days making excursions like our morning visit to the Rocks all the more memorable.

Fiji Redux

Garry and I have just finished a week unwinding in Fiji.  After last year's phenomenal vacation at the Sofitel on Denarau Island we decided to give Fiji another try.  This time Garry found us a deal with the Shangri-La Fijian Resort on Fiji Island's famous southern Coral Coast.

We flew with Qantas and made our way directly to the hotel.  The airport transfer took more than an hour but only cost FJD90 (AUD60.00).  I cannot imagine travelling that far, for that long, for anywhere near the same price in Australia!

The hotel itself proved to be a bit of a hit and miss affair.  Overall, the food was better than last year.  We thoroughly enjoyed the Thai inspired restaurant and some of the curries in the family buffet restaurant were delicious, to say the least.  The evening canape service at the adult's only pool was also well organized with each table receiving its own tiered tray of canapes.

However, the facilities were rather disappointing.  The adult's only pool didn't have enough foam beds for every sun lounge, the pool menu was rather uninspiring and the quality of service tended to fluctuate from day to day and from venue to venue.  We also thought some of the resort's venues looked incredibly dated and their layouts were often rather incoherent.

The Fijian resort is a large and sprawling complex with plenty of activities on offer. As a result, Garry and I never left the resort's lagoon island.  Instead, we enjoyed a couple of rounds of golf on the 9-hole course (don't ask how many balls we lost!) and ventured into the coral-fringed lagoon for the occasional swim. We even found time for a round at the resort's putt-putt mini golf course.

However, our enthusiasm for swimming was somewhat diminished after we encountered several snake sea cucumbers sliding along the lagoon floor (take a closer look at one in this creepy video).  We spotted these exotic-looking creatures one evening while making our way home from dinner along the beachfront.

The weather was cooler than last year and we found that the southern coast was more exposed to the daily trade winds. Given this experience, I think we'll be back at the Sofitel next year to experience its $30 million beach club refurbishment.

A town called Alice

Alice Springs was the final stop on our road trip up the Sturt Highway.  We arrived in the township shortly after lunch on our penultimate day.  Garry dropped me at the rental car depot while he went on to return our Motorhome.  Once this chore was completed it we headed over to the Royal Flying Doctors visitor’s centre to learn more about this iconic Australian Outback service. 

The centre is well laid out.  We watched an informative movie on the service before spending an hour making our way through the centre educational exhibits.  Highlights of our visit included a live map displaying the movements of the service’s aircraft throughout Australia and the pedal-powered radios once used by Outback farmers to power their two-way radios.

We then made our way to the Alice Springs Desert Park.  This tourist attraction proved to be a genuine highlight. The park sits in the foothills of the MacDonnell Ranges that frame the surrounding area. Inside all manner of native flora and fauna is on display in series of open-air enclosures linked by meandering trails.  The complex includes several aviaries filled with more native birdlife than I’ve ever seen before.

However, the real highlight of the Desert Park would have to be its nocturnal house.  Inside we watch Bilbies, and Wallabies and all manner of desert critters go about their business.  The animals on display were simply phenomenal.  In hindsight, I wish we’d allowed more time for this impressive park. 

We then finished our day with a stop at ANZAC Hill.  We arrived just in time to witness the sun setting over the MacDonnell Ranges and the township below.

Our final day in Alice Springs was spent touring the Old Telegraph Station.  This fascinating complex was the genesis for settlement in the area.  In 1872 the Overland Telegraph Line was completed, linking Australia to the world’s growing telegraph network.  A year earlier the Alice Springs Telegraph Station had been established to house a critical repeater station for the transcontinental telegraph line.

Until 1932, the station played a vital role in maintaining Australia’s telecommunications link with the rest of the globe.  The link’s morse code messages were amplified and transmitted using power generated by 150 electrochemical batteries.  Each battery latest three months before its wet crystal contents had to be replaced.

We enjoyed a fascinating guided tour of the station; as well as an opportunity walk a section of the nearby Todd River’s dusty, desiccated riverbed.  The river is dry most of the time making for a rather unusual experience.

Our final stop in Alice Springs was Todd Mall in the town centre.  It was here that we stumbled upon the Megafauna Centre.  Wow!  What an unexpected discovery.  This modest museum houses some impressively mounted skeletons and life-size recreations of some of Australia’s extinct super-sized marsupials.  

 Exhibits include a recreation of the world’s largest bird, Dromornis, which grew to three metres tall and weighed up to 650 kg.  There’s also a fearsome mega croc and a marsupial herbivores called Plaisiodon (it looks like a giant wombat).  They all roamed the region more than 8 million years ago during the Miocene epoch.  And with that, it was off to the airport for an uneventful flight home.