snakes!

The snakes are here...well in Broome at least.

Not at my office though.

The Department of Environment and Conservation are running a number of activities during the school holidays. I got really excited til I remembered it was for the kids. No, more to the point, an adult needs a kid to go along with. Unfortunately I couldn't recruit any kids for origami because they are a bit young for it.

But snakes...that's another matter. I took/borrowed Oscar, the 4 year old I live with, and offered to take his friend too, but the friend's mum was eager to come. So we all went, along with about 60 other people!

There were 4 pythons ranging from a 1-2m long Children's python to a many-metres long one. The pictures are of me with the largest. At one point there were 6 adults lined up holding it - it is that long! It seemed to like this other girl, winding itself around her middle and shoulders and pulling us closer together.

The kids loved it and it was absolute chaos with the snakes passed from person to person. Oscar was more interested in the water cooler, so that kept him amused while I played.

sharks!

No, the sharks aren't here fortunately...They're in NSW. Specifically in Tuggerah Lake on the Central coast and Cronulla.

According to the SMH, a 1 metre long shark was found swimming in Cronulla Baths. They assume it got in with a very high tide.

"The funny thing was there were people in the pool this morning and the shark must have come in overnight," Ms Cole said
Yeah, I bet the people swimming thought it was really funny.

The other shark is now an 'alleged' one, rumoured to be a 7m long white pointer in an estuary. A fisherman said he'd netted it while fishing. Since when are fishermen reputable witnesses?? The SMH thought he was earlier this week when they ran with the story. The lake is not very large or deep and apparently the entrance to the ocean can be walked across. So they are beginning to doubt the white pointer story, although according to Tooronga Zoo, if anything it could be a 2-3m bull shark. But when else would they be able to run with the title "Lake shark report might be flaky"

fogged

Well I think it's winter. Felt icy this morning, temps down to 9 degrees (warm for some, I know). Friday and Saturday mornings we had serious fog.
<--looking out to instruments 20m away

Riding to work on Sat was a challenge as vis was down to about 15 metres. I knew the main road was ahead of me...somewhere. My light just reflected off the fog and didn't really help. The worst bit was when I got on the road to the office (which I almost missed!) which has no lighting at all. It winds around and there are huge pot-holes. At least you can tell when you are going off the road because the gravel and sand slows you down.

new building-->

I was very lucky to have the fog clear in time for my 7.15am balloon release. I have to be able to see the balloon to direct the radar at it. The balloon is white, so fog is bad. But someone was looking out for me (and some of the planes) because the fog cleared around the airport when I needed it to, and then came back in a few hours later.

The picture to the left shows the side of the fog bank. It was like this all around. Especially over Cable Beach.

I watched it on the webcam they have there. I had cafe owners calling to ask when it was going to clear (being clear at the station at the time, this was amusing).

At least I had some weather to report for once.

Broome observed

In the clean out of the office, we have come across the daily weather obs for 1940-1996. Post 1996 this form was computerised (thank god!).

The A9 records all the 3 hour observations for temperature, wind, weather etc. The A8 also records these things (still hand written). The A9 has a large (A2 paper size perhaps) page for each month, while the A8 is confined to a booklet per month. The A9 is kept on station, and the A8 goes to head office.

The earliest A9 is from September 1940. If you can make out the numbers you will see that temperature is recorded in Fahrenheit. The neatness of the writing amazes me and has inspired me to be neater on my own forms in case someone in 30 years time is looking back on them going 'wow, handwriting. How unusual'.

Records are missing from February and March 1942. During this time Broome was evacuated. However, according to a document dated in March 1942, the observing office wasn't evacuated (along with as much equipment as practicable) until after the first bombing of Broome on 3rd March.

Online, in the climate database, there are no records for the period of about 1-7 March.

So I am wondering what has happened to the pages from Feb and March 1942. Perhaps the observers were busy with a crazy wet season and war and decided to not bother spending hours re-writing the observations on the A9. I don't blame them.

Hard at work

Andrea is...at work with Amos

Yes, I have brought Amos to work with me. It is Sunday, so I am on my own, and the family I live with is away so he has no company at home.

He is very good at running along side my bike now which attracts a lot of attention and smiles. He was so excited to be coming this morning (at 5am!) that he pulled the bike half the way! I was hoping this would exhaust him, but no such luck.

He hasn't been much help at work, although I did notice shallow fog (MIFG) at the station while looking for where he was. So that's something.

This afternoon, after a ride to town and back, he has been napping. Partly because I'm boring (ie won't throw his toy/chase him around constantly) and partly because he's a Cavalier and that's what they do.

Ye Olde picture theatre

This is Sun Picture Gardens in Chinatown. It was built in 1916 and is the World Record holder for being the oldest operating picture gardens/open air cinema.

It is probably the only cinema in the world that people had to wade out of at high tide. Before a levee bank was built in 1974, Chinatown (including Sun Pictures) would flood during king tides. I've read that people used to fish off the back steps of the shops.

<--Sun Pictures at high tide. (picture from www.broomecam.com/history)

The theatre is a "three-sided timber framed structure, clad with corrugated iron and with a high, twin-peaked roof. The fourth side of the building is completely open to the movie-screen and the elements", according to the Heritage Register.

As mentioned in an earlier post, seating was segregated until 1967, with the Aboriginal people right at the back, the Asian and coloured or mixed-race people on the left, and the 'Europeans' on the right. They also entered through separate doors.