Today, September 1st, is the first official day of spring in Australia (it is also Father's Day in Oz, for anyone that is interested!). However, we have been lucky enough that it has been feeling like spring for the last week or so. The sun has been out with temperatures ranging from about 65-75 degrees F, and if our luck continues, the cold, rainy days of winter are behind us! We cannot complain too much, though, as the winter of 2013 set records for being warm (average winter temp of about 60 degrees F), albeit rainy. Trees are blossoming, the smell of freshly cut grass is in the air, and we don't have to "rug up" for our morning bike rides to work for the next 8 or 9 months.
With the change in seasons, we do start to see insects and other animals come out of their winter hiding places, which is always an interesting experience. This week we caught a spider in our hallway:
Friday night we had some rain that lead to the exposure of about 30 snails in our backyard.
Not sure what is going on here?!
Tiny snail!
Checking out our back door. Sort of looks like he is suspended in the air!
This week we also enjoyed an outside lunch at a barbecue joint in the city. Aimed to mimic American BBQ, this place offers several different kinds of BBQ sauce including our favorite, a vinegar-based Carolina style.
Carolina style pulled pork with 'slaw, of course!
The "Zee Man" beef brisket with crispy onions.
Also this week, Melbourne was named the world's most liveable city for the third year in a row. Kind of exciting news as we begin our third spring in "Melbs". The video below is a couple of years old but shows a few highlights of our awesome city!
Okay, so it did not actually snow in Melbourne today, but seeing as I have not seen snow since sometime around February of 2011, the hail that gathered at our back door today certainly looked like snow!
Every Thursday I teach at the "uni" from 8am until noon and then from 2pm until 4pm. During my lunch break, I generally go for a run and then eat lunch with Erik after my workout. I was very excited about my run today, seeing as it was quite warm and sunny. Of course, I must have momentarily forgotten that we live in Melbourne and the weather can change instantaneously without warning. About half way through my run, I did notice some dark clouds, however, I thought the weather might blow over. Unfortunately, a few minutes later, I was being slapped in the face with hail that was coming down at a 45 degree angle. Lucky for me, I was near a bridge overpass, so I was able to duck under that for a few minutes while the hardest stuff fell down. I decided to tough it out and finish the run in the rain/hail, but had I waited about 15 more minutes, I would have finished my run in sunny and warm conditions! During the remainder of the day, the weather fluctuated between beautiful blue skies and torrential downpours with hail. I returned home about an hour after what I thought was the last hailstorm, so I was surprised to see the remnants of the storms. I really did do a double take when I saw the white stuff!
Is it winter or spring?!
Pellets large enough to do damage to vehicles, I think!
The winds wreaked havoc on the new blooms of flowering trees.
That pretty much sums up last week in Melbourne. I know
I just talked about how wonderful the autumn weather was, but winter seemed to
roar in to Victoria after I wrote that post! It does rain quite often here, but typically there will be an occasional or random shower and then it will
be sunny again. Last week, however, we had two straight days of nearly constant
rain, leaving the ground saturated with water.
Flooded paths near our house
And the wind…I don’t think you can really understand how cold the wind is here until you actually feel it on your skin. It is essentially coming straight from Antarctica, and it is shockingly cold. I should probably clarify “cold”, because quite a few people reading this post are from Minnesota, where winter can be brutally chilly. Wind chills last week were often below zero Celsius, for example, the air temperature was about 5 degrees Celsius (40 degrees Fahrenheit), but with the wind it felt like -2 degrees, or 28 degrees Fahrenheit. I also think that I notice the cold air more because I walk to work and to the gym most days. It’s one thing to run in the cold, because you warm up after the first five or ten minutes. But my walk is about 20 minutes each way, often into a fierce wind, and by the end I’m usually telling myself that I should have worn a hat and gloves to walk to work! I guess I am simply in denial that I need to wear my winter gear in Oz. :)
On Saturday, I spent all day working at the footy field, and as you can see, the sun was shining brightly, but the field was a disaster from the week's weather. I have seen some wet fields, especially when working in Eastern Baltimore County, but this field was so wet that massive amounts of water sprayed up with every step taken by the players. This was early in the morning, and three games were played on this field over the course of the day. Let's just say my white "work" pants (yes, it was someone's bright idea that sports trainers should be mandated to wear white pants) will never look the same.
As far as the rain goes, I’ve been told that winter is often the rainiest season of them all. Because we arrived in
August, we only caught the tail end of winter, which involved a little bit of
rain and a few cool days but nothing like we had last week. Of course there are
beautiful days as well, and the forecast for the next few days appears to
contain sunny skies and pleasant temperatures. However, as I’ve mentioned a few times, you cannot trust a weather forecast in Melbourne!
