News & Updates from Vicki Avcin ~ AusCrafts · Page 59
Last week I spoke about the fires in Australia and how it has been an early start to the fire season, well it hasnt got much better this week either.
Two fires of concern closest to me are at Woodgate and a fire that began at Kilkivin but has moved through the areas of Widgie and Black Snake.
Both of these fires are still burning a week down the track. Both fires are within and hour to an hour and a half from where we live. Weve had a crew at the Widgie fire for 5 days who are now back home safely.
Last Friday I spent the day at Burrum Heads doing IC for the crews on standby because the fear was that the fire would jump the Burrum River or embers would be blown over from the Woodgate fire and start spot fires in the National Park.
Fortunately it didnt. There was another strike team also on standby at Buxton to the west of Burrum Heads in case of it jumping or spot fires from the same Woodgate fire.
It did jump at Buxton on the first day but fortunately crews were able to contain and extinguish that fire within a few hours.
The weather has been heating up around the country with no signs of rain at all in the foreseeable future.
Homes have been lost in both Queensland and NSW and these fires have decimated the wildlife population with whole koala habitats wiped out in NSW.
Unfortunately there has been a huge loss of koalas in some areas with many many others severely burnt. We had 3mm of rain on two nights at home but nothing fell on the fires at all. By 10am the next day you would never have known it had rained so that tiny amount has had no effect in even lessening the fire risk.
I have just come back from deployment from fires burning in our beautiful Sunshine Coast area. That fire is only one of many burning across our state where a State of Emergency has been enacted.
As I write this (because I may not have time later in the week) things are pretty grim particularly in the South East part of Queensland and an area around Rockhampton in Central Queensland.
Conditions are forecast to escalate from tonight on and the next few days are going to be horrible for people and firefighters in these areas.
I will have a couple of days R & R and then Im already tasked to head off again.
All available water bombers are working flat strap as they try to slow down these fire so that ground crews can get in and do the best they can.
I was at Tewantin where the whole town and all of the suburb of Lake Cooriobah were evacuated over the weekend.
Crews are still working to keep that fire within containment lines but another fire has broken out to the south at Caloundra this afternoon.
The Cooriobah fire is just north of Peregian Springs where there was a massive fire only just over a week ago.
Just west of the Gold Coast is also under seige where there are mass evacuations today. There are also fires out west at Kilkivian that have been going for a few days now too.
Firefighters from NZ and Tasmania (where it was snowing!) are coming up today to relieve some very exhausted firefighters. Queensland isnt alone with catastrophic conditions also in NSW. There is a poem, I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains, of ragged mountain ranges, of droughts and flooding rains.
Well we certainly have the drought and right about now the flooding rains would be very welcome.
Unfortunately there is no rain in the foreseeable future. Yes England…… well take some of all that rain you are hogging!!
My husband has the lucky touch. When we lived in Bowen he won a 4.7m boat worth $26000 in the Fishing Classic that is held each year.
That was about 13 years ago. He regularly wins different things and often enters competitions.
He won a $2000 compendium of movies to celebrate the 100 years of movies. It had over 100 of the best of 20th Century Fox plus the Australia movie starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman.
He occasionally wakes up in the morning and says I had a dream I won on the pokies last night, lets go down and play a few dollars.
Yep his dream turns into around anything from $300 to $1000 usually with just $20 in the machine. Mr Lucky Fingers strikes again! So during October he saw a competition on a Facebook page. Now he is a Jim Beam man but the competition was for a Wild Turkey esky.
You needed to purchase a bottle of Wild Turkey that had the competition details on it, enter the competition online with the code on the label that was on the bottle…… and wait.
On 29th October he got an email to say he had won the esky worth $300. We went down to the local Bottleo where hed brought the WT from and picked it up……. Very nice esky. Padded seat and good and solid esky too.
Perfect to take out on the boat. Now if he could just put his lucky fingers to good use and buy a winning lotto ticket that would be awesome!!
My husband has the lucky touch. When we lived in Bowen he won a 4.7m boat worth $26000 in the Fishing Classic that is held each year.
That was about 13 years ago. He regularly wins different things and often enters competitions.
He won a $2000 compendium of movies to celebrate the 100 years of movies. It had over 100 of the best of 20th Century Fox plus the Australia movie starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman.
He occasionally wakes up in the morning and says I had a dream I won on the pokies last night, lets go down and play a few dollars.
Yep his dream turns into around anything from $300 to $1000 usually with just $20 in the machine. Mr Lucky Fingers strikes again! So during October he saw a competition on a Facebook page. Now he is a Jim Beam man but the competition was for a Wild Turkey esky.
You needed to purchase a bottle of Wild Turkey that had the competition details on it, enter the competition online with the code on the label that was on the bottle…… and wait.
On 29th October he got an email to say he had won the esky worth $300. We went down to the local Bottleo where hed brought the WT from and picked it up……. Very nice esky. Padded seat and good and solid esky too.
Perfect to take out on the boat. Now if he could just put his lucky fingers to good use and buy a winning lotto ticket that would be awesome!!
Its October and that means its Jacaranda time. A beautiful time of the year when beautiful purple flowers cover yards, footpaths and roads and the city becomes a sea of purple.
There is a saying that when the Jacaranda trees start blooming it is exam time.
This is due to the fact that end of year exams always take place in October.Jacarandas arent native to Australia, (they are a native of Brazil) but they grow well here.
Grafton has a festival each year, Jacaranda Festival, but Brisbane also welcomes and celebrates them as they are plentiful and they do make for a very pretty time of year.
Best known places in Brisbane are New Farm Park, Botanic Gardens, The Qld University and along the banks of the Brisbane River.
In Bulimba you can drive down roads that are a carpet of purple. Always love this time of year…….. even in Hervey Bay more and more are being seen so maybe well have our own purple roads in the future.