Michael, I purchased a milling machine from Tony Griffiths in Tideswell, many years ago, (lathes.co.uk man) and on the way to pick it up, going through Ashbourne thinking what a lovely dry day it was, got up the top heading for Buxton, and it turned into a scene like Antartica !.

Shame about the forest fires.

Are you a subscriber? That link just whacked me with multiple demands for cash!

Looks like it's been bad but getting better now:

four-emergency-warnings-issued-as-bushfires-bear-down-on-nsw

Neil

I watched a programme the other day in which the guy was, I think, trying to convince the outback farmers that global warming was happening, it sounded like they don't really believe it is, with one farmer letting his flock of sheep out onto the last grass, 14000 acres, he had on his huge farm!

The thought then occurred to me that before Europeans settled there and carved the country up into these massive farms with massive sheep flocks the Aborigines had lived there for a long long time in harmony with their surroundings and hadn't denuded the scant grass lands, so while the warming of our climate is happening it does look like that some of us 'more intelligent' humans are responsible for some of the damage done to the planet.

It reminds me of the houses built outside Glasgow on one of the Clyde's flood plains, when flooded up to the window sill the planners commented " well it hadn't flooded here for the last eighty years.

Perhaps Australia has had huge fires in the past, before the white man arrived though.

Take care guys.

You are spot on Cyril!! Especially west of the mountains(from the east coast) the sheep and wheat farming etc has been a major cause of problems but few can see that. There's a big difference between the few kangaroos and other native animals to the multitude of cattle sheep added to the wild pigs, rabbits and camels which were never meant to be here. Add to that the damming of rivers north which effectively stopped the flow of the Murray/Darling river system causing problems which will never recover.

The fires, extremely disastrous west of the mountains from Sydney as well as on the north coast of NSW with unknown property and livestock loss. Three people arrested for starting some fires on North Coast. Lightning strikes responsible forfires west of mountains I believe. Cooler weather (30C) at present due to southerly change but still hot west of mountains. Was up to 47C on weekend and forecast has it returning to low 40sC next week. CAN YOU SEND US SOME SNOW??!!

Thank heavens for an airconditioned workshop!

We have not had the heat that Australia is having, but one fire locally has closed the Trans Alpine railway line between Canterbury and the West Coast, this is one of the busiest railway lines in the country, at least 5 bridges have been damaged, in an area with no road access, a temporary road is being built to get heavy machinery in. Its hoped to get the line open in about 6 weeks. The coal trade relies on this line although the amount is only a quarter of hat it was a couple of years ago at 3000 tonnes a day.

Ian S C

It appeared to be as dry as a bone a few hundred km inland in NSW some dozen years ago when we visited a friends 'smallholding' of a few thousand acres. With a stocking density a few orders of magnitude less than the UK and nothing looking remotely like grass in sight we wondered how the tiny handful of cattle and horses they kept even survived. Still they must have had some rain now and again as the huge tanks they had for roof runoff did contain some water. It's a land of huge contrasts, only a week or two earlier we were hit by a huge thunderstom with horizon to horizon lightning a few miles inland of SE Queensland.