Starchild
Tue Jul 06 2010, 9:25am
Townsville. The Tropics. Australia. What can you say?
November - February. EXTREMELY HOT. Look out. Yes, it's raining. Not just normal rain. You can't walk through this. You can't cycle. You drive at your peril. There's a cyclone brewing off the coast with the power to blow your house away. The clouds are inches above your head. The mosquitoes biting you are carrying dengue and ross river virus. If you cut yourself it goes fungal. You're never quite dry. Everyone stinks, all the time. Humidity is off the scale. Your pots and pans rust. Your walls grow mildew; so do your clothes. Your garden is a quagmire. You wade to your car. The roads are cut to north, west (where there's nothing anyway) and south. East is the Pacific Ocean. Supermarket supplies are at risk. Your lawn grows 3" a week. Weeds ditto.
Do not, no matter how greatly you are tempted, enter any natural body of water. This time of year you're up against box jellyfish, sharks, stonefish and saltwater crocodiles. You need a friend with a pool or you just stand under a cold shower 16 times a day.
At night the frogs are deafening. They're in the loo. They're on the walls. They're everywhere. They're breeding. Water pours off the roof. The gutters can't cope, take over the roads. The same suburbs get flooded every Wet season. Fungus. Mildew. Wet. Hot. Wet and hot. Wet and hot. We all stink. Wet and hot. Wet and hot. Tempers fray. People fight for parking spaces in the shade, like that'll help. The temperature in a locked car parked in the sun for 10 minutes is enough to melt your brain in three. We all go troppo. Mad.
Aaaaaaaaaaaah, an air-conditioned shop. You don't want to buy anything but you go in anyway.
And frogs. Lots of frogs.
March - October. Who turned the rain off? Isn't this fabulous? Wowee. Now you've got a chance against that fungus between the buttocks. I suggest you act fast. Scrub the mildew off the walls. Wash your entire wardrobe over the course of a month; it'll all be bone dry within half an hour of being hung on the line.
Dry, dry, dry. Fabulous!
The southern tourists arrive, people from Sydney, Melbourne, and other horrible places. Pick em by their pink skins and burnt noses; by their skimpy tops and shorts while the locals are wearing long trousers and cardigans. First-timers from southern climes can't believe it. It's like this in July?
And then, because they know no better, they go back to the horror of traffic snarls and crap weather and wipers going eek-eek-eek across the windshield as they sit waiting at a red light for their chance to get a bit closer to the city.
Round about September the Townsville natives are restless. We're allowed to use sprinklers in our gardens for two hours on alternate nights, depending on house number (odds and evens). No one can water on Mondays. Things are looking bedraggled. We kick up dust wherever we walk. People get nasty. In Oz we call them 'dobbers', those people who call the council and say number 25 was using water on Tuesday. The people at number 25 get a fine. If they give any cheek they get prison.
Out west, Cloncurry has run out again. There's nothing coming out of the taps. Trucks are going from Townsville, carrying big tanks of water so the people of Cloncurry (3097 males and 1731 females) can have a drink. Not cook, not wash, just drink. It can get a bit ugly. It usually does.
The tourist season is over. We're gasping. We've forgotten the floods, the mildew, the bats, the dengue. We're just plain fed up with staying home three nights a week to water our gardens so they don't become part of the desert and add to Australia's water problem. Hang it all, when's the Wet starting?
I write all this now because it's raining. In July. In Townsville. And I feel happy.
It won't last and I wouldn't want it to. Frankly, it's Totally Wrong. No frogs are calling for their mates. They know it's wrong and they're hiding. They're no more interested in breeding than I am.
Tomorrow it will be sunny and dry again. Hot but not too hot. Hot but not humid. Perfect cycling weather. Tourist season. Love it.
Love it all.
November - February. EXTREMELY HOT. Look out. Yes, it's raining. Not just normal rain. You can't walk through this. You can't cycle. You drive at your peril. There's a cyclone brewing off the coast with the power to blow your house away. The clouds are inches above your head. The mosquitoes biting you are carrying dengue and ross river virus. If you cut yourself it goes fungal. You're never quite dry. Everyone stinks, all the time. Humidity is off the scale. Your pots and pans rust. Your walls grow mildew; so do your clothes. Your garden is a quagmire. You wade to your car. The roads are cut to north, west (where there's nothing anyway) and south. East is the Pacific Ocean. Supermarket supplies are at risk. Your lawn grows 3" a week. Weeds ditto.
Do not, no matter how greatly you are tempted, enter any natural body of water. This time of year you're up against box jellyfish, sharks, stonefish and saltwater crocodiles. You need a friend with a pool or you just stand under a cold shower 16 times a day.
At night the frogs are deafening. They're in the loo. They're on the walls. They're everywhere. They're breeding. Water pours off the roof. The gutters can't cope, take over the roads. The same suburbs get flooded every Wet season. Fungus. Mildew. Wet. Hot. Wet and hot. Wet and hot. We all stink. Wet and hot. Wet and hot. Tempers fray. People fight for parking spaces in the shade, like that'll help. The temperature in a locked car parked in the sun for 10 minutes is enough to melt your brain in three. We all go troppo. Mad.
Aaaaaaaaaaaah, an air-conditioned shop. You don't want to buy anything but you go in anyway.
And frogs. Lots of frogs.
March - October. Who turned the rain off? Isn't this fabulous? Wowee. Now you've got a chance against that fungus between the buttocks. I suggest you act fast. Scrub the mildew off the walls. Wash your entire wardrobe over the course of a month; it'll all be bone dry within half an hour of being hung on the line.
Dry, dry, dry. Fabulous!
The southern tourists arrive, people from Sydney, Melbourne, and other horrible places. Pick em by their pink skins and burnt noses; by their skimpy tops and shorts while the locals are wearing long trousers and cardigans. First-timers from southern climes can't believe it. It's like this in July?
And then, because they know no better, they go back to the horror of traffic snarls and crap weather and wipers going eek-eek-eek across the windshield as they sit waiting at a red light for their chance to get a bit closer to the city.
Round about September the Townsville natives are restless. We're allowed to use sprinklers in our gardens for two hours on alternate nights, depending on house number (odds and evens). No one can water on Mondays. Things are looking bedraggled. We kick up dust wherever we walk. People get nasty. In Oz we call them 'dobbers', those people who call the council and say number 25 was using water on Tuesday. The people at number 25 get a fine. If they give any cheek they get prison.
Out west, Cloncurry has run out again. There's nothing coming out of the taps. Trucks are going from Townsville, carrying big tanks of water so the people of Cloncurry (3097 males and 1731 females) can have a drink. Not cook, not wash, just drink. It can get a bit ugly. It usually does.
The tourist season is over. We're gasping. We've forgotten the floods, the mildew, the bats, the dengue. We're just plain fed up with staying home three nights a week to water our gardens so they don't become part of the desert and add to Australia's water problem. Hang it all, when's the Wet starting?
I write all this now because it's raining. In July. In Townsville. And I feel happy.
It won't last and I wouldn't want it to. Frankly, it's Totally Wrong. No frogs are calling for their mates. They know it's wrong and they're hiding. They're no more interested in breeding than I am.
Tomorrow it will be sunny and dry again. Hot but not too hot. Hot but not humid. Perfect cycling weather. Tourist season. Love it.
Love it all.