Sad Times

G’day Blogworld,
Today I journeyed to Melbourne for some golf course machinery maintenance. I killed some time at Braeside Park – more of that later.

I tuned in to the ABC radio’s Bushfire Service for much of the trip to the (other), ‘big smoke’. Some of the stories from survivors were horrendous. Many of the interviews with volunteers were uplifting.

At lunch I perused the papers which of course you are aware, are filled with reports and images. The pictures of distraught couples in front of their burnt out properties were appalling. One image however, did the trick for me and produced some welling in the eyes. This photograph was on the front page of The Herald-Sun and inside The Australian…


People are not helpless, by and large. Some might be hopeless of course. Wildlife on the other hand is another story, a story I’d been wondering about for some time, and that picture just struck a chord. I’m afraid I ache every time I look at it.

On the way back home, I deviated slightly near Morwell, to a bit of elevated land I knew, that might give me some perspective of the fire that started near Churchill, the one I mentioned in an earlier blog entry. These innocuous puffs of smoke in front of the burnt hillsides was the only evidence I could see of what on Saturday, must have been an inferno…


Doesn’t look much does it? In case you are not aware, some statistics from just the Churchill fire –
More than 40 000 hectares,
Over 70 homes destroyed,
21 people killed, AT THIS STAGE – parts of this fire have flared again, and not all properties have been searched completely for victims.

I suspect you know what I’m going to finish with -
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Authorities seem certain this was arson!

Regards,
Gouldiae