A burning lake. 2012.

I was really interested to read this story from ABC News. Apparently New South Wales Rural Fire Service has been dealing with an extremely unusual fire at Lake Woytchugga near Wilcannia.

For weeks a fire has been burning under the lake bed. The lake is a seasonal one and is dry at this time of year so we aren’t talking about burning water here, but when the fire teams attended they were baffled to find that the edge of the lake bed was on fire.

They have tried flooding the area using water tankers, and digging up the hot ground, but the fire has managed to resist their efforts and continue burning. Their main concern is that the fire may spread to nearby vegetation and begin spreading above ground.

The fire service is not sure what is actually burning, and are assuming that there is some sort of organic material underground that is continuing to smoulder.*

I wonder what is really going on there? Is there coal under the lake that is fuelling the fire or is there something else going on? What do you think coud be under there?

Is there a volcano down there just waiting to let loose on some unsuspecting christmas campers?

Will there be an adventurous soul drunken yobbo who ventures out on to the lake, cracking the surface and revealing a molten pit of doom?

Of course this redshirt will perish in the process, but every story needs the death of an unknown to get us going, doesn’t it?

The Wuuluman Monster. 1910.

What a terrifying tale! A rabbit trapper was out doing his rounds in 1910 when his dogs alerted him to the presence of a frightening monster.

The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate 1 Jun 1910 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article86005265

The description of this creature is pretty amazing isn’t it?

“Looking round he was rooted to the spot with horror to find a strange-looking animal gazing at him. It is described as being something in the shape of a man, with long shaggy hair; tusks, resembling those of an old boar pig, projecting: about four inches from the mouth. On his hands and foot were long horny spikes, resembling a goat’s horns and a long smooth tail.”

Eeeek!

I think these kinds of tales are mainly a cover-up for a person being frightened by something quite harmless and, either consciously or unconsciously, needing to have a suitably scary story to make their fear seem justified. Conveniently, there is no way of verifying such a tale!

Usually these kinds of stories have a “and we ran inside and slammed the door” kind of ending. This one is slightly different in that the monster caught and devoured one of the trapper’s dogs during the chase. I find that to be a very interesting part of the story.

Unless this drama was entirely fabricated for the paper, what was the real fate of the dog? For the trapper to appear at Mr. Crawley’s farmhouse in terror, and minus one dog, would certainly take some explaining, although I am not sure the story of a shaggy haired, spiky handed, horned, long tailed monster is one you want to have to keep straight for any length of time!

Wentworth, No power and country music!! Aaaarrrggghhh!

We have finally left Broken Hill and headed off down south again. We are staying in Wentworth, although the caravan park was so packed that not only did we get the very last site, we have no power or water. Oh well, our caravan is self-sufficient (we even have a toilet and shower inside and a shower outside) and has solar panels and a battery. The only problem is that my laptop won’t last too long plugged into the 12 volt!

Back through the cartoon fly line again!

I am searching for an unattended power point to recharge, but until then I will have to share this quick apology, I will reply to all of your comments soon! Sorry!

The only benefit is that we are staying right on the Darling river and the weather is perfect. The downside is the reason the park was full. The town in in full swing for the country music festival. Bands are touring around all the local towns playing, and there are happy music lovers everywhere. The Man doesn’t mind a bit of country, the kids and I hate it.

We got hot chips for lunch yesterday and wandered down to the river to eat only to find a band in full voice. Both number 1 and 2 stopped at the edge of the grass in horror, and one of them was heard to mutter, hands firmly clapped over his ears, “what is that racket?”.

Even though the Man was in possession of the chips and had found a nice shady spot to sit, the kids and I just walked away, off down the river trying to get out of earshot…..

Thank goodness the riverside stage is just on the edge of earshot, although the ocassional boat goes past, blaring a bit of country. Annoyingly the limit for boats in this stretch of river is 4km hr. Or knots, I’m not sure. No matter what it is, it is too bloody slow when the music is loud I tell you! 🙂

I thought I would share this sign the Man noticed on the door of the local pub.

HUSBAND DAY CARE CENTRE

Need time to relax?

Need time to yourself?

Want to go shopping?

Leave your husband with us!

We’ll look after him for you!

You just pay for his drinks!

We got a good laugh out of this but there might not be too much money left for shopping afterwards!

That could cost quite a bit!

Lookout lizard. Silverton 2012.

When we were at the Mundi Mundi lookout the other day we naturally did a bit of wandering around in the nearby low scrub, in case we found any treasures.

Luckily for me I saw this little treasure while he was sunbathing on his rock.

He was happy for me to have a look at him for a few minutes, not even bothering to run off even when I called the kids over to have a look. Even me sneaking closer and closer with my camera didn’t alarm him and he was still there when we quietly walked away.

Flat out like a lizard…. ummmm… sunbathing?